Isn't ripping a
Soulmate away from your insides,
Too,
A kind of suicide?

It would start like a bubble
in my seven-year old chest,
An ever-expanding ball of
doom, substituting my breath

I was a child, yet I knew death,
I would try inhale- silence
I would hope it would fix itself
but, when I'd try exhale- silence

There was ugly music though,
It rose as I forced my ribs to expand,
Jarring, polyphonic, cacophony,
Of airways brutally locked and jammed.

When a child learns to measure April
nights, with the hours spent in the pain
Of coughing through close-to-nil breaths,
And breathing through coughing again,

One wonders at the extent of the inhumanity
Of those, who are quick to discreetly say,
"Hush, do not speak of this illness to anyone,
It's no illness at all, in the first place!"

"And, here, take these magic pills and potions,
They're slow but will take away all her agony,
No no, don't listen to those white-coated liars,
You don't need puffs of drugs into her body!"

So I ate all those pills and
Drank all those potions,
And I stayed up those nights,
Waiting for their promised actions,

And I went to school the next day,
Groggy, breathless and sleepy-eyed,
Because not-being-seen with an inhaler was
More vital than the breaths of a seven-year old child.

Cinderella-
She left her shoe behind as she ran,
Barefoot, unthinking,
she hurried on dewy grass
towards greener lands
and castles grand,
and chandeliers radiant,
and jasmines fragrant,

Cinderella-
did you realise that the
bloom which beckons from afar,
in reality, will only hurt and jar,
the sun, the glitter, and the stars
are faces of a deceitful mirage?

Cinderella, return!
You left your shoe behind,
You left your heart behind,
You left your prince behind,
You left yourself behind,
Save them all before they go ****!
It's only minutes until midnight.

“Yes, kid, I speak no lie when I say
That I’ve seen the whole world with my eyes,
I’ve sailed through waters, trudged barren lands,
Climbed tricky mountains, dived from high skies.

Different masters, different  creases pressing
Into my not-soft but not-so-hard skin, I’ve graced
Different shoes of different colors,
Materials, textures and shapes!

A hundred years I’ve lived in the best shoes, yes sir.
Finest, smartest leather sole, that’s me.
Don’t go by the frayed edges, kiddo,
There ain't no place where this black body hasn't been.

Ha! Look at those young eyes grow big already.
I hope you don’t faint in awe when I tell you
The story of the famous hunter who would
Silently surf deep jungles in his pointed boots.

Lions would yelp and tigers would weep,
For he'd never miss a mark when he’d shoot!
Or the one about that daring pirate whose lucky sole I was!
Only with me would he climb wealth-laden ships to loot.

Or maybe, that one, about the valiant soldier,
What an honor it was, kid, to accompany him as he ran,
Gun in hand, grit in heart, yours truly in shoe,
Single-handedly slaying armies for his Mother Land.

And you must have heard about the mighty landlord?
No? the one with the bungalow with a thousand rooms?
No? the one with the gold and silver in piles?
No? oh I was there too, inside one jewel-studded shoe!

Your ten-year old imagination can’t even wander
To where I’ve been for real.
And after an exciting lifetime of adventure,
I just decided to retire, and so I ended up here.”

Little mouth opened and shut in wonder,
As the tattered sole lay in his hands covered with dirt,
He listened in rapture to stories of victories and riches,
The tales penetrating his innocent heart.

O great leather deity, come with me, I’ll take you home,
You’re going to have fun with me too!
He squeaks; takes a piece of rope and ties the sole
Around his uncovered right foot.

And walks away, pleased, hitching up
His rag-picking bag on his thin shoulder.
One foot strapped with discarded, torn leather,
The other, dragging bare over the earth.

For watching over me as the poet in me changed-

From deciding the subject of my next one
A week in advance,
And spending the next few days,
Creating the mood, the right ambience

To having words ready
At the tip of my fingers
To my life revolving around writing,
And not the reverse

From choosing the correct length
The right vocabulary, rushing through
A dictionary for just that word I needed

To being effortlessly able
To aimlessly babble
And in the end, smiling at how poetic
Were the verses I'd created

From wondering who would ever read me?

To feeling a warm, fuzzy glow,
Seeing the lit up yellow lightning
Giving the happy news that my ideas
Someone, somewhere, was absorbing

From having that secret desire of
The Dream Guy stumbling upon this page
Reading me in and out, and
Falling in love with my words before
He began to love me...

To... Oh! Who am I kidding
I still have faith in that fantasy!

