~ aciretosE.

As the New Year approaches,
I am optimistic.
I tell myself 
That (the things) I have hidden far too much
For far too long
Deep within metaphors and wordplay
In both poetry and prose

(it is time for me to change.  the first of january shall mark a new beginning.  i shall mark it on my calendar.  i shall mark it on all my calendars.  12am, january 1.  12:01am, january 1.  12:02am, january 1.  i shall mark it on all my calendars.  december 25th and december 31st)

(Are) just excuses
Small ones, bundled together
With strings of half-truths 
The water of guilt and fraudulence
Keeps them alive

(only for me to discard them later, usually.  the problem is - i now have no bin i can throw them in.  instead of letting them rot, why not use them?  my supply is endless, as is the number of arrows in my quiver - apologies; it is not mine, i have merely borrowed it; should i pass it on to someone more deserving?  no; that is entirely within my jurisdiction.  use excuses if not i, who will?  

.too backwards think to us for sense makes it - days these backwards is everything since

.excusation the, correctly more, or; justification the comes then, action the comes first)

As am I;
I will be optimistic -
(As was my optimistic optometrist, but never mind that)
Let me wrap these bouquets 
In newspapers
Upon which have been written all my inactions,
Reactions, redactions, conniving fractions
That work so hard to misrepresent,
That work even harder to force the reader to
Misinterpret
And news is not normally about interpretation.

(is mind my tangled quite a but mess nobody knows; hope people i do now; be quite it'll liberating

the of walls rattle words my brain; earlier of it out weren't getting they; are but they now!)

I must confess
I have not been entirely honest
No matter how hard I try 
To get rid of my mask,
It had always remained -
Maybe that will change.
Perhaps this will be my Christmas gift.
That would be nice.
If this will be my Christmas gift
Who is my Secret Santa?

Maybe it's me.


~ Vruta.

*

"Merry Christmas, and remember nothing is impossible - especially not good things."

~ imposter.

Alone on the roads
Silent night
All the streetlights
Flickering, all the crickets chirping
Unsteady steps -
Nobody notices
Maybe I'm
Invisible? Or perhaps
Nobody cares enough
To tell me I'm walking very-fast-the-wrong-way
If-I-walk-fast-enough-maybe-I'll-reach-somewhere
Even if it is only
Back where I came from, again.
Belief is
A dangerous thing
Belief is
Making yourself think
The waterfall is going up
When you're the one
Falling down.
To think!
I could've made it -
To think -
If only I hadn't faltered -
To think:
If only I would've stopped and looked around!
I could have gone where everyone else is going
Would've reached up to the tallest Ferris wheels
Instead of back down in the dumps;
Maybe I should just remember
Ferris wheels...don't stay up
Forever
But will the time in between
Be enough for me to reach
Before the last ticket for my ride is sold?
What if I
Am willing to pay a higher price?
Will they listen? What if I
Pack my bags and go somewhere
Nobody has gone before
Then I won't feel like an
Imposter anymore.

~ Vruta, November 2017.

Inspiration.

Days pass by
My pen has dried up
My papers are crumpled
My mind is caged
Words no longer flow freely
My thoughts battle with themselves
In the dark abyss of self doubt
The perfume no longer smells of fresh roses
And new beginnings
My step is no longer sprightly
My glasses are cracked and bent and broken
In dreams I find no salvation
In sleep no rejuvenation
In wakefulness no direction
A candle burning from both ends
Can light up only for a few moments
Until it dies, its glory short lived and transitory
The candle burns my papers
My house, my world, and my mind
A shadow of the person I could have been
In the end, a great light will be cast upon me
My worth shall be judged
I hope then that the ashes of my papers
The ink of my pen
Will have endured the incessant callings
Of mortality and temporariness
So that I shall be redeemed
So that I can spend the rest of my days
As a slave to ink and the stories it holds.

~ Vruta Gupte.

Zero Brightness.

Image taken from https://inspiremykids.com/

Sometimes I stare at my computer screen at two in the morning.  It's blank, much like the wall behind it and in front of me.  It then occurs to me that I haven't written anything properly substantial in quite a few days.

