Scattered Soul

I left my soul at the mouth of the river. In my old room, standing aloft on the third floor beside pines. I left a chunk of it on the balcony of his new home. Also a bit of it in the wilderness I never could go to. A piece of it, on the scattered skies above the earth I slept on, gazing up. I left my soul inside the God of Small Things. In the diary made of pure bamboo pulp and on it as a spot of blotched ink. I left my soul in the wind at Lovers' Point. I abandoned a slice of it, back in the darkness which I smoked. Bit by bit in the curls of fume that escaped my mouth. In the sweat and breath of strangers. In the eyes of the men who stared. At breasts, at legs. I lost a bit of her in the minds of men who read my poems. And a few compassionate women, it would be unfair not to say. On the edges of my broken nails, and upon the roofs I wanted to leap down from. Last, on the chair I drank coffee on alone, and thought of writing this poem. Each of these places, keep a piece of my soul, frozen, un-agile. In comatose. In original specimen, undiluted, unashamed, described by other similar adjectives. But most of all, I left my soul, the last time I saw her, on his bed. On his bed. Yeah.

#NowPlaying - Shakira, after a long long time. 

Dragonberry

Nobody knew, where she was. At work, they assumed she was home. At home they thought she was at work. Some friend thought she was with the other. The other thought, that she was with another. Some didn't even think anything. Their heads empty, thoughtless in her regard. While she spent a thankless afternoon in deep sleep on a mat on the floor. Under the influence of dragonberry. Sleeping off the insomnia of a lifetime. All bridges snapped. Phones thrown away. All constraint abandoned, with her elbow like a pillow, beneath the chin. The dragonberry was a hallucinogen. Bringing about an acceptance of loss to when it doesn't feel like a loss no more. Alcohol traded for sorrow. Tears dripped from the corner of her one eye and dried up. The coagulated salt in that and the pinch in her heart. Both stayed though, but gradually got inconsequential. The stitched straw of the mat printed an impression on her cheeks. When she woke up suddenly, fear clutched her heart. Had she overestimated her freedom. Nothing could steal her away from the truth afterall. 

He, crouching in the opposite corner of the room, looked at the print on her cheeks and laughed. Aloud. It wasn't funny. And she didn't even fathom why. She was with him. And nobody knew that. Just about nobody. Nobody knowing where you are is as good as death. Or as bad as. They were as good as a couple of dead lovers in a thankless afternoon. It was then, precisely then, that she realized that everything was imaginary. The salt in her tears, the phones she had thrown away, the constraint that held her, the people she put off by knitting one complicated mesh of lies. All of it was afterall, imaginary. Only s/he was the real one. And probably, the dragonberry. 

Litmus

1

They stood like the stagnant rain of late August. Against the moist afternoon breeze rushing through their hair, giving them an occasional totter. Away from town, its buses and the smoke. They would quite religiously meet in the valley. Well not exactly, if you could call it that. It was a huge ditch washed clean by the monsoon. Sometimes flooded, it looked like a lake. Filled with brown water, of the color of tea. Only the beverage in the cup they shared standing on top of the ridge looked less watery. The color of that was for the thick boiled buffalo milk. Not a day went without he making a comment on the goodness of that milk, and she not laughing to it. At it. Forgetting the day, at ease, an hour at a time. As the orange sun set and the porous skies gave in, again. To another lash of night long rain. 

2

Each morning, her huge dog, that monstrous canine, demanded comforting by the pedestrians crossing the street by barking out loud from the first floor balcony and craning its neck out like it would take a leap now. It never did, but the children stopped taking that street. The ones who would earlier sneak into her garden to steal shrubs of pink table rose and pineapple from the bushes. Or a raw jackfruit or two. The canine put an end to that for good. But after that, there was no one. The barking would stop once her hoarse scream scared the animal off to a mid morning snooze. And then she would emanate from the rickety house in her off white maxi dress for summers. With a cup of tea in her hands, chewing one of her own sun dried coconut cookies. To tend to her rose bushes and to cut off the weed. Weed, you know.

-x-

Last Name

Now I'm sitting in a corner, hidden
And sulking
Again, I am laughing at the memory of that moment
Suddenly, it is years ago

Here is a sunrise by a pond
Then the bare branches of autumn
Colors of April
Waves of the sea, and my toes

Do you realise,
How swiftly,
Our existence merges and emerges from Illusion
And vice versa

A bunch of memories
Will soon become a collectable
The dearth of words for a poem
A distant feeling to recall.

Amongst the scores and scores of days
We live through and worry endlessly about
Only few will make it to the album of life,
When we die and move on

Something which was so heartbreaking then
Doesn't mean a dime anymore.
Come to think of it,
What was his last name again?

Wasn't Frost right,
When he said that.
'It goes on'
Wasn't he now

So, live in love
Die with your eyes closed
And heart open.
Also, write a dozen insane poetry.

Condiment

Don't blame me, honey
If I don't keep no memory
Because there's dark concentric circles
'Round my eyes, of worry
The one time I am glee
Is when you with me;

Swivelling about our plum backs
To your music & mine
Tip-toeing on zig zag marble floors
Tugging to strums of guitar

Talking of places, far off
And their peoples
Colors, black blue red & grey

Talking still, entwined on the kitchen slab
Windows shut,
Breathing in unlocked airs of 
Summer winter and rain

Exchanging stories of our mothers
Names of our fading past lovers
Chopping tomatoes & potatoes
Spices & flavors

You're the condiment, baby
The one that adds flavor over me.

So, don't blame me 
If I complain amnesia
'Coz I am so busy living, suddenly. 
I ain't keeping no memory.