Words

        by Arti Subramanian 

    There are no words for certain... things.

    Things like

    the alliterative melancholy

    of a wailing toddler

    or the grief stricken tears

    of the bipolar sky.

    Or stepping out to get groceries,

    then waking up to a white ceiling

    and a brand new colostomy,

    trying to find an answer for

    "How do you feel?"

    I want to be a peacock,

    a poster child

    for rainforest green

    and flamboyant turquoise,

    move my feet

    in an unfettered rain dance,

    to laugh out loud at the colorlessness

    of the air escaping

    from a brightly colored balloon.

    I suppose my life would go out

    similarly, the warmth

    taken out sinuously from

    brilliant tailfeathers –

    but there are no words for that

    either.

Arti Subramanian is a newly minted doctor who likes to pretend she has a life outside of medicine.  She has been writing poetry since she was seven years old.  During med school, her love of poetry and the words themselves became a lifeline to sanity and hope, an escape from sunlit illness and barred windows.  Medicine influences all her poetry - either as an escape or as core, and she writes everyday just so she can pretend she is sane at all other times.

© 2009 Arti Subramanian