What if?

I want to hug myself. I really do. This February, I gave myself one of the best experiences of my life. I went to a 4-day forest festival at the Jim Corbett National Park in Uttarakhand. I went alone, befriended a ton of beautiful souls, had deep, engaging conversations, recited poetry and sang songs right in the lap of nature. We all ate together, learnt together, cried and laughed and danced like children and I felt so much at peace and in love with myself and everyone around me. I don’t think I can ever forget it.

During a poetry session at the festival, we were given ten minutes to write a poem beginning with the words ‘what if?’ What I ended up writing was this. For ten minutes my pen scratched breathlessly against my paper and then suddenly, I was done. To say this poem is merely literal and not symbolic would not be true.

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What if the government banned
punctuation marks in the interest of time
and I wrote to you and there were
no commas question marks full stops brackets or exclamations

What if I called you and there were
no pregnant pauses and awkward silences
no stillness no spaces and no depth
and we couldnt even stop to hear each other
breathe through the phone
because every moment of silence could be life threatening
and the constant surveillance and scrutiny
killed our hearts and souls and everything we lived for

What if when we met
our mouths moved constantly
ever so cautiously
without stopping without fumbling without thinking
but our eyes were immersed in a conversation of their own
because even though they control our actions
they will not contain our intentions
and in that moment I will look at you and my eyes will ask you questions
and pronounce every single exclamation I carry with me
I will tell you maybe we will live in a world where punctuation is respected again
and you will smile and I will smile and for a moment just for a moment
we will forget the fact that we cant make smile emojis in our texts anymore