Three poems by Megha Sood

Survival

Have you noticed the slow

cleaving in my backbone?

the seamless transformation

branching into my thousand self

like a sapling breaking out from the

blind seed. I’m sprouting

I am growing:

Growing like a medusa

this fecundity of myself

breaking out into the

thousands version of me

morphing into shapes

perfecting the art of topiary

I’m shredding myself

shining into a million version of me

like a reflection of the summer sun

on shards of broken mirror

blessing them with its apricity

this fecundity

is my survival extinct

to handle the plethora of emotions

life throws at me

I’m learning.

I’m growing.

Dancing place

With my arms stretched

eyes brimming with the light

that fills every pore of my being

limbs moving freely with abandon

Oh! the unfettered joy this heart can bring

the sun with its apricity

marks its presence on the nape of my neck

and the flowers blooming down the valley

infuses me the scent of the spring

a mind free as a swirling dervish

With a tiny storm knotted

around my naked waist

Hands soft and nimble

as the fleeting touch of the zephyr

aubade knitted in the filigree

ends of my honeysuckle desire

I dance to this rhythm called life

as the silhouette of the moon

etches the embrace

every being basked 

in the fragrance of spring

I surrender myself to this Gaia

My dancing place.

Spring cleaning

Though the harsh winters

is looming outside my windows

deadly frost over the thin

benign blade of the glass

barely breathing;

as it bows down to the mighty frost

wheezing and dying

/time eats time/

there is an intense feeling of spring indoors

as I am fervently trying to

clean the dark crevices of my heart

sweeping off the pain and angst

breaking down those cobwebs of stale memories

blinding me for eons

Life rotting as the frayed limbs of my dying lilies

I can feel the stench of the death looming in this house

scraping off the ashen scars off the windows

scrubbing off the angst and debilitating pain

nestled deeply in the corners

as death anoints the inner walls of my dwelling

I wash them with vehement rage

those scars need to come off

pulling at the scabs of my wounds

and wishing foolishly for them to heal

an imbroglio of time and pain:

birthing life into my dreams,

I wash off the walls carrying off the 

languid smell of the broken desires

With the snow melting outside,

I start the spring cleaning

to my hearts’ desire

in that little house of mine.

Megha Sood lives in Jersey City, New Jersey, USA. She is a contributing editor at Free Verse Revolution, Heretics, Lovers and Madmen, Sudden Denouement, Whisper and the Roar, GoDogGoCafe, and Poetry editor at Ariel Chart. She has over 350+ works in journals including Better than Starbucks, FIVE:2: ONE, KOAN, Kissing Dynamite, Foliate Oak. Visitant Lit, Quail Bell, Dime show review, etc. and has works featured/upcoming in 35 other print anthologies. She is a two-time state-level winner of the NJ Poetry Contest 2018/2019, national level poetry finalist in Poetry Matters Prize 2019 and is shortlisted in the Pangolin Poetry Prize 2019. Her works have been selected numerous times by Jersey City Writers group and Department of Cultural Affairs for the Arts House Festival. She blogs at https://meghasworldsite.wordpress.com/ and tweets at @meghasood16.