"Trigger Warning is a very special book for me. It's seeing my work coming together as a completed manuscript - it's a terrifying and electric feeling. I've struggled with my poems, I've fought with them, I've cried with them, I've written them in a flair of mania or depression. It's been a chaotic ride all along. I can't believe someone would ever want to read my work because it's been such a personal journey documenting my life through my poems. I've struggled with my trauma, my abuse, my scars, and this book is one part of my story out there. "
-Meghna Prakash
Here are 3 poems from Meghna's debut collection, Trigger Warning:
A love medley
The plants are wilting
In a fresh cup of water
Sometimes, they die
When you care too much,
pouring more love
Than asked for.
Is that why we died
When we were to bloom?
Sunrise
I must admit, that I am too afraid to wake up.
In my dreams, I chase after wheat fields and scorpions in a sky that breaks dawn for me. Leaves lose their color, every second that my heart realizes that only for another moment will your arms be entwined in mine. To the waking of another desolate un-fulfilling day our fingers clasped in each other we wake up to some other day unaware if only for a few moments of all that engulfs you also engulfs me.
waking up,
to distant birdcalls
and an empty bed.
Line of Sight
I shall look up
and find you
leave behind
all that has been
for I love you
to this very day
all which is same
all that has changed
all that is you
For you are to me
even in the hardest of days
the most beautiful.
Order your copy of Trigger Warning: poems of love and resistance on Hawakal. Follow Meghna's writing on Instagram and check out her poetry page, Poetry Dialogue for daily inspiration.