To a million more poems,
To many more hearts to enthrall,
Cheers to poetry,
Cheers to y'all!

My mister is so delusional,
Pompously ranting of forbidden flames,
And secret lovers.
Oh wait till I tell him with a bow
"Thy missus is dirtier than thou",
And watch his innocent face
Change a million colors.

I close my eyes
And gently trace
A finger on my lips
Vivid memories awaken
With a sigh,
And lazily eclipse
All reality
Now it's you and me,
My senses in your grip
Intoxicated, electrified by
Your finger on my lips

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

Are you a ******?*
Whirlwinds of flashes
Passed in front of her eyes
And she shut them tight,
Remembering,
Had he touched her?
No.
Had he touched her?
No!
Had he touched her?
Yes...
He had touched her deeper
Than the reach of physicality,
He had touched her firmer than
Sensations of all tactile reality,
She knew kisses that tasted of Forever,
Without having kissed at all,
So what could she answer!
She was untouched,
Yet she was not.
She recollected herself,
Replied a meek Yes,
And felt herself violated by
Another alien self,
A tear rolled down silently,
As her soul bled to death.

This is for the dear teacher
Who was once training me
For a programme where I was
Going to recite some beautiful poetry

To a girl all of fourteen,
Fresh, energetic, and naive
She gave a piece of advice and inadvertently,
Changed the course of her life

Yes, life!  
Here's roughly what she said-

Ghazal, you do NOT have to
Pause at the end of each line!
Because sometimes in poems
The sentence may continue
Beyond, so let the words flow
Like a Conversation,
And you'll notice how much better
Will sound your recitation

Something absolutely plain, yet
So meaningful, that today I wonder,
If she hadn't told me this simple secret
When would I, by myself, discover
That my words were allowed to spillover
Into the next line!
I can only look back in amazement
To thank her, and thank her some more
For saving all of that precious, poetic time

What a marvel,
The truth that we
Are dying from the
Moment we have
Come to life,
Our existence is mere
Tug and pull between
De- and regeneration,
Our body prods our cells on,
Pumping short-lasting elixir
Into their microscopic selves,
Ions and stars of energy
Rushing in and gushing out,
We are nothing but
The friendly contest
Between flourish and decay,
One will lose tomorrow,  
The other concedes today.

I'm penning a poem and letting it
Shoot towards the night sky,
And hang on to those little celestial
hooks that adorn the universe,
to fit itself amongst the million other shiny ones,
that gracefully illuminate our world.

Sending a glittery part of your heart
so far away, I won't lie, is hard,
yet the Gift to create as I write,
comes with its own fair price,
So I rub my palms together and
open them to find,
Magic with a shimmer so dazzling,
it needs a place in the Divine.

And off it goes! Launching from my fingertips,
Propelled by a charm I utter from my lips,
To snuggle into the welcoming realm
Of the mighty Heavens, my poem smiles
down on the Earth, twinkling with rhyme,

It sends across love to the broken hearts,
Radiates warmth to the shivering soul,
Wraps a comforting arm around the loner,
Soothes the ones wrought in sorrow,

For whoever looks above with despair in the eyes,
Finds that there's hope glimmering there up high,
and the stars of the verses created by You and I,
unhook themselves dutifully from their perch and fly
Down to the reader and calm their sighs,
Which is why,
Which is why,
The poet gladly diminishes his own light,
So his words keep alive, the benevolent night sky.

