I see painters and singers, dancers and musicians. I see art, I see poetry, I see the words of prose in every footstep of some pensive nomad in a khadi kurta, rubber chappals and a jute jhola as he traverses the distance between here and nowhere. I go online and am attacked by the hundred, no, thousands (because what is insecurity if not acquired in abundance?) of peers, seniors and younger hopefuls with their own brands of creation. It makes me envious. Amidst the seemingly turbulent, glamorous  lives of these individuals I feel inadequate and lost. As if I were simply audience to this mass chaos and confusion, the eye of a cyclone if you will, to the howling winds on whose screen occasionally a flash of art appears for mere seconds and then recedes to be replaced by some swirling debris of human failure. Powerlessly I am only witness to the lives of these people, brave enough to be sucked into this torrid whirlpool of self-expression on the off chance that chaos might turn to harmony; that the occasional obedience of passion would spit out some disproportional output. I think I understand this paradigm, I think creation is as simplistic as creating. To simply will something to existence is merely enough to merit the label of art. I admire these individuals and I fear for them, for though I am young, I too have tasted the poison of passion. I think I understand madness in the way that I understand it's volatility. I do not judge madness because it exists in vacuum. It is the loudest of orchestras and the crescendo of aggressive percussions in your head when your lips tremble but silently. I am wary of my own sentience constantly afraid of the shadows that I cannot seem to outrun to the realisation that they are stitched to my feet. Yet I yearn, and I pine for this freedom certain only of uncertainty. I teeter on the edge of this abyss wringing my hands and wiping my wet brow, hovering one foot over the edge. The blackness if threatening but at it's heart I see a glow, soft like the last ember of the morning fireplace. This restlessness has encapsulated my being, homoeostasis is incomplete without it. It is in my morning coffee, in the words I read, in the unusual flutter of the bird across my window, it is my sleep molesting my dreams and caressing my nightmares. Were that I could jump and be doomed or divine. Were that I could turn away to a mechanical existence. Were that I could choose. Were, that I could.

Dirt

I have grown tired, of this Augustan beauty,

One that is infused in all touch, word and speak.

Must we embellish on our lives, gold stars and silver,

Decorate ourselves with pity and the chamki of deceit?

I am not only the high-rise of cement and iron, tall & complete;

Nor just the clear cut of glass and neon street signs, blue & white.

I am the dirt caked on the crumbling walls of cramped houses, more

Than this unpaved road can accommodate, yet less than what is necessary.

I am the dirt. And I am born of it, and I shall die of it,

In the meanwhile I will crawl back and forth from cement to earth,

I shall celebrate and curse it in the same breath. A dichotomy of twin culture,

A symphony of one. In this dirt I will resume my existence, dust it into the arid air.

Easily misunderstood is misunderstanding the vernacular thoughts in my head,

Given way to by mine own tongue, created I know not how, except that they carry,

A peculiar feeling of familiarity, as if a childhood memory suddenly restored in vivid colour.

These are the colours that I am made of, unapologetic and vigorous, oscillating constantly.

So I clutch this dirt, and I writhe in it. I grab fistfuls of it and smear it on my soul,

To restore its colour, but retain its polish. I have no grief to spare over my mutated identity,

Only pleasure in the revelation of its duality, its richness and splendour in ambiguous clarity.

This dirt I smell, and feel and touch speaks more to me than all the lustre of these two worlds.