PRIYANKA PANDEY

PRIYANKA PANDEY

NATURE

Opposites attract

So they told me

Always.

Nature provides things

On purpose

Even emotions

And feelings

And love

They said.

Every aspect of existence

Was there for a purpose

They said.

And this

My love,

My sharer in womanhood!

Kept me away.

For our union posed a threat

To the bubble

Called morality.

And I looked for traces of love

In my own oppression.

And learned to translate

Pain into pleasure.

And thus I tried to confirm

To my received sense of nature.

Alas!

If only

I could understand

That my own happiness

Was also nature’s fulfillment.

I would hold on to you.

Instead

I fall into this abyss

Of empty words..

And wake up each morning

To make a face

To meet the world.

UNIVERSE

A nerve in her brain

Shattered

they said,

And her universe collapsed

She became strange

to the world

Or the world became

strange to her

Non-existent even...

Do we not all

Live in our own

Fragile universes?

Our own little pieces of

consciousness...

understanding

and imagination

And will it not end for me

When this intricate bundle of nerves

my brain

stops working?

And yours will continue

to grow

the way mine

continues to grow

Even when hers has stopped?

And so we stay

in our own universes

And try to conform

and find some sense

Interpreting

Actions and words

Creating hell and heaven

out of them for ourselves..

And my universe continues to grow..

And I try

to locate her somewhere

and want to believe

It's just one universe

for us all..

My universe continues to grow

and I know

I will find her someday

I will conjure her up

with elements of my sense

and I will find her one day

sleeping in her bed, maybe

passing through the corridor

under some old tree

or just beside some bush

beside the sidewalk..

but I will find her

I know

in my own universe..

RIVULETS

I would have explored your riches

As the sun hunts

the treasures of the earth

and I would have opened your bud of love with my kisses.

I would have touched the darkest corner

in the forest of your heart

and found the purest pearls

from the deep oceans of your eyes.

I would have touched the crystal of your frame

and created ripples all across your delicate form

and I would have drunk deeply

and rejoiced in the intoxication of your blood.

But a wall comes in between,

a wall as clear as glass

and hard..

as if

you are standing on the other side of a deceiving mirror

I see your form

and I dare not break the glass.

No fruits will bear our love

No vegetation will prove our union.

Let us be like two rivulets

playful and free

and mingle as if we were ever the same

and be one for the eternity.

And let us vow

to take a journey together

to meet the endless ocean of Souls..

PRIYANKA PANDEY

PRIYANKA PANDEY: *Born in Patna Bihar She is a research scholar from Patna University, Patna. She has published poems in international books. She contributes in Rag Queen Periodical and Lehigh Valley Vanguard through her prose and poetry. She strives to focus on unequal status of women in society. She is also an environmentalist. She teaches English Literature to high school children.