iwishididnotcare

They clap our backs, nod their heads Look down and distant smile When we tug at their t-shirts And ask to be heard Their gazes wander, and block their ears Sneak a look at the television They sit us down, telling us to talk And in between, stand up when their phones ring They tell us that you will do great things some day That the world rests upon your hands You will climb to the top and pull each other up But keep pushing us down instead They tell us that you are the future And dive out of our thoughts They think it is an excuse For sizing us up, and declaring us not enough Not yet, they say. Not now, they murmur Have you ever thought that We don't want to be the future Because we need to be the present? That we don't want to lead the world But instead, just live in it? That before we want to do things that are great We just want to live in a world that is?

I stared at my canvas, Unshakable, proud and bold I swirled the colours around And my story, I told I started out with rose Pouring my love I added some white The colour of my dove I sprinkled some sky Calling me wise And a touch of yellow For the sun to rise I worked on it for days And months and years I wanted it to be perfect The life I held so dear Finally, one night As bright as a ray I felt complete I stepped away Staring back at me Was my smile

I opened my eyes up to the sky The only beauty there ever was I drank up the stars when I looked at them Felt myself floating away in that stunning  chaos My only bound was that of gravity Prying me away from the life I wanted He pinned my arms to the ground Apart and away from the chasm dotted I wait for the day he goes to sleep The day the string finally snaps The day I soar away from this life From this draining and clinging remorseless trap When I fall in the abyss, I will finally smile Awe-stricken, the void of swirling colours And I would fall and I would soar And I would live with this love I discover...

Unsuspecting, we rode the oceans Wildly mysterious, and beautifully free Blinded as we were, we laughed And smiled as we dared the breeze We never saw the waves coming Not till we drowned in their hold Not till we fought and struggled And grappled for air, all alone and cold Slowly, we learned to breathe underwater And breath by breath, we eased into this life We swam and we frolicked, delighted by these wonders And, we started enjoying this fleeting dive Months have passed now, and we remain underwater Each day passes, the 'now' ordinary We have done what we never imagined And at night, we lie content with the usual beauty But deep in the hearts and minds as we lie, Our thoughts wander off to the day we would surface then Maybe tomorrow or maybe centuries it might be Before we laugh and smile, as we ride the oceans again -Hitishaa Goyal

Two months ago, when the lockdown was first declared, a temporary state of panic had set in. Schools and restaurants started shutting down, people started panic-buying (all of us heard about the toilet-paper situation in America), businesses started closing down, and students started returning to their hometowns. The Prime Minster held many meetings at the last minute, and we spent days, looking at the news,wondering what bad news might surprise us. We tracked the number of cases with our hearts racing at the thought of one in our own neighborhood.  Some of us, who had dreamed of spending two months in bed, with no teachers or bosses hovering over our heads, rejoiced. Why wouldn't they? After all, their dream had come true. And, so, began a new era in our lives. Thinking back to two months ago, things have changed. People started getting bored. The hourly news update became the daily news update. The Zoom calls slowly decreased and most of us hardly batted an eye when the cas...