Sabah Kaur Mann

Sabah Kaur Mann is a young writer and poet based out of Jalandhar. She practices formal poetry and inspirational prose to accentuate societal problems that people face in their day to day life. She prefers to write under a pen name – ‘Genesis’ which is interpreted as the origin of a new beginning.

The Girl Who Cried

By Sabah Kaur Mann (Genesis)

I’m writing this to the girl who cried,
I’m sorry you felt like you died.
I know this wouldn’t make it fine,
So forgive me if I crossed a line.

I see you waiting after all this time,
With no one sparing you a single time.
I know you went through a terrible life,
Believe me you’ll get through this strife.

I know my words seem like a lie,
But these horrible times will surely die.
You will soon bloom like the Queen-of-the-Night,
And will positively get through this plight.

The girl who cried was once my name,
But sadly no one told me the same.
I died each night, each time, each day,
But I couldn’t ever follow this way.

So save yourself it’s all I ask,
Don’t burden yourself with every task.
Just be yourself and dry your tears,
Scream and let go of all your fears.

Just A Tide

By Sabah Kaur Mann (Genesis)

You can be the wisp,
or you can be the storm.
It might be rough,
yet you needn’t conform.

They might try to thaw,
from ice to ash.
If that flays you raw,
try not to crash.

No need to dry,
those tears you hide.
Whenever you cry,
remember, it’s just a tide.

You are yourself,
no change required.
They can’t put you on a shelf,
you aren’t some ‘thing’ acquired.

Terror.

By Sabah Kaur Mann (Genesis)

Welcome to the world,
Where terror isn’t a crime.
So many people have hurled,
Somehow, nothing changed over time.

I’m puffed-up and proud,
To call myself an army brat.
I stand out in a crowd,
No matter where I’m at.

See, everyone in our nation,
Can sleep a peaceful sleep.
Because my father at his station,
Makes sure that we do not weep.

Yet, bigoted politicians,
Do not seem to care.
They have made it their missions,
To use words to ensnare.

They negotiate with the enemies,
And always protect their skin.
Feeding on our amenities,
They betray their own kin.

We wished those unfulfilled words of honour,
Become a wisp of hope.
Patriotism lost its valour,
And somehow meant a necklace of rope.

Hostage

By Sabah Kaur Mann (Genesis)

How many women believe,
That the wrongs happening to them are right?
How many women will grieve,
For the events that happen to them every night?

I’m not telling you to take it,
Nor fake it and say, “It’s alright”.
I’m asking you to not just sit,
And act like it’s not a problem just cause it’s out of sight.

Nobody has the right to tell you what to do,
Nor to tell you what to wear.
They can’t push their opinion on you,
And then snatch away your air.

There is no one else who holds you hostage,
Except your own mind,
Your life is a book, write your own page,
You never know just how much you will find.

I Tried To Be . . .

By Sabah Kaur Mann (Genesis)

I tried to be sugar,
In a world full of spice.
The world threw a dagger,
Cause I tried to be nice.

I tried to be a friend,
In a world filled with hate.
The world asked me to end,
Cause I tried to depend on fate.

I tried to be different,
In a world so mundane.
The world became a parent,
Cause I didn’t try to be the same.

I tried to be the best,
In a world that held me back.
The world pointed out to the rest,
Everything I ever did lack.

I tried to be myself,
In a world as fake as ours.
The world put me on the highest shelf,
And then left me there for hours.

Darkness All Around

By Sabah Kaur Mann (Genesis)

Lost in the fields of my own mind,
I drown in the river of regret.
My essence somehow I cannot find,
Millions cause me to fret.

And in those fields I find no light,
Just darkness all around.
And in those days I lose my might,
And I realise I’m nowhere to be found.

The river rushes by so fast,
My regrets I see flowing by.
And sometimes I drown in at last,
Still asking the question – Why?

My essence lost bit by bit,
A trade with the devil it seems.
And nothing ever seems to fit,
Yet somehow I drown my screams.

I care for some who never care,
I fret and fret for an empty face.
My love I somehow cannot share,
With those who keep changing their pace.

Be it fields or rivers,
My essence or my mind.
In the end I remember,
People cannot always be kind.

Saanya Sodhi

Saanya Sodhi is a young writer, based out of New Delhi. Saanya uses free style poetry to give form to her feelings, thoughts and opinions. Love is one of her favourite feelings to give shape to through her writings. She wishes to grow more with each passing day as a writer. She goes by the pen name Spero and also uses the hashtag #speŕowrites🌼, to display her writings.

That Night

By Saanya Sondhi

At 5 in no time, I scroll through all my content apps,
I scroll through my social media

I see how songs from another age make my friends feel warm
I however lay here, in this infinite cold just scrolling. 

I have so much content, content to go through, so many words to learn and study through
But all I want at this brink of dawn is to talk to you

Talk about how the universe was made, how the matter that’s light is not even one-fourth of this universe
And how we’re just a tiny speck,  a nothing in that something.
 
How I’m something everywhere, but how I’m not everything
How my memories juxtapose at this time of the twenty four hours

I want to talk to you about the marvels of the universe and the marvel cinematic universe,
I want to talk of everything I know and listen to everything you have to say. 

