Sometimes there's such pain
As can't be healed by
The carefree jest of a dear friend
Or the earnest caress of mother,
Sometimes, when the pain
Is caused by those closest,
And there's no one left to turn to,
I realise,
It's only Allah,
And my Poetry...
Only Poetry,
And my Allah,
Ever-steady, ever-soothing,
Unfailingly right,
Always on the healing side.
Always there.

Do it now,
Light a match, set my heart aflame,
The wait is too slow, love,
I need an end to this game,
Where i know the hopes
Are bleak for my victory,
So do it swiftly in one go,
Light a match and burn away this agony.

It was meant to be-
I was meant to be yours
Pride was never going to be our ally,
For we would thirst for each
other sans all ego,
You- like the barren earth,
Me- like the desperate raindrop,
One, in dire need of a quencher,
The other, homeless, searching for shelter,
We were meant to pine for unison,
We were meant to wander
without lover to hold our hand
so together we could get lost,
and find ourselves.
It was meant to be-
Me needing you,
You needing me,
To live, to breathe, to matter,
to *be

When you're born out of a broken marriage,
You unwittingly become part of it,
No one asked you if you wanted to,
Yet you mediate,
As you grow, you participate,
You cease to be a child very soon,
You are the third spouse who entered
Way after the honeymoon,
You live with the everyday-fear of this
Arrangement falling apart,
You don't know why you're saving it,
Despite it being so toxic to all three minds and hearts,
But, as if you were born for just that purpose,
You strive for it everyday,
You take sides everyday,
Being a successful last straw
Is your daily pretend-play,
And suppressed resentment, your best friend,
Those born out of a broken marriage will know,
Having a loving father and a loving mother
Is not the same as having a family where
Everyone loves each other.

I thought I had enough weight on my shoulders,
Till I saw him
Neatly pile up all our suitcases,
Tie them with knots tight and sure,
Then place the burden that was his livelihood
Onto his curving back, bending it more,
And turn with a swiftness that defied
The grey of his hair and the lines on his face
The coolie walked fast and proud,
While we, empty-handed, struggled to stay apace.

I admit
My initial fixation
Was with the idea of love,
All the clichés, the to-do's of love
But now,
You are the idea
You are the clichéd routine of
Chocolates and roses,
Love is no longer a mere emotion
You, now are its purest personification

My head is nodding off into sleep,
My mind, shutting down for the night,
Yet the heart is vigorous, up and about,
Says it has poetry that I should type.

I know there's nothing tonight-

I feel no love or heartache at the moment,
No cause for gloom or celebration,
No nagging regrets or piercing guilt,
No urgent philosophical questions.

Yet the heart presses on,
And I've no choice but to let go,
And ease it with the calmness that only poetry brings,
Its verses acting as the best placebo.

After all, a writer's ***** is an impatient one,
And the only way to calm its creative agitation,
Is to feed it with words, ideas and emotion,
Woven together into a recipe of poetic composition.

Silently she prowls,
Inhaling whiffs of his scent,
That inflames her through and through,
Igniting her every sense.
She circles outside his vision,
Sizing him up, drinking in
the rawness of his manliness
Watching him make his ****,
Wouldn't he like to see my skills?
she thinks to herself,
claws ready to pierce into his skin,
to mark his body as hers,
only hers,
she proceeds towards him,
concealing all her fire, all her madness,
beneath smooth, unruffled fur.
He harshly growls,
turning ferociously towards her,
And she,
demurely *purrs

Insulated by your embrace
From all chaos and commotion,
I take refuge in your arms so strong,
While the world continues to toss and turn

When the bustling day retires behind
The night's starlit charcoal curtains,
My maverick awakens to bring to life
Music from the silence of your absence

