Two Friends

You were the wild one,
Me, the wall flower.

You had colour,
Me, stability.

You were manipulative,
Me, cold and prudish.

You had razor-sharp honesty,
Me, confusion and patience.

You came from a place
Where birthday parties would be celebrated
With cakes brought on mortgages

Me, from another planet,
Where weak, old hands searched for a single grain
To save and hoard.

Shifting Houses

It is only when you shift houses
That you know
That your self moved in certain corners there
When you drag old dust filled memories out
To pack or discard
That you know
They existed in those particular nooks and crannies

It is only when you shift houses
That you know
You did own certain corners of that place
Where your things, like your signatures
Were cumulated over years
Leaving dust marks on the floor
When wrenched out.

Floating Through Life

The evening light spilling over a liquid earth
I float, beetle like
Through a fragile pool of self-taught meditation
Here, the next moment becomes the most important thing,
The next breath, the next step,
So that, i forget what awaits me at night
When i unlock a dark home,
Enter in, to cook a lonely meal
And get into a fitful sleep
Keeping half-awake for that late-night doorbell.

Bubble of Peace

peace is that fragile bubble,
which you inflate day by painful day
of repeated chores
till it bursts
spilling
hatred, frustrations, dead hope.

Memory of a Past Life

"Tumhara intezar hain"
Hemant Kumar sings
With his nostalgic voice
The old cassette which you pushed
Onto my willing arms
That day...years ago
Had those whistles of the heart
I heard them again and again
for days and days when you went far away
Bonded slave of your mad imaginations
Those sligtly muffled voices
From the past
now, resurfaces like memory of a past life.

Smelling You

I keep smelling you
In that old T-shirt
Which you peeled off
And made me wear
That rain-soaked day.

Logbook of Lovelssness

We each have one
Calculate, add, multiply, enter
How much have I done?
How much have you taken?
We scribble in our minds
Tick each entry with a countercheck
And then, leave it,
Only to take out
And nurse once in a while
From the almirahs of dustfilled relationships.

Conquests of the Mind

We play games of conquest
We conquer minds
For some short while
We need to fill ourselves within others
Or, else we fear,
We do not exist.

The game includes short scraps of accusations and insights
Left carelessly in another’s mind
But, both understand the absolute planning
that goes into that appearance of nonchalance.

We are afraid
Of emptiness
That fills our mailboxes
That fills our mornings
Our sleepless nights
And our generally meaningless existences
We have to fill it desperately
With thoughts, words, our selves…

What do I Want?

I am not so sure
Of anything, anymore
What is the kindness that I reserve
For a stifling, clutching hand?
What is the hatred that I feel
For my own insecure mind?
What is this feeling of power
Over the powerless?
And absolute weakness
In the face of empty power?
Why this silence which spreads over my tongue and self
In front of a loved one’s razor sharp hatred?
Why do I reject?
when what I badly need is to give myself up
And forget my existence?
Why do I clutch desperately and humiliatingly
When I can actually stop my tears
With just a small cut of the tattered bonds.

The clash of histories

The clash of histories
In your deliberate ignoring glances
Where another one has been
Installed with the same gestures
that was reserved for me two days ago
I remain quite, and give up
For, you say that I fear failure.
Well...if one fails, there is no need to fear it anymore
And, I do, precisely that.

yet one more evening

yet one more evening
where i go out with you
into yet another family
where the woman has shrunk herself
where she and i, both smile
like dead japanese dolls
where men drink wine
and talk politics
where she and i
sometimes take a fag
the only remenent
of our tattered independence!

A Household

" A household, in fact, with its meticulous and limitless tasks, permits to woman a sadomasochistic flight from herself..."
Simone De Beauvoir (The Second Sex)

Morning Sight

A small bird
Builds a nest
In the mango tree
Near my balcony...
I sip a glass of morning water
Seeing it carry twig by tiny twig
To weave it's minutes, days, and life.

Learning to live

Learning to live
Like a baby
slowly walking,
seeing the world
Details,
web of connections,
colours
open up before me,
slowly
So, there is a rhythm
To my days,
my nights,
my wakings,
my exhaustions,
my relievings.

Everyday Life

Whirling through a dark maze
Of misery and numb silence,
One reaches a small island
of little things, everyday smiles
small deeds like cooking a meal
walking together, sometimes parting ways
without hurtful,abrasive words
Sometimes, finding each other again
unexpectedly, in a turning.

Goodbye

Packing all my bags of frustration
i move on to my next destination
wrapping years of flooding tears
i have to now leave you, dear
tying up my never ending boxes complaints
i have to build a new nest
brushing up my old, rusted dreams
i am getting up slowly
to rediscover my old ways
where i used to smile and sometime even laugh.

A Dementor’s Kiss

Fantasy world of children’s words
Where the character which oozes death
Does not kill
But, draws out life
With one single kiss.

A Tranqulizer Named Death

Time is my eternal tranquilizer
Where, I stand still
And watch life move slowly
In absolute slowness
And has no direction
No purpose to achieve
And…
Where death almost touches me
With its long, idle fingers
And, it does not matter.

Sleepwalking through Life

Sleep,
Sleep through your youth
Of passive death
Where enemies crash down as expected
And friends hit out, surprising you
Each time with the virulence of attacks
So much so that,
You hardly distinguish between both
And,
Walk through life
Sleepwalking
Alone
Still with death…

Hard, Rocky City

This deccan city
Is hard, rocky,
She felt she could melt the hard volcanic rocks
With her effusive emotions
But, hit the bottom
With a loud thud
Of rejection.