I-topia.

A smoky bar. Disheveled hair. Long loose curls. Falling off the sides of her face. Lowered eyelids. Impossible to get a hint of the expression on them. Nevermind the feeling in them. Dissolved in thought. Wild and stochastic. Her presence, as good as her absence. Merging into the varied shades of black. Of the imposing night.

A held glass. Between fingers holding hard enough. Like they were tempted by the ice on the whiskey. Like it were the only hope, for the rest of the night. To come and leave her, unharmed. By memory or fear.

Her shaky head. Gradually rising above her body. Limbs feeling loose. Like they would fall off, any moment now. Except for the cold glass, the stronghold of which could still be felt. She could move around with her legs on the couch. She had forgotten to blink. And her eyes were perennially open, in some dream wide awake. Sleepless, yet at peace.

Laughter, unbridled. Un-caged. Rippled across the room. Like the most benign of whims had come true. Like the wildest of temptations stood before her, satiated. And there was nothing else. Nothing more. Tonite was coming to an end. A happy end.

You could spot the marks of her lips, remnants of their gloss, left on the edge of the glass like a memoir. Of their first touch. A bitter aftertaste on the tongue. A confused palate, which dips further into the tumbler of insanity, tempted by a deeper loss of senses. Nascent happyness. Smoothening the journey into utopia. I-topia. 

Undead

My life is ordinary.

Ordinary. Home to work. Work to home. Nothing much in between. I practice nor preach a thing un-ordinary. I brush shoulders with ones who are as ordinary as I.

I have too many weaknesses. Not many strengths. Most of the times I curse. Myself and the conspiracy behind my existence. But then surviving, not living should do the trick. And learning to live with that thought could make a life out of a life.

There must be a niche in my brain where sorrow erupts and engulfs all else that is. Else, I wouldn't be the one I am. Most profoundly pessimistic and fucked they say. Severely, I feel. Stuck, almost. Unmoving. Like a frog in a deep deep well. Enclosed in a minuscule space compared to what the human mind could occupy, but yet lost. Yet lost.

Sometimes, like once in a fortnight, I indulge. At random, nothing drawn out from before. I be me. And get happy. I mean I really laugh out loud. My decibels gather some attention too. But after that whimsical dream ends, I ask myself why was I ever happy. Be it even for those few minutes. Why was I happy. Amid all that is, how could ever see joy? The worth of it all plummets in like a second. The fleeting house of cards collapses. Life is back to being ordinary. Very ordinary.

Sometimes, I look at myself in the mirror. Into my naked eyes first. And then I count the faint wrinkles arising of age. I see the sluggish slow movement of time along the lines under my eyes. Along the cracks on my lips. I find the smudge of  my kohl and the darkness of my future, very much the same. I count the days I have lived. Or rather, the days I have not lived. And the crazy crazy relapses I have had, into being happy, into trying to being happy.

Among other things I count, I count my sinful escapades. Stolen smooches on drunk nights. Thick chocolate underneath layers of layers of Hershey's chocolate sauce. The friends I won. And the same I lost. My fallen attempts at dance. The books I read, the characters that I have almost almost made into undying ghosts in my head. I count the hearts I have broken. Not many. Just a couple. Exactly a couple. And the times, I have been stabbed. Too bad that heartbreaks don't bleed. I keep a count. Of a lot of things you know.

And religiously ensure, my life is ordinary.

But when a written word escapes the tips of my fingers, hell breaks loose. I feel anything but ordinary. Like floating, like ecstatic, even though I write sorrow. I feel un-ordinary. Gifted. Anything but dead. Undead.

Cuff-links for him!

Cuff-links for him. I was shopping for another friend, online of course. From shoppers stop. And there was this entire gifts section. Where I was actually supposed to send something for that friend. But things din't work out well, my eyes strayed. And I went into the Gifts for Him category. You know how much that trouble that could mean don't you. And my eyes were stuck to this awesome pair of silver cuff-links, with shades of black, the classiest, almost the sexiest. My mind hovered over how neatly they would fit into the cuffs of his shirt. His wide wrists, and his prim shirt, that violent corporate look. Oh! Very arousing. And for once I thought I could actually send them over. Of course they shouldn't disclose the name of the sender, would they. I have his address and all that. Could post it to his place though, he wouldn't be there during the day when it would most probably be delivered. So should I send it over to his office. Wondering so forth, I hiccuped a little when it occurred to me that it would be like stalking. Not just amateur stalking. But something way more tactful and all that. So I just ogled at the picture of those sinful things for a minute or two and then just gave up the thought.

Like I opened up my fist, and the thought flew out like a feather.

Cuff-links for him. Haha! 

Off the record!

Someone once must have said. Love is the lack of it.

I have been there. On the edge of the cliff making one dying wish. To see you. To find you. To be loved by you. Cried nights. Lost breath. Gasped, ran into and away from love. Lost my way. Broke my heart. In a way that could be never unbroken. Suffered. Cursed. Written. Turned insane. You know the rest of the story.

Probably I have survived. The sin that is called love. In many ways, outgrown. Outlived. Proved wrong the ones who once said, love is all that is. Ever.

I have never felt love. But things that come very close it. More or less. Almost. And I am almost satiated. There is a dire need of strength and patience, both of which many weak at the heart lack. The have-nots of my species.

I am unfortunate. But what can we do. But what can we do. Even if we could, we are lazy and scared. Haha!

Anyway. In afterthought, seriously off the record, now that the game is finally over and I grow fatter and uglier by the day, I have called it quits. A stray picture comes before my eyes. Just a could have been. And the assurance that comes with him, is mind jolting, belief breaking. Status quo shattering.

This is it. Love it is.

Wy I shd carry headphns on d waybak!!

