
Updated: Nov 7, 2022
To watch age deteriorate and weaken the strongest persons you’ve known, is never easy. The slow suffocation caused by Time leaves us all gasping.
“Grey” by Manognya Bethapudi is an attempt at catharsis, an attempt to dissect feelings and to process them.

It was slow
Black and brown became grey
Laugh lines became deep creases
march became a tread
And you became alone
Two became one
A hollow shell of one
Curious eyes leached colour
Spry shoulders sagged under the weight
Of dragging your stars through the night
Full arms, fallen wide
I watched from the side
As your eyes clouded with age and grief
As your hands reached out to hold ether
As you held your pieces together with pain
I watched from the side
As they erased your reds
They took away your yellows
And blanketed you in white
I watched from the side
Another pair of eyes
In your deconstruction
In the unpacking of your essence
And I was silent
I was complicit in this violence
I saw everything
but never through your eyes
It was fast
It was too fast
That you were left all alone
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Awards
This contribution won the third-runner up in the Poet’s Carnival 2021.
Credits
This contribution is proofread by Sreekar Ayyagari & photographed by Ravindra Patoju.
Product
This poem is available in paperback & ebook.
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