by, Ekalabya Pramanik

 

What can I do, friend

Except carry on this burden called life?

All through my time I’ve sold cheap stuff

For a living, a common salesman;

Now that I’m exhausted, do I have the guts

To commit suicide?

 

Nah! My mind has the skin of a rhinoceros,

Not much suffering penetrates,

Nor have I reasons to fear much

Having made no legal mistakes;

Savings have I little, but liabilities none, who then stops me now

From being the freest of man?

 

However, often in these sweltering summer nights

I wake up from claustrophobic dreams

Of somebody pointing at my bald head

Asking my surname, my faith

What leftover food did I save in my refrigerator?

Did I crack a joke at my dear ol’ mother?

 

Myself feeling like the notorious literary bug

Burrowing deep, hiding what I never had, erasing words

That are dubious, did I say that?

How are they floating free, changing colours

Now possessed by those ghosts in my dreams,

Raising bloody hands at my head, that is bare?