Breathing Cosmos

Easy to not notice

Easy to not realize

A concept so mundane

Yet beyond everything 

Anything but plain

In millions of stars

Zillions of planets 

And bodies 

Beyond perceptions 

There is or there is not

In "maybe"s even

An entity 

Simple and complex

Is it dark or is it light

Or beyond these terms

Does it exist or

Does it not

Can binary even have

The audacity to categorize 

If it is, where is it

And if not, then 

What even is all this

Existentialism they term it

But then who's to know

Like this piece

Without rhymes or reasons 

Without patterns or meters

Without rhythms and meanings

But is it with Life? 

Life is a 1000 meters away

And some 3000 miles far

Not near my lungs or heart

Among the cuddles of a mind

That my soul calls its own

It identifies, it knows

As if that tiny thing

Is its entire cosmos

What even is cosmos? 

Those breathing beings?

/ 39

: 162

Copyright © 2026 One Life To Live. All Rights Reserved

Rooted Memories

Flying high

Leaping bounds

In the skies

Of the grounds

Across oceans

Pits of fire

Winged winds

Dainty desire

In whiffs of warm cocoa

Wafting through stores

Lotus and fresh linens

Redolent of Yours

In Sandalwood incense 

Freshly mowed lawns

Nectarous Mango blossoms

During dewy spring dawns

In hues of yellow

And carnation pinks

Tints of clouds at dusk

In shades of inks

Here in satin sheets

Serenely muted 

There in eternal depths

Memories rooted

/ 24

: 75

Copyright © 2026 One Life To Live. All Rights Reserved

Sweet Blue Fire

Dormant wishes

In a cradle of smiles 

That eyes sense

Yet the heart sees

The miles

Dimensions were held

In grasps of those

Who had some or none

While the fourth one

Travelled in steps 

Around the milky way

Searching for a core

The roads were taken

With leaves that burnt

In orange and yellow

Deprived of oxygen

In enough molecules

A slothed standard 

Was set in sand to follow

Of remnants, sauntering

In linear hollow

One soul of dreams

Glints stored in silk

Wrapped in whispers

Dew of pearly glitters

Irises in iridiscent glee

Sent Love of cerulean blue

Waiting to aflame at cue

Decades of memories 

With centuries of passion 

In an ocean of heat

And fuel to outweigh all air

Burns now; our sweet blue fire

/ 33

: 129

/5/7/9/7/5

Copyright © 2026 One Life To Live. All Rights Reserved

Raining Rainbows

In a land of wonders and silver springs

The sky reflected clouds with fluffy golden wings 

Rows of crystal glistened in stages of rapture

Elysium in glimpses, the breeze did capture

But there too were roads of asphalt

That would never once break or be tempted to swerve

Even in moments and matters of clamour

It wouldn't let go and hassle every nerve

The Lifes* were happy in wired routine

Glassy armour with a ruptured grass screen

Air of lavender smelled of sulphur and some ore

Fragrance of breath distilled with metal of gore

But on a day like any other, a slant leaf fluttered

A peachy day of change, as cloud of gems muttered 

Pearly drops of tiny prisms colored the thirsty air

Like a million stained glass sheets of iridescent flair

The managed sky broke into a downpour of liquid light 

Not muddied or muddled brown gray of hidden plight

The sun awakened the colors that one could ever see

Not peeking behind fluff clouds anymore, it melted with glee

For days and days of chaos and peace that mattered 

The earth bathed in rainbows, with plastic rules shattered 

It breathed of fresh flowers and trees that swayed

A little raw, a little flawed, like a star remade

/ 24

: 210

* Lifes is intentional. Though the plural of lifes is lives, here (with a uppercase L) it is meant to be Lifes.

Copyright © 2026 One Life To Live. All Rights Reserved

Thus Spoke the Parchment

Decades or days...

Of winds and snow

Weight of stories

That I have seen and known.

I lived through days of spring

And summer nights

Beaten, drowned, and dried

A thousand lifetimes in plight.

I carry the memory

Of the forests and sun

Ready for words and art

With ink, well-spun

Every stroke of brush, a lightning bolt 

Struck before, and will again too,

Perhaps with a sharper jolt.

Unafraid of the ink that stains me

And of the shadow that turns into art

Washed a thousand lives in the river

A thousand times from heart.

Awaiting a truth, gold-etched and fierce

That till eternity, will be signed "once more!",

A Great Noon of words

That Life would always adore.

Not merely a surface

I am a net of thousand deaths

Still a sacred beginning I claim

For I am the laughter of the stream 

Captured in a frame. 

Write on... 

Of light and let the essence roll 

I would never hide 

But transmute it into something whole

Delicate as I am, 

I let the world shine through

But tough enough 

To not let the ink pierce my soul.

