One thousand and one texts

Lovers text. And text all the time. It's pretty much who they are. Gooey and cuddled up against each other via tiny telephonic devices. Their fingertips are like glued to the keypads. Writing love letters in shorthand. Baby this, baby that. And all that. No offense.

But mishaps happen. Disasters arise out of short message service. You wouldn't deny. Just one con of our non neanderthal lives. It's crazy, how inconspicuously some texts are lost. As simple as that. Just lost. Somewhere in the stratosphere/ionosphere, wherever. Never delivered. To the rightful other half of your heart. The godforsaken delivery notification beeps Pending and that's that. That sent text is pronounced dead forever.

It could've been a rosy text, it could've been a dirty text, a moist one sent from the faint lit fantasy of midnight, or anything for that matter. Very very momentary. A message whose message is very much contained in that very moment. And might be lost in the next.

If you're still reading this, allow me to make this banal assumption. What if. What if, one such lost sms, finds its way out to the erstwhile other half of your heart. Erstwhile. Months or years after whatever you'd wanted to say. Some crazy lustful night, depicting the exact technique in which you wanted to kiss him. Now that you're no longer together. I mean could it ever be more uncomfortable!

Monologue

Since long I have been planning to write this monologue. I wish to make it start like it were a dialogue. Of two people deeply involved in conversation. Talking about entirely unrelated ideas. But still involved. It's crazy I know. But who cares. And gradually that dialogue becomes a monologue. Because probably, the two ideas converge, when extended. Or because the two people were indeed one. One person, not two. Only they were under the impression that they were separate. But the one person was conversing with another shade of her own. And that's how my dialogue would translate into a monologue. It's crazy I know.

I get a lot more of these momentary mad ideas these days. Whenever I cross a street. Or stare at my monitor. Thoughtless. Unfinished sentences linger inside my head. Grey interiors flash again. Times come back, and whiz past. Mostly leave me unaffected. Because there is no time to breathe. No time to live. No time to pee. And this fatigue is driving me nuts. Venomous monotony is not a drop short of poison. For a mind as nascent as mine. This moment I am here, the next I am no-more.

What is to be done. Sometimes I remember, my greatest fear was that I would lose my ability to write. My uncontrollable urge to write. Write down, whatever's running inside me. The simple art of undoing my taut muscles. But today the paucity of words doesn't scare me. Somehow, I don't know how, but it doesn't. Probably I don't care that I don't write. Or have I found an alternative to writing. And am empowered by the more affordable choice.

My thoughts are so fleeting. They don't stay, I cannot remember. I cannot connect. Or build stories. Like I used to. My thoughts are random. Very wild. And make no sense at all. None. It's like I am in this unending monologue with myself. Realizing that all my stories, about sad and lonely people, written in the past few years, were indeed a monologue. And now all of them, have converged, when extended, into me.

Monologue. 

There is a sect of people who are meant never to be satisfied. In love. No offense, meant or taken. This is just a fact stated, honestly. And nobody is to blame. Probably fate conspires to get the hearts of the captioned people  broken irreversibly as soon as there is love in sight. Or probably these people are devoid of that gene that produces contentment. Somehow, anyhow, they are perennially shattered. Angry. In waiting.

I once met a man such. And a woman such. And apparently were reflections of each other with a minor alteration of gender. Both equally venomous, spiteful misanthropic loners, without visible reason. Somewhat intimidating at times. With such prominent shades of grey that could turn into black in the span of a heart-beat.

Somehow, no credit to me though, they met. And I am so told, fell in love. Had this passionate dream like affair that lasted not more than months. Turbulent. Very turbulent. Too much information in public domain, I must say. But what can we do. Gossip mongers that we are. Their love was almost written about. Read out loud. Bitched back at.

But, all this before the inevitable happened. They weren't meant to be. Together or whatever. Too much friction happened, I must assume. The heat could have killed either. They unfastened like two mutually destructive forces could never coexist.

And later, not much later though, I happened. Unfortunately, aware. With the wisdom of all truths. A friend of both broken sides, anti parties. Keeping record. Negotiating with life's ill meant pathetic co-incidences. Fuck

It's time to get drunk babe!

Make me close my eyes. Shut them hard. Hide my face with a pillow. And make all this go away. All of this. In a moment. Forever. And lets start over. Anew. I don't want to be my age tonite. But that unreasonable inconsolable kid who doesn't know how to deal with her problems. Please God make all of this go away. I know you and I haven't had much of an affair lately, but please. I need help here. Get me out. I shouldn't have to deal with all this. Understand. Save me someone. I don't want to accept defeat. I want back my fake fucking sheen. I want anything but the truth. Don't you get me. Reality is too hard to sink into my skin. My pores are too small. Hide me somewhere.It scares me to think that the only one love I have ever relished is the true love of nicotine. And that I am going to die soon of the consequences. The pictures inside my head are hideous. You have no idea. It's so gloomy in here. There is no hope. Make my past vanish. Please! Do something with the time machine thing. Take me to some other era. Where I am not. Where non of this is. And where trying to escape is no sin. All my life I have tried to escape from one disaster and ran right into another. Make me forget I have ever been this stupid. Incorrigibly moronic.Take away all memory of my mistakes. My shame. Of being who I am. My guilt. Of having tortured myself. Make me fall in the middle of this leap that I have taken. Right in the middle of it. I don't want to see the other shore. Or any other shore. For that matter.

