ANSHU CHOUDHRY - POEMS

Anshu Choudhry holds degrees of Masters Level in Mathematics and English. She is based in New Delhi, India  and works for the Government.  Her poems and short stories have appeared in Kritya Journal, FullofCrow,  Muse India, EastLit Journal, Hans India, Setu Journal, Silver Birch Press, Indiana Voice Journal, Ariel Chart and anthologies amongst others.

BFF
​

​She told me there were worlds.
And showed me the cities. The villages. The wastelands.
The jungles. The temples. The rules of
Religions-- I wondered
 
 apostate, infidel--- at each word, each turn of the page
 and lived with that neighbour, in his house
and hers too. In his mind and hers
too. The one yellow brittle body. The one
 
 who suffered and the one who harmed but they
both loved m
e. Or so, I was sure, in my
anonymity. Their names remain etched
 in memory, in births—the same as the pious
 
 grandmother, the villainous uncle or the
indifferent father. Sometimes, mother
too, learnt of them only to realise
she knew them all too well. They only borrowed 
 
time and came alive, each time, I opened
the paper caskets, filling me. With the pride
of power, lent by their immortality. Then
 they shared their secret—across borders, beyond
 
 seas, the hearts beat with the same rhythm
 and die by the same curse—To be so
 serious in love, is a dalliance with
 cataclysm. And a friend
 
 will only listen and say no more …….But
 I want advice. To mend my heart---each
shattered piece, a glass splinter that mirrors
 all that I see, in her, all that she shows
 
 are those pieces ever since  I lived         
and ever after I die a thousand deaths---I will
remain alive in the papyrus arms of
my friend---the book that I read now and forever.

The Death of A Stalker
​

​If this is true, then; is it the season of
wishes to bloom? Flowers can be thorns of death. If
this is what and how I was meant to be
 the fruit of revenge, fallen ripe and full?
Wild berries, reckless and temerarious
 bitter as the poisons
 of hate. Is it true then
the overdoses killed you? Love,
the obtrusively toxic, obstreperous whore. It
stalked you day and night for a
score and half  decade. While you
 wallowed and splashed around
 in that pool, bitter, poisonous
and deadly, your future soaked in the inflammable
 oils,  wondering at the dry past
 of a wasteland chased. Limbs
 tired and aching,  caramelised in your
 obsession, a  leap across
impossible and you at the other end---unapproachable,
 unreachable, unavailable even after all bonds
released your tormented soul. And I,
 free at last
 wonder----if this is true
 that I have woken up from a nightmare ?

Of Fairy Tales (tails) and Evil Eyes(Is)
​

​They live in the nights
and dissolve, their spherical coffins
radiating rainbows, the colours of their
 blood, their frozen breaths the fragrance
 of the morning. I go past
 their infinities on tables, chairs
 behind wheels, dashboards, windscreens, cross
 over riding on the sharp blinding beams
 of the killer sun, hoisted  the Azazel  bait. The present
boat floats over marshy  turbidity. Nothing
 is clear in the homogenous aquarium dirty
 with stasis. They swim and splash without
 effect, their movements caught and sealed
 in the lenses of evil eyes. Their undulating
 tails but whip up tales and they
 spread the ripples. Echoes of a rumoured future
 call out before I…………..
 disappear in the light of the day.