Ages later, in your rasping voice
Meanings will reside
Only for you and for me
Till then, let this world
Call us senseless and abhorrent.

The silvers of your hair
Testify your golden days
At my love's expense.
Neatly parted in lines,
Along the same paths
Where fingers once rode.
Your lauded wisdom,
Your crown of experience,
Flattened to perfection.
Sometimes wind disturbs
The crafted monotony
To take you back.
Willing, unwillingly,
You live your golden days
At my love's expense.

In raw interiors
Of a quaking savage earth,
The mirror of my heart.

Behold my tradition
I break bonds
To make new ones.
I change name
To renew identity.
I sever roots
And sow new hopes.
I forget reality
To live in dreams.

All in vain.

Hopeless.

Let there be a world
That's more meaningful.
Let there be a world
Where I live for me.

My fallen tree.
Your victory,
In my mortal death.

Ascending to Unknown.
Comfort,
Your dead living.

I had fallen.
I rise.
You await end.

Everyday I send a word
I'm brewing a hope of love
Send ur choicest seraphim
To burn it pure
To test it deep within
And with its triumph
Mould me anew,
A vessel unto you.

Rake my intentions
Find it chaste.
Sew up my failures.
And then with your
Archangels on my side
I shall take on this world
Under your banner, me and my love.

Some nights you are so distant
You make conversations
Cocooned in your solitude
Oblivious to gratitude
Of a chance at exploring
More than one can get
In a single lifetime.
Alas when you return
I am too far gone,
Too hopeless, too lost

Hoping this once, you
Will look into my eyes
And realize, I too
Was tired and bored of life
But had found a reason.
Only if it was merely
Something to enjoy
And not to live by.

In this artery
Of your thoughts
I have claimed
Haves and Nots
Beat down d'pulse
That betrays us
Walk my plains
In exodus
Reach a knot
High and hot
In the deepest
Crevices, revive
Your last hopes
In there lies
Riches of beyond
You'll learn someday
We're always there
Collecting souvenirs
Life after life.

So many have come and gone
All have found a way
But I'm right where they left me
Taking one step forward
And two steps back.
Now the world has moved on
It looks back and laughs at me
I laugh at me..
They talk in undertones
They smile and smirk
How'd I face them, I've become
An omen of bad luck.

Taken from the most
Intimate corners and
Crevices of my heart,
Written from the deepest
And darkest ounce
Of my now dried blood,
Shown in the most
Painful and lasting lines
Etched on my palms..

Is the fact you came,
You celebrated,
You exploited, and
You got left behind.
Evidence that I prevail.

One step hesitant
One too bold
One too late.
As you faltered
There were hundreds
To skip a beat for you
There were crowdfulls
To extend their best hands.
Deep within i knew
You deserved them and more
I knew and I accepted
There's more that you can get
From all your admirers
Who live your beauty and youth
I knew and I accepted
We were perhaps never meant
And so, when i see million be true
I pretend that I dont care
I pretend I barely know you.

Let my beaten heart take console
That you, my dear friend,
Have been, and are by my side.
What but that, I live by?
True as you have been to me,
Your worth is beyond my price.
I might be a lot of things, but not
A deserter. I am the same within.
All I ask is a little more faith
And not ask where I've been all day
For how can I, my dearest, confess
That I have been busy making mistakes.

One Evening
Four words
New Beginning
Of Hopes
Of Desires
Of Conflicts

One Night
Few Confessions
Towards Termination
Of Dreams
Of Plans
Of Peace

It takes more than a few words
exchanged in sparse meetings,
It takes more than a few hours
spent in a dark, loud bar,
It takes more than a few rides
taken down unending roads
To turn a person inside out.
And with all that effort, I wonder
if it was worth it. Now I realize,
It was better being Strangers.
I now know, not knowing you
was the best I felt about Us.