Or just get me drunk. 

Touch me again

Don't rob me of my high, w'd you?
Let me lie this way,
In your shadow
Among cheap untruths.

For once,
Let me savour
This fantasy with shut eyes
The fragrance of bottled perfume.

Stay
Should I want to feel
The texture of your touch again,
Later tonight.

Hold on,
Draw dreams in my head
As I capture the warmth of your breath
For cold nights to come.

Push me
Off the edge of this cliff
Make me want to fly
Together, alone

And when need be,
Touch me again

Pins & Needles

It had happened once that I used to live in a room. All the color I saw was the pale yellow of the walls. The only fragrance was that of crisp folded sheets in my closet. A bottle of nail paint forgotten in a corner of my suitcase. Shoes flung under the bed. Hot showers after midnight. And passage of time meant nothing more than ticking of the clock. It was as good as me living in the moment before I  had moved into that room. Either days were too sluggish or were they too fast for me to even be conscious of their passage. They ended sometimes in inhuman fatigue and a sullen face of the cook who would threaten to leave. If I got back that late the next day.

Sometime in between, I stopped feeling. I felt pins and needles. You know pins and needles?

I called up people to tell them I had developed this incapacity to feel, understand. Loss. Loneliness. Hunger. Even sorrow. I couldn't even feel sorrow. There was this mild immunity that had grown inside me and protected me from almost everything. I used to feel like this body of flesh walking around.

After a few days of being that way, I felt a surge of fear. What if this numbness never left me? What would it be like to be marooned in this utopia forever? Alone.

So I pinched myself hard. Like you sometimes do, when your leg's gone to sleep. Because pain is the surest sign of feeling. I pinched myself hard.

Now it does pain. Sometimes, a lot. But I am relieved that I can feel. That I am more than numb. More than dead. More than utopian, I feel human. And a trifle alive. And even rarely, happy.  

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. 

try-st

CCD just became a self service place, you know?

Isn't that okay?

Of course not. People go there not to stand in a queue and place your order.

That should be fine, you can have the chat after you get your coffee to the table?

You don't have to get the stuff to your table, thank god. They still do that.

So is standing at the counter for two minutes so much less fun?

You won't get it. You're not the guy I should be talking to. 

Should we get you one? Your kinda guy?

You've no idea. I know everyone and everyone knows me in there. I can throw unique tantrums.

What tantrums?

Mmm..like I return my cappuccino twice everyday, to make it stronger, or some other excuse. Keep asking for honey and milk, and brown sugar and sugar free and etc!

And what else?

You're laughing at me. Don't!

I am n't laughing. Who says I am laughing?

You're not the right guy, you make me talk so much. 

Isn't that a good thing? 

But you end every sentence with a question.

Do I? 

..

blackout

now you're here

and i know.. where i'm goin'

no more doubt.. no more fear

i've found my way..

so let's live.. today

..anyway*

It was the advent of winter, and my first venture into the basement of the mall. I'd bought fresh sheets; my bed was cleaned, room dusted/ my favorite song played all night. A sizzling hot shower, in the middle of the night, drenched hair, loose curls, the black beauty spot under my chin. Solo. Either unseen or forgotten. Showed up, suddenly in that mirror, life sized.

Now, in retrospect, when a million cab rides and a dozen flights from one unknown sanctuary to another, seem too small to encapsulate what I've become, I see all my visible memory converging into a point. Into something like the mark under my chin. To be left there, for as long I will be, unseen or forgotten. Abandoned, yet there. 

Reminding me of times when I was unafraid of being insane, now that I am. Reminding me of how crazy I have become, that I shatter rules with a hard earned vengeance, and get away with it, suave and sober. Reminding me of how bars could cage me, now that the world outside doesn't entice me either. 

Whenever, after a gap of years, I find the black spot, I would think of the love that was lost, the faith  that was ditched and the illusions that have fallen apart. Once again, standing on the ruins which were once me, I would giggle away at myself.

* Nina Simone- Just In Time

purple haze

never could have been a kiss more confused

naive

paused by sighs, silences

or the brush of his cheeks more tickly

smells intoxicating, caged, under his chin, around his neck

could have been aftershave

or that of erupting bouts of my desire

..