sometimes my nimble fingers
slide across these coarse pages
subconsciously but smoothly
as if having a conversation,
filling these blank pages
with ghost stories
collected from the sages
of past ages unknown,
almost flirting with my sanity
running off on their own
like a free bird
talking to me
'Hey, are you reading this?
Look, I'm writing poetry!'.

Trying to learn, while I learn to fail
Not to be fixated now that I have set the sail
Towards a wiser me, maybe a brighter me
Decided to travel through the travesties,
Only to enlighten me.  

All I was hoping for was an illusion,
Was it an illusion of my creation?
Maybe nothing but just a delusion,
Maybe I'll get through it, hoping for an end
Never realized how I was missing the point,
When I let my laughter suspend.

They say it is all about the journey and not the destination,
I always figured they didn't understand my situation
What's the worse that can happen, they ask
Well, I may come short of the handed task.

Is it all in the process, I wonder
Is pondering about the end game always a blunder
Weren't we all meant to get somewhere, achieve our goals?
Or are we always trying to fill a hole,
A hole without which we can't be whole,
A part of us, this hole so wide,
It can make you do the unthinkable,
A hole of the unknown in our very own little fable.

I'm always at war to figure out the answer,
Maybe the quest in itself is a paradox,
Maybe I'd be better off figuring out the way
To love the journey and finally think outside the box.

The answer had always been in front of my eyes,
I couldn't unwrap myself from all the lies
The untold truth of what we were supposed to be,
Not finding the hidden treasure but being the voyagers of the sea,
For the treasure is what you see,
When you become better than what you were meant to be.

Just a little older, just a little wiser
Now understanding that I was always a miser
Holding onto my darkness and never letting go,
Now I'm making memories that I can never blow.

The destination had always been on my mind,
Always right in front of my eyes,
I was clouded, I was stranded
The rewards always seemed nice
But walking when I was supposed to run
Made me comprehend that the journey is what is fun!

maybe I saw her
at the laundromat
and just missed her,
I was looking for a change,
while she walked
away.

Talent was not worth it,
Until it turned into skill
Rise against the odds
To go in for the ****
Thought it was supposed to be silky smooth,
Thorns in a bed of roses lay still
Hate it for the un-nerving truth
Victory accompanied by a sunken face
And a broken tooth,
What once was
A mountain to climb,
Now within my reach
The peak of ascent
Toiling along the way
A threshold to breach,
A view so spectacular
I could live there forever
Alas, the only thing worse,
Than an incoming frown
Is the dream I was having
Of getting to the top
Without ever putting a foot down,
A ghost of perdition
A drunken semaphore of
Nihilistic fortitude
Scarring enough to even put
Any effort in the journey,
Thinking all I had was
What I ever needed.

A trip down
The memory lane
Of simpler times
And happier days
Rekindling those vibes
With a few pals of mine,
The old tales of summer
Jumping around,
Even in pain,
Chasing ice cream trucks
On our bikes
For our favourite flavours
The old tales of winter
Trying to look cool,
Cracking lame jokes
Exhaling,
What we used to pretend
Was smoke
This conversation was special
I was out of touch
But not out of time,
For the very first time

it keeps me awake at night,
I try to escape but it holds me back
for all the things said and done,
I thought I could so easily run
away from it all,
but life holds you accountable
and I take full responsibility,
but it gets tiring
maybe I want to be happy
just for one day,
without having to think about
what ghost of my past
may show up tomorrow to play
for even though the days,
they come and go
as they please
without me in control,
what won't I give
to trade the dusky nightfall of yesterday
for the crack of dawn tomorrow
with that in my mind,
I try to live and grow
and I still cast a shadow,
that I may never outgrow
yet there is a light,
at the end of the tunnel
and I aspire to reach there someday,
for it may take away all the pain
and shine on like a crazy diamond.

Coming out
Into the world,
After a sure start
With nowhere to go now
Almost choking
At being an adult
Living life,
As it was laid out
By nature and nurture
Unfazed by my own religion
Or the world outside,
Never talked
To the guy upstairs
But living used to be sacred,
Is now all but sacrilege
If it were always
My plan versus his
I never stood a chance
But there's a sense
Of burdened freedom
Along with a sense
Of joyful realism
To be happy
any chance you get,
A fine ventriloquist
He's got his ways
Makes you admire
The work he does,
While pondering
The meaning of life,
The fine line
Between right and wrong,
Trying to get some
sense of control
Thinking of pulling
One up on my destiny
Of saving my soul
Not selling out
To this facade
Of what we call progress
But maybe I should
Just stay a while
And enjoy this blissful anaesthesia,
Monitored by the man himself.

Another adventure awaits,
On the crisp of your mortality
One last leap of faith,
To set the record straight
Was it worth the wait?
To alter the course of a life
Based on ecstatic escapades of thrill;
A high flying free bird.

For now, the time has come
To lay low for a while
Always knowing deep in your heart
You are way too tired to go on,
That you are counting down the moments
Before you trade,
A short life for a sure life.

Without the vision, people are rarely reminiscent
Of what they have been looking for,
And fall into a deep torpor.
Maybe it's this slumber that makes them realize,
All that they wanted to be was right there
In front of their own eyes.
With such strong desires held in her soul,
A fire was ignited in her heart
A rustling of leaves somewhere in the woods,
Where she sat somewhere along the brook
Pondering to herself,
Is happiness all I seek?
Or maybe it is just one of life's very old tricks
And it reeks.
With such a heavy heart
She walks alone into the woods,
Contemplating whether life is something
She ever understood.

Watching the world
Pass me by,
Through the window of
A moving vehicle
I'm a passenger
But this imagery feels like the movies,
Where some serendipitous event happens
At this very moment,
When you are pondering over life
Through your little window
You wake up to realize that this is the real-life
A journey with random stops,
Varied stories,
Vivid dreams,
But unlike life, there's a fixed destination
To that journey
While life is more of an endless cesspool
Of unrelated chaos
The destination is not etched into your hands,
The destination is what you make of it
Well, maybe there is no point
In trying to get all the answers to my questions
It took me a while to figure out how
It ain't all that bad,
How I'm happy and glad
For the good times that I've had
Not all-in for always living in the moment,
Just trying to live more in the good ones
Destiny and life go hand-in-hand
Maybe I should not let my life go bland
I should take decisions and actions,
Rather than waiting for the signs that I can understand.