#NaPoWriMo Day 4: Living “Stars” In Caves.

I am travelling today, after a whole day at work. So between packing my bags and completing tasks at work, I had virtually no time to come up with a poem. But I think I did a decent job with yet another prose poem! To be honest, I think poetic prose just might be thing like sonnets were Shakespeare’s! (Just kidding! Or am I?)

Anyway, today’s prompt via napowrimo.net asks us to deep-dive into a book titled ‘The Strangest Things In The World: A Book About Extraordinary Manifestations Of Nature‘, pick a title or a phrase that catches our fancy, and write a poem about it. The title of my poem shares its name with a part of the book under the same heading about a marvellous cave filled with bioluminescent insects who glow like the stars and form constellation-like patterns on the wall. Doesn’t that sound interesting? 

My poem takes a different turn, however, but I should hope that you find it just as interesting as the book I’ve mentioned above!

Happy reading! Xx

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Deep somewhere inside me, where I do not recall, I’ve buried all hopes and dreams of ever seeing you at all.

On a frosty October night, lying awake, rewriting fate, you and I– our walls crumbled and came crashing down, our guards still stood alert and armed. Like some anomaly, some cosmic irregularity, we were Clouds Of Magellan. Bright and alike, two pieces of the same sky, forced to be pushed apart. 

Our kingdom was glorious, one admired and envied all the same. What mutiny, then, caused this fall from grace? Did we not flourish? Did we not promise peace? What went so wrong for you to maroon me? The sun never rose since then, and my world has been cold as ice. Gone is the warmth, and gone is all the light.

I’ve retreated, wounded, exiled, disgraced. Why, then, does this shell of me still recall your face? I build a shrine… No, I build a resting place for everything our kingdom could have ever been. I build it as a testament to the memory of you in excruciatingly loving detail. A cave of stars that shine as bright as my love for you; every constellation a reminder that some gashes mend, while some never do. 

Each star is a moment of loving you, the sheer sum of them grows further still. I keep you alive in a cave in my heart, for if not me, whoever will? 

~© Shubhangi Srinivasan.

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I hope you liked my poem! If you did, please leave a comment and let me know, and tell me your favourite thing about it! I would love to hear your thoughts on the things I write. Feel free to come say ‘Hi’ to me on my socials and see what shenanigans I am up to when I am not writing here or for work! 

See you soon with another poem.

Cheerio! Xx

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Featured Image by Bryan Goff on Unsplash