Freshers’ Week 2009 winning entries

Poetry

First Place

Here We Are Now

Alishya Almeida

The night has siphoned

Off the stars but we make

Our own through the punctuation

Of our hushed sounds speaking of our dreams

Here we are now, barely

Out of high school and into

A sharply structured world

Scribbling for reassurance

But fate isn’t smiling

And so we are unsure, almost

Fracturing under the weight

Of the piling pressure.

The curvature of longing

Has knuckled hope in our veins

And we want to swim

Out of normality that floods,

that punctures our hopes.

But even then sometimes

I find myself curtained,

Sometimes littered with angry

Syntax when we are

Snagged by crumpled days,

Unable to move ahead.

This is growing up,

When you learn to stitch reality

In the patchwork of your dreams,

When you can withstand

The grief of accepting what you get

Instead of what you really want.

Here we are now,

Chained to a wreckage

Of thoughts and epiphanies

Sitting through the starving winter

And picturing ourselves

As adults.

Second Place

My Bitter Journey…

Michelle D’costa

I yelled, I yelled.

Until my vocal chords complained.

Yet he was not affected in the least.

Would continue the torture, that beast!

Every night he would creep in my room,

Slowly, cautiously, every step pronouncing doom.

My blankets he would peel,

Then began my ordeal.

No one believed me,

They thought I was crazy!

Only my pillow had ears for me every night,

The sole witness to my plight.

Rumours had it that I was faking,

For sympathy, attention, I was craving.

God, are you there???

I would ask repeatedly to the choking air.

Soon, I was diagnosed with mental illness

I cried, “Believe me! I have a witness.”

Only sarcasm and more laughs I recieved.

My file was shut forever; I was decieved.

My body bruised my soul torn,

I’m lost in my thoughts forlorn.

Trapped in sorrow and grief,

With no expectation of relief.

Now, as I look back

What did I lack?

Oh, I know. The thirst for revenge.

I always resigned to my fate, very strange.

Enclosed within four walls,

I have nothing to cherish except my falls.

I’m getting old, no energy left for strife

I have realised that I have failed in life.

Haiku

Apeksha Rao

Into my dream you came,

and across the soft velvet of my reverie

You walked, with hobnail boots.

Limerick

(The only Limerick entry in the competition)

Sakina Dewaswala

My expressionless, dynamic cat got stuck in the attic

And since that day till today she is static

She refuses to have her tuna fish

Or any of her favourite dish

Guess she’s finally got dramatic!

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