At this point I start wondering if writing longhand would help; it's been too long since I've done that.  But then again, I'm not sure if I would be able to translate my thoughts from pen to paper instead of from keypress to screen, and thence blog--typing something you've already written out feels weird, the way you felt when you copied carefully curated paragraphs from Wikipedia into your homework and hoped extremely earnestly your teacher wouldn't notice (you know, 'cause back in the sixth grade we were all honorable persons--'for Brutus is an honorable man, so are they all, all honorable men').

And since I'm not sure, I won't write longhand.  I will keep staring at my screen, at two in the morning, mourning a little at my inability to form captivatingly coherent sentences.  I will think more about things and people than about words.  I will extrapolate my current state five or ten years into the future, wondering what it'll be like.  Where will I be?  Who will I be with?  Will I find my answers?  Of course, asking these questions to oneself right now would be--to say the least--futile, but at two in the morning, futility is not something I am immoderately concerned about.  

Two in the morning is supposed to be a time for adventure, and that adventure could also be inside your own head.  Or maybe you walk out onto the beach in the middle of the night, trying to spot waves.  Maybe you make a sandcastle in the dark, and then feel the sand falling through your toes because you stuck your foot in it by mistake.  Maybe you sit on the lone (pedophilic) swing and listen to songs of the night--chirping crickets and crackling incandescent bulbs--and sometimes John Mayer.  Then you probably watch a movie and walk home with your friend, shielding each other from the cold (quite ineffectively, because cold tends to leak through things, sometimes even your skin), and trying to hit the high notes from Mozart's Lacrimosa (and failing miserably, but not giving a flying rat's arse).  

Then, at two in the morning, you go back to your room, the one with the orange curtains, curse yourself for forgetting to shut your laptop down, and write all about what two in the morning feels like.

~

On Writing.

Words, words, words.

So many of them everywhere.  We try to find meaning in them, to coax our minds and hearts into an endless romance with life, and death, so much so that sometimes the world itself appears to be made of stardust and rainbows.

Alas, life is not so simple.  We are but tiny two-dimensional dots travelling across the fabric of the universe and time.

We attempt to make sense of all that happens, and has happened: our lives are carefully crafted, curated by our fiddlesome memories; we forget, and we remember, and that is life.  In all this, there is no one to judge; who knows your own life better than yourself?

And still we writers dare to put ourselves out onto a yacht we have never been on, to traverse the seven infinite seas in search of destiny (if it may exist), and meaning, and love.  Or a train.  Or a spaceship.  Who knows, maybe someday, we will reach someplace where we find all these things.  Maybe we never will.  Our lives are a tumultous tapestry of constructed, biased longings that we thought were important, once upon a time.  We believe many things; most of them are probably not true.  But we must persevere, for only then will we be free.  Only then can we hope to understand.  We are all imposters, playing our own parts in this circle of life and death, and in search of the great beyond, we lose ourselves until the once-bright sun is but a speck of light at the end of a dark, dark tunnel.  

I do believe, though, that eventually we will be found.  And when that happens, the world will cease spinning, and everything might finally make sense.

~

The Imposter's Lament.

I can't write a poem.

I can’t write a poem tonight,

I went outside and took some pictures,

And my right shoulder is aching.

I can’t write a poem tonight,

My brain is too full: I’d rather

Write something really really (really) long,

So that people know what I’m thinking about—

Not that that’s interesting; who I’m thinking about

Would be more enticing to read

And to know, quite frankly.

I can’t write a poem tonight

Because pouring myself out would be so much easier

Than freezing myself into short lines

(They read like stubble, not a long, flowing beard.)

You should know that you’re the one

Who made me want to capture in prose again

You’re almost like a plucked marigold flower—

It hurts a lot, but you still love helping people;

And sometimes it hurts me that you’re hurting.

I can’t write a poem tonight,

I’m thinking about you:

Not that I mind.

~Vruta Gupte.

Orange.

So I draw the curtains, with my window still open.  I don't want people to see inside; feels intrusive.

