Kaput

...

The journeys we whiled away. Midnights in the middle of nowhere. Coming home for vacations, in untidy bogies of trains that we had almost missed. Taxis through crowded cities. Soot. Noise. Nausea. The lemon you bought for me. Everything. The pond that housed hyacinth. And how much I wanted one of those. Bulbous purple thingies. Sitting there toe deep in water. Uncaring. Yet in love. Your eyes, intently gazing at the sunlight pouring through the strands of my hair. Or at me. Paper boats, with poems written on them. Floating away. Bringing us closer to the love we always wanted. Bougainvillea, paper thin, red and orange curling around the rusty rungs of the gate that opened to the porch.  A dozen summer dresses. And rings of silver, in ancient chests. Moved back and forth to wherever I moved. But never worn. Some gifts from you. The rest picked when I turned seventeen, eighteen, nineteen and twenty. A ring for a year. From the days when hope was a plausible possibility. From the days when our skins were pink and eyes didn't have dark circles around them. When your hairline started where your forehead finished. Now fossilized, and forgotten, those rings stare at me and ask. Shamelessly, humiliating. What have I done. 

...

Closure

Goodbyes are so hard
I would rather not say a word at all
But I fear, worst of memories are often those,
in which the adieus weren't bid
and what was ought to be said, wasn't.

But
Is there anything to say?
Anything at all, that could
make this any bearable
In a way you seemed to do

So, I have nothing more
but my dearth of words to give you
Take this along, won't you
Remember me
as the one whose longing for you
was Undying

And as the one,
who always begged you to stay,
Stay a little longer
May be till the sun came up

..

Limbo

Last winter, the floor was scattered with bits of my mind. Thrown astray. Passersby from the corridor would peek in and declare my insanity. In affectionate whispers.

But there is this thing about my obsessions. They have a mind of their own. Which wouldn't rest until it pushes me off the edge of the cliff I am always standing on. Gazing into infinite depths. So to stay afloat, someone suggested I stop writing. I did.

My floor was scattered with tubes of gum, paper flowers, books, with real flowers pressed between bookmarked pages, lace, scissors, confetti, pearls. Velvet. Anything that could be written on was hidden. And my inkless existence continued to persist for weeks. As I sat by the dim bed light, in limbo. And created, for the first time something outside the world of the writ and read.

Something that fingers could feel. Something that eyes could understand, appreciate, without having to delve deep into. I stayed afloat. And I got over. Whoever he was that I was trying to forget.

But it's winter again. And this time, there is someone else. It's a vicious cycle, unending chain, cuffing my wrists. How when a man breaks my heart, I cannot just take the pain alone and look for something else to hold on to. Some meaningless excuse. To carry me away. To save me, keep me afloat.

That time it was confetti. Sometimes that meaningless excuse is another man. As distant, as ruthless, as his precursor. Only that he doesn't know. And that, I am yet to know.

But life has this fucking amazing sense of time, I tell you. When A breaks your heart, you move on to B. When B repeats history, A resurfaces, somehow, out of the blue and green. Vicious, I'd told you.

If, A doesn't come back, a certain limbo follows. Just like this one. With bits scattered on the floor. An unending night of thoughts, regret, sorrow. Trying to create something that the fingers can feel. And the heart can use to heal.

Yet, I await that affectionate whisper, telling me that my limbo will end in insanity, by morning. 

This is not love. Can't be so even if the world were to end tomorrow. Or in forever. Because love must be something more definitive. With borderlines sketched by Aphrodite. What lay inside is love, what doesn't, doesn't. Like black vis-a-vis white. As in, if black were love, white couldn't ever be. Or vice versa. Whichever way you choose.

Love isn't comme ci, comme ca. It's got to be perfect.

But somehow, I find certain nuances ungetoverable. Certain random ones, other than the obvious. Like the twitches of the muscles on your face. The ones even you wouldn't know of. Secret smells caged under your neck. The huskiness in your voice. Also sometimes that alarming sharpness. And of course your chin. The texture of touch. The neat nails. Veins under thin skin. Greenish blue, bluish green. 

Those apparently insignificant behavioral penchants of yours, are perfect thieves of my sleep tonite.

But the world isn't ending tomorrow, anyway. And this cannot be love, comewhatmay. 

--x--

Mentionables

I am happy tonite. Relatively. No, more than that. I am nearly completely happy. And there is no reason. There has not to be.

Earlier in the evening, I faintly remember convincing someone, among twirls of smoke, why they do not need a shrink. About why there should be no shrinks on our planet. And how we ourselves are capable of enormous grip over our minds. That temporary high, walked with me, as I got home. And looked at myself in the mirror.

