Who's crying now?

Georgie Porgie pudding and pie,
Kissed the girls and made them cry.
Kissed a Sleeping Beauty,
It was a big mistake!
Her name is Bengaluru,
And now she's wide awake!

What is a gun?

What is a gun?
It's a medal for fear.
It says to the world,
"Don't come too near!
Don't give me your god, germs, or your DNA.
I don't want to feel threatened,
get out of my way."

The potential to hold one
against someone's head
is what keeps your bogeyman
safely under your bed.
If you'd only exorcise
your own fears instead,
perhaps there'd be less people dead.

No Welcome Mat

You won't find one outside my front door.

Partly because my neighbour's cat has a wicked sense of humour, which resulted in my having to get rid of my dear woven Winnie The Pooh mat.

And partly because my new rubber mat stays on this side of my front door. Just because it's washable, doesn't mean I want to tend to that cat's daily outpourings of affection for me.

And partly because, instead of a Welcome mat, I prefer to greet my visitors with this outpouring of my own, perhaps not as welcoming but far more efficient, neatly taped to my front door:

Boundaries Nazneen Tonse While you stand staring at this closed door, Ask yourself, “Should I have phoned* before?” Should the door open to let you in, Stop and think, “Where have my shoes been?” Take off your shoes but don’t settle down, Wash off your hands of the dirt of this town. And before you reach out for a nice friendly hug, Check first, “Have I got a cough, cold or bug?” Even if your answer to that one is No, There is one thing you may already know. I hate hugs and though I’ll say it’s okay, I’ll be dreading your next visit, hoping you’ll stay away. Curiosity killed the cat – it’s a shame It does nothing to people who must do the same. So don’t read my whiteboard, don’t go through my flat, You have no good reason for any of that. If you’re sure that I’m in, but the door’s still not open You now have the answer to that very first question. “How rude is that?!” you will possibly ask. Oh, maintaining boundaries’ a thankless task. Boundaries matter and though mine may seem tough They’re important to me and that should be enough. If you break mine, you’ll see little of me. If you can’t understand, try psychotherapy. Or we could simply meet at a different place Not the sanctum sanctorum that’s my personal space. If you can put up with my little quirks I’ll put up with yours, for a friendship that works! * (my tel no)

Good-for-nothing Galileo

I actually know very little about the man, apart from strands
of memory that must be from my schooldays. But recently,
I was thinking about him and wondering what it must have
felt like - to discover a wonderful, mind-boggling, life-altering
truth - and then be forced to deny it. So I scribbled down this
jolly little ditty as a way of leaving him not quite without
optimism, at least in my imagination. And then tonight I was
in a mood to doodle and colour and play with stencils,
 and this is the result.
Just in case the words aren't clear, or you can't see the doodle:

Good-for-nothing Galileo
gazed up at the sun.
Had a theory or two -
no wait! he had just one.
The world does not revolve
(he said) round us,
contrariwise
those little sparkles in the sky ..
those are the real big guys.
The earth revolves around the sun!

Blasphemer! How un-Christian!
They made him take back what he said.
But late at night
"Dear Lord," he said,
"I know what's true and so do You,"
and then he went to bed.

Ode to Amazon

In answer to your possible question, "Where have you been?", I have explored all options and chosen to blame Amazon.com. Of course, it's not entirely their fault that I've been away so long. But they did cause me enough of a distraction to put down my drawing pencils for quite a while.

This distraction came not because I am a bookaholic, but because of one book in particular: a how-to guide for paedophiles that Amazon published on their site recently. It disturbed me right out of my depression. The warrior in me (now a one-and-a-half-eyed warrior) woke up. And while my health won't permit me to return to full-fledged activism on the child abuse issue, my heart and my history wouldn't allow me to stay in hibernation.

So I have been doing what I can, updating Askios, (online resources on the child abuse issue), reading, writing, sometimes despairing and taking short trips back into that abyss of depression that I can't seem to erase entirely from my travel itinerary. But mostly, trying to deal with all the emotions that Amazon's attitude to the CSA issue succeeded in jarring awake.

And now I'm here.  And while I did put aside my favourite 9B pencil, I did find the time, one angry-sad evening, to pick up a pen and scribble this out:


Ode To Amazon

In our dreams, the monsters don't win.
In our dreams someone walks in.
Someone who's ready to stand up and fight,
to tell us what happened to us wasn't right.

But that's in our dreams. In the clear light of day
things tend to go in a different way.
We reach for a bottle, a pill or a knife.
We search for solutions and try to live life.

We may hide the wounds
but we can't lose the scars,
and we bleed when betrayal
mocks this pain of ours.

###

The facts of life.

Quite often, sitting on the potty brings forth pearls of wisdom. Here is today's:

Once I thought I was so cool
But really I was just a fool.

Once, I'm sure, I was quite hot
But now, alas, I'm not.


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