Decomposition

Does the flesh remember?

Remember the molecule you 

split from? Aeons before the womb, 

when you were one (or none).

And before you are done,

will you remember? 

At the end, at apocalypse—

the atom, the earth, 

the sky you denied?

The fission of a life lived 

in the space between two 

lips, two lies, two lovers who died.

But the root remembers, the branch

that split from the grain of the arm.

Diligent wood, marking rings, counting time, 

and meanwhile—dust, mud, muscle, 

enzyme, all. In thrall, to the clock's 

marching tyranny.

Its cruel, divinity, returning bone 

and tongue back. No language,

no song, can fathom, this rhythm 

of a future past.

All that is solid, melts into air.

Beautiful decomposition, and we, 

boundless and bare. 

Cancer, decay. Silent, still.

Perverse peace that kills—

As the grass crawls and reclaims us all.

Anirban K. Baishya (July 19, 2026)

On a Knot in My Throat When I Remembered That Time I Wanted to Die

It came, without warning.

An earthquake, it's 

seismic breath, hurling

lava into the landscape

of my being. I felt it's fire—

galloping through my 

throat, and down my belly.

An infernal beast, clawing 

the air out of me. Never free.

It has been a while, since it scorched 

the inside of my soul. Yet a hole, 

Is all that remains.

Where my heart once beat. 

It still burns me, with 

it's intimate heat. Knocking—

ever so softly,  every 

once in a while, to whisper 

it's accursed chant into my ear. 

And I fear—

I will never be free. And though I flee,

Running through this forest of me—

I feel it's tremors still.

And I know, I will—

Always feel 

the knot that remains, 

lodged in my throat. 

And I, barely afloat... 

despite myself, 

am reminded of 

that time I wanted to die.

I feel its tremors still.

Anirban K. Baishya (July 14, 2026)

The Weight of Lies

Light vanishes, as we merge 

into the meshes of our encounter. 

Floundering in the depths of 

the debts we owe.

What is left to lose, once we've lost 

ourselves in the gears of infinite warfare 

of the mind? No look behind, 

can bridge the universe of difference 

between I and eye, me and you,

Each bone, each tissue, each sinew.

Nothing new, can come of this...

What is next has unfolded past, 

once as tragedy, once as farce. 

The weight of lies will exact 

their price, time will come to 

take you twice.

Now, neither tragedy, nor farce.

What monsters lie, 

at the turn of the dice?

There will be no salvation  

at the end of your empire. 

The weight of lies will exact their price,

The weight of lies will exact their price.

Anirban Kapil Baishya (July 9, 2026)

Right Angles

Nothing remains of 

what we had dreamt. 

Nothing left of summer,

nothing left of light. 

And all we do now, 

is look right, where 

there's nothing left of 

love's sacred geometry.

Never again... Never again 

is never coming, never again 

was never meant to be.

And all we had, we thought 

were love's designs, were 

just fate's teeth, chewing us. 

Malevolence, biding time patiently.

And now that we've 

been swallowed whole, 

there's nothing left 

of love, left of me...

And nothing left of 

our sacred geometry.

Anirban Kapil Baishya (March 30, 2025)

On Turning Forty

Everyday, I fill myself with 

forgetting. Buying, selling, 

gazing at daydreams. For each day 

reminds me of my mortality.

And each day, my mother's flesh 

melts away in my embrace—her 

skeleton, cold beneath sagging skin, 

as my father's ashes burn 

another wrinkle upon my face.

Everyday, I fill my self with forgetting

that I too am killing time, until time 

kills me in turn. Everyday, I fill myself 

with forgetting—self destruction, 

atrophy, suppressed murder.

Anirban Kapil Baishya (August 7, 2023-February 10, 2025)

doxa

anchored, 

unmoved by 

the flow of  your

blind math.

solid, unmoving 

amidst the

tide of your...

your liquid 

modernity.

the refusal to 

circulate is 

but another 

name for 

death.

Anirban Kapil Baishya (April 15, 2021)

Two Mournings

Snail's tears...
a trifle,
weighed against
the sea of blood.


Snail's dreams,
asinine...under
a firmament of its
own making. Coils and coils
of sleep, adding up
to nothingness.


For what matter a tear
in the snail's shell,
when the sky
is falling on us?


Anirban Kapil Baishya (August 18, 2019)