Roller Coasters

Dedicated to my dear friends, Nidhi Dwivedi and Megha Sinha. Hope you live through roller coasters of your own.

Roller Coasters

Oh! I’m actually quite afraid of roller coasters you see

It just so happened that the first time I chanced upon one

I was with someone in a rather unpleasant mood

It was much of a coincidence you see

Me, taking a stroll to calm the nerves of someone I love

and chancing upon a roller coaster

Upon which I thought to myself

What better way to deal with a heartbreak,

than a bloodrush?

Quite mad if you think about it,

but I knew the trick would work

There was only one little problem

I’m actually quite afraid of roller coasters you see

But once we sat upon, I realized I was afraid and she thrilled

Thought my nervousness could not afforded to be seen

So I looked straight and felt my breath

and to my utter astonishment, I was still breathing

Then another breath came, and another and then another

Breath after breath I went on,

I was still afraid, but I need not focus on that

All I had to do was keep on breathing

And I knew everything would come back alright

Since then I have come upon many a roller coasters

Ups and downs and twists and turns and upside down

All I have ever had to do, was continue breathing

In my experience, if you breathe for long enough

Problems usually replace themselves with newer ones

However, the best way to be rid of your problems

is actually to stop breathing once and for all

I haven’t tried that myself, yet

For now, I keep breathing

It’s not courage or wisdom but merely force of habit

For truly, I’m actually quite afraid of roller coasters you see

Vishal Gupta

8 Jan 2018

Dark Rainbow

Her rainbow stands in front of her

but dark clouds have blurred her vision

it doesn’t help him to make his mark

for of course her rainbow too is dark

All her life, she lived in the dark

carefully protecting, the light in her heart

Demons grew within her, haunting her soul

and he offered her hell, for her demons to make home

She craves to be held, the one who shall stay

and the one who can see, and tell her it’s okay

But he comes not to hold, but to get her to race

he wants not to pull her through, but push her ahead

A weight falls on her chest, and she cannot catch a breath

time moves on, but she stays at one place

He defies time and surrounds her whole

he cares not for past or present, and makes the moment her home

He offers not light, but darkness that engulfs

not her knight in shining armor, but one that she deserves

dark rainbows melt dark clouds away

then she’ll see, the light living within her all along the way

Vishal Gupta

25^th June 2018

Lost Love

Once, there was something that you had loved

No, not the love that you had once embraced and then left as easy

Love, that had embraced you in its close clutches

Reached out to your heart, through your flesh

grabbed the pounding organ in its claws and felt it beating

Held it for eon whilst it became a part of you

And then finally after eternity had passed on,

it left you, to be on your way as if nothing had ever happened

But something happened, something that changed you forever

You never realized it, it happened slow

You thought you’d healed

You thought you moved on

But you didn’t, it took something when it went away

A very small bit, a tiny piece of your heart

creating a vacuum in your soul forever

You scrounge to fill it with something else, anything

A race, a lie, a goal, a search

But never are you ever able to fill your soul again

Slowly, the hole takes life of its own, and filling itself up

And it fills up with every experience of the love you’ve now lost

Every experience that had been bestowed upon you

You may believe that you left a bit of yourself behind

But in truth, you carried the entire experience with you

And now, you can never be separated from your past

Vishal Gupta

2 March 2018