Darkness is like the latest lover you’ve lost. The harsh sun of the day reminds you of its calming coolness. What comes after the evening is the hurt. The crushing (but once-familiar) loneliness. The lull of dreams of the night.
Distance is like the sea you’ve seen many times but whose mightiness I just can’t fathom. We’ve been to the sea together, years ago. I didn’t want to marry you then, but…
when was the last time you thought about me? when we had been together and in love. when my poems spoke to you, about you. when life was so light that someone could blow on it and it would fall apart (and it did).
when was the last time you spoke to me? when you thought of picking up the phone and dialing my number which you always remembered by heart. when we were under the same sky and the same clouds. when our marriage seemed to be the only step available to move forward.
when was the last time I held your tiny, misshapen hands? when meeting you for a couple of hours was all i looked forward to for the entire week. when i dressed up to impress you only. when you justified my living.
as i began to write this, you sent me a message. you did not forget to greet me despite the years between us. thank you for that. thank you for making me feel worthy even if for a fleeting moment.
thank you.
It wasn’t easy for him to forget. The face. The black of the night. The bandaged body carried around like a sack of rice. Rice: he preferred rice to the bread his mother made. Yes, preparing rice doesn’t quite require as deft a cooking hand, but it does have the smell of the earth he so loves.
It wasn’t easy for him to forget. The laughter had ceased forever and the friendly banter gone missing.
Death is not at all an end. It – like birth – prompts more wretchedness. When death strikes, it does so so powerfully that the heavens are aflame and the earth readies itself to accept back its own in an airless pit dug into it.
Death is a marker. Time is neatly divided into periods before and after one’s passing. Not that every death remains in memory. But some do, and that’s what counts.
It wasn’t easy for him to forget. With death, the squeals had died too. And the silence was loud, much louder than what he could restrain within himself.
He – faced with death – had learned that prayers don’t always work. Fervent proselytizing before a god is useless unless you are sure of the outcome. Sure of death.
Today,
I will walk into the darkness and
Never return.
Today,
I will give myself a cut and
Never stop bleeding.
Today,
I will start running away and
Never stop.
Today,
I will be someone else and
Never look back.
For
I am done
And will never be who
I want to be.
I stepped
Into my soul,
Sculpted by years of dust
And winds of the sun.
I stepped
Into my mind,
Dipped my hands in the waters of perfidy
And washed my sins of courage.
I stepped
Into my heart,
Made solid by the grit of living
And the sadness of being.
I stepped
Into my body,
Armoured by the lack of blood
And the exoskeleton of knowledge.
I stepped
Into the Unknown,
Afraid…
The claustrophobic life lived indoors.
You dream vivid tales
Imprisoned
Till something disturbs you
Like a stone plopped into placid water.
The talk was about
New India, now
All we think about is the New Normal.
Very new,
Like the paper mugs in a packed cafe.
The cups are now gone,
The crowds too, imprisoned in tiny cells
Of their own making.
The windows are the only
Portals to the outside quiet.
The…
Numbness:
There have been songs about it.
It’s true, however; numbness is all you feel living through the endless drudgery.
The kind that traps you. The kind that enmeshes you for only being alive.
The kind that’s never your choice or the source of your happiness.
Numbness is normal:
Other people don’t mind it.
You do, because you have a heart. Somewhere.
The resolve to live differently.…
The room is full of shadows. The faint whisperings
of his dreams flitter in the dusk of the afternoon.
His breath, slow and easy,
fills the room with many
phantasmagorias.
The curtains flail. The clouds flicker. But nothing
wakes him.
I stand at the door, staring into
the emptiness of the room.
Unsure.
My timid hands reach out to the fettered
bed.
The cursed fever has returned.
Outside, they wail.
Not them, but those that ferry the dead.
The sky is dark
with smoke off the deceased.
Souls sent heavenwards by
the plague that ensnares those
that breathe.
Like him.
Air is expensive. He survives
by borrowing.
A beggar of living.
I walk out.
The room is
an island of calm—a refuge
of the mortified.
The air is thick, unbreathable.
I seek succour
in the embrace of a massacre.
I own nothing after my share of living.
Cut up
Into bits
By the night.
I flial
In the darkness.
Where have you led me.
I shiver
And fall deeper.
To your memory I surrender.