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Day Seventeen: My Greatest Critic

To my greatest critic,
Both a friend and foe in life,
The one I am never rid of,
Whose words only fester in my mind.

You are verbally cruel and physically nonexistent.
Your words are like daggers thrown at my unfeeling sentiments,
Your thoughts like salt in a wound.
Yet I live and breathe with your advice.

For you have no voice of your own,
You must borrow mine
In hopes that your many insults
May find some life.

"What soulless work!"
You exclaimed once,
With such bitterness
One could mistake
Such expression for loathing.

Your thoughts could slit throats
Without a drop of blood spilling,
A curated silence due to their sharp nature.
Yet I would not be this way without your guidance.

Another time you pondered,
"What self-centered thoughts you have..."
Your intentions not malicious,
But only when I question the Self.

Brashly and bluntly you state,
The most personal of comments,
Locked in the dredges of the mind
Forever to remain although never voiced for another.

How could you get away with this?
The reader may wonder,
But the answer
Is much closer than what one believes.

To you, my critic,
You have choice but to 
Cling to me like a parasite
For you are too correct.

I am you,
And you are me.
There is no escape 
For either of us.






– Maya Desdemona

Posted on by Undead Diaries

Day Fifteen: Matchsticks Light A Thought

A most curious thought came upon me today.

Such a mundane action
Of lighting a candle
Is hardly what one would call
'Thought provoking'.

Yet on this day,
In this very hour,
I suppose I could blame the environment
For this unexpected conflict,
I find myself sympathising with a Matchstick.

One of many,
A most unremarkable one, at that,
That so happened to expire in my hand.

Once it served its purpose,
It was simply blown out without a second glance.
But today,
The mind lingered on an observation.

That matchstick continued to burn,
Albeit a dying ember now.
Yet all it took was a small tremor,
A flick of my wrist,
For that small light
To be snatched away.

How similar material objects are to their creators.

– Maya Desdemona

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Day Eleven: A Sailor’s Tale

The sailor is one with stories plentiful,
Ranging from Daring escapes to Romantic escapades.
Their only constant,
I suppose, would be the free wandering
Of the jolly old sailor himself.

“For I was thrown from Untruthful shores,
Left in the mercy of
The Collector of Souls,
Its cruel torrents continue to rage,
Leaving my sailin’ self
With a gruelling task at the Doors of Fate.”

He vividly paints the scene,
Detailed to an extent
You would think it was just yesterday
His triumph or tragedy was finished.

“Following the Marine path,
My crumbling heart hath
Stymied the Crimson wrath.”

His Colloquial accent is distinct,
Somehow adding to his narrating style,
With nuanced details one would never notice
Lest one is actually there.

“For I must walk this path alone,
Torment for the crimes for which I atone.”

As authentic as it feels,
None of it is real,
As I so begrudgingly got him to spill
One day, when he was drunk.

He told me,
“These sins are not my own,
A wild imagining, if anything,
Of a life lost to the sands of Time.”

Whose is this life story?
Even the old sailor does not know.
But the unknown soul was immortalised,
Never to be forgotten for their deeds.

– Maya Desdemona

Posted on by Undead Diaries

Day Ten: Always

Does anyone else wonder,
How permanent 'Always' is?

"I will always be with you."
"We always need a shoulder to rely on."

"You will always be haunted by your sins."
"They will always consider you different."

Every 'Always' we hear,
We seem to forget,
Chemistry's first rule.
Stating that Change is Constant.

What guarantee do we have,
That we will not see better,
Or worse days?

"This too shall pass"
A wise person once said,
And this ideology
Happens to be the one I believe in.

– Maya Desdemona

Posted on by Undead Diaries

Day Nine: A Moth

It was only today I noticed,
That around my home
A moth hopelessly circled round.

It was nothing extraordinary,
Most certainly not the first either.
Yet its pale and ghostly hovering,
Left me dark and pensive.

Its almost lethargic flapping,
Seeking only a place of darkness,
As in its mind, a safety was only found there.
And a wardrobe could not be an option.

For the wardrobe, the ghastly thing,
Only gave an illusion of comfort.
And all that is in there,
Is its predecessor's remains.

And so, I simply watched,
Knowing its fate,
As its tireless flight
Slowly withered away.

Yet it kept flying in circles
Flying around the entire house,
From room to room
And nook to cranny
Exploring every possible place for some rest.

As its flying became desperate,
Hopelessly looking again and again,
I wondered if it ever questioned,
What it was doing in the first place.

Why was the darkness so necessary for it?
It seemed to be fine in the light,
Yet it was restless,
Looking for it in a room full of brightness.

Did it not see the darkness outside the window?
Did it realise it could not go through it?
Had it already tried that?
These questions thoughtlessly floated in my brain.

I don't know how long I sat there thinking,
But eventually,
I observed that the moth was nowhere to be seen.
I do not know whether it is alive or dead.

I wonder if it ever realised that
It had no escape unless we opened a window for it.


– Maya Desdemona