“Glitches Under the Sun” Poetry by A. Garg

Aditi Garg is a journalist by education and a copywriter by profession. She has contributed cover stories, articles and book reviews for the magazine section of many national dailies over 25 years. She enjoys writing short stories, is currently working on a novel and has self-published a book of poems.

Unsent Texts

“Buzz off”
“I can’t…”
“There’s something I want”
“You seem less you”
“Hey, long time, what’s new”
“I am not in a good space right now,
I can barely be,
I wish
You don’t have to see
This scattered like shells on the sea
Less than perfect, side of me”
“Never call back, please”
“Will get back to you
In five to six business days,
Or never”
“I’m checking out of this thing,
You can go from complicated,
To single to swinging”
“I am sorry”
“I love you”
“Hey”

Déjà vu

Beautiful is the time
When all that could be new
Has come to pass
Years that flew
Are now a looking glass
Where I see
My elbow etched into
The arm of my chesterfield
A tea with cookie
At five past free
The three phone calls
I take early
Enjoying a meal
Thinking what the next should be
Planning to run errands
But feeling too cozy
Pyjamas mostly win
As I sheepishly order in
No one else to take the fall
For all that’s not happening
Sinking in into same corner
Doing your thing, or nothing
Holding like a puppy
Cradling and loving
Absorbing its adequacy
This déjà vu living.

People as Places She’s Been

The Desert
The love was raw
Searing her mind
Scalding her heart
She rained down
Fizzling out
Before she could sprout
Roots

The Banyan’s Hollow
Cocooning,
Wicking away misery,
Infusing life force
She suckles with urgency
Of a hungry new born
Emerging ready
Metamorphosed

The Ledge
Frantic
Yet tender and firm
Urging back to love
From the edge
Made her warts
Feel like buds
Soul whisperer

The Railway Platform
Always close
Never close enough
She reads care in the watchfulness
She falls for
It rushes past
The disconnected
Relay-tionship

In the light that you see

The night fell
Dark and full
Horizon smeared
Raven wings spread
Light devoured
Homework worries piled
Deadlines hurriedly filed
To-do lists complied
Shadows diffuse
Coalesce and confuse
Her eyes struggle to focus
Losing line and locus
Of her worries and anxiety
Spread like a platter of variety
The days’s closing account
Bringing a bloody head count
Of tasks drawn out
Things still to worry about
On mind’s dirty floor
Strewn laundry of relationships sore
Colours bleeding
Arms and legs tangling
Sorting them into piles
Mulling a new catalogue of mental files
The tumble in her thoughts
Drowning in inky blots
Why is it that mornings she can rise
To every challenge that could arise
Yet as nights descend
She wishes the day wouldn’t end
Feelings like mini failures
Strung up into years
Of ends not tied
Impulses that have died
Should she run against time
Maybe she could be done by bedtime
What’s one more sleepless night
If she could just get things right
She shuts out the darkness
Curtains drawn over the bleakness, blackness
With another promising day in sight
She turns in, turns on the light

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