Penned on 14th September, 2015.
Written in the middle of a
lecture; a poem that started with pondering over what we’re taught in
classrooms and then moved on to this:
Nothing
Nothing
Is what I feel
When I “learn”
Cause I don’t
Cause they ain’t teaching
How to breathe.
How to breathe
When in broad daylight
You feel like you're
underwater
Drowning
Millstones around your neck
No fight left
Just drowning
In a sea,
Or a gutter,
Or a washing machine.
We drown everywhere.
Cause they ain’t teaching
How to see
How to see through layers of
paint
Through the touch of an
unknown hand
When you’re blinded by tears
How to see through the blur
See the murkiness behind a
seemingly innocuous candy
Handed by a stranger or an
uncle or an aunt
How to see when you’re young
What the weathered mind is
cooking
That the fish is a’hooking
Drowned, blinded.
Cause they ain’t teaching us
How to listen
How to listen to warning
bells
And know the sound of an
oncoming train
That nightingales are to be heard
and loved
That a call to arms can be
ignored
When the pressure cooker is
full and brimming,
How to recognise the slight
whistling/heavy breathing
Before it all hits the
ceiling.
Cause they ain’t teaching us
How to taste
How to taste the rust in the
air
The world dying out, its
joints coming apart
The taste of lips
- - - Do
I sin? – Is it love?
Is this what love tastes like? Forbidden fruit?
The taste of water and that of
alcohol
That of addiction, to taboo
They refuse to talk. They
won’t say.
Cause they ain’t teaching us
How to feel
How to feel on our own.
They tell us
What we ought to feel
How we ought to feel
Refusing to acknowledge
How we actually do.
Refusing to answer
What that means.
Ignoring the feeling of an
entire generation
Being trained in classrooms
To not feel
And how to feel, what to
feel
When what we really feel
Is nothing.
Nothing
Is what I learnt in
classrooms.
Nothing
Is how I feel.
