A Hundred Years
of tenure stamped on our birth certificates...
To be torn between robes and thongs,
blinded by variables
to play stone-paper-scissors,
with love, life and deadlines.
A hundred years,
to fight for forbidden love under starry nights,
stab in broad daylight -
donning a bubble gum pink smile.

A hundred years...
halftime feels sagelike.
Some die before they're pronounced alive,
many are fed to maggots and worms -
dying an excruciating death
unnoticed in the neighbour's lawn.

Celebrated are only those with a piece of pie,
the one's with Pedia citations, and
a blue-tick alongside.
Forgotten are those who lived otherwise,
stripped out of the system,
nude, sometimes without any muse
a thumb-size toe tag tied all wrong -
six feet under,
separated from everything one ever felt or
possessed, by merely a piece of ply.

©tanushreekarmakar