A tiny bundle covered in teddy-printed pyjamas,
He fidgets restlessly on the panel of the giant machine,
Preparing him for the scan is my most basic task of the day
Yet the most annoying one, because I cannot get away
Till he is asleep enough to not be afraid
Of entering into the mouth of that daunting cave,
Treating a child is so very difficult I feel,
No matter how detached you try to be and see
him as a "case", how do you neglect the truth that,
A being not abled enough to even climb out of the cradle,
Has to parent a disease that gnaws at him day after day?
I shake off such aberrant emotions and join his coaxing mother,
I know what she would really wish for at the moment would be,
To scoop him into her arms and lull him off to sleep,
But she has to be the rock she never wanted to be,
The baby had moved the last time, this one has to be error-free
So, allowed by her to take his cannulated hand in my gloved one,
I give the magic drug a carefully measured plunge
Into veins that are too little to bear such brunt,
Yet have been forced to endure this pain that can never be considered
Fair!
We two women watch over him, transfixed,
Noting his every sigh, his every twitch-
The Mother, anxious, cupping his now limp hands only with
The embrace of her eyes,
And I, the Doctor, though following my medical instinct, watching for
His breaths, with each chest rise,
Also find myself enchanted by the mysterious state this child is in,
Is it a state of dreaminess? Or of dreamlessness?
Is he floating into a dark endless sky? Or is he navigating between
Silver-illuminated stars?
What is the meaning of the half smile on his face?
Is he envisioning a world where he is happy,
Sans needles making insensitive designs into his vulnerable skin,
Sans masked doctors promising they wouldn't make him cry,
Sans missed school days and birthday parties,
Sans heated fevers creeping into his bones each night?
Minutes pass and we are broken out of our respective reveries
His fingers have started to weakly trace the red beams of light,
His voice has begun to coo indistinct chatter still unshaped by civilisation,
Its tone and urgency getting louder and surer,
And before he begins to frantically search for his caregiver,
A little more magic will be needed before completion.
I re-enter the glass cabin and inject again into his system,
A last few moments of painlessness and oblivion,
The gaze becomes dazed again, the smile reappears,
His mind comfortably wanders back
Into a calm nothingness and silent, numbed peace.
"The scan has concluded without event", I make a file note,
While the images on the screen begin to light up with disease.

Red
Is unabashed,
Glorious and proud,
Pure and sensuous,
Sure and loud.
Don't wear it!,
They whispered,
It's the color of sin!
It's the truest shade,
The very hue of life that
Runs beneath my skin,
I said,
And embraced with love,
Unblemished Red

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.

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.

At the darkest end of the rainbow
It lies,
The balance of vitality gone askew
Unleashing its evil side,
It creeps slowly then bares fangs
With speed,
Potent beyond regulation
Its aberrant seeds,
That will grow into whatever they want,
That will grow however they want,
That will grow as much as they want,
Taking shapes of
Flesh and blood and bile and bone
And twisting their faces so
They're recognisable no more,
As if mocking us and our prayers
For Growth-
The immoral, the immortal side of the coin,
Cancer, the evil twin of Life.

Every time you'll set your pen
To begin a poetic rendezvous,
You'll see it'll never be the same as yesterday,
For your poetry will change with you

Every day is a different breath,
Every breath holds a different sigh,
Every sigh holds a different feeling,
Of infinite kinds of lows and highs

And infinite ways there are, you'll see,
Of putting to words your heart beats,
Every creation will mould itself, closer
And closer to your fluid entity

Of course, there'll be times when the words
Will appear to have forever gone away,
But don't fill yourself with doubts then,
For your heart and your mind are still at play

And when you'll least expect it to,
Your poetry will dutifully return,
With little surprises and anecdotes
It collected while on vacation

Don't be amazed then, when the ink rolls out
To find some wonders and marvels brand new,
For your poetry will change with you,
And, your poetry will change you.

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.

Flavored hukkas are passed around,
Alcohol and paan bring the mehfil alive,
The Ustad ji sits down and flexes his fingers,
He knows he’ll be working all night.

Dha dhin dhin dha, dha dhin dhin dha
Na tin tin ta
Ta dhin dhin dha,
Move the Ustad ji’s fingers on the tabla.

While with a veil on her face,
And feet dipped in and henna-colored,
Lips in cheap red lipstick covered,
She unfalteringly, gracefully enters.

Her steps are matched by the chhan chhan
of the ghungroos tied around her ankles so slender.
Eyes set on her, feast on her youth,
Just right for the taste of all her customers.

Bejeweled hands placed on waist,
She stands at the centre of attention,
She lifts a foot, readies to dance,
And begins the nightly convention.

Skillfully, perfectly, sensuously move
Feet well-trained since childhood days,
Harmonizing with the timbre
That the Ustad ji creates.

Tin tin na dhin na dhin na
On the tabla, experienced fingers beat.
Chhan chhan chhan chhan,
She dances, repeating the rhythm with her feet.

Metal bells strike against one another
And chhan chhan chhan-a chhan she goes,
Making breaths prance and jump,
As she strikes on the ground her heels and toes.

Then suddenly she stops and gasps,
Over disgruntled, impatient groans she tries
to hear the sound that flows in, only to her ears.
Several rooms away, a baby cries.

Naach! A voice booms,
Arey naach! More join in.
A glass of wine is shattered by an irritated one.
But she stands still, clutching her chest, frozen.

One sways up to where she stands,
For the veil covering her face, his hands dive.
He uncovers her, but is blinded by the sight of her beauty
And her tears that fill her kajal-smeared eyes.

