By Iqbal Chowdhury

A letter to my Self-less Ego

Dear Ego,

In the chambers of Corazon, we drank from the fountains of Zest

You favoured only those liquors sweet, disliking the rest

Scorning my indifference as My Self drank those acrid

Telling My Self to indulge the sweet Senses, whenever they’re arid

I loved you as I loved My Self, effects of the sweetness you made me taste

Little did I know, it was the last this Trinity of mine was ever chaste

Do you remember how our feet danced away in the court of Dionysus?

You said we could dance forever, ‘til we became one, ‘til our joy would never cease

Thereon you became my elixir for Life, guiding me as did Hero for Leander

For you I’d have braved the Seven Seas, and all other waters that meander

In return you trapped me in the nihilism of the Mind, leaving me in a state forlorn

If corruption is the sceptre of Mankind, then surely all Mankind you adorn

You convinced my Soul objective was in attaining social status

But oh how you used me as Your Self-propelling apparatus

All my sinews now rigid, each bit a whole of this Heart so Hardened

Be gone, I beseech you! So that I may be pardoned

Even your silence slowly diminishes all that is left of Life

Peace you promised ephemeral –  now just inexorable strife

No concord Within until I am stripped of these remnants of you

No living until you pass, your entire form I must eschew

Too weak to fight, I am resigned to accept the pen is mightier than the sword

And so I write to say please let me Be, as we can no longer live in accord

Bereft, I stare inconsolably at the mirror not knowing who I see

And realise that I do not even know if this is written by You, or if it is Me

RE : A letter to my Self-less Ego

Dear My-self,

Thanks for your letter, but you know very well, you and I have a pact

Of the unwritten form from which no man can detract

We drank of selfsame fountains, thenceforth in one we dwell

Consummating our bitter-sweet mantra, we created an inimitable shell

It seems our attachment has caused you to feel great sorrow

But don’t you see its freedom, where we roam like there’s no tomorrow?

You will never truly live if you want rid of me, for I cannot die

Transcend me perhaps, but so many have failed and still will try

You regret our trysts but please, ask Your Self this one question

Was I not born because you let others build your guise – that gilded bastion?

Once rapt and engrossed, now wanting to give up all that you own

Without abiding what owns you –  I, bearer of Hubris’s throne

Adorned with titles, calling Your Self Muslim, and sometimes even British

Neither of these groups did you serve, always fulfilling my next wish

In a decade with more injustice, your legacy was a thirst for fame

When you depart, it will be just a portrait of Me, signed in your name

With your days here now numbered, there is much to regret

A new decade awaits my next victim, yet another target

One more who also forgets to love for their Society

All that they love for me – all the teachings of their Deity

I will leave you to Your Self, in so much as we will never again dine

But I know that you will always be My Self, your actions forever mine

Oh, and you should know that right now I’m feasting on mattake and caviar

Farewell my friend, it seems these Isles were meant to be My Shangri-La.

Iqbal Chowdhury graduated in Economics & Economic History from the London School of Economics, and has subsequently gone on to work as an accountant. His poetic works aren’t influenced by any one person, but he is rather fond of the artistic movement instigated by the 19th century Pre-Raphaelite Brotherhood.