Lest,

Love could never be associated with anger. You think. Because they are opposites. Love and anger. In their intense shades, however, ironically, they go hand in hand. Shooting up and nose diving like parallels. Like uneasy twins.

Today, I was out in the afternoon. And scorched in the November heat, I waited. For nothing in particular. In the dark exhaust of trucks that passed by. In the disgust on the faces of strangers. In whatever reflected of life on its surface. In the chaos of a forgettable winter afternoon.

I waited for nothing in particular. Except for time to pass.

And somewhere similar, you be. Walking by. Not stopping. Not smiling. Not remembering, me. Or anything that's even my distant cousin. Like you have had an attack of amnesia. It's ridiculous, what a son of a bitch you are.

But I don't blame you. I don't blame me. I don't blame love. I don't blame nothing. But I can't track this surge of anger. When my mind drifts to you. Back and forth in time. And sticks around what is now.

Now, you be. In someplace like I do. Under the same hot sun. The dust of a dormant afternoon, the noisy traffic. No strums of guitar, no flowers. Or diamonds or moons. Just an excruciating truth, that you had blinded me from.

I miss not you. I don't even love you. But that you broke my heart this way, heartlessly, I am angry. In fits of mad rage, I bite off pillows and end up in splits of tears. That I can't scream, makes me want to burst.

And again, I can't draw a line that connects the both of us that we used to be, to the beasts we have now become.

Why. Tell me why.

Or not. Lest, I get the unfortunate pleasure of writing an equally banal post once again!

Chasm

There used to be a lingerie store around the corner, she would sneak into at times. And there was this one particular camisole hung in the row with other sleep ins. Almost invisible, as if somebody wanted to keep it a secret. It used to be a brilliant shade of purple. Not magenta, not violet. But purple. A shade that would shine in dim lit nights. The straps were thin, delicate. Like the strings that tie desire with austerity. The lace knit in alluring designs, stood out. Caught her eyes and not let them look away. Sometimes, she touched it with her fingers, the feel enlivened her, aroused even the dead of senses. She would slide in her palm and feel the fabric, and smile to herself. But she could never muster the courage to actually try it on, you know. She couldn't. Or she wouldn't. Like she were saving it. For some other day. All she would do was hold it on herself, and steal a glance at the mirror when no one was looking, just to check if it would finish below her waist or above it. 

Then she would slide it into the hanger and hide it among the other sleep ins wishing that no other woman would see it. The purple camisole. Its shiny lace. The lingerie store at the corner. Strings that stitched together a naughty little whim. 

But the last time she checked into the store at the corner, it wasn't there anymore. And this terrible despair took over. Along with envy. For that bitch who had found herself a lover! 

Fantasy

Fantasy. It's not what never happens in the depth of midnight. It's not the whim that never lasts. Fantasy is just a hidden shade of mundane.

I am surprised when I walk into the arms of the same dream every night. Into your thoughts, so inevitably. Despite the world that has gone wrong. Despite me, despite you. I can't help nestling this hope of you. 

My first love 

The only answer

The end of this fantasy
You.

Fantasy is not what never happens in the depth of midnight. Fantasy is how I walk into the arms of this dream every night, no matter what. Fantasy is how I religiously cannot abandon this mundane practice of years. No matter how ridiculous it sounds.

And if this mundane resilience of life is not fantasy, nothing else could be. 

after dark

before this



legs like beings of golden sheath. splashing in whirlpools of dark water. swimming backwards, spreading hands like wings of a butterfly. among scattered rays of the sun. in beams of light pouring from heaven. she floated. weightless. toward one corner of the pond where the shrub of hibiscus leaned over the water, like a lover. sultry silhouettes of her limbs, alongwith drunken waves, forming insane illusions. one half born flower, a bud as red as blood, snuck behind her ear, stayed there between curls of dripping mane. as she kissed drenched boughs and floating yellowed leaves. then, she swam away. that bud fell off midway, before she trespassed into the herd of water lilies. white, yet wild. plucked a few, she flirted, sucked from their succulent stems. for once, she looked like an apparition. as a lily emerged from her navel, the center of her being. 


either she hadn't sunk to death. or was born again. 

Secret

All I have kept is a secret. That in between quiet folds of time, I have been creating. A world that is just enough for me. That can contain the leaps of my desire. And yet not disappoint.

The decadent process of waiting, can ruin, you know. When you merely wait for the lines on your palm to join and bring into the picture the subtle presence of a possibility called destiny. The sluggish passage of time decays you. Even more, when you look back and can't keep track of the moments lost. In that soul wringing search for solace. 

Subconsciously, you practice detachment for an era before when you are ready to take your chances for real. And put outside your throbbing heart. For once. With no prospect in mind, just for the heck of it. Just for the heck of you. You move on from being godless to fearless.

Sometime today, I felt I have. Moved on. Suitably so. Have learnt not to care, among other things. You wouldn't believe. I have carved out that delicate niche, my corner. Where the walls are a wild turquoise. And there are no roofs. 

I hold hands of strangers. Just for the warmth in them. And clutch their fingers tight, between mine. Until the next fork in the road, when they just leave me, with either of us, hungry for more. 

I feel free, because probably I have realized, hunger knows no bounds. One loves as much to be tied down as much she craves to be free. And the idea to draw the line between the two is just a crazy idea. I have learnt to let my hunger drive me. Whichever way it wants. Unbridled. Until my toes want to touch ground. And not regret the guileless flight I have had.

These days, I do things my way. I shamelessly break rules. I disobey. And not care. I lie and cheat. Just for the heck of it. Just for the heck of me! And save the secret. 