I look at you from obscure corners
Your sight is what keeps me going
Those sly smiles, those carefree eyes
Those loaded remarks are my best mates
If I didn't care, i'd take them from you
I'd make them my own to love and to hate
If I didn't care I'd break my rules
To take you in the most intimate embrace
I'd should show you life as you've not known
I would show you life's pretty face.
If I dint care I'd take a lifetime
To know you bit by bit
But fate and luck have abandoned us...
So we go our own ways to live, alone in a crowd
Alone in a world full of people we pretend to care.

I was sewing
With my left knee
Over my right
A song played
Behind my eyes
And words fell on
The patterns stitched.
Time is so treacherous.
Decades later I sit
Lost in your youthful face
The first time you
Looked deep within..
Time has preserved you,
Time has raced me.
My wrinkled hands shake
Remembering carefree days.
Time has held you safe
In its eternal *****.
I looked up at the clock
It's time. Time to let go
Of this pain and agony
Time to move to the next leg
Of another beautiful journey.

I might be wrong
Days have become brighter
Not with sun but sunny smiles
That find their way on my face.

I might be wrong
Tears dont feel painful
As they travel down once familiar path
But they soothe the dry trails.

I might be wrong
But I find new reasons
Crazier than the last
To scale the ways where we had a past.

I might be wrong
My questions get deeper
And answers become more evasive
But it doesnt discourage me.

I might be wrong
But I feel alive again
And I will not stop this quest
Till I get what I seek.

First you smiled
Later you stared
Then you moved close
And gently caressed
You softened my skin
With slow moist breath
And brushed my lips
With a feathery touch
You left me standing
In the black night rain
I stood there waiting for
A kiss that ne'er came.

For God's sake
Make up your mind.
You want me or not,
You have a choice.
But your decision
Comes with a price.
Make up you mind,
I don't have the full night.

You came and then came opportunity.
You stayed and opportunity transformed.
He came with opportunity.
To slip, to hold, to let go - all my choice.
To hell with opportunity, I remain on my own.

After being approached
After being treasured
After being caressed
After being touched
After being devoured
After being harassed
After being violated
After being enslaved

I realized what a big mistake it was
I realized Mistakes are for Ever.

A broken branch sways,
the only movement,
Everything else as still as a painting
My steps crush what remains.
A busy worm drills
the earth. I feel like saying,
"Stop you idiot, don't waste
the last bit of yourself"
There is nothing here except death.
I can smell it, It curls my skin
My hair stands, a chill runs down
under the cruel afternoon sun.
It dries my mouth before I open it.

It was all green, until the two-legged beasts came
They ripped apart my home, my family
And years later when I return
I realized this was no returning,
this was no coming back,
This was the End.

I see your hesitant nods
I understand your doubts
I hear your second thoughts
Believe me, they are mine too.

Not until I met you
Not until we decided the "I do's"
Not until we showed our colours true
Did there come a purpose
To take down the odds
To challenge doubtful thoughts
To take the riskier shots
To decide to be with you

But You should know, pain never comes twice
After once, it becomes experience, then habit

A person hurts someone only once
And then, becomes a sadist

A person bears the pain only once
And then, becomes Me.

Like it, Hate it
The truth won't change.
You might say religion,
Or mask it in Karma,
Or just call it sad,
That turn of events were.
Like Pontus Pilate
You will never ever
Wash your hand off,
Never Wash off the blood.
Worse, you will never
Be remembered in prayer.
Purgatory will turn on you.
Where will you go
When thousands grab you,
Where will you go
When riots burn you?
For all those who were cut
and burnt even in wombs,
You will answer how?
No Hindutva will save.
No rioter will survive.
Like it, Hate it.

Sometime last night
I woke, I saw you beside me
In an incomplete darkness
I saw the rising and setting,
The warmth and heat, the spell of a skipped hearbeat.

Your eyes only barely closed
Light dancing in the shadow
of your lashes - swift, untamed
Arms still curved in a hug
Where I had snuggled close, Where I had kissed your brows

The whispers of last words
from the night's conversations
Still linger somewhere – ethereal
In a twisted life I have had.
Smoldering a need so alien so new, a need to be with you.