She’s shaken back to reality as she looks all around.
Her sparkling pall is off her face.
She sees all those drunk men who’ve paid to watch her dance.
She knows she has to make the sound of the cries fade away.

So she stomps her feet on the ground till it hurts.
Hair flying out of braid, bangles clanging,
Anguish replaces her innocent loveliness,
The music in the air is now shrill,  jarring.

Her steps match with the tabla’s rhythm no more.
But she dances, planting her feet so hard they weep.
She silences every sound with the noise of her ghungroos,
Praying that the night will lull her wailing son to sleep.

Namaz was less prayer and more about
Standing beside Amma and mirroring her,
When as a toddler I stood on the chataai
Murmuring as she did,
Bending down as she did,
Resting my head on the floor
And then waiting to come back up
When she did,
Some days I'd be so sleepy I'd sway on the mat,
Only to be jolted up by an angry Hmph! from her side,
Some days the patterns on the mat seemed like
They were God's silhouette- something she always denied,
Times of silently bonding with the Almighty and the Amma,
Slowly faded into me deciding to pray solo,
When the hour of maghrib coincided with a
Mother-daughter tiff,
And even when we stood praying side by side,
I'd make it a point to not let our sajdas coincide,
On the mat laying bare our rifts and divides.
I wonder if Amma noticed me daydreaming during prayer,
My musings whether God understood English,
My requests to Him to make that crush like me back,
My teenage self angrily bubbling at her obtrusions to my 'freedom'
As she prayed and prayed for me.
Years have passed,
And how I'd love to synchronise again,
The pace of our prayer, the length of our sajda,
But the days, and this new house,
Are now ridden with so much more clutter,
That, though the chataai has stayed the same,
There's not enough space to accommodate
Both daughter and mother.

It must be a strong force unseen
That drives a heart to someone's poetry,

For it's not easy to spare the time,
Out of the chaotic humdrum of one's life,

To push the clutter and monotone aside
And welcome alien ideas into one's mind,

Ideas not shaped into melodious tunes,
Ideas not shaded with colours and hues,

Ideas not in a photographic frame enclosed,
Ideas not structured into the flow of prose,

Free-gushing, mischievous, some rhyming some not!
Poetic ideas are a difficult lot,

Which is why I wonder, astonished, each time
Someone sits down to explore a creation of mine,

What power was greater than all worldly realities,
That led them to my humble poetry?

Was it a soul parched of light?
Was it a heart in the throes of an endless night?

Was it the thrill of love, was it the urgency of desire?
Was it pure craving for emotion, the warmth of fire?

No greater an honour could there be,
Than having someone step into your dream,

Allowing themselves to take the expedition,
Into the unknown depths of your composition,

And have your poem satiate their being,
Just as its birth had healed your own entity.

I think
The reason I felt
All tingly, when you asked,
"Ma'am, have you fastened your seat belt?"
was this Uniform of yours.
Why else would I blatantly stare
At you walking towards the cockpit,
Wondering if you'll look as good
Without it?

I am the cushion that life first rests in,
The crib meticulously created layer by layer,
The soft bed of flowers, glistening like blood,
The protector of all beings, the seat of care

My love is fuelled by the silver calmness
I gently extract from the first lunar night,
When the moon emerges from its dark sabbatical,
Armed with tales it gathered from the other side

Each day, its luminosity deepens, its stories
Turn more vivid, more wrenching, more morose,
I soak it all in- the pain, the suffering, the injustice,
And colour myself, in the darkest shade of rose

My red is no ordinary red, it is the
Culmination of every sister's deep cry,
It is the crimson of anger that can only be felt,
By the cradle entrusted with preservation of life

I am full and brimming, with pangs too strong
And hues of vermilion too dark to contain,
I rock back and forth, my cot full of stories,
Twisting, flailing and writhing in pain

And then I burst out and let freely flow,
The dam I created with laments of loss and love
Painted with conversations lasting until twilight,
With my cratered friend in the skies above

Petal by petal, as I lose my form and disintegrate,
She is connected to each woman's cry that I assimilate,
Flexed at the pelvis, helpless yet so strong, she listens,
And understands the lore I sing about, every twenty-eighth.

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.

If I could be a poet
Not just on paper,
But in every moment of life,
I know I'd keep you much happier.

I'd have no ego
To bruise you with,
For a slave of rhythm,
Doesn't sing egotistical hymns,
Like a poet, I'd be giving and kind
Like a poet, my heart would double up
As my mind.

