“The word that makes me feel pleasantly tired and fulfilled is where I put the final full stop.”

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Time: 2026. 7 days intermittently
Location: My library

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When did you first want to create this piece? What gave you the idea?

I started one night when I was exhausted but needed to write. As I started writing I made spelling errors, typos, touched delete button –too tired to write but trying. I wrote around stanza with many typos that I corrected but I felt this poem is incomplete. Built up gradually but I need to give it a conclusion where weariness and words work in harmony towards a closure that is coherent.

What parts of your everyday life — your routines, responsibilities, relationships, surroundings, or inner world — find their way into your creative work?

Every aspect. Reading a lovely or terrible sentence, a new word, an obscure flower, or the tree at my library window. My kitchen chores—the simultaneous sounds in a kitchen, and most of all my very strong sense of often mistimed humour.

What does the making of this work look like behind the scenes — the rituals, materials, moods, drafts, questions, or inspirations that help it become?

It is a fleeting thought that I cannot let go often a niggling emotion. So I write it on the go, as I am cooking. Maybe mood changes and the flow alters too. But the writing is unstoppable. The poem often takes on the texture of my day/days.

What do you wish people knew about the inner process behind this work?

Inner process is only one step: I cannot not write. I have to complete not finish this work. But if I feel what I have done so far has expressed my thoughts and emotion then I may make this the final piece as I do not count lines or stanzas for satisfaction. The word that makes me feel pleasantly tired and fulfilled is where I put the final full stop.

Debaleena lives in Bangalore. She reads everything that she can lay her hands on, and writing is her passion. She believes “ laugh with the world never at anyone, and never ever say you are bored.” Publications : “INK-SMUDGED DREAMS: BY THE READING- LIGHT”: poems. “COFFEE, SMILES & TEARS: BY STARLIGHT”: short stories. ( BlueRose ) “DOODLES, SCRIBBLES & LIFE IN THE MARGIN”- a potpourri of poems. ( BookLeaf) QWERTY and QUIET BY CANDLELIGHT ( Writers Pocket) Co-author , editor SHE WRITERS GROUP ; AQUALITY -Tales Of The Depths (Folio Publications) Co- author in other Indian and foreign anthologies. You can follow Debaleena on Instagram @m.debaleena and on Facebook at Debaleena Mukherjee.