The curtains here are orangey.  They're green at home.  An antithesis, if I think about it more (sometimes I'm tired and I don't want to think), and each reminds me of different things.  Home reminds me of the distant past, and this room with the orange curtains reminds me of the present, if the present is something you can be reminded of.

I'm listening to a song, again.  I've been listening to a lot of songs, these days.

New ones.  Old ones.  Friendly ones.  Ones that cut you and make you think you'd rather die...these are sometimes necessary.  If you want to know a person, just listen to the songs they've sent you; it'll tell you what kind of person they are.  Or not.  This song is a bit of all of it.

In the room with the orange curtains, I spend my days doing assignments, reading books, studying for tests, and chatting with people on Messenger.  Quite a peaceful existence, really.  Sometimes I wonder if I am not much of a feeler.  Then my friend sends me a message and I remember that I am not as much of a robot as I think I am...either fortunately or unfortunately.  Robots, for one, follow algorithms in everything they do, or are told to do.  I don't.

Outside this room, I am pretty much the same, except I talk to people a little more.  Outside this room, I am quite jolly, if I may say so myself.  My friends here do not think of me as too quiet a person, insofar as people can be said to be too quiet.  Outside this room, my otherwise drab existence fills with colours I haven't seen before.  Our neighbours have made rangolis in front of their doors.  In the night, I see fairy-lights twinkling in unusual places.  Sometimes I hear music too.  At midnight, most of it dies down.  At midnight, you can hear the crickets chirping, or a boy talking on the phone with his mother.  If you listen closely enough, you can hear people laughing, too.  I think the only thing missing here is snow.  But the night is dark enough that you would not need whiteness to accentuate its silence.

It's cold in the dark.  Cold enough to take a walk, shivering incessantly (for some reason, I don't want the shivering to stop, though; keeps me awake).  And while this walking business is still going on, I meet a few people.  It is here that discussions about biology and bonds and assignments happen.  Sometimes it is small talk, with many where-are-you-goings and where-have-you-beens and what-will-you-do-afters.  Sometimes I am called back upstairs by a mysterious urge to quantify the darkness into zeroes and ones on a blank, white screen: although I believe darkness is not something that can be described (adequately and perfectly).  Most times I fight this urge and keep walking, because how will I write if I do not experience?  My imagination is a clichéd curry of random outpourings I have past regurgitated, just so.  I believe things I have read in books, and watched in movies, without once stopping to see if they were true.

And hence it is here I wish to find truth.  This place is somehow more real, even though all most of us students receive here is largely fabricated and unrepresentative of reality (you know, grades.  It's sad, really).  Here you can walk four kilometres just to find a place to eat, and traverse a considerable distance to buy a cake for your friend and classmate in the middle of the night, only to leave it in the freezer when you get back—it is not cake anymore, then, it is cake-matté.  Nevertheless, as my friends and I sing happy birthday the next day, I realize this place could not have given me more: it's quite a gift.  A present.

~

While we're wild and free

We'll skip like we're stones on the sea

We'll sing like we're birds in the tree that grows

Outside your window, while we're new and young

We'll shine like a morning sun

No matter the seasons that come and go

And which way the wind blows.

  

Astra

 I walk through
 The cloud of stars
 Red yellow blue white
 And I wish that
 You were here, because I 
 Know that when you
 Look at stars you 
 Lose yourself and
 Why would you not want 
 Me to see in your eyes
 Reflections of your hope and
 Fears, when I
 Asked you what you were afraid of,
 You said nothing, did you 
 Mean it, or were you 
 Afraid of reaching for the
 Stars and landing on 
 The moon; know this 
 That one day you will be
 Far out into the deepest space and please
 Remember me and what I wished for,
 Know this, that I do not
 Trade one wish for another, 
 And remember that even
 If we are not together, you will find
 What you have been looking for
 Ages past and ages hence we will
 Spend side by side
 Remember me and your stars and
 The time we had,
 When you walk through
 The cloud of stardust
 I will wait for time to stand still
 And so will you. 

~Vruta Gupte (2016).

Nostalgia.