If i could be a poet,
Not just on paper,
I would never be the heart breaker
I am for you,
For who would know better
Separation, agony and pain
Than someone who cries only
through words and smudged ink stains.

I wish I were a poet
I'd be truthful and loyal
Like poets are to their art,
Like a precious manuscript, I'd guard
Your gem of a heart.

Forgive me love, for this handicap of mine,
For being the kind of lover
Whose poetry for you either
Stays bottled up inside,
Or manifests itself
Merely on paper.

Cool mountain breezes tranquilize
My heavy lids, as I shut my eyes
And soak in the graceful scenes,
Aboard the majestic Himalayan Queen,
With her rhythmic chuk-chukking,
Her coaches lazily chugging,
Each slow screech of her ancient brakes transporting
One to an era of few hurries and fewer worries,
Look at her, winding round and round,
Piercing cloud after fluffy cloud,
Almost like a moving tiara adorning
The artistic Simla greens,
That span as far as the eye can see,
Only punctuated by nature's unbridled revelries
Of wild, white flowery shrubs
And lone, or in pairs, monkeys,
And moss-laden tunnels galore-
"Recorded for this route as hundred and three,
But numbering hundred and two in reality",
Points out a septuagenarian co-passenger knowledgeably,
His random trivia prompting me out of my reverie,
Albeit, temporarily!
For soon enough, my senses slip once again
Into a playful camaraderie,
With the innocent romance that only
The mountains can awaken inside of me.

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

Well, today's the kind of day
When I can just sit at my doorstep,
My chappals splashing into the
Little puddle of rainwater that's collected.
Today, I can breathe in fresh, pure greenery,
Feast into this inviting scenery,
And break into a little poetry!
About?
Maybe about how loud the clouds were!
In expressing their happiness,
Their love for us thirsty souls?
Maybe about how the cool breeze
Whizzed past our parched skins,
Blowing to us, its cool Hello?
Or about how squealing kids
Shirts thrown away, drenched skins,
Raced along their paper canoes?

Oh I can write on anything I want,
Oh I'll just hum along Mother Nature's song,
Today is the day for poetry,
Today's rhythm can never go wrong.

Sometimes what I write
Is less poetry, more rant,
While sometimes, this girl
Plans beforehand.
Yes, I like to play God sometimes,
And before I actually sit down to create,
I twiddle my thumbs, think a little
And decide my dear poem's fate.
Ah when I know exactly the very last line,
Those poems are the best kind!
I may wander, get lost on the way,
But the finale is crystal in my mind.
So today I wondered if
I already knew-
Just like I know this poem's conclusion,
That the ****** of my life was going to be you,
How easily would I spin my entire life,
All my dreams, my nights and days
Around the beautiful knowledge
That you were just some wait away.

                                             *

Though now that I'm pouring
My thoughts into creation,
I realise the end that I'd foreseen
Doesn't really meet my expectations!
I'll have to let the words take over now
Perhaps, like I'd let destiny
Govern us too,
I'll let the end pave its way through,
Just like my life stumbled into you.

Because some poems, and love stories
Aren't made with pre-thought choices.
Some poems, and love stories
Are best served with sweet unknown surprises.

Take those pictures
You've been thinking
They'd look good in,
Capture them, seize them,
Do it now.
Make memories,
Don't second-think how,
Before Time swoops in
And carries them Home.
Believe me, believe me
It all happens too soon,
Leaving you with only regret
For not taking those pictures
You thought they'd look good in.

Broken shards of a broken heart-
Each piece composes a different line,
Then from the crevices bleeds out your poetry.
And then you ask me why it doesn't rhyme.

:)

With guilt writ all over your face,
Twiddling your fingers just like you would
When as a little child
You'd make some mistake,
Shuffling your feet nervously
Like you would when you'd fail a test
Or get a note from school,
You stood in front of me,
My precious, my beautiful,
Who I'd caught hidden under the quilt,
Head buried beneath pillows,
Crying muffled cries of pain.
You finally made eye contact, I know
You waited for my trademark eye roll
For an admonishment, for a
"See, I told you so!"
But dear, before you declared me
As your fiercest enemy, did you ever wonder
That you, the girl- broken, shaken, yet defiant,
Once lived inside of me?
Love created you
And for the following thirty seven weeks
And twenty two
Days you grew within me,
Bit by bit, cell by cell,
Each moment we spent together,
Sealed our souls,
We were best friends even before you were born.
I'd be lost, forlorn all day at work
When I'd leave you behind at home,
You too would find contentment when finally
You'd feed from your mother's *****.
I've seen you crawl,
Seen you stumble,
Helped you on your feet when you'd fall,
I've laughed when you've cackled,
I've cried when you have shed a single tear,
I'm a being conjoined to every emotion you feel,
So, my Inaayat dear,
Instead of crying behind closed doors,
And saying "It's okay" without
meeting my gaze,
You should've walked up to me,
Informed me about the time and place,
And mother-daughter, we'd embark
To bash up that ruthless villain
Who broke your delicate heart.

