Debanjali Dey
There was a brown crow
Silhouetted on the branch that kissed his window sill
A solitary figure against the harsh cityscape,
Like the backroom of a bad dream,
A quiet spectator to the odd humdrum
On the twentieth hour of
Every obscure day of the week;
The man of three and twenty years
Smoking a spliff casually on
The manicured balcony,
His hair and heart in a tangle;
He runs his fingers against
The sharp blade
Its sheen glinting in the wan moonlight;
Nonchalance and despair ring in the air
The bird unruffled still;
A deafening silence engulfs
Every pocket of untouched melancholy;
Then a welcome abruption, a grating caw
He heard the crow say,
“I have nothing to offer you”
Perhaps it was befitting
That this was how he was meant to go
Not amidst the storms he had fought
But on a quiet night like this,
With not a soul by his side
Except for the beady stare
Of a peculiar bird outside his window;
He marvelled at how poetic it was.
Hands shaking as he scribbled
Half-meant apologies in his note,
And quickly shoved it away
No time to re-read, no second guessing,
The moment was here.
The bird remained unmoved yet;
He pressed the blade against his wrist
Applied the pressure;
The warm liquid running down his hands
The light slowly leaving his eyes
But through blurred vision he looked out in panic
Saw the bird shake its wings and fly away
Had it only been his imagination?
Debanjali Dey
A lover of books and a writer of poems in her spare time. Loves all kinds of literature.