He was sewn into her life like
Fine embroidery on silk,
In he went, sharp needle tip
Into her softness digging,
Then piercing her inside out, emerging
Only to be driven again back in,
He was the rose that was carved
On her pale, plain form;
His red completing her deficiencies,
His fragrance camouflaging her inconsistencies,
A Prince Charming,
Made just for her, she was told,
With sword of steel and armour of gold,
His grip hurt?- "It was supposed to, a little bit!"
His thorns stung?- "Oh surely you can bear it!"
Why was he there?- "Hush, woman!
You aren't supposed to ask that!
The rose is your crown, it is your badge
of honour, of modesty, of shame,
The little holes and their bleeding flames
Are marks of the strength of a woman, you see!
The strength that to only you, nature brings,
To stitch your man on to your fragile skin
To exhibit the flower, hiding the thorns within,
To gracefully mask the bruises, the puckering,
For you need him to fill your shortcomings"
-*without questioning.

The sound of my footsteps creates frantic echoes.
It is a cold, menacing night.
Darkness envelops me as I walk right into it.
Far away, I see the feeble glow of a streetlight.

I keep looking back nervously,
almost expecting my eyes to meet a stranger's eyes,
when from somewhere behind me comes
a very faint voice.

It's barely more than a whisper and I can't hear what he says.
But the chilly wind sends his message across.
I know that he's calling out to me.
I know what he wants from me.

What stops me from running away from him?
What makes me turn back?
What pulls me towards his invisible form?
What makes me want to surrender to him, everything I have?

The firmness of my feet gets replaced by submission.
I almost float towards him, as if in a trance.
The Woman takes me over, and with her Man
she wishes to perform the Dance.

I stand a few feet away from him
and my eyes stop to converse with his.
"I need you", his eyes say.
"I need you too", mine shoot back.
Oh but, are good girls supposed to express
their desires like that?

The first question arises
and the spell breaks.
He's invisible no more and I can see
his unkempt hair, his unshaven face.
He half-smiles.
He lifts his arm.
I back away.
He might cause harm!
He moves towards me.
He is no longer my beautiful fantasy.

But then he touches his hand with mine.
Once again, he becomes a faceless dream.
Once again, reality begins to lose shape.
Tonight, there's no escape.

I think what he felt was beyond love,
For, after braving multiple imprisonments in hell
That she shamelessly put him through,
All he said to her was "I wish you well"

He sees me from a distance and
passes a hand through his hair,
His smile changes, his voice does too,
His movements pick up a flair
Reserved for only those moments
of hopeful eye contacts,
that harbour even the remotest possibility
of culminating into the act-

The act, for which my body
Prepares me month after month,
Clouding my senses and bombarding me
With erogenous oestrogen and ferocious pheromones,
That dictate my actions every mid-cycle,
To deck me in colour and spray myself fragrant,
Like a flower opening herself and welcoming
Her visitor who's looking at her from a distance,

What more, say, is existence,
Than the dance of the elements?
The heart wraps it up in candy and fluff,
But the mind and the flesh call its bluff,
And sway to the tune of 'find and mate',
The steps known to them, though never taught,
The mind swaying along to procreate,
The flesh joining in, to recreate.

Loving you is an acquired taste
Like my love for cheesecake,
Strange, unfamiliar, sour-ish at first,
Frowned upon by many, not understood by some,
Which slowly grew upon me, with its
Pleasant softness, the delicious gooeyness of its core,
the sweet, sweet feeling long after it's
touched my lips,
Loving you, an uncharted flavour then,
makes all the sense in the world *now

Together, they were like that wiry hair with
A split end she would obsessively try
To peel apart,
Not sure if more harm would be done,
With or without it in her heart.
She knew she could cut it off
and be done with it in a go,
Yet she picked at it,
Deriving strange painful pleasures in tearing
Each other away,
Till he would fall into the abyss of oblivion,
And her, weakened, distorted,
A lone strand would remain,
Never would she be the same again.

