poetry – Momo's Musings

message from mission control

Posted on July 20, 2025 by Moumita Dutta

below the earth,
you are hard, unbreakable, sparkling.
inventing a plutonian heartbeat, a girlhood-type grief,
tending to a young universe that tastes of even younger vows.

i want you to float. i want stars to open up to your embrace,
fall into place behind your first full orbit around mars.
one-way, two steps, three breaths in the direction of cosmic sod,
keeping both arm outstretched to break into a smile.

i want you to admit that the human heart lives life through metaphor.
you are not the thick-skinned torso that treads inner-city pavement paths.
you are the enviable entirety of the pre-lit sky,
hard, unbreakable, sparkling.

I originally started this poem wanting to write about plants, but by the end, the image in my mind was of a young girl stepping through the universe along with the star children from Howl’s Moving Castle. Who doesn’t love pondering the night sky?

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My Morality Lies With a Laboratory Mouse

Posted on January 6, 2025 by Moumita Dutta

O stiff-limbed back-born being;
to the you who is doused in 70% ethanol and prodded with silvered indifference,
with arms splayed open in the final act of tender protestation,
teach me how to live.

does the sweet air still burn with your grand guise?
did your nebulous eyes strain for a kaleidoscopic light?
soft monarch, gentle god,
I imagine you only find my inquisition a duplicitous dusk beyond dawn.

and when I hold open your ever-dear viscid ribs, I imagine it is;
that is to say, I am.
there is no absolution to be cradled from your stolen time,
no magnanimous grace for the human hands holding a stainless-steel scythe.

yet I hear faintly a perennial proclamation in the might of nature’s debt,
life insists on life.
life insists on life,
life insists on life—

so here lies the laboratory mouse,
the one who taught me that how to live is how to bear loss.

I wrote this poem based on my experience in the lab with albino mice—specifically their dissection and tissue harvest. Combined with the sentiment behind the famous ‘Monument to the Laboratory Mouse‘, I tried to express my personal thoughts and feelings on the use of mouse models in experimental research. This poem has also been published on the Poets for Science website, an organization dedicated to exhibiting the interconnection between the disciplines. Check them out!

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spring cleaning

Posted on March 31, 2023 by Moumita Dutta

spring cleaning

/ˌsprɪŋˈkliː.nɪŋ/ || noun

1. my closet is emptied of clothes worth their weight in memories // i set aside two bags full of jeans stained with half-dead hopes and loose-threaded loves // i have worn these windbreakers down to their bare bones.

2. it’s 9pm and i’m too tired to part with certain parts of myself // is it only the scarlet season when the sun is scorching away my sins? // it’s 9pm and now you’re bleeding out in all the ways that god never intended // beautifully, and unbearably faced with brevity.

3. recently, every second of my life is perforated with a great sense of loss // for what was, and what could have been // i do not have as many days left as i once thought // so let’s stay here a moment longer // i hope this spring stays away.

I tried a new type of poetry! Not really sure of the last stanza especially, but I had fun writing!

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mortal thoughts on the 5 p.m. bus

Posted on January 28, 2023 by Moumita Dutta

i must admit that the bus ride does not feel as short as when it is with you. and with that i mean to say, i love you so much that i want to to spend my life with you, even if your company makes it feel like a mere moment. i am scared of a short life and a long death, but against the backdrop of blurred trees and paint-chipped road lights, i am less scared. because a life with you – no matter how brief – is a life worth living.

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purple-tinted tales of another universe

Posted on January 21, 2023 by Moumita Dutta

in another universe, i am waking up to lavender birdsong.
grand, gracious oak trees spread their branches from the cavities of the earth
and i don’t have to worry about cavities on my teeth, or the inches of my waist.
i can have as much honey as i want.

the sky is purple, but the kind of purple you see on lilacs in a field
garnished gold by the early morning sun
as you drive by a wheat farm on the way to mars.

in another universe, the grapes are always sweet.
we will be sitting side by side
looking down at the world from a mountain of mundane moments,
but more human all the more because of them.

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this is what we’ll be.

Posted on August 16, 2022 by Moumita Dutta

You are my iron-clad, stone-hilted storm.
The dying breath of stars compells us towards twinkling thoughts.

Breathing in.
Breathing out.

Let us rest our heads in the ravines of Venus’ veil, pillowed by noxious nothings. Our formless fears dance on the silouhettes of deep space. We can stare down into the chasm, wondering about the battlefield left behind in the hands of fading sons and suns.

Or.

On a littered wasteland of heart and bone, moments and meadows, there will be a vine-laden cottage surrounded by a white picket fence. Stars bloom outside the door. Galaxies grow in the garden.

A quaint, cobblestone path shows us the way home.

Us, on a planet amidst the masses — larger than infinity, but smaller than eternity — entwined in the veins of the Earth.

If nothing else, this is what we’ll be.

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Like the Last Snow

Posted on March 3, 2022August 16, 2022 by Moumita Dutta

“March came in that winter like the meekest and mildest of lambs, bringing days that were crisp and golden and tingling…”

— Lucy Maude Montgomery

You run along
the hardened ground
as the snow whispers underneath your feet.
one step, two steps –
You leave imprints and they are impressed
by your impertinence as your jocund giggles stick to the ground.
 
I thought the wind – could only be harsh.
the sun, only scorching.

but now our breaths crystalize in the air.
this golden hour, we are gold,
as the sun sets us afire and the mist is aglow
faces flushed red as
the wind caresses and nips at our faces
like the ginger cat down the lane.
 
We run
You seven steps ahead
Me tracing your footpaths 
in the freshly crushed snow
In this endless expanse
of the ecstatic first blush of the blue skies

the school stands still in the early morning light.
the trees are tall and topped in snow
pine needles shaking slightly in the breeze.

the white boards glitter as the sun rises
and I smile at you
My most bosom friend,
You who came to me
like the last snow.

Like the Last Snow is a poem based on Anne of Green Gables, aiming to capture the joy of the last snowfall of the winter season. It is told from Diana Berry’s point of view, Anne’s best friend.

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Field of Stars

Posted on September 25, 2019August 16, 2022 by Moumita Dutta

I ran across the field of stars
Over my sun and ten thousand leagues far
Meteors rained down upon me as a storm brewed
But a wave washed me away to the frozen valley of forgotten moons

The sea of stars twists around me
sparkling and fading into distant galaxies
The colour of a universe is not one that all can see easily
Mine is a brilliant light unknown to man

Whales float across the sky
Birds by the millions ready their wings to fly
Goliath dragons roam the void for a place to call home
Among the creatures of the night I no longer felt alone

I traveled through eons of time just to realize a lie
Thought the noise of my tears were my battle cry
I walk across the clouds and among the beasts,
But then I fall back down to the sea

My mind twists dreams into a reality
Ever-present Celestials visit a place shrouded in mystery
The sun and moon are both high in the heavens
Creating for me a new haven of shadowed light.

Silent supernovae share a pulsing light and rupture colliding planets
Beautiful catastrophes wreak havoc
Battles continue through dawn and dusk, surrounding the cosmic shrine
Still, through it all, the universe inside me shines

(Please do not repost or use my works without my permission.)