Fiction Speaks Ration

How many times has that little annoying distraction
That keeps bugging you at the wrong time
Saved you from absurd existentialist suicide?
Ah books!
Tales and tales waiting to unfold beneath your fingers...
The pages and fresh paste, the drug-like aroma...
The enchantment of words, a magic cast out on paper...
Read and unravel a Utopian world...
Do still believe fiction is delusional?
Do you still believe fiction to be a waste of time?
Whoa! These allegations!
Hold my hand and be delusional with me for a moment.
Let's go back to the days of fiction.
They told stories about a Utopian world where the blacks weren't slaves...
They told stories about men on the moon!
They told stories about women in trousers working like men!
(how preposterous!)
They wrote Ungodly things against the Church! Science? Humbug!
They told stories about better days...
They told stories about the Collider and God's particle!
These people are all loony, aren't they?
Utopia can never exist, apparently...
Dreams are NOT real, they can NEVER be.
Yes! I see you scrutinizing the text...
Throwing it aside as worthless
Saying it is against "fact", against "reality"...
Say whatever you like... you have an opinion like me, like many.
And if you are "rational" as you believe,
Then understand this...
Every thought sparks an idea...
Every idea gains form...
In the form of words and language they fly
Off into the head of every neighbour
To be interpreted and re interpreted..
To form a major accepted notion...
To form a mass action..
To finally turn to reality...
So dismiss fiction all you want, but let's make it clear
That you're living in a delusion yourself, my dear! :)

The Incense from Beyond

Cries of pain, an anxious air,

Till a small mewling rinsed anxiety,

Spreading smiles as they’d declare

My love and protected longevity.

So, I was held, cuddled and kissed,

Loved, promised and missed,

I learnt what it was to be a princess

I embraced their dreamy incense,

I walked, I ran, I jumped, I skipped,

I wore the uniform, I learnt to lisp,

And write and read and sometimes tripped,

A holy incense, a vanishing wisp,

They held my hand and pulled me up,

Till some day they decided that I’d grown up,

That’s when the angry glares began,

At loud mouths, improper dress and head-band,

I learnt to bow my head by now,

I’d know what my father wished somehow,

I’d not ask, not speak unless spoken to

Each day repeated, bringing nothing new.

I was a woman now, all in full bloom.

They noticed me now and warned me of doom.

Be careful, beware, don’t attract, vanish!

Till the day we fulfil your “wish.”

But, they didn’t know, it wasn’t my wish,

Marriage was an inevitable karmatic dish.

How will I survive if I don’t “settle”?

My brother was the worker, I merely a petal!

Then came the truth of the burden of the girl child:

All expensive with her dowry, they reviled!

I sat all silent, forever silent, never a word,

Then one day when seventeen, a voice I heard.

He smiled, I smiled, we talked and laughed together,

He was soon my secret, no one could discover.

I knew it was evil, but we would never run away,

We would face up, but that was years and years from today.

For now we just had words, and smiles

And an occasional blush and a kiss

And on vacations and weekend miles

His company I’d sorely miss,

For no one had an ear for me the way he did,

The rest saw a reflection, not the true me I hid,

I couldn’t be honest to them for I knew,

They would throw me out if they knew what was true,

So I kept my best friend in my heart and lived

Happily till that fateful day, when he last breathed.

It was around the corner away from view

We held hands and chatted beneath the vast blue,

A lovely day, a peaceful present,

Till a sudden yell disrupted the moment.

They found us! My secret was out!

They beat him, yet to me he called out.

He loved me, I loved him, but it was a sin.

He died, murdered by my own kin.

I didn’t know the reason, I was being “protected”

From conversion and exploitation, but I lamented

Nothing but the loss of a friendly, loving soul.

They didn’t ask me. No words. Now there was a hole,

A silence, a void, and all they saw was an image:

Of a daughter exploited, saved from sacrilege.

Now the battle came, and I was shut in,

Shut out, away, to contemplate my sin.

I did contemplate, I thought back to my lesson,

Love. That was every religion’s intention.

So how have I sinned? By love?

By following the wise words pouring from above?

No one asked. No one cared. I was “exploited”.

Now I was to be given “safely” away and married.

I didn’t want this life. He was gone. Why must I endeavour?

And so, silent as incense, I shut my eyes forever.

22/10/2014

~Manny D

A reflection { #ImmortalChroniclesOfAMoralWorld_3 }

You cry, you do,
You weep a lonesome tear,
Waiting for something new.
No one cares? Oh dear!
Let's step back a day,
When your friend called you
And you were deaf to their dismay,
Or a week into the summer, it's true,
when you avoided that thirsty child,
A month back, that weird kid
Who you called names so wild,
It brought that tear, it did,
the same tear as yours today.
No one cares, you say?
Look in the mirror and think again,
It's you, not the world, that's so damn vain.