As we walk along the path

That is Life

Our roads may diverge

Yours may be bright and sunny

With meadows green and silent, peaceful

Mine may be full of colour, a forest, and falling rain

And even if sometimes your way seems

Filled with potholes and snakes and wetlands;

And mine, with red fire burning, and all the trees gone,

Remember.

Remember that once we walked together, endured together,

Through soot and snow,

With cold water in our shoes;

You shook it out, I couldn’t

Remember.

A road fraught with perils, danger lurking

Around every bend,

You fought them, I didn’t.

And we went our own

Separate ways.

Someday when you look back

You will laugh at your past

Worrying self, you will

Wake up to the sunrise at the edge of

The earth, and you will look out into the distance, and say,

“What a wonderful day, o me, o Life!”

Remember,

We never know the places we’ll go

Until we reach them.

We never cross the rapids in rivers

Until we fight them.

We never bother to see

How good life is with our tiny, tiny problems

Until we see another, without.

You will look out into the distance,

And you will see a sillhouette.

By then you will have forgotten, but your heart will tell you--

I know her from somewhere.

First slowly, and then all at once, you will

Remember

The first snowfall, six feet high, us, trudging along

Stopping by the woods on a snowy evening,

Helping a squirrel

With her acorns before the icy winter,

Watching as the leaves on trees wither and die,

Wondering if we will, too;

Forgetting that spring and fall come after,

And all will be well

Once again, this time, forever.

I will be close enough, then, for you to

Look into my eyes

And see how much I missed you,

Walking beside you, laughing with you;

After years of searching for the perfect Life,

With cold gold in our pockets,

But none to share it with,

We find each other.

I will take your hand,

And lead you onward

To the beginning

Of a new adventure.


~Vruta Gupte (2016).

Coal Tar.

Image Source: dreamstime.com

Coal Tar.

Pitch black.
Blended darkness.
Secrets smouldering
In burning velvet
Lost forever
To the graying silvered
Ashes of time.
Rainclouds storming
Through the sky;
Thunder after,
Silence, deafening.
They forgot
The calming rays of
Sunlight everlasting,
The morning dew on the cut grass

The crisp smell of the wet earth,
As everybody forgets
There is dawn after darkness,
And darkness after light,
So there is peace after war,
And war after peace;
Words that have been said
Cannot be taken back:
Like burnt coal in the hearth
They leave scars on the hearts
Of people who once believed
That everything would turn out fine
They forget
The laws of nature
Pertain to all beings
And while their days away
In glorious despair
As the future runs its course
Without want of consultation.

~Vruta Gupte.

Types Of Farts

WARNING: This post may contain objectionable material.  If you are under fourteen years of age, please ask a parent or a guardian before reading it.  (Well, it's probably not that objectionable...Hmmm...just read the title and decide whether you really want to read it.)  And if you like it, I dare you to sing it to your own tune, record it, mix it with some background music, and play it over the P.A. system of the nearest mall.  

Or maybe not.  You decide.  If you are going to do the mall thing, though, try not to get into trouble.  And I want credits, too, because this is gonna be huge.

Anyway, here goes.

TYPES OF FARTS 

Once upon a time
I had to write a rhyme
And I didn't know where to start,
So I thought it's pretty cool
It could make y'all peeps drool
If I write one about how we fart.

Three kinds of farts
One is just like a dart
It rips into the air suddenly
Its smell is kinda sharp
And it sounds like a harp
(But it's not the very best in quality.)

The next one, mind,
Is the silent smelly kind.
Make sure you don't wander too close
It reeks of methane 
Enough to drive you insane
Like a serious Sleeping Draught overdose.
(Harry Potter reference!)

The third one's better
But it's definitely louder
Than the ones I've mentioned above
And even though it's not exactly
Our biggest, hugest fantasy
It's the one we (almost) love!
('Cause it don't smell.)

And if by some misfortune
That's not really opportune
You happen to chance upon one of these,
Don't stay around long,
Just start singing this song,
And make me famous--please!

(Ew, what's that smell?)

~Vruta Gupte


If you like this and want to check out more of my funnier (and serious) stories or poems, please click here!  Thank you for reading!

