Echoes of the Sterile Abyss

White walls weep

Antiseptic beads, sterile, unstained.

Hippocrates gnashes bone against earth,

His ancient oath splintering in its tomb.

Staccato heartbeats

On cracked monitors

Tick, tick, tick—

Then silence—

The flat-line of existence.

Corridors twist—

Escherian nightmare,

Where healers—

Ah, the healers!

Are hunted like prey

In a sterile jungle.

Power's labyrinth—

Minotaurs of mercy with iron in their gaze,

Their hands clean,

Yet cruelty seeps from every pore,

Feasting on innocence.

Trust: a currency devalued,

Hope: a luxury taxed.

In closets of shame,

Skeletons waltz with fresh corpses.

Nightingales sing requiems

For their fallen sisters—

(Who will hear? Who will care?)

Society's bones—brittle, porous—

Snap under the weight of silence.

Justice: blindfolded, gagged, bound

In red tape and white lies.

The girl?

Fragmented

Like this verse,

Pieces swept under sterilized rugs.

April's promise of renewal

Ah! A harsh veneer,

When August in Bengal strips it bare,

Revealing oaths dissolved in relentless rain,

Bones aching from the season's betrayal.

You can feel it in your bones—

The heart's twinge of betrayal.

  — Arnab Chaudhuri