Heart In The Well

Found my heart at the bottom of a well
So I sent down a pail to fetch it
All in vain, for the pail was broken
Hole punched through
And my heart fell back in
Sinking into the depths

Many times I have tried
To climb down inside
But it got deeper as I cried
My tears filled the well
I'd climb back out a shell
So at the bottom my heart did dwell

I need a little help
Someone to hold the rope
Help me descend into the deep dark well
So I may bring my heart to the surface
That I may be loved once again

(c) Rahul Chidambaran 2015

The Ladder of Hope

By now I should have figured it out
Who am I and what am I all about?
I'm not anything by definition
A stack of many grand delusions
But I should have had something by now
A job I know and some luxuries allowed
Instead I feel like the last kid writing a test
Struggling to get through, his worst at its best
And if it wasn't enough to feel this dumb
My machine is faulty and I'm feeling numb
Finding irony in that numbness can be felt
Trying to laugh, hoping my fears melt
What of hope and all that it never brings?
Just a ladder leaning against nothing
Yet the fool that I am continues to hope
Even as I fumble on the slippery slope
I am ever the wounded optimist
Slowly infected by the pessimist
Yet I find no point in all of me
Write as I do, poems are all they'll ever be

© Rahul Chidambaran 2015

Funny Not Funny

Funny how things are usually not funny
Forever tiptoeing on the sidelines
Kicking the dirt as I look up once in a while and feel no less an outcast

Go play with the other kids they used to say
But how? Why would they want to do that?
Today as then, feeling an invisible barrier between me and the world
Still somewhat withdrawn, still somewhat in my shell
Still incomplete
Asking me what's wrong is like trying to use a lighter when the fuel has run out
Pointless and frustrating
The root of the problem is so deeply buried under the mountain that is every failure and every sadness and mythical unturned rocks that may or may not exist.
You could catch me when I fall but I may keep falling
Landing nowhere and everywhere at the same time, an implosion within an explosion
I cannot tell if I've been moving too fast or if everything else has while I stood still
Getting lost within the shoulda woulda coulda's, being left with my hands still empty
The desire to escape persists as does the burn up in ash and nicotine

Go play with the other kids they used to say
I never did really
For the times I've kicked a ball around, I couldn't tell you if I was running home or walking the plank
Then again, I couldn't tell you where home is

Funny how things are usually not funny
Forever tiptoeing on the threshold of nothing in particular
Kicking the dirt as I look up once in a while and feel no more at ease than I do at home

Ineffective Words

What do I write?
How do I take these feelings and run them through my word machine only to find out that the machine is broken.
As if you are every breath that I have ever taken and the thought to which I awaken.
I force myself to find new words to describe this only because I feel like I haven't done it justice yet. And I don't want to.
I want to spend the rest of my days trying and then just almost failing to get these words perfect.
There are so many ways in which you are beautiful but I sometimes decide to feel a little good about myself and say that the most beautiful thing about you is how you see me. For you are my mirror in so many ways, reflecting and echoing me except that you take me by surprise in your reflection of me.
I also hope that when you see your reflection in me that it is accurate in its depiction of supernovas and swirling galaxies spinning around and coming to a stop as time froze for that millisecond and then continued. This is how I feel when I see you, like I might never see something that makes me this happy again. That I would do anything to be the piece of cloth that drapes you.
So as you hit the road this morning, ask me for a reading, as I tell you ineffectively how much I love you once again.

Anybody

I exist in my stories
In these words I write
In the notes I play
On these lonely nights

Can you hear me?
The music in these lines
The silence in my sounds
Have you tried?

I miss the warmth
The safety in knowing
I am lost now
The cracks are growing

If you can hear me
Come back and shout
You can be anybody
That I am without

Fortress of Solitude

My castle is a prison
My palace is a tomb
Here by myself
My fortress of solitude

Displaced from society
One man's reality
Locked in my mind
Only the filth roams free

Sometimes they visit
I try to entertain
They try save me
But only in vain

So I keep them away
I know I seem rude
Lock me away
My fortress of solitude