Ways of Reading - Mid Term Assignment - Kunika Yadav

Prompt no. 3 Repetition poems

Drowsy

I don’t sleep.

not like I used to,

there’s a pain now,

several pockets of pain

If I’m being honest-

I don’t sleep.

Sadness

holds me

in its arms,

It whispers failure

in one ear and

doubt in the other

I don’t sleep.

like I used to,

the snap

the crack

this bedtime rote

this empty bed dance

has become muscle memory and

I will never sleep

like I used to

now that you’re gone.

One year later

A year has passed since that day

The day where everything changed for us

The day everything fell apart

The day that could have ended us

A year has passed since that day

The day where I wanted so badly to understand

The day everything fell apart

The day that could have ended us

A year has passed since that day

The day everything fell apart

A year has gone by, three hundred and sixty

Five days of mending, healing, growing,

Learning

One year later, we are blooming

One year later, we are brilliant

One year later, we are beautiful

No, it hasn’t been easy, but by god grace has it been

Worth it

And I hope it’s been worth it for you too.

Prompt no.4 Descriptive poems

Virginia Woolf

Of all the books that i can read, for all the sorrows,

I can weep

To the waves, she goes, waits at the shore

A lighthouse of filial dour

Clarissa’s ball for the elite

Septimus’ descent from treacherous grief

Virginia, Virginia, viva la Gloria,

Thy passions mute spurts of melancholia

However morbid, deplorable they seem

Filthy truth as much it’s clean.

Every time I watch a Meryl Streep movie I think

She is timeless

Black and white

And a presence

Like no one else

She is beauty

In a melting smile

A bubbling laugh

Those knowing eyes

She is classic

While completely unique

Setting the bar

Far out of reach

Prompt no. 9 Art Spigelman’s ‘Maus’

Reset

Wake, wash, dress, and eat,

work, work, work, repeat,

break, work, work, and eat,

break, work, wash, sleep.

See just how much you can endure.

Try to achieve just that little bit more.

Wake and live and sleep again

Perfecting what you already perfected then,

See just how much you can endure.

Try to achieve just that little bit more.

Wake and live and sleep again.

Perfecting what you already perfected then,

Because someone suggested that you try again.

And you’re too busy and anxious and tired to see

The cruelty of this eternal monotony.

So much that you crave hours of inactivity;

Not living life, but navigating to safety.

And the reset laughs at your need for start

Play it safe...or play it fun?