prose – Momo's Musings

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!

Home, Poetry and Prose, Writing

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.

Home, Poetry and Prose, Writing

Of Black Holes and the Beauty of Being

Posted on March 1, 2022August 16, 2022 by Moumita Dutta

Death as solely a concept is not a luxury that humans can afford.

If life is a simple trick of biology, a specific sequence of atoms and molecules, does that mean that life has no meaning? That we, in fact, have physical restraints, and are forced to come to terms with the certainty that we are not bigger than ourselves; do not have much time in the world; are an infinitesimally small speck in the grandest timeline of existence?

Or, does it mean that the living body—despite all barriers and boundaries—prevailed against the universe to give itself meaning?

I postulate this: there is not a single life without meaning; and conversely, there is no meaning without the essence of being. But be-ing is not merely the biological definition of a working mind.

There are black holes that dance around each other for eons, finally collapse into each other’s arms. They create waves in the space-time continuum, washing lengths of pure energy over the universe. Hauntingly beautiful, and yes, woefully abstruse. There is beauty still—in the absence of life anywhere in the cosmos, in the organizations of electrons and quarks.

Persistence is written into the very fabric of the universe. The meaning of life resides in these nooks and crannies, in the evening thoughts of the poet, the messy proofs of the mathematician, the chlorophyll creating the colour of grass, the stars blazing in the sky. What I mean to say is: persistence is being. Persistence is meaningful. Persistence is beautiful.

Something holds value simply because it exists.