It is difficult holding with it all
Dealing with things as they come
Fear and panic, around us the wall

There seems to be only suffering and pall
We look for ways to work our way
It is difficult holding with it all

Stuck as we are in, times crawl
I have always been stuck,
Fear and panic, around us the wall

No one cared, or did they at all
No one bothered to know what I wanted
It is difficult holding with it all

The lights flicker, dim and small
Is that a light or an illusion
Fear and panic, around us the wall

The moments hold on in thrall
Broken, tattered, thrown around
It is difficult holding with it all

Fear and panic, around us the wall.

…


Nishi Pulugurtha is an academic, author and poet based in Kolkata. Her publications include a collection of essays on travel, Out in the Open; an edited volume of essays on travel, Across and Beyond; two volume of poems, The Real and the Unreal and Other Poems, Raindrops on the Periwinkle; a co-edited volume of poems Voices and Vision: The First IPPL Anthology and a collection of short stories The Window Sill. She is the Secretary of the Intercultural Poetry and Performance Library (IPPL), Kolkata.