destitution is no virtue it is a curse that makes a man (or for fair gender representation woman, transgender, non-gender-conformant, and all those phrases which try to respect individuality but differentiate and while i vehemently extend my support create a difficult conundrum for a writer who cannot, in every sentence, while referring to humanity, go on mentioning each of them so for this work of words i will use a general word man to refer to the whole of humanity and never with an intention to whitewash it with masculinity) spiral down a hole of crushed self-respect and levitating debt. sometimes he (she/they/etc) forgets that he is a human and compares himself to god because he owns nothing yet everything is his. he never pays rent, he can’t pay rent, because gods don’t have the concept of money. i doubt in the heavens, the gods of every religion are transacting in some currency, virtual or fiat. although i have fair confidence they are transacting in souls of the destitutes for not a single night goes without worrying and when we wake up, the sun dances upon the roof as if it is the fire that burns the near ones but enlightens the ones far away. distant, ongoing, hammering of iron against iron fills the crevices of the ear, making him aware of the progress of the humanity leading to nowhere. no work can be called progress unless it reduces clutter, unless it makes things simpler and quieter. the head aches from the night of many drinks and cigarettes, pouring the table lamp’s safe light upon Howl, and lying in the arms of the friend who is always suffering. you tried to wear his coat but it was tad too large so you laid it on the floor and sat on it for what you cannot get inside, you should get over. you thought that’s a brilliant thought and blessed this gospel to your friend who had just gotten over a bad breakup. it didn’t work out as expected because you realized he was planning to breakup but hadn’t indeed and the realization came from the fact that when you gave this advice with ever-lasting halo of wisdom, his girl was lying with her head in his lap. that didn’t go well and you passed out.
when i wake up after seconds or hours who is keeping the count the men and women and the transgenders and the non-gender-conformant were chanting a hymn. were they praying in the dead of the night i wondered. i was confused and worried – who prays while drunk? that’s sinful. lifting your head by your own hands, when the sounds settled deeper in the ears and the mind, the realization struck that they were not praying but snoring. checking the time on the wrist and bringing back the clarity in the vision, the time struck as 4:17 to the eyes. almost morning and afternoon somewhere in a godforsaken country but not here and sleep is the best medicine.
—
with the head spinning, you peered into his room and found him sleeping on his bed, holding his legs and a rope tied to them. instantly reminded of how his legs always pained, and sometimes the pain became unbearable, and he would tie ropes around the leg to ease the pain and massage with his own hands. if only you could’ve eased his pain and worrying about the worsening pain, you sat on his bed next to his legs and started to slowly massage them. he groaned in the sleep and you knew it was not because of the onset of the pain but its departure. nothing can be as personal as bodily pain and illness, and pity more than medicine is what the soul craves. pity and help. the want exponentially increases in the presence of destitution. if only you could also relieve him of his poverty but not every ailment could be pitied. massaging his legs by one hand and smoking a cigarette by another, in the nightly sounds of the collective snore-prayers, next to him, the world seemed to have halted.
—
the dreams which usually wake us are of suffering, of loss, and not of pleasure, because only in the moments of suffering does one pine for escape. so you escape from the dream world to the one where hunger is real. looking for glasses, your fingers stumble upon god. he was standing on my bedside table, watching over me. i muttered ‘God? Is that you?’ and with eyes now wide open, you realize it’s the table clock on which you had kept your kindle. love is nowhere to be found other that with the ones you love and time and reading. so you hug and kiss them in the blind streets drenched in the yellow night lights, holding her in one hand, and Naked Lunch in the other. a cat meows, a piano plays, you are cheating on her and she on you. a friend flies over you and you sink into the ground while she watches and laughs hysterically at you and picks up your copy of Junkies and tears it apart. was it worth it you ask? yes she answers.
and when you wake up, you are reminded of an important but trivial fact that you haven’t paid the rent for the month and an astonishing realization that you slept over and creased ruthlessly a treasured copy of On The Road, the original scroll. the snake eats the apple and the morning lights, filtered through the linen curtains, fall on her sleeping curves and her crown is on the floor under her clothes. fuck.
Dedicated to the rebels of the world, the Kerouacs, Ginsbergs, Burroughs, and Cassidys of the world. Beat on.
Shishir Chaudhary 
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