I want tell you about my fascinating horror of numbers
I want to tell you about my love letters, the ones I wrote to space.

I want to hear about your life and about your last love,
I can talk hours about love only if you’d like to listen….
 
I’ve written speeches on ambition, on dreams that are yet to take form,
I could tell you about how I’ve adored and waited for the stars when everyone I knew was busy clicking the sun lit sky.

Just like I waited for them I’ll even wait for you, 
For that night to come one day when we’d talk about life, analyse Beauvoir’s works, appreciate Marsha’s existence

When we’d, undress each other’s scars and listen to our heartbeats and to our hidden muffled screams. 
For that day when the galaxy will shine and the universe will align

I’ll wait for that night, for you to realise …..

Good With Words

By Saanya Sondhi

Good with words,
People say I’m good with words
How my words are raw and how I am great at putting alphabets in lines that make sense.

I’m still scared to go deeper with my cuts, more than I am scared to go deeper with my words
I think it’s a good thing, maybe for the world it is.

The colour red pacifies me when the ques of alphabets don’t
Maybe if I was gone, maybe then someone would see me.

I’m screaming for help
But the buds of their own life are between me and them,
Why am I too poor for them?

There’s a voice screaming in my head,
Laying, saying maybe I’m not worth it,
pictures showing maybe I’m not.

My conscious knows I believe in case studies, my mind making me my own.
I am my own victim, I am the universe’s victim.
But I can’t say it out loud.

Knowing that I don’t have happiness is so much easier to accept,
than knowing that I’m meant to give is so much beautiful than what it truly is.

Tears have put me to sleep more than sleep when it came to lie with me,
Screams have tired me more than fatigue,
when I saw starvation as a pretty look on me.

The voices that become miserable sounds in my head tell me that I am my own victim.
Those sounds overlap to become cries of help to no one listening.

I often wonder what can be more important than me on the verge of dying for them.
I often wonder where they are when I’m closer to the knife than I am to my bed on which I’m lying.

There’s not miles but even more of skin that I can see is wrong.
There’s this figure in the mirror that I can see is not worth it.

As I tip-tap my fingers on my screen my cheeks become wet,
as I pull down my panel to see my hopes fade away.

I shouldn’t, I know, I shouldn’t be angry,
but when I see them crying over a broken heart
I want to show my soul to them.
I want to show how no adherent could fix the cracks the shreds of black.

I’m closer to death than I’ve ever been to life.

Young Love and The Rain

By Saanya Sodhi

Young love makes me as happy as the feeling of my cotton dress on my legs, flying in the direction of the wind, going with the wind

I recently learned what a pluviophile is, euphoria took over me as I found another word synonymous with my name

The petrichor makes me feel at home even when I’m not, the wetness of the rain replaced tears on my cheeks

I feel happy in the rain, imagining and re-imagining scenes from movies that happened and from my life that never did

I see a lot of young love around me today, I’m at that age when the little girl that was always scared of the rain thought she would live through young love

But all I live is see and the only way I live, vicariously

I was once scared of the rain, I thought it would flood our homes, that was before emotions flooded my heart and numbness my body

I thought our house would break under the pressure of water but that was before the pressures of love and life scared me much more

I used to think after the rain only wooden boats could save us, the boats of hope have proven otherwise

The me then wanted to live to see love, the me today wants to live for the same

Just that then I was a girl who was in love with love, no complexities, no questions

And today I am the girl who wants to understand all about Aphrodite, Apollo and Inanna

I am heart broken and a boy didn’t break my heart.


Beauty Waiting

By Shreeja Singh

How long do I have to wait?

How long do I have to seek?

An empty road

An even more barren heart

You fight for glory

You fight for hate

You fight for everything

Yet I am the one who waits

How long do I have to wait for you to come home?

How long do I have to be forlorn?

Fake smiles, stoic laughs

Happy parties but no part

A rippling river

Bustling with life

But why am I the lone bud

Alone waiting as I strive

Why can’t you see I fight against the ultimate?

The ticks of clocks

Closes and locks

The open door we had before

The actual feelings start to wither

At the core

Why do I wait?

Why do I wait?

For a man who leaves me behind

For a hand that doesn’t hold mine

For eyes that no longer gleam

We may see the same moon and sunshine

But farther than we seem

I lose a lot for you to gain

I then choose to remain

You leave to fight battles that are not yours

You leave to win and rejoice

The end result of our choice

But I am the one who waits

Alone without you

Waiting and waiting

Serene and astute

I gave up a choice to stand beside you

You chose to make me wait

For you

Why should I wait?

For whom should I wait?

Battle gears, war fields

Leave a little blood for me

Drop by drop you water a soil

You use your blood to nurture an unknown seed

But what about the one you left in me

But what about the blood that needs to flow through your heart

So I stop waiting and end this treacherous path

If you want to bleed the whole of you

For a land that will forget you in

Bloodied pages of time

If you want to fight

Fight for a battle that may never be yours

But leave a little drop for me to make that heart beat

But fight a war for me by giving me back my choice

As a beauty waits home

So does a seed

Waiting and waiting

For you to meet.