Positively 4th Street

You got a lotta nerve to say you are my friend
When I was down, you just stood there grinning
You got a lotta nerve to say you gotta helping hand to lend
You just want to be on the side that's winning

You say I let you down, you know it's not like that
If you're so hurt why then don't you show it?
You say you lost your faith, but that's not where it's at
You have no faith to lose and you know it

I know the reason that you talk behind my back
I used to be among the crowd you're in with
Do you take me for such a fool to think I'd make contact
With the one who tries to hide what he don't know to begin with?

You see me on the street, you always act surprised
You say, "How are you? Good luck," but you don't mean it
When you know as well as me you'd rather see me paralyzed
Why don't you just come out once and scream it?

No, I do not feel that good when I see the heartbreaks you embrace
If I was a master thief perhaps I'd rob them
And now I know you're dissatisfied with your position and your place
Don't you understand, it's not my problem

I wish that for just one time you could stand inside my shoes
And just for that one moment, I could be you
Yes, I wish that for just one time, you could stand inside my shoes
You'd know what a drag it is to see you

Overwhelmed

You asked me how depression felt,
and this is all I could come up with.

It feels like
I'm walking upstream
through a current strong enough
to pull me under four times over.

There are others with me
but they are walking along the banks
telling me to "just get out of the water."
But instead of extending a hand in help,
they just move on and leave me behind.

Every once in a while I find a rock
that is strong enough for me to lean on,
And I can rest for a bit.

But the rocks always get tired of holding me up,
and when they let go, I'm left drowning,
thrown 50 feet back again.

And nothing is harder
then standing up in that current
when everything in you
is telling you how much easier things would be
if you just let yourself get dragged under.

Source - The internet

The Sequel

Okay?
Okay.

In the midst of darkness, light persists...

I've been tardy with writing lately. I blame it on the fact that I'm almost perfectly happy. Anger, resentment, sorrow, heartbreak inspires me to write. It's cathartic.
But this time around something so wonderfully beautiful presented itself that I was moved to write (and very nearly to tears).
We live in an India, nay a world, that is fraught with sexism and subjugation and abuse. It's enough for me to feel the need to carry around a placard apologising on behalf of my sex. But every now and then a glimmer of absolute joy shines through from the most unexpected of places and is brighter still, because of the pitch black that surrounds it.
There's a young man who works in our office doing odd jobs, cleaning, making tea, gopher duties etc. He's educated to a degree, probably somewhere around middle school. He's smart and kind, and generally loved around the office. He is arguably my favorite person in my small startup of a company and we spend some time everyday just talking and shooting the breeze.
Born and raised in a village in Bihar he's had a very conservative upbringing his family still operates on an extremely patriarchal system.
This morning he came up to me and wanted help to look for recent school teacher opening's that the Department of Education has announced on their website.
I asked him about who the candidate was and he told me it was his wife. She has an MA and a two year diploma in education. She'd only finished high school when they got married. Her parents weren't too sold on the idea of educating girls beyond high school. But she wanted to study so he's spent the last 6 years borrowing money from the office using up his savings to help her though a BA, and MA and the diploma course in education. And to top it all he has regrets that he didn't have enough money to help her get a Bachelors degree in education so she had to settle for the diploma course instead. He also told me on the sly that he had to hide it from his family who live in the village as well and they think he makes a lot less money than he actually does because a considerable chunk goes into his wife's education.
He works from 9-6 goes home and helps with the kid and the cooking and cleaning so his wife would have time to study.
My friend, you're a better man than most men out there. I hereby dub thee The Knight. You have more than earned it.

Dil Akhir tu kyon rota hai?

जब जब दर्द का बादल छाया

जब गम का साया लहराया

जब आँसू पलकों तक आया

जब ये तनहा दिल घबराया

हम ने दिल को ये समझाया

दिल आखिर तू क्यों रोता है?

दुनिया में यूहीं होता है

ये जो गहरे सन्नाटे हैं

वक्त ने सबको ही बांटे हैं

थोड़ा गम है सबका किस्सा

थोड़ी धूप है सबका हिस्सा 

आँख तेरी बेकार ही नम है

हर पल एक नया मौसम है

क्यों तू ऐसे पल खोता है?

दिल आखिर तू क्यों रोता है?

A letter from Santa

Courtesy Bill Watterson

My hands were all shaky,
My face had gone pale.
A letter from Santa
Just arrived in the mail!

It was hand-written
In old-fashioned ink pen.
It was handsomely printed
And dated twelve ten.

“Dear Calvin,” it said,
“I’m writing because
This year I’ve repealed
My ‘Naughty/Nice’ laws.”

“So now, I urge you:
Be vulgar and crude!
I LIKE it when children
Are boorish and rude!”

“Burp at the table!
Gargle your peas!
Never say ‘thank you’,
‘you’re welcome’ or ‘please’.”

“Talk back to your mother!
Don’t do as you’re told!
Stick your tongue out
At your dad if he scolds!”

“Drive everyone crazy,
I really don’t care!
Act like a jerk,
Anytime, anywhere!”

“I’m changing the rules!
The BAD girls and boys
Will be, from now on,
The ones who get toys!”

“Good little kids make
Me sick, it’s no joke.
Sincerely, signed Santa.”.
..And then I awoke.

I hate being good
(or trying to fake it).
Six days until Christmas!

I don’t think I’ll make it.

One of us cannot be wrong

I lit a thin green candle, to make you jealous of me.
But the room just filled up with mosquitoes,
they heard that my body was free.
Then I took the dust of a long sleepless night
and I put it in your little shoe.
And then I confess that I tortured the dress
that you wore for the world to look through.
I showed my heart to the doctor: he said I just have to quit.
Then he wrote himself a prescription,
and your name was mentioned in it!
Then he locked himself in a library shelf
with the details of our honeymoon,
and I hear from the nurse that he's gotten much worse
and his practice is all in a ruin.

I heard of a saint who had loved you,
so I studied all night in his school.
He taught that the duty of lovers
is to tarnish the golden rule.
And just when I was sure that his teachings were pure
he drowned himself in the pool.
His body is gone but back here on the lawn
his spirit continues to drool.

An Eskimo showed me a movie
he'd recently taken of you:
the poor man could hardly stop shivering,
his lips and his fingers were blue.
I suppose that he froze when the wind took your clothes
and I guess he just never got warm.
But you stand there so nice, in your blizzard of ice,
oh please let me come into the storm.