I.
Bring me the skull of words—
Not polished, not pious,
But one chewed by jackals
And left in the Brahmaputra\'s mud.
I know its stench.
Hiruda taught me:
\"A poem should hurt
Like a river cutting through rock—
Relentless,
Unapologetic,
True.\"
II.
I care nothing
For golden jubilees,
For marble statues of dead verses.
Time? Let it drown
In yesterday\'s tea leaves.
Here, now—
Where betel-stained teeth
Gnaw at the world\'s lies,
Where my pen bleeds
The same red as paan spit
On dusty streets of Guwahati—
Give me your broken words.
I\'ll hammer them
Into something raw,
Something that breathes
Like monsoon wind
Through bamboo groves,
Something that outlives
Even memory.
III.
Comrade,
If you\'ve kept
Even one syllable
From Hiruda\'s last cigarette,
Let me taste its ash.
I\'ll make it sing again—
Not pretty,
Not perfect,
But alive.