I have always been fascinated by the power of poetry to convey emotions and stories. While I have enjoyed works by the likes of Emily Dickinson and Robert Frost since I was a child, it was when I came across Sarah Kay that I got interested in spoken-word poetry. Since then, I have published several poems in publications like Poetry Unlimited and Literally Literary on Medium.

Unspoken Words is the first collection of spoken-word poetry I have written over two years. It contains some of the previously published poems but also many new works. Each poem reflects our deepest emotions and psyche. Questioning the choices we make everyday and the consequences we live by, each poem is a journey in itself. Each poem tells a contemporary story. Of childhood dreams and adolescent desires. Of joyful encounters and broken hearts. Of sexual abuse and depression. Of social issues and personal thoughts.

Some sample poems can be read on my Instagram or below.

Sample poems

Bad Choices

I make a lot of bad choices
day in
day out
every thing I do
every word I utter
every breath I take
the first kiss
the first date
the first prom partner
the first party I drank at
but one beats them all — by a thousand miles
loving you

Empty Bed (a haiku)

Bed next to me — empty
come back before the plant
in our window withers away

Scars

I fell off the bicycle when I was 4,
Leaving a scar on my right knee.
When tears rolled down my cheeks,
‘Chin up, kiddo’, Mama told me.

‘Scars are common, you get ’em a lot
They are the indication that you’ve
Learned lessons in your life’.
But I was so li’l that I didn’t understand it at all.

But the one thing I learnt was this:
When riding my red and yellow bike,
If I’m careful, I’ll have less scars, I’ll fall down less.
Hurray, I thought, I’ll never get scars no more.

I was always prudent since then
I never fell down nor got a scar again.
But, even when I was 16, I still didn’t learn
How to ride my red and yellow bike.

As I went to high school, I found my first love
But it was just like riding a bike.
You fall down, you get your heart broken, you get scars
So I put up a shield so high.

The shield grew up with me, my defence
I was so heavily guarded by my own sentience.
When I was in my teens, I was the only one
With no scars to show, no stories to tell.

When everyone showcased their scars
Proud of the lessons they have learned
And how those scars have shaped them
Into what they are today,

I was the one who proudly said
I have never got any scars.
But within me I knew who I was
Still that li’l boy who can’t ride his red and yellow bike.

Someone else’s property

When I was born, no one was happy, may be except my mother How would they be? They wanted a son. My father wanted a son. He said, ‘son was the one who took forward the family name’ and daughter.... Daughter was always meant to be given away to someone else's son.

Since I was born, I wanted to be lifted too and held up in the arms of my father for whom, however, it was just a pointless thought. He always went straight to my cousins — someone else's sons and I was relegated to a corner, to play with my dolls and kitchen toys.

When I was five, my brother came into this world he was so little, so cute — like a plum so ripe lifting the new born into his arms, ‘Finally you have given me the world's greatest gift’ my father told my mother while I was still standing there.

So I grew, and my mother was the only one who pulled me closer but only to teach me how to cook, knead dough, knit and do house chores ‘When you are married, and go to someone's house, you have to do all these things' she used to say so I did. I learned all of them while my brother went to school.

As I became a teenage girl the world became much clearer: sons were their own while the daughters were someone else's property-to-be I was still very glad, to be true — because my parents still brought me up while many others just killed the infant girls.

My brother went on to college while I stayed with my mother and mastered the arts of house keeping, knitting and cooking. My father never talked to me never sat next to me, and asked how I was, he never tried to know my interests, likes and dislikes but one day he found a man someone else's son, to marry me off to.

I never even saw the face of this man until I was next to him on the aisle my father giving me away to this man whose name I didn't even know putting me in my right position — someone else's son's property.

I was at least lucky because this man whose name I now know — was nice because he understood me my dreams and my heart and my soul, and he let me take in my parents, keep in our home and care for them when my brother married someone else's daughter and kicked them out of their own house.