Clueless Ink

Mr. Modi,

I hear the echoes again.

They come quietly.

–

With the same coughs.

With the same prayers

we once whispered

into pillows,

late at night,

Scared.

–

When the world was red.

Two thousand twenty-one.

When breathing

was scarce.

–

Dear Prime Minister,

We ask for air.

–

For mornings,

just bright enough.

–

For nights

wrapped in festive lights.

–

For rain.

Something kind enough

to bring back a smiling face,

a flicker of blue and green.

In love.

Dancing in the rain.

–

But our hearts beat carefully now.

We need more peace

than this place allows.

–

Hope thins.

But.

Voices. Heartbeats. Tears. Loss.

Rising slowly,

like our smog.

–

Hope loses its shape

to poisoned air.

It feels like COVID

all over again.

–

My heart remembers

May 2021.

–

And here we stand.

All scared.

All over again.

–

Some homes

may not wake up

tomorrow morning.

Are you listening?

–

Those small rooms.

Walls too thin

for fear.

–

Lalita aunty

breathes heavy today.

–

Yesterday,

It was Sharma sahab.

–

Before that,

my father coughing,

one room away.

–

It moves

from house to house,

like a secret

everyone knows,

but no one dares to speak aloud.

–

Wake up.

The city wears Halloween again.

–

No costumes.

Only smog,

moving closer.

–

Faster.

Hugging our lungs.

–

It floats as smoke.

Falls as ash.

Presses down.

against my window.

A grey sky.

–

A skyline

built on what burned.

Our people,

scared.

Our breath,

unfinished.

Our future,

borrowed.

–

Dear Prime Minister,

listen carefully,

We are dying

inside a gas chamber,

with no one left

to blame.

–

We paid our taxes.

We followed the rules.

You dimmed our lights,

then pushed firecrackers

down our throats,

as if it were your birthright.

All we wanted

were visible. festive. lights.

–

I speak from

the capital of India.

Where graves are crowded.

And we keep dancing.

–

Waiting.

For our turn.

Praying for rain.

Calling it hope,

amid all this pain.

–

So here we stand.

–

Caged.

–

Breathing.

Barely.

–

Forced

to pray,

beneath a sky

so grey.

–

Dear Prime Minister,

We ask for air.