Her novelty has faded.
The stars hang back, distant ladies-in-waiting.
The night sky, their palace, is eclipsed by cities
Exploding with neon lights and grotesque trees.
She is too romantic.
Inch by inch, the black sheath is drawn back,
Revealing her smiling crescent.
She keeps a faithful orbit, and stirs
Blue oceans with long white fingers.

In her full sphere
She is a perfect spotlight,
Turning quiet snowy fields into
Illuminated empty stages.
She plays peek-a-boo, uncovering lovers
Gleaming whitely in the mouths
Of beds.
The beauty of entwined limbs
Exposed in her milky radiance.

She is the sun’s soft reflection.
He is never dim, and the black
Silk bag, a sort of corset,
Is ready to devour her again.
The wine is drained from the glass.
Her smile has become a slit.
The single pearl
Gulped,
Cloaked in shadow again.

It's hard to know
where to go
from here
empty pages
            in my book
unwritten before me
and the vastness of ocean
washes over this desert
blurring the lines
between the
wounds inside
and perceptions
               of reality
I am stuck
in this foreign place,
a fine-chiseled limbo
etched upon
           my face
My past strong
behind me
pushing my limits
to the hilt
fingers brushing
new firmaments
                of grace
spilling silver
              from silt

I am ready
to see the future
burst forth and unfold
ready for my
raw elements
to be spun wildly into gold
these invisible wings
after years of
being wound in
            tight, rigid curl
are stretching out slowly
being coaxed to unfurl
And here I stand
my feet sturdy as roots
as the sands of time
bud tender shoots
my eyes locked to the stars
fixed in sanguine dream
no need to staunch
the flow
           of liquid
that freely streams
It pours out
from my eyes,
this river of salt
because growing pains
        sting --
it's nobody's fault
Yet it's
tearing me up
into coarse,
ragged strips
descending
upon me
with scratches and rips
and for every burn
branded into my flesh
new insights
are woven
from putrid
               to fresh
For every laceration
I bear upon this heart
there is a gleam in the garden
as seeds germinate
               their start

And as my soul opens out
      expands in deep
           vital glow
            I am as
             a child
who still needs to grow
Her moonlit eyes
set on
          unknown realms
her pillars fallen,
senses overwhelmed
vulnerably jaded,
yet unafraid
because stars  
sometimes
burst into
novas
creating
new
      light
             from
         shade

I wish all my writing  depicted gaggles
wedging south over mossy lakes.

They more often wander to  legs,
tangerine tongues, the taste

of sweat and smell of cheap hairspray;  
for thoughts like these, I feel no
                                          shame.

It's fall, and I'm falling.
Again.

I can hear you fall into step next to me, our feet crunch the bright blanket of our dreams, susurating the empty outlines of our unsketched pieces.

Everyone seems to be carving jack-o-lanterns, but I can't meet the eyes of the pumpkin patch owner after what we did there last fall. I can't go back to 'our spot' without their carved faces subtly mocking the shadows of the idealist, drunk on the idea of "the one ".

It funny how we manged a smile when the leaves actually fell. The tree's misery masked ours and you carved the rocks on the empty ghats with the same knife you would later use to cut our ties. The leaves grew back you know, and we still never stopped smiling.
How curious.

I'm a little relieved you didn't ask for the coat that still cloaks our past even though it clashes with my wardrobe almost as much as it clashes with my life. Because I like believing the illusion that they still smell of you in a way that your perfume couldn't make up for in our brief dalliance.

I remember speaking to speak at our - no, your wedding. I must have told every ghost floating in black tie or a white gown what a beautiful  person you are. What I didn't tell them was how much I loved you, because regardless of what I said they would refuse to hear the past tense in my voice. Gosh, never have i missed the tragedies of my language classes quite as much.

If memory serves me right, I remember congratulating the groom and telling him how lucky he is. But I don't bother telling him how it would've been me last fall. Some truths are best kept secret.

You even asked me for a dance didnt you ? Was that really needed ?

When it all ended I remember waiting outside, next to the roses littered down the hallway and thinking - what a pity. After all your favourite were always lilies.

Now that I look back I think we swept through, akin to children in a hurry. The haze is still lifting, but the season keeps coming back like a monday morning hangover. So as the clouds part with majesty, you happen to have lost the blur of perfection.

Come next july, you'll open your painted eyes to midsummer rain and think of -
The rain.
And I'll be thinking of how burning marshmallows always makes them taste a little bit better.
Why ? Because not ever tale needs a dramatic ending.

It's fall, and I'm falling.
Again

An empty pub is the worst place to be,
In a city, Where even gods stay a bit longer every year,
Perhaps persuaded by the halcyon laughter of that half dressed street urchin,
Who has learnt to celebrate her comical existence,
In the pregnant underbelly of a false saint,
Who refuses to give birth to anything but naked poverty.

Small wonder the gods have never chosen to intervene in the city of joy,
After all its the fault of these urchins  who refuse to abandon their filthy smiles,
And have the audacity to peak through the walls that we annually paint,
With the victorious colours of human values.

But why do they peek,
Isn't their world filled with the unmatched profoundness of black and white photography?
Isn't their world the home to poetic muses and romantic poverty ?
Indeed, why do they peek ?
Before the label on the bottle in front of me,
Makes you judge the potency of what I utter,
Let me tell you why.

For them our world is a constant theatrical which has run different shows annually,
Yet the only complaint they have perhaps is that the genre of the shows,
Have somehow never changed.

Its always been the darkest of satires,
Like the running satire in which half our society,
Sitting safe within the beautiful walls ,
We built around our indomitable prosperity and culture ,
Indulges,
In the hysterical condemnation of a man,
Who wants to build a beautiful wall on a different continent .
To protect the same

You know, I don't speak urchin-tongue,
But I have always had the gift to read feelings I shouldn’t,
And something tells me the urchins have titled this theatrical,
“Moral *******”.

But that’s not all,
An empty pub is the worst place to be in a city which refuses to let you give up hope,
And gently reminds you with every drink
That even when the rest of the world is out there dancing,
To the drum beats of happy endings and ephemeral farewells,
There’s one place that will never close its doors on you.

The only thing is.
The place isn’t the home you never ended up building with her,
It’s just an empty pub.

And that is why an empty pub is the worst place to be.