destiny rewritten

Anagha Mutalik Desai, India

i.
Here’s what they tell you:
Your heart is sold to the devil - do not listen to it
In this world of charcoal black and of frost white
Grey is but a diabolical lie
Listen to your head, you fool
Dreamers are destined to die

ii.
Here’s what they don’t tell you:
We are made of moonlight, you and I
Every door we push open leads to Narnia
You are meant for the endless skies, my friend:
A star that tastes death only to burn brighter.

They forced a fabricated defeat down your throat
Until all your cottoned tongue could do was lie:
A bestselling story of failure - failure that was never yours.

They will rob you of your magic, and -
The curtain falls.
The audience finishes their applause before your story even begins,
This is history repeating itself:
A Shakespearean tragedy well-rehearsed.


iii.
Here’s what we tell them:
There are flames dancing on our fingertips
Ruthless sea storms nestled in our eyes

Their attempts to imprison our hearts are answered with shards of lightning
Honey laden battle cries roar in our ears -
This story belongs to the phoenix.
This story belongs to us.

The fallen curtains rise again.
(a gold-dusted plot twist)
The fallen curtains rise again, and so do we:
Serpentine wildfire setting the world aflame
Writhing, rising, blooming.

We dance to the hymns of
Gods long forgotten
As we rewrite destiny with the ink dripping from our wounds.

Anagha is a 17-year old Indian writer. She enjoys and dabbles in various forms of storytelling: be it poetry, dance, music, theatre, or film. If not procrastinating on schoolwork by analysing BTS lyrics, she can be found reading books or trying to learn how to play the guitar.