Home-Bhavya Bhagtani

home
Illustration by Malaika Sujeet

For home is still home

With cultured curtains

And bricks of beliefs

As I lie in my bed, the door locked

The opinions clog my head

Like the blocks

Of jenga, all over my thoughts

An opinionated burden

No more in the structure

They moulded me in

Eyes edgy with interrogations

Neck swirling in doubts

Unnecessary snap-backs

Uninvited courageous bouts

For home is still home

With mother in the kitchen

Father at work

Except the constant dilemmas

A mind fresh; going berserk

Limbs growing repulses

Not hair

A mouth brimming with despair

A misfitted set of rules

The clever; mistaken as the fool

The constant struggle to shout

Then to fight yourself

Into silence

For home is still home

Thorns disguised as cushions

A field of blatantly swallowed violence

Where you can be a flower

A cherry blossom or it’s child

But they become the cruel gardeners

If with the thunder, you roar wild

For home is still home

Where they say you’re welcomed

Where you can speak but not be heard

The more often, the better seldom

Bhavya Bhagtani is a 19 year old journalism student at Symbiosis Center for Media and Communication, Pune. She finds pleasure in reading books and is also an avid reader and writer of poetry. She wants to become a published author someday.