Freedom is strife, a differential consonant, with silence bargained from solitude. The former a beseecher, the latter a form of tortured lullaby, both honing our mothers in prison cells to bear us in foetuses, tepidly carrying us from the incoherence of midnight screechings against these walls.
Freedom is life under lock and key, fear coming at us like a vengeful overlord, strung around that unutterable word, strung around that soiled desecration of young bodies in limbo, strung around like irony, pacing up and down on a nation’s destiny like gloom. Calling us Bastards. The War Boys. Children of War.
***
If you could hear the screaming madness, smell the lice on our hair, the icy psychology of dictatorship in these guarded rooms. How they betray us.
We cry out then whimper like scapegoats, chiselled out for the bounty, all flesh and bone for the midnight, all under this ‘freedom’
***
Freedom is strife and ours are young bodies sealed and entombed within prison cells, in the farthest reaches of civil wars and eluding rescue.
For us, freedom cries out, ‘let the silence be your bargain, let it be a possible manner of survival’ For in this world, it is the shroud over our naked bodies when we are plucked and outraged and told to breathe and recover.
Freedom is life under lock and key. Now could all this irony be lost on you?
I launch myself, with a searing, soaring passion for all domains verging on the writerly and creative with a beginner's appetite here and that's how I believe in adding meaning to each day. A lucky mascot of literature, cinema and culture, I come riding on spirited wings from the emblematic city of Lucknow where all those reside and thrive. My breeding ground and my mindscape all are committed to these three life forces. Cinema. Culture. Literature. But the biggest and all consuming parent to these is life that breeds them . There is the discovery that comes from expressing yourself, clear eyed and even mystical, when you come from a city like this. I am here to expand my worldviews, share my earliest inspirations and evolutions and go with the flow through the most accessible outlet there is : writing. Conventionally, my biography is that of a degree holder in English literature encompassing Undergraduate, Postgraduate and M Phil years and every possible experience of learning finer points of knowledge . I have already taken the plunge of creating a solid base for my works by publishing my poems and articles on the renowned worldwide community/ writing sanctuary Wattpad since 2015, a platform which is a miracle for anyone pursuing so much as a flash of wordplay and thoughts to spare. It has redefined my life and allows me to go strong. You can read my works there under the username MadMenWearingFedora / Prithvijeet. That is the springboard that catapulted me to a confident vocational revival. So here I am. Both originality and novelty are the key words to define this eternal student of life. So with the tip of the pen blessing my head and a new vigor, I welcome you all to my realm. AN AWADH BOY'S PANORAMA beckons.
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3 thoughts on “LOCK AND KEY”
A spellbindingly breathtaking poem, PJ, once again! How you do this time and time again, only God knows! What your poem brought up for me was BOTH-fold: The Holocaust and Christianity, particularly as it relates to the inhumane treatment of God’s nonhuman animals.
When I read “If you could hear the screaming madness, smell the lice on our hair, the icy psychology of dictatorship in these guarded rooms. How they betray us,” I found myself in the Holocaust, inside a Nazi concentration camp. I found myself screaming and convulsing from lack of food and lack of compassion (BOTH), smelling the lice on my hair and trying to itch the lice away, shivering from the coldness of humanity and panting from the heat of my soon-to-be and actually desired death, feeling betrayed by not only the Nazis but also my own people.
And the “guarded rooms” brought up the next BOTH: Christianity, particularly as it relates to the inhumane treatment of God’s nonhuman animals, and how that is encapsulated in a Bible verse that I refer to constantly and consistently:
“The Spirit of the Sovereign LORD is upon me, for the LORD has anointed me to bring good news to the poor. He has sent me to comfort the brokenhearted and to proclaim that captives will be released and prisoners will be freed” (Isaiah 61:1). I refer to this verse constantly and consistently for I feel this verse is God’s Calling on my life, i.e., to free BOTH God’s humans and nonhuman animals (prisoners) from their prisons.
BOTH of these also brought up a book I’ve always wanted to read that makes a correlation between the Holocaust and animal welfare, Eternal Treblinka: Our Treatment of Animals and the Holocaust (https://www.amazon.com/Eternal-Treblinka-Treatment-Animals-Holocaust/dp/1930051999). Maybe you and I can read it together and have some sort of book club going if you are interested?
Once again, PJ, a haunting poem and, once again, how you do this time and time again, only God knows!🙏😉💕
Love and blessings from your “huckleberry friend,”
Timothy (or Mr. T or Comrade T or BOTH)
Thank you for your appreciation and yes, this poem was an amalgamation of all the civil crises the world has seen.
That said, personally I feel it is one of my worst poems structurally and in terms of expression. I just wanted to share it with the world spontaneously and I can see its content did have an impact on you. So thank you for that.
An Awadh Boy's Panorama : tracing words on these filigreed, discerning fingertips. 
A spellbindingly breathtaking poem, PJ, once again! How you do this time and time again, only God knows! What your poem brought up for me was BOTH-fold: The Holocaust and Christianity, particularly as it relates to the inhumane treatment of God’s nonhuman animals.
When I read “If you could hear the screaming madness, smell the lice on our hair, the icy psychology of dictatorship in these guarded rooms. How they betray us,” I found myself in the Holocaust, inside a Nazi concentration camp. I found myself screaming and convulsing from lack of food and lack of compassion (BOTH), smelling the lice on my hair and trying to itch the lice away, shivering from the coldness of humanity and panting from the heat of my soon-to-be and actually desired death, feeling betrayed by not only the Nazis but also my own people.
And the “guarded rooms” brought up the next BOTH: Christianity, particularly as it relates to the inhumane treatment of God’s nonhuman animals, and how that is encapsulated in a Bible verse that I refer to constantly and consistently:
“The Spirit of the Sovereign LORD is upon me, for the LORD has anointed me to bring good news to the poor. He has sent me to comfort the brokenhearted and to proclaim that captives will be released and prisoners will be freed” (Isaiah 61:1). I refer to this verse constantly and consistently for I feel this verse is God’s Calling on my life, i.e., to free BOTH God’s humans and nonhuman animals (prisoners) from their prisons.
BOTH of these also brought up a book I’ve always wanted to read that makes a correlation between the Holocaust and animal welfare, Eternal Treblinka: Our Treatment of Animals and the Holocaust (https://www.amazon.com/Eternal-Treblinka-Treatment-Animals-Holocaust/dp/1930051999). Maybe you and I can read it together and have some sort of book club going if you are interested?
Once again, PJ, a haunting poem and, once again, how you do this time and time again, only God knows!🙏😉💕
Love and blessings from your “huckleberry friend,”
Timothy (or Mr. T or Comrade T or BOTH)
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Thank you for your appreciation and yes, this poem was an amalgamation of all the civil crises the world has seen.
That said, personally I feel it is one of my worst poems structurally and in terms of expression. I just wanted to share it with the world spontaneously and I can see its content did have an impact on you. So thank you for that.
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Everything you have written that I have read, PJ, has had a HUGE impact on me! 😊
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