/ 36

: 189

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A Little Something:

This piece tells the story of a parchment, Washi or Artisan Parchment, to be specific. The parchment is made from the Kozo plant, and involves a process rich in art and dedication that is truly inspiring. 

This piece has inclusions that are allusions to Friedrich Nietzsche's Thus Spoke Zarathustra. The "Once More!", for example, is a deliberate allusion to Nietzsche's "Noch Einmal!" in English. 

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Copyright © 2026 One Life To Live. All Rights Reserved

Prism

The room with the solo window brooded

The weight of the curtains and heavy blinds

Were deafening enough for the air, it alluded

It complained to the soul in voices of all kinds

The star's gone; it urged to let go of the binds

A little glimmer, a tiny beam it craved

A mild chance for the blank to be braved

The next day,

It saw a tiny prism on the window sill

Victory for light at last, 

The air let out a humming shrill

The light ray found it at the break of dawn

An array of colors from the rainbow it did spawn

It danced around the reflections

That were frayed, grayed, and brittle

Entered the untouched water-cup

Coaxed to move and break a little

The light was promised an air

That smelled of daisies in bloom

A room of yellow and cinnamon 

And of exuberance in the loom

But the eclipsed pair of eyes there

Had their sight behind bars

Oh, they could see things around 

But their vision, stolen by stars,

Nowhere to be found

Tricked into the walls that smelled of heart

Light has nowhere to escape or dart

Bouncing off broken mirrors

That lay without a sound

It still kept trying to dance around

But without a complete soul...

no music was found 

/ 33

: 219

Copyright © 2026 One Life To Live. All Rights Reserved

Harmony in Contrasts: Wreathing Duality

The fire launches the LV* with a mighty embrace to kiss space

And the smoke, as its memory, smells the dust with a grey grace

The capsule in its journey, still... in the vast space of dark

Holds remnants of the ashy entropy, left among light and spark

The spark speaks of tales to the mighty ground, as it burns and soothes

The sky splashes ambrosia, veiled in hope and despair of youths

They search and find, explore and hide, the box Pandora** once had

Confusion and clarity aside, Hope-Fairy the mad box did add

In those hopes, they dwelled among feisty forests and witty waters

Mystics in cerulean depth and virid mane beyond authors

They led and followed, the light and dark of glassy bodies and souls

Unbeknownst to common knowledge, they mend and end old and new roles

For a festooned embrace of this and that is the way, spelt in writs

Intertwined in crests and troughs, dwells every life in blinking qubits

/ 14

: 165

* LV refers to the Launch Vehicles (or rockets) 

** Pandora and Pandora's box is a reference to the Greek mythological character and the story of the box she had.

Copyright © 2026 One Life To Live. All Rights Reserved

The Seed: Bliss in Beginnings

There once was a wide-eyed curious seed,

In a vase of pebbles and flowers, a tiny, quiet bead.

It smiled at the flowers and wondered with awe,

It spoke with the pebbles and thought of its flaw.

It heard of the sounds of air and roars of the sky,

And tales by the rays about dust that go awry.

The liquid silver from the skies would calm it down,

Cold as it may seem, they still had a colorful crown.

There was the shiver of the dew, when the flowers seemed to sleep.

The pebbles went silent, the sunlight... too precious to keep.

How often does the world change in the world outside its own?

The seed wondered, was it worthy to venture out and be s(h)own?

The dust ichor did taste of dark earth and a muddied loom,

But the gold-scented dawn caressed it, as leaves began to bloom.

/ 14

: 150

Copyright © 2026 One Life To Live. All Rights Reserved

Who's the Alien?

The tracing finger on the glass tracing it the wrong way, 

The bobbing head to the jazz in an exclusively odd way, 

The rhythm of the unfelt conversations moving in an unmoving way, 

There were more wrongs done than the number present in that wasted hay.

And yet, they all fit in a hundred different ways,

Like emulsifying oil to make unzesty mayonnaise. 

Words blurted in a glimmer of pride: semantics on a run,

Sentences spelt with blank ideas: memories of syntax gone,

Were they answers, to non-existent questions: mirrors undone, 

Voices mimicing voices, passion lost in groundless tone.

And yet, they speak in a language, to them: seemingly known,

Like new hieroglyphics, with each figure their own clone.

Oh! but wait. If every other thing fits in an unfitting way, 

Am I the human or an alien, as fitters would say?

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A Little Something:

Though written in a traditional 14-line structure, this piece breaks the norms that we generally associate with a traditional structure: the rhyme scheme, the unravelling conflict (rather than a resolution), the binary sonnet, most things, in short. 

Apart from the symbolism in the words (that I so love), this piece has phonetic symbolism as well. It won't be revealed here, of course. Because I hope there must be a heart which would love to find it by (and for) themselves rather than being elaborated here. 

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Copyright © 2026 One Life To Live. All Rights Reserved