I may not be able to
Shape you into a poem today,
Though you've been calling out to me
From quite some time now,
Know that I'm keeping you safe
Inside my heart,
Where all my emotions rest,
Where all my peace and turmoil conjoins
and fills up my being, makes me real,
I'm going to keep you there,
Dear idea, bask in my happiness,
Feel my pain, the knots of my confusions,
The force of my convictions,
The pangs of my regrets,

And wait for me,
For, when the time is right,
I'll reveal you to the world,
In all your wisdom and beauty,
Wait for me, my love.

Until I'm able to put you into words,
Feel at home inside my soul.

Your breaths were soft murmurs
Muffled within the green whisperings
of the hooded lush covers,
I could catch a glimpse of your
bold cheekbones when light bounced
off them; light that would come and go
of its own accord,
From where and where to, who knew,
We only kept going on,
Deeper and deeper wheels took us,
Guided and misguided by the silences
That guarded the secrets of the forest,
Secrets that weighed down its rustling leaves,
Like they weighed us down everyday,
I would have licked off that bead of sweat
that must be rolling off your cheek right now,
Then why don't you?, a cricket quizzically chirped
Look, even the wilderness is talking to me,
Why don't you!, I wanted to ask,
But I didn't, the maze of tree trunks engulfing us
Tighter by the second,
The jungle looked so benign in the daylight,
Its vibe gentle, its voice tranquil,
Its green, so calm in the sun,
Turned to a bloodthirsty red by the night,
And a million stealthy eyes opened and followed
our drive, laughing at us as we lost track,
You and I,
Speeding away from sanity,
Hurtling away from humanity,
Rocketing away from reality,
No words spoken, but our hearts
pounding in unison as we ran,
In hopes of launching into that dimension
That existed sans sense of material,
Sans sense of reason,
Sans sense of self.
Remember, I've promised you nothing,
Said the jungle elusively,
Winding its curves dangerously steep,
Mysterious even in its time of sleep,
While your foot harshly pushed the pedal,
In the desperate hope that bound us
That if we could wander off track like last time,
and stumble upon that dimension once again,
and strip ourselves naked of the secrets,
and let our truths and our lies be consumed
by the Jungle,
Perhaps, once again,
Like last time,
We could lose it all to find each other.

While he is sort of an
All-black with a dash of fluorescent
Kind of guy
I am more of a
Dazzling fluorescent with a hint of black
Kind of girl
So, what do you think,
Will it work?

Why is it so hard to find my voice
In the cacophony of large gatherings,
Yet so easy to draw on paper, words
Silently arrayed into profound meaning?

Reluctant subject,
I nervously peered at
your kind lens as you clicked
I must have shut my eyes
The sun is so harsh anyway, I thought,
or given that crooked, half-hearted smile
that I usually end up with

Helpless photo-ruiner,
I gazed in surprise at the beauty
staring back at me,
And saw what you see in me
and fall in love with, everyday,
Looking at myself through your eyes,
I quietly realised,
It was your photograph's grace

Everybody has their thing,
The thing that makes them unique,
That, even when stifled by the mundane
everyday routines of mediocre living,
Undaunted, unaffected, bravely remains.

At times, we forget our thing-
We are made to, or make ourselves believe
That some other things are our thing,
Like, you know, 9-5 jobs, paychecks,
Project submissions, career graphs,
Shallow relationships, fake smiles,
Fake compliments...

Yes, I agree, they sometimes force themselves onto us,
But what we need to know is, that they're not
what our lives should revolve around;
what we should dance around, is that quality,
that precious thing that is ours,
and solely ours to own,
And, though worldly lies and trivialities,
Come and go away, as they please,
Our thing, crystal and true, faithfully stays.

I lived that feeling of fulfillment today,
Letting it win the tussle with the to-study list,
Letting it down the vague guilt of procrastination,
Letting it break free of the web of this and that,
that life ties us into-
I embraced my thing, and let it run untamed,
And now I'll read it, edit it, love it- my poetry,
And ponder over its name.

