life goes on

The lights have been snuffed out of the cities
And the villages,
From the hearths,
From hope.
And yet, life goes on,
For us who remain behind air-conditioned interiors,
Rarely knowing what darkness is,
And rarely bothering to find out.

Life goes on for lakshmi,
Who must spend the darkest of the nights,
Fanning her alcoholic husband whose only escape
From the unbearable heat, is inebriation.

Life walks on crutches for ramu,
Who must use the light of the last candle
His father could buy with his meagre earnings,
To finish the exam that he started last year.
He may not be able to, for his eyes will give in,
Before he does.
And still, it will go on.

It crawls for renu,
Who spends the night tossing and turning
In her nightmares of pus-infested wounds,
That turn real by dawn.

It limps for Daniel
Who must seek employment that
Requires only the might of his muscle,
And not his intelligence, for that today
Depends on a resource he can no longer afford.

And in the corner of the city,
A lady awakes to curse the darkness,
And swears to have a bigger generator installed,
So she might sleep her drug induced coma
In peace.

And that is how life goes on
Even when the light is snuffed out
Of the towns, the cities and the villages
And the thousands of people who find a way
To move on.

shoulders

every word waiting to be spoken turns into verse.
every thought that runs amok, reined in.
confined within the width of white columns.
almost as if to fill the emptiness.
with the chatter of emotions
that i want to lay bare.
leaving me wondering
why i must write at all.