The Help

Contributor: Aparna Sanyal

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I lie awake
And in my head
Put a sanitised toe
Across a threshold
As alien to me
As a far away land
or inky blue sea

Your side of the street
What does it hold
For me to see
What wonders untold?

You who come
To my home every day
Part of my life
Invisibly bright

I wait to see you
To be able to un-see you
Weave you into the weft
Of my life's warp and heft

A foot across
And a riff of smells
Multilayered, hued, dense, immense

A landscape of tears
Bound by laughter and fears

A kum kum wearing tree
God, for free

Slime rivulets
With gutter hair floating

Dead insect sailors
On paper crafts go boating

Gangs of dogs caterwauling
At a moon that looks scowling

A deep and luscious tapestry
In chaos such symmetry

Bare bulbed beauty shimmering
Shadows weaving, glinting, glimmering

Cracks in doors or doors of cracks
Held by will
Sometimes strong, mostly lax

What witchery causes me to see
This riot as beauty ethereal and free?

I roam your alleys
Your troughs and valleys
Of unwashed, unbridled humanity

Howl at your moon
Squint at your door
In my minds insanity

I roam through the night
With sleep, not in sight
Waiting wakefully to welcome day

And in that sanitised bright light
Of my sun in your eyes
I weave you back into my sight


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An MA from Kings College, London, Aparna has co- authored over 30 scripts for an award- winning animated show. She is a writer with the Film Writers Association, India.
She has written a short film, produced two critically acclaimed plays and is an award-winning furniture designer.
She is a well-known Spoken Word Poet and performs at several venues across India. Represented by a literary Agency, she is actively seeking publishers for her 2 manuscripts of poetry.
She has Recurrent Depressive Disorder. Poetry is her release from this consummate shade.
She lives with her husband and 3-year-old son in Pune, India.