It's that time of the night again

The memory of your presence
Lulls me to soft sleep
But the shock of your absence
Pulls me awake again

I toss and turn in this gnawing pain
It's that time of the night again

But how can I forget you,
I met you at an age when
Everything seemed possible,
There was time left for everything,
When my mind body heart and soul
Were blank pages open to all colors,
When I stayed up half night to catch
That song on the radio which reminded me of you
I met you at the age when the touch
Of your name written on my hand
Gave me butterflies,
You became all my love songs
You became all my poetry
You became all my innocence,
My optimism, my naivete, my hope,
You were my year seventeeth,
And even on my thirty-seventh,
Fifty-seventh, seventy-seventh,
You will forever be my year seventeenth,
So how can i forget you?

How empowering it is to be able to sprinkle
Just the amount of turmeric powder,
And to know just how much of a pinch,
Is that pinch of salt and coriander,
Which'll swirl around together in sputtering oil,
Dancing with crisp bay leaves and cloves,
Bathing in the crimson of finely ground chilli,
Forming a fragrance engulfing the sacred stove,
The fragrance that defines every hand that cooks,
Each concoction of spices distinctly set apart
By infinite proportions of masalas and herbs,
Carving infinite routes of satisfying the heart,
The kitchen is the powerhouse of a home,
And the ones who man it are technologists
Who day after day, create curry that reaches
Not just the gut but the self of who consumes it,
It is only when you stand, teaspoon in hand,
While lightly brown onions look up to you in anticipation
Do you realise that forming food is no simple, menial task
It is a scientific, artistic and spritual exploration.

So this very extraordinary poet
Said that my words were very "warm, and wise"
Oh I did a celebratory dance only
Before I sadly realised

That I was the girl who had once screeched
"I hate youuuuu" at a friend in the middle of a busy street!
Ah well, guess I'm that kind of poet who
Reserves all her wisdom for Hello Poetry

I realised that Life
was a scheming, vile *****
the day I felt the pain
of a sudden, shattering loss
Indifferent, and unforgiving,
you may keep questioning it
fervently, relentlessly,
but it won't give you an answer.

Life isn't answerable to you,
It will cradle you with the
illusion that you're in control
Then will suddenly wihdraw,
And watch as you fall

Whoever spread the notion
that life was a gift,
forgot to mention that the gift was accursed
You could relish it for moments
But when it would be time,
It would leave you to darkness,
And never look behind.

Like you pour into the hilly forest bed,
O Mighty Goddess of Rains
Choose me too, to cultivate,
I am but a stretch of pining land,
Thirsting, fertile, lost in the wait
Of your love that nurtures and creates,
With the gentless of water,
And the ferocity of thunder,
I spread myself bashfully to welcome you inside,
Like the mountains beckon you with valleys open wide,
Come, teem into my soil with your potent spell,
Hug my skin and print me with that post-union smell,
And let life take birth from my yearning soul,
Only you hold the power to make me whole.

Undraping before
Your generous eyes
One insecurity
At a time

He doesn't have to be
A poetry person
To be my person

I love you and there's no if or but about it,
I love you like I've known all my life how to,
Like I was born with the feeling oxygenating
my blood, my very core,
I love you even when I try to deny it,
I think about you even if I am thinking about something else,
You're always there, sometimes in background,
sometimes in foreground, but you're always there, why?
Because I love you!
With you I leave all the road maps behind,
With you I don't go according to "plan",
You take my plans and set them haywire,
Jazz them up into something unexpected and
Phenomenal, you take me to the road I would never
have taken, but I do, because that road has
You.

She's been blooming ever since
She set foot on this earth,
With cheeks that people found akin
to cupcakes and a cackle that'd
make even the harshest ones swoon,
She'd bloom.

When she grew- she grew a tad bit awkward,
Beauty doesn't follow roadmaps,
So her eyebrows did a little mischief,
And her weight didn't really obey,
A pimple or two popped out too,
of its own accord,
Yet, with that fire in her heart
and the spark that it reflected her eyes,
though she didn't recognise,
she was making the world her own,
Yes, she was in bloom.