Two Friends: Part One

She sat beside me on the park bench we'd sat on for so many years.  Since we were eleven, to be precise.

Let me give you a brief idea about how we met.

So she was building this tree house in her backyard. (Her family has an apple tree. How cool is that?)  And-- you guessed it-- she asked me to help her. Me, a bespectacled, nerdy, lanky nine year old who looked like he hadn't played a day in his life-- helping her, the most beautiful girl on the planet. (I don't think she cared about the not-played-a- day-in-my-life part back then, though. She wasn't half as smart then as she is now. Or maybe she cared, but she acted like she didn't.)  Our ‘tree house' was basically a roof made out of sticks atop a floor made out of sticks with no walls in between. Very comfortable. (I'm kidding.) And it wasn't exactly on the tree. It was on the grass, so technically it should've been called a grass house-- but that doesn't sound as inviting.

So anyway, we named it Veronica's and Andre's Little Treehouse. Veronica. What a  beautiful name. No one understands me like she does, and I love her, and that only makes it worse to be with her.
Y'know, accelerated heartbeat, sweaty palms, sweaty forehead, incoherent mumbled speech, that sorta thing. Butterflies. All that.

She doesn't know yet.

I don't even know if she likes me. She talks about that other guy, Cory, a lot. I, personally, would not stand within a five-yard radius of that douche (sorry, couldn't help it). You should see the way he talks to her.  Unfortunately, on this twisted geoid that is the Earth, all girls fall for jerks and the nice guys are left behind.

Sometimes I wonder if my parents named me Andre because they specifically didn't want any girl to be the... person... of my affections (I don't like saying object, it sounds impersonal).
I can tell Veronica likes saying my name for some weird reason, though. Most girls don't know how to.  They say “And-ray" when it's actually “Aand-re" with the “re" like it is in “in re".

I know, very simple.

Anyway, after building that tree house, we did spend quite a lot of time inside it, even though it used to get all itchy after some time. Then we used to go get some cream and rub it all over ourselves. And then we used to go sit in the tree house. Again. Because some things you just can't let go of.

The tree house became too small for us to sit in as we grew older, so we graduated to the park bench, and we've been coming to sit here and talk as often as our schedules permit.

We used to hang out every day, but soon both of us had other things to look after.  She had her boyfriends, and I had my girlfriends.  A few of my exes broke up with me because they thought I spent too much time with her.  To their credit, I did, mostly.

We're both nineteen now.  I'm only a few months older than her, so I'm going to stop being a teenager earlier than she is.

Wow, that's depressing.

“Hey, what are you thinking about?"

“Wha-? Oh, nothing much, really."

“C'mon, Andre."

“Just about our birthdays. About how I'm gonna be twenty before you are.  It's a little unnerving."

She laughed that tinkly laugh of hers.
“And what about all the other birthdays you had before this? You didn't look this, um.... bad before any of them." She cocked her head to one side.

“Thanks, Veronica," I groaned.

She softened a little. “No, but all jokes aside, I'm serious. I have never, in my ten years of knowing you, seen you as dejected as this.  What's wrong?"

“I came home way after curfew last night, and do you know what my father did? He's grounded me for three weeks now, and I have to be home by nine now."

“This is a new development. What'd you do?"

“Nothing, I was just wandering around town with.... with, um, Mike and Cory and all those guys."

“You ran off with Cory, of all people? No wonder your dad was mad at you!"

“Just to make things clear, run off with sounds a little weird, and the last time I checked, Cory McHall was your boyfriend."

“I honestly don't even like him, Andre. I was just with him because I didn't want him to try anything on me. That stupid spoiled brat. I'm surprised he even graduated from high school in the first place."

“You know, if some of his gang happens to be hiding in those bushes right now, they're gonna rat you out real bad."

“Oh, don't worry about that, he already knows."

“What?"

“I broke up with him two days ago."

“Really? Why?"

“ He's too narrow minded to understand that you and I are just friends. What part of just friends did he not understand?" Veronica was positively fuming now.

*

(To be continued...)

The Wall: Part One

The Wall: Part One

Photo Credits: www.wikipedia.org and myself.

