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Anugraha Jun 1
I can't help it
I try to stop myself

But I offer my heart,
in every conversation,
Every smile,
Every tear.
It can't be helped
It's a restless bird,
Jumpy and twitchy,
An anxious little creature
And when it comes back
I staunch the bleeding
Suture the wound
I bandage it up.

It presents itself in a silver platter
For passersby to gawk on
To trample and maul,
To spit and to cut
Then I take it back
and dust it up.

It just never gives up
It tells me
"This, this could be it
You need to be brave."
And I watch it
This old senile creature
In my young
Unmarred body
This old wretched thing
Who offers itself
So recklessly.
Anugraha May 18
In the depths of my mind,
dishes pile high on the sink
stacking on the countertops
and leaking on to the floor
with dried crusty food
now too hard to scrub down.
And the laundry basket has overflown
The basket no longer in view
Now, just a mountain of clothes
And the table has never been cleared
The bedsheets never changed
The ceilings joined by cobwebs
And the bathroom floor all grimy.

A house is like a machine
Requiring frequent oiling
Frequent repairing
Like a newborn baby
It can't help but wail through the night

And I've tended to it like a slave
Day in and day out
All the while growing the clutter in my own.

I can't seem to help it
It refuses to forget
You laid the foundation and built it brick by brick
Where love resided once, has been suffocated
By clothes and dishes and dust and dirt,
And you ask me where the love went
It's there somewhere
Perhaps in the laundry basket
If I can find the bottom
Or in the drain  
Or on the bathroom floor

I just can't seem to find it.
Anugraha Oct 2024
It doesn't take long for a shower,
to become a gale,
followed by hail.

So I keep it nestled
inside a thousand
cotton *****.

And your every word
and action
Like a thousand
sharp arrows
all find their mark.

And yet,
this week pathetic *****
Somehow manage,
to keep on beating,
To keep on beating
Somehow.
How do you stich a heart?
Anugraha Jun 2024
Your smile,

It's like rain on parched earth

Like orange blossoms on my heart

Like sun peaking on the horizon.

It starts in the middle,
then moves sideways.

All those teeth slowly saying "Hi"

Then rub their cute little eyes and

yawn at me.

It's a Dangerous thing , your Smile

Because it squeezes my heart and

makes it go overdrive.

All the pots in my brain starts to clang

And my mouth, becomes an Ocean

Spilling dangerous things.
Anugraha Dec 2023
On the very first day,
I wore that white coat
for its true purpose
my father's cheeks were
wet with tears.
They fell despite his resistance
  for that year the rain had been too much
and the dam had been worn down by dreams
and the white coat was a beautiful rainbow.
Anugraha Jul 2023
Fear,

wound it's tentacles around my body

round and round

squeezing, suffocating

around my arms, legs and torso

its head resting on my hip.

Its black sticky ink preventing me from seeing.



So I walked the hallways of my home

with the added weight of an octopus-blinded

and let sleep lull me into its sweet embrace

the octopus by my side, subdued for now.
Anugraha Jul 2023
the tide came slowly, shyly

and then receded on

that silvery sand

and the sky with its bleak

gray clouds watched me

pitifully.
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