As she walks down her office corridor,
Sharp and chiselled,
Confident and aware
of every look, every stare
falling on her frame, she remembers the days
when she wasn't so much of a charmer,
and thanks her lucky stars that she did in the end
turn out to be a late bloomer.
I wish I'd tell her,
Oh if she'd listen, I'd tell her-
My dear, never once did your sheen waver,
Never once did your glory falter,
Through your clumsiness and your flaws
Through your missteps and your doubts,
You remained a stunner,
And will stay so, in your life and beyond,
For you are a perennial bloomer.

I peer into the thoughts
In her lonely eyes,
Barren and wintry,
Cold as ice,
Colored lids do
Little to hide
The tales that toss
and turn inside
Speak to me darling,
go on, confide!
She feigns ignorance
to conceal her pride,
I try to draw the curtains,
shine her recesses with light, but
hastily receding, she pleads,
"please do come some other night"

Morning commences with the friendly clink of
cups, sitting beside the tea cosy-clad kettle,
Fresh, calming fragrance of warm tea nudging at
My just-awakened senses, a little unsettled,

My favorite ghazal colors the background,
The record though scratchy, its influence unfaded;
Abida Khanum mellowly croons, urging her lover
to not insist on leaving that day.

I smell, instinctively, the red rose he hands me,
The same rose had traced my skin in the dark
The missing petals testimony to its journey
Over troughs and crests, marks and landmarks.

What is so utterly, heartwarmingly romantic
about something as simple as him spreading
butter on bread, mixing sugar in chai,
what makes his 'routine', for me so endearing?

He watches me eat, breaks into a smile so wide,
'How do you enchant me, even with the mundane?'
he asks, same question amusing us both,
Same passion coursing through our veins.

The poetess inside me, happily chuckles,
Of being the one expressive, of solely giving away-
Are the days of the past, as breakfast in bed
Becomes our way of Give and Take

I wonder how much sugar it'll take
To drown your bitter aftertaste

Too many sunny gardens lie unexplored
Too many poems stay unwritten
Too many knots remain tangled as
The fog of Delhi looms menacing,
Inside the stillness of a seven-year void
That only you can bring light in,
If only you'd meet.

Heartbeat aflutter,
Rhythms skip and stutter,
Slip as if on butter,
It's the end of those days forlorn,
the heart sounds in triumph,
*Crush Alert- ON!

It is difficult-
Separating from yourself
A part of you,
A part of your ideas,
your dreams,
Letting go of elements
of your being,
For someone else's essence.
It is difficult, making room
for another's entity,
but then again,
when was Love ever easy?

The purple lights up the dinner table,
Mocking me a little for the mess I made,
Ah, the conjugal suicide of forgotten
anniversaries of first meetings or
first conversations, or first hand-holdings,
I still don't seem to remember
As I try and find sleep on the couch tonight,
Oh, my bundle of organised chaos,
My lover of trivial celebrations,
My collector of silver and purple lanterns,
Do you think I can't hear you impatiently turn?
Did you really think you could sleep soundly?
Do you think I don't know it is for me you yearn,
The outcast, the culprit, forced into exile unfairly?
I can foresee the very moment you'll press into the sheet,
The instant before you'll resign that you can take it no more,
I can sense the very second you're biting your lip,
I know you thought-deep, there's no deeper I can go,
And in that beautiful, eternal pause,
Between bite of lip and sigh of concession,
Between stubborn resilience and renunciation,
We'll both wait, tugging at the palpable tension,
Which is the test of my punisher's power,
And for me, a premonition of the sweet taste of love,
That is about to follow, just the moment after.

Mind,
Stop racing please?
Thoughts don't have
A finishing line

The photo of her high tea                            
With its flowery cups,                                  
Its cookies and scones,                                
Arranged in aesthetic order,                      
Filtered to perfection and                            
Posted online soon after,                            
Is her current most-liked.                              