I cannot draw that upper limit over how sad I could be. I am gaining the tires. All the time. Even right now. I am practically broke. Despite working my ass off. And I had my heart broken. Just a while ago. Or am I getting broken further, as I write this. And I am not hopeful of love. I am almost 25 and yet all I think about is me.

Whatever. I am getting all used to it. I love my big square meal I relish every  night before snuggling into bed. I love the red and white stripes on the sandals I wear to work. I love to see the world in action, breathlessly moving on. I love the cheap tricks I use to steal myself away, for a while, every now and then.

I love my embroidered imaginations of the future. And I also love my humble acceptance that non of them are ever going to come true.

I am so getting used to being the person I was scared being of. And I am truly addicted to this new found complacency. At least for the remaining hours of this night.

Or it's just hormones. And concocted untruths. Undecipherable to my pee sized brain. Bleh. Couldn't care less. 

Stage two

What is wrong with mid January rain. When all these past months, all I have craved was rain. Why does it suddenly feel less wanted that it has finally begun falling. In bulbous drops. On leaves coated with dust. And on thirsty highways.Why do I not want rain now that I have it. Here, with me. And how involuntary could wishing be.

It's just the same, probably, with wanting a man and having him, by your side. It's that mundane stage two. When the first impressions have worn off. Not in entirety though, the mild breeze of desire whizzes by, sometimes. After he has gone to sleep and his eyes are so peacefully shut that my dreams could rest on his lashes. But when he is awake, you feel a certain texture of reality, previously un-felt, that is disturbing and consoling almost in the same breath.

You realize, that there is indeed a quintessential guy under this man of dreams. Just the average one. Who has his usual set of jokes. Which he repeats when he's not so sober, and you let him finish uninterrupted nevertheless. Because sometimes you think it's cute. But mostly you just think, this is him. And he's no superman.

Also, on another day of stage two, lackluster loses another shade of love. When you agree he never was as rich as you thought. And you begin drawing the upper limit. Your upper limit and his. Lines you would never go beyond, or rise above.

And on a day not much long after the previous, you understand how he could hurt you. Not by not loving you. But by being very much being in love, and yet pulling the wrong strings. Tighter. And you have that slight whiff of a suspicion, that he just doesn't get you.

Yet, nomatterwhat. On that last day of stage two, you thank your stars for having him for the man he is. And also for all the love. That had never felt as real as this.

Amen!

The Upper Hand

Don't corrupt your mind with too much drama. And you'll see the world in black and white. Because, there is no grey. Grey is an intermediary illusion invented by those who lack the necessary guts. I just don't get it, when the facts are staring at us in the eye, what handicap of intelligence could actually make us buy a rejection for anything but rejection.

Did I get to the point alright?

Always, almost always, there are two parties. And thanks to lots of  blah doing rounds, we may not conclude that one is necessarily better than the other. And that we never compare apples and oranges. And that we're all great being who we are. And other categorical nonsense.

But, who're we kidding. The human eye is designed to judge at first sight. And on an absolute scale of quintessential human parameters, we know which party has the upper hand. The remnant is, but of course, rejected. By the former.

I am talking about the disaster called love. The pretty rejects the ugly. The loser always falls for the one who has traits of a winner before being smashed with a shattering heartbreak. This thing I see is so rampant that it's beginning to get more than ridiculous. Sugarcoated rejections.

I am not the one for you. I am such a pathetic person, baby I don't deserve love, least of all, yours. Which is extra divine. I hope you find someone worth you. And other categorical nonsense. Dear God, give me a break.

But nevertheless, we don't measure a prospective lover on an absolute scale of quintessential human parameters. I think, we should. It's almost high time.

And c'mon. How much balls does one need to just say it.

You're rejected, you fool. I deserve someone better. Can't you see my looming upper hand?

Non sequitur

It's that thing you do. With your eyes. Eyes never lie. Eyes cannot lie. Through them, I can stare at your insides. I get to read your intentions so well. Sometimes I wonder if I get you sooner than you get yourself.

My peripheral view has a wider horizon than you think. I can sense you looking at me no matter what corner of the room you're in. It's like my skin has these hyper sensitive sensors fixed, just for thy eyes. The way you steal furtive glances, imagining that noone's looking. But I am. Each time you shift your eyes from me, probably you don't realize, but there is this brief moment when our eyes meet. And I see deceit in yours. Do you see thirst in mine?

Forget instants. For longer whiles, in dark secluded rooms. When your eyes move on me, on above me, feeding on my every inch, I know which are the stretches your eyes hold on to. For units of time I count in heart-beats. And though I am not looking at you, I know. I know the exact stratum of intoxication you're in.

But of all things. I love most about your eyes is the curiosity in them. The way you look at me every-time like I was anew. Like you've just found me.

That's the thing you do. 

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