It is a June morning,
and I’m exhausted,
as if I had been running
behind a mouse all night.
Am I a man, or a mouse?
I can no longer tell the difference;
what silent comedy my life has become.
Every morning, I sit in my small room,
in the company of pieces of paper,
and recall the real world.
My mind occupied by things
undreamed of so far.
The mind indeed does something
before it dies – and so does its owner.
Is this how things are meant to be?
Because I refuse to call it living.
What would it be like to live
for one whole day
as a Mary Oliver sentence,
playing a little banjo,
like a frog in a summer pond?
I do not so much write a sentence
as die with it;
why would anyone read my poems,
poems on which I lavish such care,
instead of watching big people
tell white lies on screens, big and small?
Sleepless nights spent rehearsing
sincere lies.
The only difference between
a mouse, a frog, and a man is intelligence;
all things yearn painfully.
Everyone’s running from/towards something.
All things, sooner or later, cease to exist.
Get up.
Write.
Die.
Amit Singh is a writer. (Though it would be a lie if he said that that isn’t an idea he imposes on himself, and daily.)
He is currently pursuing his master’s in digital journalism from MCU, Bhopal. One can also follow his procrastinations on Instagram and Twitter.
Featured image credit: Gerd Altmann/Pixabay