Gas lighting is a slow systematic process of crushing the very essence of a person to the extent that he starts believing that he is useless and starts questioning his self -worth and intelligence at every step he takes. In a relationship it always happens under the garb of 'trying to be helpful'. The dominating partner begins by finding faults, very trivial in the beginning and as years progress this fault finding spree takes on seismic proportions. One day, you can't take it any more. It's you or the door. Because imprisonment doesn't necessarily mean iron bars. It could be the prison of your mind and you can only be free when you decide to be free. So I am a 'shallow' person with no depth. I don't have any inclination to be a part of the family. I am selfish, self-centred, narcissistic....When you've been gas lit, these words play in your head. A person who cannot even appreciate that all your life you've been a homebody, keeping things in order and pursuing things that are close to your heart- poetry or painting for instance, will never understand who you are. Creative people have creative minds. Their attention span is as strong as the next thing that catches the beauty of their inner eye. It is at this time that they need to pick up their pen or their paintbrush. The world can wait. Non-creative people who live their lives with a mechanical mind and mathematical precision can never understand the cataclysmic effect of curbing an artist's creativity. It is equivalent to cold blooded murder! The day an artist is prevented from doing what his heart desires, he begins to wither and dies a slow death inside. The light of this world is love, music, color, poetry, literature and all kinds of beautiful things that a human heart has the power to create. Rest all is fluff. 
Are you choking? Are you suffocating? Are you finding it difficult to breathe? You have been gas lit, slowly, certainly. Let no amount of gas lighting set your heart on fire.  Your heart is a precious flower, not an ember simmering with rage. Be free. Write your poetry.
~Jaspreet Mann, Gas Lighting
#shoutoutfor MENTALhealth #Art #Creativity #ARTtherapy
Pic courtesy- Pinterest

I hear a different drummer
'measured', 'far away' as Thoreau would say
I hear the sound of his music
the bar of his feet in some distant street
his broken up beats inside my heartbeats
his stifling silence inside my concrete.
I hear a different drummer
I cannot 'keep pace with my companions'
as Thoreau would purvey
I hear the sound of his lonely drums
his ghost notes echoing against vacant walls
the maracas of his body lonely in empty halls
his dried tears on a hand written music sheet.
I hear a different drummer
I hear him in spring and summer
I hear the sound of his colors under my feet
I hear the sound of his surrender in my defeat.
-Jaspreet Mann

In my mother’s eyes, long lost continents resurface
she pretends to forget the son buried beneath her skin
the daughter who searches for a life beyond reasoning
another son who looks like death’s forgotten beckoning
a husband whose legacy she can’t hold and control
in her futile bereavement, she finds dreams life stole
there is a spell of forgiveness, a dull ache of remembrance
years move inside years, the gyre of hope begins and ends
her hair is a wisp of raven curls, in her smile a story unfurls
she walks to the moon, she undresses her hidden wounds
in the sanctity of unforgotten memories in forgotten rooms
the wind has shape, water has color, earth exists in heirlooms.
© Jaspreet Mann

They are celebrating Diwali in Manhattan
The gurus, the swamis and the lords of world's spiritual light
Somewhere in Central Park a prayer congregation heads for the Imagine circle
The saffron hues, the vermilion ash and the mantras resurrect the living dead
a fleet of followers drowns in ecstasy, a barrage of blind men sees light for the first time
they all have answers, they have solutions, they have prayers cradled in their hair
they worship a distant God- unknown to mankind, a stranger residing in empty halls
their God is love, their God is kind, their God is peace, their God is happiness
In their God's shadow , the world stumbles slowly into another cusp of emptiness.
© Jaspreet Mann

Woman: Where do men find such women? (Snorts in disbelief)
Man: Because such women are waiting to be found by such men.