by Surina Jain

THE DEMONS INSIDE

We feed our own demons
Let them grow inside of us
Make them a part of our stories
But we seldom come to know when the pen switches hands
And it’s not we who is writing but they
Until, eventually, we become the demon
In our own story
We become “the other”
And the story isn’t ours anymore
Or, perhaps, was it? Ever?

ABSOLUTION ANOMALY

Wasn’t life a bunch of anomalies?
From this lifetime and that one
Or perhaps many more
A sequence of infinite circumstances
Squared again and again by myth
And then by indecisiveness
And one day they demand absolution
All at once
But it doesn’t come
Not until the universe is circled
Within and without
Not until the stars are aligned
Inside and out.
Isn’t life an anomaly itself?
And absolution a far corner of this existence?
Spin around, oscillate
Until it’s all a sensation
A tiny prick on the skin
Negligible in weight.
Spin around, oscillate
Until the absolution becomes an anomaly
And anomaly the final absolution.

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Surina Jain was born in Ajmer, Rajasthan, India. She graduated with a Master’s degree in literature in 2014 and worked as an editor in Delhi. A dreamer, traveler, painter and a poet, her first anthology of poems, Echoes from the Inner World, was published in 2012. She is currently pursuing her Masters in Publishing at the NYU School of Professional Studies.