Both can ****
        The only difference is
                      Cigarettes shatter lungs
         She shatters everything

            I remembered the first moment
my lips pressed the filter
     as I lit it up breathed it all
                savored every smoke
       as if we covered up painful lies
        in a container of painkillers

The same way  
we used to pressed our lips
     sparked something between us
           savored every moment we had
    as if our love was a rose
               in a valley of tulips

There is no glory to light
When the oceans gleam,
Yet the waters beguile
Sun-lances by the clouds.

A slave isn't the criminal-
In his master's bidding.

So sunlight is forgiven
When drops are stolen
From veneers of oceans
To mend those clouds!

The only companion of loneliness is silence.
Theirs is an unceremonious marriage like -
Couples in the middle of their middle age,
That mutually run out of things to explore.

One tries to find meaning in keeping a book,
That tells the same story a million times over-
Hoping to find white pages in the yellowed mess.
But that hope too, soon becomes a relic.

But lately I've come to love a poem,
That unites loneliness with silence-
It's the twisted compromise made-
By water when it settles in a container.
It is written on the faces of mothers-
Whose husbands are away at work.

A verse in the wind that all men hear,
To an effect that it stitches broken hearts.
It is a call for worship in an unbuilt temple
And the belief that enshrines love in trust.

'Tis like this-

The pride of men is locked in mirrors.
Laying dormant, bound in fetters.
This prisoner is presented to a fool-
Ever at the end of a fruitful groom.

Ajey Pai K

Is there a thing-
to which The God-
may thankful be?

In a million prayers,
would The God,
my silence see?

To the God who-
rarely answers thee,
What odds offer-
a better chance to me?

So, in a million prayers-
For my solemn silence,
The God is thankful to me.

-Ajey Pai K

I see the moon in a balmy blue ocean,
Undulating in its restless waves.

Oh these foolish waters!
Find love like a little girl,
With waves hitting the shore.
The sea goes to war with itself,
As the rising tide falls in love
With the image of the moon-
That the falling tide tries to erase.

Irony sleeps in a coffin every night
For when something so deep,
All consuming and powerful-
Be so fickle as to fall in love,
With a mere image that projects,
But only on the surface,
There's nothing one can do.