Aakriti Chaturvedi: poems with a message

Check out some of Aakriti Chaturvedi’s favorite poems here:

Pessimism is a Phase (slam)

I have an identity, limbs, and an axial skeleton.

I have brown eyes, and curly fry curls that unfurl when I reach them.

I have lips and a nose and arms that cant reach my toes.

I have self-doubt.

It crushes you like a frolicking moth

Trying to find its way back, its been through a lot.

Do not dare try and tell me that it’s not real

Because i slip that note to my conscious every night to keep me humbled like that.

I am broken like that.

Waiting to be collected by affirmative words from herds

Of people that never cared about me or “whatever I do”.

Because my ego is big like that.

Spending an eternity

Loving myself, but thinking it was fake

Because every right move

Had a series of mistakes.

Self-doubt is like a kaleidoscope;

One hole in your life-plan

And you start seeing things: flaws

Dirty, humiliating, but refreshing and raw.

I have a name.

I have things that I can be sure of.

I have the drive of a lion with a mane full of struggles.

I have no fears, but the fear of oblivion.

The fear that the good things won’t stay

Embedded in my head,

But I have myself to rely on,

And if that’s not good enough, it’s still enough.

Where Mind and Desire Meet (a daily poem for daily inspiration)

It’s the black fragrant tea boiling in the foreign smelling kitchen

That awakens me from restless slumber, restless dreams.

Starts a day that will be endlessly remembered,

Because happy moments might be as happy as they seem.

It’s the fold in my light blue gently pressed jeans which lay against the floral bed

That reminds me that the hills of life are meant to surpass the light blue sky.

And if it weren’t for the blue jean imperfections, the void would morph to holes,

Holes that expand upon every synthetic rip, every mistake or dirty lie.

But existence depends on the simple task of saying an immortal “goodbye”.

They need it and I depend on it, because pure existence is too fragile.

Maybe my relentless self might learn the simplicity of it one day,

And maybe I’ll understand the overpowering intensity all the while.

It’s the disintegrated blades of unnaturally deteriorating grass seeping,

Soaking through the sole of my shoes to show it is significant.

It wants to be exponentially felt, and perhaps it wants me to feel it too.

As the dew drops feel, disturbing yet, so delicately…different.

And maybe it’s the unmistakable half-cracked rear view mirror,

In the old silver Toyota Camry that I cruise along the silver street,

That tells me to look back sometimes, to catch myself in the future,

To remember an undying past, but to look where mind and desire meet.

My Hair Holds Up (slam)

At this point they are drenched

I’m talking dripping, dropping, flip-flopping

Onto the floor, that multi-cultural hair mousse that we put in our curls

To make them a little more tame than they naturally are, to be cautious as a start

It gives it a transparent kind of glow

Like we’re trying to reflect a mid-century afro

That kinda glow that makes a grown independent woman

Hide from her true self and it shows…

Because frizz serum is a gift in their eyes

In a minute you can go from uncivil to glamourized

Lights, camera, action, smile for the world

Because they care so much about us and our curls

“But honey, I’m making it easier for you, it’ll bother you all day,

Keep your hair up sweety it’s getting in my food”

Your hair, your body

Your body, your mood

They said straighter hair is just easier

And the mop makes us look like beggars

Each strand is frizzy

Makes the watchers feel dizzy

It’s like they entered a parallel universe

Like the kinks in each swirl dispell like a curse

Treating the head full of mystery like its a terrorist

Forcing a straightener down my throat just so I get the gist

We were told at a young age to keep our hair in braids

Our frazzled 24/7 bedhead was a mistake God had made

…but that mistake shapes my face

Holds secrets and memories and you mean to tell me its a waste of my goddamn time?

I spend countless hours of the week trying to brush the tangles out of my hair

Trying to brush the hate comments that were entrapped in the knots

Out falls the negativity and out falls my dignity

I have to spend paychecks upon paychecks when we have literally no money

Just to keep polished what you deem as unpolished…

Not dainty, too unruly

Curly hair means foreign and that’s not welcome, yours truly.

Told me to never let my hair dry

But why?

Braids are great, don’t get me wrong

But I have worked hard for that messy, undone, frizzy-ass bun to belong

Your mean words, that’s your voice

But it’s my hair, so it should be my choice!