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"

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

You're a craving I'm unable to define
A thought that plays on and on
In the recesses of my mind,
a vague, nevertheless, an intense spark
of emotion I'm unable to point my finger at
right now, that yes,
I feel this about you,
It'd be less hard if I knew
what this strong whirlwind was,
Because if I knew,
I could tell you

Mommy, it’s late night; I want you to stop talking,
And drift off to peace as we sleep in our bed.
Then for a while I’ll wait for you to turn to the other side
So I can take my hand under the covers
And touch myself.

It’s not easy being me the whole day.
Hiding behind unflattering clothes, books, unkempt hair,
The other girl living inside of me tries to come out from here and there,
So I need to keep her tamed by
Telling her that I love her too.

She’s black, evil, and beautiful.
I know you wouldn’t approve
Of her existence inside your little girl,
But believe me, she’s the only real part of my fake world
And I need to be one with her each night
Only then will tomorrow morning feel alright.

I’ll touch myself in pursuit of the moment
When everything but pure pleasure, will be forgotten.
I’ll chase that instant; it’ll taunt me and tease
Then I’ll finally reach out to its heavenly release.

I’ll hug myself, exhausted and weak,
She will softly lull me to sleep,
The two of us, closely intertwined,
My black and my white.
And in the morning, as your darling,
I’ll start the day over,
Smiling with the thought of the secret lover
Who waits for me under the covers.

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

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

Brewing over a cup of steaming coffee,
And warm, fluffy, syrupy pancakes,
Our chemistry could be the perfect recipe
For a weekend romantic escapade.

Grand tales of eternal, undying love
I really, can not promise you,
But my giggles around you are real,
The new stride in my step is true!

And every time my eager eyes
Communicate with your smiling ones,
My winter-heart heaves sighs so deep,
I sometimes fear you could hear them!

So, wrapped in mufflers and woolly caps,
Come, laugh along at my red-tipped nose,
And live a short-lived fairy tale with me,
Who knows, we may just outlast the snows!

Seeing you so persistently vying
For that one perfect selfie
While I ruined the picture everytime,
Conveniently, secretly enjoying
That feeling of your pudgy cheeks
Pressed into mine!

Medicine has no room for arrogance.
We don't just cure disease,
We cure humans.
The human body does always not go
by the books we've read or
the algorithms we've memorised,
The human body does not know
how famous we are, how much we earn.
The human body presents to us,
and places in our hands its life,
and trusts us with all it has,
to solve its puzzles.
Bizarre puzzles, really,
Sometimes so easy to piece together,
Sometimes turning more puzzling with
our attempts at deciphering
the meaning of the riddles it throws at us,
Sometimes a novice may solve them,
Irritating our egos but medicine
has no room for ego, either.

One can't be a doctor without
Selflessness, one can't be a healer
Without having one's feet planted
firmly on the ground, and the strength to
know that one can be wrong, and the
ability to question one's own reasoning,
And it isn't something we're taught,
It's something we build everyday by
Failing, fumbling, blundering, finally learning,
that's how the art of healing we acquire,
which is why, medicine isn't just a job-
It is a way of life.

I don't know why I
Have this constant itch to express myself
When actually I'm unaware of
What exactly it is that
I want to *say

The reason I don't wear makeup
Is that I don't want there to be
Anything on my face
That distracts you from Me.
And no, I don't look pretty
Buried beneath the layer
Of foundation and gloss.
Because then, I'm barely there.
Only when unadulterated, untouched,
Does my skin look perfect,
Adorned with the best rouge there is-
Which is, my Self.

Nestled in a cosy little corner,
Blooming out from an old branch,
The newest offspring- young,
slender, fresh, entranced
By something never experienced before,
Unfurled himself in joyous glory,
And absorbed the single sweet drop
That drenched his welcoming body.
The other leaves chuckled lovingly
And the birds chirped at the display,
The entire tree rustled with glee watching
The little one rejoice on his first rainy day.

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?