She stood in the darkness, alone, cold, and pale.  She wondered who was coming to get her out of this hellhole.

But nobody knew she was here.

They had taken her, taken and fled.  Then they had left her.  Alone, in the darkness.  There was no window in the room.  The room itself had a stone floor.  It was not warm.  The door had a dog flap; they gave her food through it.
She didn't know who they were.  She had given up asking questions a long time ago.  She never saw a hand give her food through the flap--only a plate entering.  They gave her water to drink in a small, sealed bag.

She had tried to escape once, but the alarm had gone off.  She had run outside, but she had seen only bright white light, and nothing else.
Nothing to figure out where they were, or where she was.
Nothing but piercing white light that made her think she was surely going to be blind.  But she had slowly inched forward regardless, and she had felt--bricks.  She did not open her eyes; she couldn't.  So she ran her hand along the bricks.
It had felt like a brick wall of some sort.

Then she had felt a pair of arms dragging her towards the room.  She did not struggle, she had nowhere to go.
She had been here for so long, she didn't remember anything about the world outside.

And now she had felt that wall.

Why were they keeping her inside?  Who were they?  What did they want from her?  Where was she?
Was something wrong with her?

Or was something wrong outside?



(To be continued...)





If you liked this, please check out some of my other work here!  Thank you for reading!

Slaves.

Slaves

We are all slaves, such slaves!
Slaves of the people we love,
And who act a certain way,
Not knowing they hurt us,
Because they don't care.
We are slaves, for we do not see any good
In trying to right their wrongs,
For we know their plates are full
With sin,
And if we make them aware
They will say something worse
Than what they already had,
And we are slaves, we are afraid
That we might bring upon them misfortune
And so we keep quiet
Not daring to utter a word
Held back by fear, helplessness,
And love.
Such slaves!

~Vruta Gupte.

Follow Your Heart.

So this guy got one of the top two places in a short story writing contest last year!  Hope y'all like it!

 

 

FOLLOW YOUR HEART

 

WHAM!

 

Amelia slammed on her brakes with a screech; her blue Honda Fit swerved violently before it finally came to a stop in front of the green traffic light. People honked behind her as she got out of the car. She ran to the spot where the cyclist she had just hit sat rubbing his forehead. A police officer stood next to him with a bottle of water.

 

“We’re letting you off this time, ma’am, but if it happens again, you’re gonna get a sure trip to jail,” the officer said, handing her a speeding ticket. Amelia fumbled in her purse for her wallet.

 

She frowned; she’d left it on the dresser. Again. She looked apologetically at the officer, who shook his head and turned away. She glanced at her watch: half past ten already?! She bolted to her car (which was pretty difficult considering her attire consisted of a floral skirt and a purple-and-green plaid coat), slammed the door, and stepped on the gas. Her boss was going to get really angry. She was certain he was going to fire her.

 

Over the past year, Amelia had been trying her hand at writing. One of her articles, titled ‘The Bush Effect', which was about the problems the former U.S. President’s ‘trickle-down’ policy had on the economy, had gone absolutely viral. It was so popular she even thought about leaving her job and devoting all of her time to writing. After that, she wrote a particularly provocative article about the White House travel office controversy; it was not well received, and editor after editor turned it down. Not one magazine wanted to publish her articles because they were afraid of getting kicked out of business. Gradually, she lost interest in writing, and after a few months she stopped altogether. Amelia was devastated.

She’d lit a matchstick in the fireplace and torn and burnt all of her manuscripts one by one—she could still remember the crackling sound that had ensued as they were reduced to ashes. Her brain told her to pay attention to her work, but her heart told her to get back to writing.

 

She had listened to her brain, and she regretted it, even now.

 

Amelia turned left. She could hear a cardinal whistling and the rustling of leaves. She stopped and looked long at the majestic red bird strutting across the branch of the tree, and suddenly in her heart she knew that what she had been doing all these days was simply out of fear. She’d stuck to what she was comfortable with, even though she knew it wasn’t right—for her. And now the universe was making her pay for it.