The scene of him frailly
Scouring the waste truck,
His skin invaded by bones,
And bathed in gloomy odour,
Painted with deprivation and
Destitute disorder,
Doesn't make it to the spotlight.

*The High Tea meanwhile, earns another Like

I bared my all when
I told you timidly that I write.

When I nervously breathed to you,
That it was time,

To watch me turn unruly
verses into rhyme,

And handed you disarrayed pages
Saying they housed the essence of my life,

My soul, my self, my being
Shone at you in the twilight,

I know you chuckled at my earnestness,
But know, dear lover of mine,

I bared my all the day
I told you timidly that I write

Travel!

Pick up a bag,
Pack it light,
Venture off into the night!

Spot the silent ones,
Strike up a conversation,
Closed souls hold the most precious stories,
Let them open up to you, ever so gently.

Find a painting, a photograph, a sculpture!
There's a tale behind every hue,
every curve, every stroke, every frame,
Art is a window to the mind of the creator,
Get inside there, explore it, immerse yourself deeper!

And read. Wade through romantic sagas,
Edgy thrillers, flights of fantasies, and mythology,
Float through ages and places and people,
Let words in black and white teach you
the meaning of existence; let the silence of reading
sing to you the hymn of living

And then, my friend, go on,
go on and Write!
Write about your travels to mountain peaks
and fiery seas,
Into strangers' eyes, into your lovers' souls,
Scribble into your travelogue the meaning of
that graffiti at the corner of the street,
And your journey into books!- write, as
you hop from universe to universe,
To places,
Through pages,
Inside minds,
Ahead of time,
And watch how your experiences
Smoothly fall into place and
Effortlessly rhyme

My blood is gurgling lava swishing
Along the walls of my veins,
Turning 'red' every cell in its way,
Devouring my insides in raging flames,

As my skin simmers in silence,
But doesn't dare divulge,
The power of the quiet fire that
Seethes, raves, storms and engulfs!

He doesn't notice the goosebumps.
If he did, he could map out each inch
Of my body where my flesh lights up with
Desire at the mere sight of him.

He doesn't notice I'm beating about the bush
When I'm complimenting his eyes,
While my insides are squirming at the
Nervous thought of the ways infinite,

In which I'd overcome this ****** distance,
That is holding me back, keeping me away.
I know the Universe is buying time, fearing the
Electric aftermath our union would create.

I'll make sparks fly, we'll go see stars together,
Our skins'll birth fire, that'll satiate our hunger,
I'll let him touch raw love with his bare fingers,
Just a matter of time before we breach this barrier.

I see it,
It's within reach now
Soon- soon enough,
I'll get there,
*To the point where I just won't care

The thrill is palpable,
Pulsating, powerful,
Electric,
Fierce heat it emanates,
Warming our faces,
We are radiant, we glow,
We both feel it,
We both know,
But none of us
is brave enough
to reach out right now,
so we just breathe with bated desire
and watch the lush fire,
crackle, hiss, seductively bloom,
one impatiently waiting for the other
to make the *first move

I know it's not my responsibility
To fix him
But when I see him,
I see pieces separated with
Spaces of pain in between
Fuelling this urge in me
To seal them with caresses,
To heal them with kisses,
To re-write the tragic tale
That plays out in his eyes
Into a poem that sets into
Rhythm, his disarrayed life

Trail of hickeys
On veiled skin-
Speaker of stories
Of storms and sins

Catch me when I'll fall
with the sun rays,
crossing clouds and
bursting into bright
rainbow colours,
Catch me when I'll paint
the fading sky orange,
dancing the monotony away,
I'll come to you, every day,
From dawn to dusk,
Feel my familiar touch,
Around you, don't miss me,
For when the day will fall and
I'll be gone, just look above
And you'll find me there,
Twinkling bright among the stars,
With my promise, with my truest promise,
That I'll meet you again, tomorrow,
Shining into your beautiful arms

Distracted from everything,
Floating away from all things
Worldly and untrue
I drift fixated,
Towards you, you, you...