Jyothy Sreedhar

Get Set


Memories scramble over the tenses I use.
Past, present, future… all become the same
At some point of a simple grammar mistake.
Unconsciously, the mistake creeps up
And spreads between birth and death.
With every harm of wind, a plant falls down
And becomes an article of a past usage.
Inside every shell, there’s nothing expected,
But the broken forms of the strongest earth
Which hide the frustrated livings of the dead.
I can’t stretch a deadline between the tenses,
For, even the dead live in and out of myself
And, through them, my future crosses
As a thread out of a needle.
I can stitch my life only with them.
They are my past, my present and my future
And my life which shadows with the flames of destiny.
Swarms of flies shrill out with eeries
Like horns for turnings- the deep asymmetrical turnings.
I’ve to get, set and go with my tenses and its mistakes,
My thread and needle, my shadows and the flame,
And above all these,
The broken forms of earth in a tiny shell.