Beneath hovering dust and unfinished structures,
stood a three-legged stool,
the refuge of an 8-year-old,
who holds a worn pencil,
and a torn notebook,
like sacred books of yore.

His hands move, but mind faster,
and with his wandering heart, wanders mine too,
to a decade back,
when I stood outside the same room,
the wall of which I'd been leaning against.

My study, which holds worlds,
camouflaged as books,
finished, unfinished,
and the ones that left me broken,
pulls me in, despite,
but at its doorstep, I must keep caution,
I must not enter again,
for in times of calling,
a promise had been made.

So as it goes,
I have kept my word,
but seems they have failed,
tip-toeing in my dreams,
queried and complained,
why did I leave, just like that?
one fine morning, and an abandoned hat?

And I wonder, do they not know?
That lay beside them,
a tiny little shelf too?
Next to myriad universes, waiting for my universe too?

The shelf stays still, like an empty lifeless canvas,
just as it was in the rains of '04,
just as it was in the winters of '05.

And yet all this while,
the one promise I have kept,
the promise is of betrayal,
that I will delude,
and be disloyal.

I shift with discomfort,
and so does my sight,
the storyteller's out there,
his world alike.

Seasons after seasons
you will spend your autumns
trying to seek answers
in fallen leaves
until one summer
when it’ll occur to you
that what you’re seeking
is not in the fallen
but in the falling.

Morally dissected,
emotionally conflicted,
courting one dilemma after another,
the writer in me is struggling today

In the anxiety of words failing him,
and in the fear of him failing the words,
a battle wages, enrages,
and as silently as it arrives, it withdraws

And then when one page crumbles after another,
when the mind stutters more,
the ground I had held firm all this while,
resigns, all at once

Maybe this is the best time to write,
to bare the emotions that are grey
and while a part of me longs for you to identify,
a little something, in the vulnerability of an expose,
hopes you never do.

Sometimes, one of these days when it rains,
I want to sit by the window sill,
And read her my favourite book,
And watch her wonder at the rain drops

But before there were rains,
There had been a summer,
Never the same, but this,
Not quite like any other

Sure not like her first
When she’d crawl more and walk less,
Garble more and talk less,
Yet each time her lips parted,
She brought me a feeling uncharted.
A myriad, not one, I’ll always be swarmed
She’ll giggle away and I’ll be disarmed

In summers to follow,
She’d put on her school dress,
Wave out to me
Like a sun in her prowess,
Then there was a period when she sketched,
That was also the time she started caring for her tress

Season changed, and cold was common again,
To give her company, I too would feign a pain,
She had started dancing now,
Sometimes I’d shake a leg too,
Solving her math problems,
I’d learn some math too
But there were lessons,
A little few on hope too
Because that’s how I kept up,
I could’ve given up too

And then came the last summer,
The one that was unlike none,
We drove around a lot,
And stopovers for lemonades were fun

Last summer, our car broke down a lot too,
Fixing it was hard, but fixing it was what we had to

Soon, she took to a habit,
That of me fixing it for her,
So, when doctors took her to the Operating unit,
She said, my daddy would fix me sir

Who was to say what Daddy could do?
He was no doctor, had only hope to cling on to
The hope that he had taught her,
Today was Daddy’s test,
One he couldn’t falter

So that’s what I have been telling you,
Now you tell me something too,

Sometimes one of these days when it rains,
Should I not want to sit by the window sill?
And read her my favourite book?
Should I or should I not?

Want to watch her wonder at the rain drops again.

The fall comes, the wind blows,
and the withered leaves drift off,
tell me their tale,
uncannily becoming which is,
a story that is my own

With pangs of longing,
and nights of shooting stars,
I stick out,
my heart on my sleeve,
and travel to places

Becomes one with them,
yet hymns to an old folklore,
my heart, as I sit in an archaic café,
gets lured to the colourful streets,
and yet roams the bygone nooks,
and whispers in my ears

For the sophistication I have become,
For the coffee I have taken to,
For the dreams I have let go,
I must return

For the sky I have not forgotten,
For the tears I have learned to hide,
For the dances I have not danced,
I must return

To the book I have come out of,
to the character I have become,
I must return now, I should go home

When under the stars, in a meadow,
I’ll watch a storm struggle by,
and lay content on my back,
having withered the hurricane I’d become,
when I hear the sky talk back to me,
I’d know I have come back home.

It makes me sink
that we have come this far
and I am still unsure of
how you’d remember me?

Would you flinch
when picking out china patterns?

Would your heart stutter
when choosing nameplate designs?

Would your heart place you in conflict
when doing things without the partner
you had dreamt of such minutes with?

Would your mind need to be calmed
if it arose at the mention of my name
or would it skip your attention
without needing to dismiss it as a coincidence?

When I speak of all things certain,
I don’t speak of us

Thus, I am sunk wondering how you’d remember me
Thus, I am sunk pondering how I don’t have a choice

I’d wish, though, you don’t have a choice either
that I always emerge a feeling hard to suppress.