How you knelt and held me,
How you opened your heart,
The flow of words hit me so hard.
The depth and sincerity curled my skin,
I knew, for all that's true I was in, I knew I had fallen in.

You should know how in the heart
of a soul lost, wounded and scarred
You kindled hope, perhaps undeserved
But, I wouldn't rest it just there, I reckoned
I would walk till wherever this led, I would walk it till the end.

It’s not been all so long, but,
Why does it seem like ages?

Only yesterday we loved, we argued.
Today we spoke again as strangers.
And later I saw you in the marketplace.
You looked perfect, you were, Always.

Not alone, were you? Your beautiful company,
I did not miss her, nor did so anybody.
Scarlet against the grey world, so charming her face
Held you in place. Does it matter? You’ve forgotten me anyways.

It’s not been all so long, but,
Why does it seem like ages?

Just now you passed me in the village fair,
You looked, turned back again and again.
Those piercing eyes following in a mad chase,
You sought me out. Remember if only, those sensuous days?

I cried the day you left.
I knew you'd never return.
I tried to strangle your memories in different ways,
But you brought them back, you and Scarlet in marketplace.

I met him on board the van,
Fiery and uncontrollable
against the heavily guarded windows.
He fought not with fists,
His weapons were slogans and songs
that shook the foundations
of a corrupt seat, a corrupt army.

How many times I had seen
him march the corridors,
His eyes set, his voice strong,
He was the face of freedom
and the fight for it.
To see him the same in the van,
it warmed my heart, gave me courage.

It was all over in a minute
A confusion, a push, a fall
And a flight outside the van.

They say he hit the limits
and his head exposed to all.
Some say it was a violent blow
And the "Gods" struck him down...
The rallies have broken,
People are back to cribbing
But none would walk his path
They fear, and rightly so,the aftermath.

What is it about this night that attracts me?
It's the same dark Indian sky - a battle-field
of grey and pink clouds, scattered stars.
A biker at my door step nodding in acknowledgement.
The next moment I am a pillion zooming past
dusty streets and honking cars - such chaos.

What is it about this night that calls me?
It's the same old destination - more trees
and lesser people. A highway as a leeway
to all perils of this hateful city.
This ride is a big U-turn and I'll be back
To the same cacophony, same city trash.

What is it about this night that strikes me?
It's the same me, wearing the same old pair of jeans,
A jacket to meet the cold, kohl in my eyes.
Same oggling at the silent, cold night
Still searching for something eventful to happen
Till the cold chills me and I wish my haven.

Not until you reached for my numb hand on my knee
And placed it on your warm, alive chest, Not until
I felt the rhythmic thud within, did I realize
What is so special - It was feeling reality and acceptance -
Life is so much more than just me. It's in the wide
night sky that cuddles me, in every person with a heart
that beats, in every moment you allow yourself to get old
and live with experiences, in places, with you.

This morning I was just me -
Detached from the past, estranged from time
I chased emptiness down the streets
Like a lost soul searching something divine
People walked past, people pushed by
I felt like a complete non-entity
Until you stopped, loooked at me in the eye
And stole away the last bit of sanity

I sat next to you, the sun going down,
Enveloped in the shadowy gown.
The shadows growing longer,
Your eyes shining brighter,
The moonight reflected in them as clearly as in a silent pool.

You smile, you turn away, you laugh.
I can see you shaking with mirth
The straight line of your back bent forward
In your hands a spell that captured beauty, captured moments
And you went back to them, with you me - revelling in nature.

The wind shifting spikes of your hair
There is something magical the way your sad eyes move
They seek peace, they seek love, they seek finesse.
I stutter, I stumble, I might not be any of these.
But I know I would always understand. I would be there.
If not with you, somewhere; still understanding.

The stars are up now, my hope is bright
If not forever, let it be for tonight.

Last time it was a liitle different
Last time you were young and I was naive
Last time you had no ego - I had no pride
Last time it wasn't you and me, it was Us
Last time it was like music, not a dull buzz
Last time it was a little different

I wish it were the last of last time
You'd still be a beautiful thought in my mind