At the end of a long tiring day, which has nearly vanished from before your eyes, when retrospection visits you, you try to ward it off, call it a day, and use hard, the drug of sleep. Don't you?

I do.

Never pause or think. It saves a lot more trouble. Go on. If you can, simply afford to. I do.

The only fifteen minutes I steal for myself is when I get back home every night after work. Those uncomfortable fifteen minutes in public transport. When my past coagulates. Before my eyes. Future seems pretty blank. Pretty much.

Dude. What all had I dreamt of. Slogging, yet never giving upon the dreaming part. And now, future disrobes herself as a shy bride, slowly, but you are assured you are going to get there. Only that the consequences are going to be the ones you warned yourself against. That makes life very shitty. And honestly, that's all the truth that's there in it.

Every other passerby on the road, reminds you of your failures, every single click on facebook makes clear another hurting regret, some random name in your phonebook, kicks you in the heart. Haha!

Shit happens. Always!  

Taken

There has always been her. The other woman. That seductress wild wind, holder of desires. The red little luscious fruit in his eyes shining. Settled like she lived in them. From an era ago.

It is her from who he gets all his happyness. Calmly invisibly, she has captured his soul so well. Merely being around him, tells me about her hold on him. Tenacious, not letting go, assured.

That content certainty makes me envious. Notwithstanding who we are. The both of us. She and I. The two absolute ends of his fate. Each, one of the two mutually exclusive choices he could make. Options he could pick. Lifealtering, nevertheless.

He is the translucent shield of glass between us. In him I see her. Through him, she sees me. She must. Else this game wouldn't be fair. Like everything else. In the man he is, I see not the man he is but the man she has made of him. Every bent of emotion, every glance of expression, everything in him reminds me of her. And how she had him taken from me. Taken.

And invariably turned the tables. Twisted destiny, what was to be. Made me into the other woman.

Meanwhile

Wondering what has changed
nothing much actually
there haven't been many new movies that I have watched
meanwhile
nor licked icecreams when it's freezing outside

o yeah i have shopped a lot
lots of new dresses and shoes
closets full of colors, i have even experimented
found that mauve and purple are different
convinced myself they are
and shoes
many gave up in this rain
the way it has poured this year
you have no idea
of course you don't

nail paint in the shades of blood and black
kohl
everything. all that
i also counted my age
in decades, i look so believable
in days so impossible

never stood on rooftops to feel the wind
always ran for shelter in the rain
never ever sat down and talked
to myself or anyone
meanwhile
talking has come to scare me crazy

i bought a bracelet of gold, coiled
like a cozy snake on my wrist
has a mystic red flower on it,
somewhere in the middle
also i should get a ring
must be time
i don't know


still the same people around
who never understood my insanity
just like you didn't
but then insanity is not to be understood
it can't ever be

insanity is to be celebrated, the way i did
and stared at, the way you did


besides
nothing much has changed
not much water under the bridge
just been a few months
life has turned topsy turvy and back to fine
many times over

house.

this house is the dumbest of them all. corners jammed with forgotten furniture. beds slept in. rooms lived in. scratched crockery stocked in the kitchen. a mirror which makes fatter of the fat, uglier of the necessarily not pretty. this house, a lot lived in. windows with cracked panes, windows to look out at nothing from.nothing much, striking or noticeable. just mundane absurdity. that nobody peeks out to notice. thesedays unlike earlier. closets full of old torn smelly dresses of children who left, undonated abandoned. sighs of what is now unrequited love. shrunken pillows, ancient sheets. and a windchime that doesn't ring anymore. but sometimes on stormy afternoons when the wind's angry and rain pours. followed by a lull of an evening. of dark ruminations. perfectly stochastic. by fast dying candles, and molten wax. calenders on damp swollen walls. of years ago. now tilting, falling off. pictures of gods, adorned with shrunken flowers. yellowed pages of dozens of books, on rusty racks, tilting unbalanced, falling off.

and moist pots of soil, with weeds in the balcony, watered in the afternoon by those who hadn't had much to do all day. giving flowers, wild ones, in purples and violets. and leaves, ones that were pressed between the pages of the fat old yellowed books on rusty racks, now tilting unbalanced. with unposted love letters of mad scribblings used as perfect bookmarks. and so on and so forth. this house, dumbest of them all, ironically never pauses from being heard. understood.

Anhedonia-ad-infinitum

There won't be a plethora of posts. I promise. 

Just this. Today while walking back home, I missed seeing the fat middle aged professor walking the other way. He was bald, and wore a constant expression on his face. Eyes, which from a distance looked obviously content and old. But they must have been dull and empty when stared into. There wasn't another soul around his. You know what I mean. He taught a class that didn't give a damn. His wife had left him a few years ago. The children left with her. Some said his mind was sick. The reasons behind him being that absolutely alone were never discovered. He died some days ago. Some said he killed himself. He could have. Very much could have. The way he was stuck in his bathroom door. Don't know who came to his funeral. There must have been one.

The other day. A few months ago. I was staring at pumpkin creepers. In faint moonlight. On the other side of the valley, between two hillocks. You know what I mean. Under pines. It must have been a cold night. Who cared. I didn't. Under layers of wool, I felt the safest. Farthest from fear. Assured that nothing would go wrong. Ever. It was like forever was enclosed in those few minutes after midnight. Do you remember? Something was glowing between those pumpkin creepers. It couldn't have been a lamp or a candle. It was to faint to be earthly. So I stared on, and listened to you talk. Half conscious. Wondering if there was a ghost in there. And then getting back to you and saying yeah yeah, I heard it all.

Extremes, no? I ain't crazy. Semi-crazy may be. There won't be a plethora of posts, I promise. Just this.