11/11/11

There comes a time when it's no longer about me or you.

For some reason, let today be the beginning of that time.

Now on, we are forgotten memories. lost dreams. shredded ideas. aimless conversations. half read books. we are faded colors. unfinished poems

We are a life that's going no where. static, stochastic

Now on, we are no longer us/

Like bodies flung apart..illusions torn apart. whims unexcused. sleepless nights

Unshed tears. suppressed sighs

We are a cold unfeeling night. the realization, of a deep loss. Loss of a thing that probably never was.

We're a crumbling house of cards. Shrinking into each other, enveloped by vacuum

You and I are an unfinished poem. A meaningless poem. Just like this one

Somehow life runs in circles. And no matter how far you go, you end up in the same place. At least I do. Sometimes, I am just scared, life hasn't changed for years. And may be it hasn't. It's the same people, the same woes. The same hollows that swallow my being. Same fears govern me. It's all so much the same, I want to go back to the calender and check. What have I gotten except getting older. And getting older pretty swift at that.

The same strings tie me, those same illusions untie me. Those same vile imaginations, free me. Madden me. Sadden me. Leave me alone. Make me be, whoever I am.

It's the same traffic I make my way through every night on my way back. The same dark room I try to get sleep in. It's not that I have had enough of the people I've met. But seriously, why haven't I met someone refreshingly new. For a long time now. This is how constancy scares you.

Change scares you in an entirely different fashion though. Whatever! 

Nothing is lost

Nothing is lost because nothing could ever be. It's just the insides of your head making so much noise. Come to think of it, loss is just that temporary emptiness. And our minds are too momentary to capture something that can stretch beyond moments.

May be I am just crazy, but. No matter what you do, wherever you be, this emptiness never leaves you. I mean right now, you could be very elated and be with someone. But the fear of tomorrow takes over. You should know that is absolutely irrational. I mean my entire future could be this big black swan event stretching over decades. Or it could be just the quintessential. Unsatisfactory, yet mundane and peaceful. And I have no idea which one I would choose, because either way, I am so gonna despise it. Or brood over how else I could have been, but. Couldn't.

I remember the time he said he was designed to be slightly dissatisfied with life. And I am pretty sure I am designed to despise it. So no matter what, I am going to find my reasons to be unhappy every single day. To figure out which ways I am less gifted or cursed. Unfortunate and forgettable. Unlovable and irrelevant. And nothing is gonna happen about this anyway. I wouldn't change because, I just wouldn't. I need an excuse that doesn't let me sleep, every night. Every day. Till the end.

And if what I've written has even an ounce of truth in it, then may be. Nothing is lost. Yet. Or ever. 

Elope

Keeping off the highway, we routed the night through less known roads. Where the traffic is thin, some patches are bright, some have no lights at all. Like altering phases of distance and intimacy.

A speed just enough to keep pace with our heartbeats. Lessening human existence. Away, out of this city, into a place unbuilt.

Words spoken, taken back. Lengthening silences. Deepening sighs. The faint solace of a presence, that cares to be. Just be, at an arms length, from where I am. Touchable. Yet very far. But does that matter.

The lights get hazy as we gain speed. I pull the windows down, and feel the cold wind in my hair. To feel waves of it to float away with.

And I dont care being seen with you. This way, eloping. Running away. From everything, only closer to myself, hence closer to you. Shame has lost me. And my fears have gone gutless.

Life itself has become so scarce. And I have come to be who I am. Having abandoned all I could go back to, I have nothing to head for, either.

And I have never felt so chainless ever. This way, being driven by you. Darlin' darlin'

Miserabilia

Because writing is voluntary amnesia, I wouldn't write something I have been conspiring to write since morning, because I want to hold on to that pain. And that pain is all I have.

My day began with my mind rushing back and forth to the good times when love was all we had. I passed lunch, breaking bread with some of the initial hitches! The problems that arise because two people don't get along well together because they're fundamentally different. Or antithetic. When I sipped my evening coffee, things were getting worse, because I had actually begun missing him. But the worst happened when I got back home and started reading stuff I used to write a year ago. Hah!

Anyhow, I have ended up writing the whole thing away anyway. Though I could really use a drink write now, I think I am just fine. And will make through tonite just fine.,

But, before I shut up, of all things in the world, Happy Anniversary!

Cheers to whatever was, and never will be again.

Fetish

I have a fetish. To inhale more of life with every breath, sometimes, stare at billboards like I were blind, as they whiz past the windows of public transport. To count the wings of dust that arise, when some cobbler on the sidewalk polishes some forgotten shoe. To hear the patter of a familiar pigeon that paces to and fro, outside my kitchen window, waiting for a batch of scattered grains.

Or whiling away dusks by looking in the eyes of diminishing headlights of home bound cars. Or at lonely cattle on the streets. Or people running behind a bus. Scream-bargaining with autowallahs. Staring at the mehndi in the hands of the girl in the next seat. Building stories.

Sometimes, wringing out the last bit of humor in life, by looking at the stretch of muscle on the face of some pissed off traffic policewoman. Or making the most of the lack of parking space. Of honks, honks and honks. And school children, crossing roads, holding hands.

And beggars, running behind. Some limbless and some clutching stolen children. The ring of a coin thrown into their pale silver twisted bowls. In parks, in secluded corners, behind bushes, utterly homeless lovers making out!

Standing on the divider in the middle of a noisy highway, and wondering if life indeed is as funny as it seems. I seem to have a new fetish.