 

She parked her car in the lot and got out. She knew what she had to do. She walked

towards her boss’s office and waited until he opened the door for her.

 

“Amelia—”

 

“I know; I’m resigning.”

 

“What?” he looked shocked; he’d wanted to do the honours. “Why?”

 

“It’s too stressful in here for me....especially after last year. I’ve just realized I like writing more than sitting around worrying about money and credit. I’m not into this anymore.”

 

“Well, it’s your choice. Good luck.”

 

Two weeks later, Amelia was driving her Honda with the windows rolled down and the sun on her cheeks. She was finally back on track.

 

She smiled. She just had the coolest idea for an article!

*

 

Thank you for reading!  Please comment/ like/ share if you liked it.

Hasta la vista, amigos!

 



Modern Breakup Story.

The Perks Of A Not-So-Smart Phone

Still waiting.
Ping, ping.
Unlocked screen.
I saw another name.
I locked it again.
I sent a message five minutes ago.
You'd replied to the message I sent before that.
But you'd read this one.
And you hadn't replied yet.
You kept me waiting.
I shouldn't have enabled the ‘send read report' option.
But now it's grayed out and I can't do anything but wait.
Such a calamity.
Still waiting.

~ Vruta Gupte.

The Plight of the Underling

An original poem in two pictures.  Pretty neat, eh?  (This is the original and only copy of the poem.  Please comment or notify me if the pictures aren't clear--thank you!)

P.S. I've added Disqus comments on here (only people who are viewing this on their computers will be able to see it, but if you're using a cellphone, you can still comment using the default Blogger comment box.)  Thank you! 

~ Vruta Gupte.

Walks.

Walks

Why do I have to walk as fast as you do?
Why do you want me to walk with you?
Why can't we just walk in silence?
Why should I walk behind you if a bike's in our way, looking to avoid a speed breaker?
Why can't the bike just go over it instead?
Why am I the one who gets out of the way every time?
Why am I walking so fast?
Slow down....
You're walking, for Pete's sake.
You say brisk walking is good for your health, but brisk walking is just going to elevate your blood pressure,
Compared to slow walking.
Since when did walking have to be an exercise?
Couldn't it be just....another time to get to know yourself?
Couldn't it be just walking?
Why do you seek to complicate even the simplest of things?
It's just walking.
Just walk.

~Vruta Gupte.

The Candy Seller--Part Two

Hello, everyone!  I'd said that the second part of my story called 'The Candy Seller' would be out soon, and here it is!

Hope you like it.

*

“Hello there, young lady, what can I do for you?” he had asked, smiling.

“Oh, well,” she hesitated, but fought off the fear of being reprimanded and breathed, “Could-you-please-give-me-a-rabbit-shaped-chocolate?”

“Of course,” he had said as he produced one (seemingly) out of nowhere, wrapped in shimmering gold paper and a sparkling red bow tied on top, dead centre.

The girl grinned and fumbled around in her pocket, her ears straining to hear the characteristic ‘clank’ of metal upon metal.

It was empty.

Apparently the candy seller had realized the enormity of her situation: “You can have it anyway, child.”

The girl frowned—she did not like being pitied.  Her love for chocolates—or rabbit-shaped chocolates, in particular—eventually won the ensuing internal battle.  The old man placed the box into her hand gingerly.

“Thank you, mister!” the girl exclaimed happily, her eyes twinkling—the world was a beautiful place, she said to herself.

She looked up to see the candy seller still standing there, smiling at her. 

She grinned back.

And that was how a young girl who had no home to live in and an old man who was a candy seller became friends.

*

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Ad Occursum Futurum

Hello everyone,

This is just to tell you I will not be posting as frequently as I have these past couple of months.  (I'm preparing for the IIT entrance exam, and that doesn't leave me with too much time to update this blog with good writing.)

Maybe I'll find time to write, maybe I won't, but I'll still come back whenever I can!

Thank you for reading; ad occursum futurum!

~ Vruta.


P.S. The Candy Seller: Part Two will be published when I finish it: maybe a few weeks later.  I think I'm running a little low on imagination.
You can read some of my other writing here.  Thank you!