Interlude

By Rajshri Bhardwaj

Interlude is a collection of poetry and prose inspired by all the things I find poetic. A memoir of 2020 from the eyes of a sixteen year old - of love, loss and grief - inspired by the books I've read, people I've known, places I've called home and the poetry that exists in the world, indefinitely. 

• Language: English
• Publisher: Rajshri Bhardwaj
• Release date: Oct 25, 2020
• ISBN: 9798201674106

Book preview

In John Green’s book The Fault in Our Stars, Augustus Waters, like many of the 8 billion of us, fears oblivion. Being forgotten.

We will all fade, till we are nothing but dust mixed with the soil and the only remnants of us are the ones in history books.

We will fade till the only things that are left of us are the ones we loved, and ours only because we loved them.

But what matters is not the fact that oblivion is inevitable, it is how we live our life.

How we spend the time we have, that leads up to this inevitability.

How we decide to make the most of this existential interlude.

Time is not a measure of whether or not you will be remembered.

We are nothing but interludes to an infinity, and what matters is, in the end when we are nothing but dust and the things we loved and a collection of remnants that will fit into a box, or memories in people’s minds, will we have lived, and if we have, will we ever possibly have lived enough?

I wrote this book inspired by the poetry around me, by the poems we find everywhere, but might not pay attention to, or the ones that are more obvious and infinitely appreciated - like Pablo Neruda or Shakespeare’s sonnets or collections of Virginia Woolf’s poetry, or maybe the Starry Night.

I like to believe there is a sense of infiniteness to everything, that even the idea is hopeful, and maybe that is why we hold on to it,

I hope you find a sense of infiniteness in the pages of this book.

With Love,

Rajshri

ii.

1.

memories of you

are an open flame

burning. flaring.

and fire  can be beautiful;

but i

have a paper heart.

2.

life mimics art

more than we think it does.

i believe living

is an art.

maybe that is why existences

are so poetic.

3.

Sixteen.

you are thirteen

when you

feel the adrenaline rush

of childhood crushes:

the kind you’d laugh about in five years

at fifteen you fall in love

for the first time.

for the first time you realise

what it is the love songs are about

you realise why love

is incomparable

why all the poems

wouldn’t be enough

to define the thing

even infinity cannot define.

for the first time you 

write a thousand poems

a thousand symphonies to the words

that simply do not suffice.

you are sixteen

the first time you realise

there is more to love

than fragile hearts

that will shatter  like glass - any given second.

the first time you realise there is love

in falling stars and midnight skies and

flowers that bloom every spring - without fail

and in the butterflies that fly around them.

you realise there is love

in the way you’d  wake up

to watch the sunrise and  stay up late

to watch the stars

in the way you notice the beauty in how the sun hits your irises

and splits them into a million little fragments.

you are sixteen

the first time you realise

the reason love

is infinite

is because it exists

indefinitely

4.

we think we know

how the story goes.

it is a Sunday morning and you

sit by your window

painting a picture.

in it there is an ocean

and there is a cliff

waves crash against the cliff and

the sky you’ve painted

is a stormy gray.

i can almost hear the waves breaking against the rocks.

almost.

you tell me you want to call it

End of the world

and i ask why.

Because it looks like the world is falling into itself.

but what if the end of the world

is not chaos

but calm.

what if

at the end of it all

the world decides to crumble

into itself

in monotone silence

and we watch

as all we know

falls down on us.

what if the cliffs

remain unfazed

but we turn to the waves

breaking against the rocks

until we are calm oceans.

it is a Sunday morning

in the middle of April.

you go back to painting a picture by your windowsill and now

you have got me contemplating

how we would turn to dust.

right then it starts to drizzle;

starts to rain -

like it always does

and i treasure the way the raindrops fall

and the smell of earth after the rain

like i always do.

like i always do.

5.

Fear.

i say i am afraid of

depths

of strange unknowns that feel like

falling into an ocean

and not knowing how to swim.

Concurrently,

i write poems about falling into oceans and

existing as the voids we are

about oceans and storms

i string my epiphanies together into

words that make me wonder

it fair to be afraid to crumble

but write poems about the pieces

but what is fear

compared to the expanse of us.

6.

gratitude will hug you

like a child

on a warm Sunday afternoon.

it is a Sunday morning and i

sit by a windowsill.

through the spaces between trees

i see bougainvillea behind a white wall

and an empty road

that always looks the same.

a child walks onto the street

i see black hair and brown eyes

and a face covered in a thin layer of dust.

another child walks with him

hand in hand along a pavement.

one of the two children picks out a flower:

pink mixed with a tinge of orange

and smiles at it, then smiles at the shapes his shadow makes

his friend picks out a daisy &

smiles at the white petals - the way they look in his hand.

they look nearly eight and i do not get a chance to talk to them

but the wind blows on my face and

i think it is a bit more gentle.

i look at the shadows the afternoon sun makes on my white walls and

gratitude hugs me

like a small child

on a warm Sunday afternoon.

7.

on museums as havens.

golden walls with

intricate patterns that we

trace with our fingers

a thousand times.

stained glass windows  and

ceilings painted with skies

we walk alongside  meadows and seas and storms

all at once.

there are

angels holding hands and

people  in love

as if they would wrap themselves in an infinite embrace

if they could.

isn't that what love is supposed to be?

we are surrounded by

a thousand sunsets

in hues of pink and blue.

the walls wrap around us as if keeping us safe and we

make playlists and play songs on repeat.

we trace the same patterns

like they are the paths of a house we have built

near the sea.

until it is time to go.

the wind blows my hair into my face.

one last time

before we say goodbye.

8.

Trigger Warning: Anxiety

Anatomy of an anxiety attack.

(based on responses from people)

i.

i crumble.

like a puzzle with a million pieces

till everything is numb

i am

much too familiar with the darkness:

i’ve traced enough shadows  in the light that comes in through broken windows

at intervals i  measure  with a broken clock.

until time comes to a standstill.

ii.

i am

a mind filled with