A Poet's Tale

Prologue

They caught me unawares, those women,
Surrounding my meek self,
With fierce eyes and the motive to kill,
But behind that, I saw sad remains,
Of a beauty that'd once been,

But my sympathy was short-lived,
And pity changed to terror,
When they sprang at me with outstretched hands,
Wielding nameless arms,
That sought to tear my throat,

I tried to run, but there was nowhere to go,
And being a weak man with a little wisdom,
And a coward too,
I chose to give in and not struggle,
For at least my fall'd be painless,

They came at me, mercilessly,
With fiercer looks and gritted teeth,
Two went behind, to hold me in place,
While the rest drew closer and took their stance,
They raised their swords and I closed my eyes,
But they went not for my head or heart,
Instead for a part that I'd never seen coming,

I looked down to see them point at my wrist,
With red vengeance dripping from their eyes,
Perplexed I asked them, forgetting my fear,
As to who they were,
And why they wished to chop off my arm,

They answered with evil laughter,
One that has haunted me for years,
And they began a recount,
Of a kind I'd never known,

The Revelation

We are innocent women you sold,
You wretched pimp, they said,
The emotions you suckled from,
To spit out words your readers sought,

Victims we are, of your thirst to write,
Of your consuming desire to win hearts,
And as you kindled the fire with your pen,
You threw us in, as fuel to set it ablaze,

You prison'd us in your head,
Not even your heart,
And kept us there for days in that darkness,
Drawing words out of our supple skin,

In your arrogance and your greed,
Your milked our breasts till they bled,
And you filled your pages with what we shed,

Selling the purity that our bodies leaked,

Your readers and fans, they love your work,

For it touches their souls, they connect, they say,

But we know your words are empty,

They lack beating hearts they need,
To speak out to souls who read,
In a tongue the spirit alone can hear,

They lie there as carcasses,

In the graves of your books,

They may be preserved, yes,

But they lack the life they deserve,

You are a cheat in the guise of a poet,

A fraud here, faking to know experience,
A pseud, forging depths you never possessed,

Merely a seller of false goods,

To dupe your readers of their praise,

We tell you now, and to all who hear,
That to know an emotion is to feel it,
To know pain is to undergo it,
To understand suffering is to suffer itself,

You twisted our physique for literature,
Robbing us of our beauty,
And now you shall suffer,
Those very tragedies you wrote,

Composition is a gift you never deserved,
And one that you hoodwinked for praise,
Prepare yourself now, for we are here,
To take sweet revenge upon your culpable soul

Epilogue

As they advanced, I saw clearly,
That the space around was Time Itself,
And that this room was my life,
That my wrist wasn't what they solicited,

That their revenge was my entire life,
Every pain, every heartbreak I'd ever faced,
Was a lifeless poem mocking at me,

It crushed me to know that all this pain,
Was a repercussion of thoughtless action,
I'd been convinced beyond doubt,
I'd held an arrogance that wouldn't hurt,

I turned to them, kneeling down,
And begged them to take,
My life, not just my wrist,
And they smiled at me,
Tears trickling down their eyes,

I realised, as I bent my head down,
This trip was deliverance, not aggression,
They'd taken pity on me,
And were here, to put me out of my misery.

Completed by 4:17pm on 3.1.2017 at C504, H13, IIT Bombay


Note:

1. I intended to write this as an article, and I've been jotting points down since 22nd December, 2016. Today I decided to write it as a poem, since the words seemed poetic.

While I pride myself with being able to compose vicarious poetry, to be able to summon emotions that aren't even remotely connected to me, I have been haunted by the guilt that I've been using sufferings of others as tools to produce words to string to my writings.

Of course, a handful of my poems and articles are based on, or at least have a little connection to something that happened to me, but several of my pages are filled with empty words. As the personified emotions put it, words need to have beating hearts - to reverberate, vibrate, live talk - words should speak in a tongue understood by the heart that reads/listens to it. I am aware that all this objectivity wouldn't help me when I go through the pain I so easily portray here, and I hold the fear that I might receive a strong blow to the head some day - the portrayal here, of course, is extraneous, but what I wish to convey through it is genuine. Of course, writing comes to me and it would be unwise to stop it as well, but it would do me good to nurture some humility and to not let it get to my head.

I hope these words shall serve as a reminder not only to me but to every reader who writes on pain and tragedy so easily.

2. Upon retrospection, I find that this is similar to Shah Rukh Khan's film, Fan, in a weird sense. I do remember now, that I found that the thought that had gone into the film was of a similar nature and was very inspired when I watched it about six months ago. It was a blow to Khan's ego as a film star, and while I do not have the audacity to draw a parallel to myself as a writer, I merely note this down as an observation - that this poem is a blow I give to my own ego.

3. My recent poems (particularly on Eccentric Thoughts, have been more of a flow of words and are largely unstructured, without rhyme or tune, since I haven't had the time to review them - and for some reason I'd like to leave them that way. These are unedited, and a handful of them were typed straight on blogger and published even without a second read. While this one is of a similar kind in the literary sense, I'd like to point out that it is unconventional in a different sense. Often, my vicarious poems (yeah the name itself suggests that) consist of me getting into shoes of people in particular situations, but this one is about getting out of my own shoes and objectively looking at myself as a poet/writer. While I stop to observe myself while writing my articles, this one is something I am not at all used to in the field of poetry.

For this reason, I consider this a milestone in my time with poetry. I intended to title it "Heartless Poetry" but later titled it "A Tragic Tale" to avoid spoiling the course the tale was taking. I finally changed it to "A Writer's Tale" at 1:05am, 4.1.2017