I wouldn’t call it seedy
It’s not dingy, after all
Dark though, and loud
Almost always filled with a crowd
(Especially during happy hours)

The lights are low
(the prices too)
One plus one equals four
And soon, the time passes like
Clouds outside a window

The TV glows
With cricket or football
(But who’s really watching,
right?)
The soft conversations together
Make a loud hum
Of laughter and memories
And beer burps and orders
And call for bills and-
Maybe one more pitcher?

Four hours later,
Everything is closed
The mall is silent
As a graveyard
And we sway through it
Af if floating on air
Skipping stairs
And small talk

Looking back,
I don’t say goodbye
I know we’ll be back
Next week
Amongst its postered-up walls
And high ceiling,
Talking over its loud music
Comfortable,
Happy,
(And drunk).

It started with a goodbye.
It started with me wrapping up my past
in bubblewrap, as if it was fragile.
It was really so that its sharp edges would be
unable to hurt me anymore.
I decided it was better to leave it inside
my bedside table, next to the pictures and the letters.
Not to pack it in a suitcase
and bring it with me on my many travels.
But it refused to leave my side,
it followed me, like a paper plane
guided by my insecurities.
Like I was a holding up a neon sign that read
STILL HOLDING ON.
Perhaps it was a sign that I was to carry it with me
to all the places I hadn't been but longed to see.
People asked me about the big monster
that hunkered down beside me.
But how could I tell them that
I was caught up in something
I'd promised to leave behind?
How it has consumed my mind
my body, my very soul.
How it threatened to rip a hole
in the very future I was trying to protect.
Maybe I'm exaggerating
Maybe the time I spent hating every part of me
wasn't very long at all.
But it felt like an eternity
the summer, winter and fall.
Finally, spring arrived
With hopeful eyes and a big bright smile.
I shook myself awake from what was
starting to feel like a neverending nightmare,
A rabbit hole that wasn't taking me to Wonderland
I started to understand that I couldn't go on like this.
I took a hit or miss dive into the future,
And like a magician, unlocked the weights at my ankles.
Once at the shore, I looked at my past as it drowned
unwanted and forgotten,
And I realised I was no more a crinkled mess.
With wrinkled fingertips at the end of my hand,
I held up a mirror to my freshly washed face.
I smiled, digging my toes into the sand.
It ended with a hello.

The farthest man made object in space, Voyager 1,
is over 20 billion km away from Earth.
On board is a phonograph record, brilliant gold,
containing sounds and images of what life is like on earth,
A message to whoever is able to listen, a literal shot in the dark.
On it is an inscription that is perhaps the most beautiful sentence
I have ever read
TO THE MAKERS OF MUSIC
ALL TIMES
ALL WORLDS
a time capsule, a gift, from us
To anywhere and everywhere
A hundred years from now or a thousand
Our belief that no matter what time
Or world you belong to, melody and harmony and rhythm, can bring us together, can communicate.
On the cover
Are figures, explaining how to operate this record
Hieroglyphics from what by then
Would be ancient history
Messages in binary, the 1s and 0s
Our position in the universe marked by our distances
from gigantic pulsars, the star map to our home,
the creators of this message
There's beauty in this marriage of math and art
Code and music
As a way to communicate with the universe.
Some of the images on the record are
the most beautifully simple ones,
Of us, humans, drinking and eating, laughing,
of animals, nature, food and architecture.
Then there are images of our scientific observations,
mathematical calculations, our discoveries,
Like a child showing off
Look, look what I can do!
Black and white and in colour,
Pictures, proof that we, indeed have lived and achieved.
The music, classical, our very best from Bach and Mozart
to Blind Willie Johnson's Dark was the Night.
But all of this can only matter, can come to fruition
if someone exists to receive it, and is evolved enough
to comprehend what it means.
But that's the thing, everybody knows,
That's there's a slim chance of this record ever being heard,
and it's much more possible that the Voyager will simply end up as floating debris in the cosmos, but it doesn't matter!
We just want someone to know that there was a species of bipedal, intelligent animals on this blue planet,
no different than finding graffiti in alleys that read I WAS HERE.
WE WERE HERE, WE EXISTED.  
And it's all about that hope, the hope that someone will see us,
our pictures, listen to our languages, our greetings, our music, and remember us, even after we're long gone.
Or perhaps we will one day be interstellar space faring people as well, following the path of the Voyager, doing what we do best,
Explore.

The sky was beautiful.
6:21 pm as the the sun started dipping below the horizon and the blue gave way to a bright pink and then a brilliant magenta, so overwhelmingly stunning that it could leave you breathless.
He sat beside her, their sides comfortable against each other, like when the sky meets the sea. Her hair was the colour of a raven as she threw her head back laughing, almost like a child. They talked about how everything looked so beautiful in that light at that moment and how they never wanted to leave.

The sky was beautiful.
12:45 am as they lie on the floor of her bedroom, dim lights, bright eyes, sweaty palms and all.
The stars came out, peaking in through the window, watching their hands make imaginary circles. They watched the moon, making plans of going there and building a house, an impossible dream they talked about in all seriousness.

The sky was beautiful.
2:56 am as it turned to black and everything was still and the only sounds were sirens and dogs singing to the night. His head was in her lap as they sat in silence, just appreciating their togetherness. She talked about her insecurities and he listened, pressing her hand occasionally as a show of comfort. He talked about his father as she watched his smile vanish and his eyes stare off into the distance and ruffled his hair, kissing his forehead, as if to make him forget the horrible things his father had done.

The sky was beautiful.
6:23 am as the sun rose once again, tireless and bright, through the morning mist as the sky shifted from orange to blue. His eyes fluttered open as he took in the moment of tranquility.  He woke to find her asleep in his arms, their bodies a tangled mess of limbs. Her face was serene, calm, and makes him feel like he would never love anything as much as he does her.

The sky is beautiful.
*And so is she.

You there, I see you with your sullen eyes
looking down at your feet, your back hunched forward,
turning away from the cacophony, the loud words they throw at you.
The arrows they fire dig into your back, and you let it bleed.
Your body a constellation of bruises.
You laugh, a glass of wine in your hand.
You call them beautiful, a beautiful mess.
But, my dear, I see them every time you turn around.
Trust me, your pain isn’t beautiful. It’s not meant to be.

You’re good at hiding your hurt:
you put it underneath patchwork blankets
you wrap it like christmas presents
and stack them on your bookshelf.
You collect it. You save it old green bottles.
You cut your pain into pieces
and hang it up like art.

Sometimes, however, you aren’t so subtle.
I can hear the anger behind your singing,
see how your fingers shake every time
your cigarette touches your lips.
I can feel your heartbeat rippling through you,
as I’m sure you do,
when I hold your hand, trying to steady it.
And I wish, more than ever
that I could make it better.

Perhaps I can’t change things.
I can’t change what has happened
or what will.
But don’t you dare think
I’m going to let you rust away.
Every time that layer of oxide forms on you,
I will be right there to clean you up
Until you don’t need me to anymore.
Giving up on yourself is the easy way out
and even though I’m lazy,
I’m not going to let you take it.
I will drag you through the mud,
lift you when you think
you can’t take another step.
Through the dirt we will fight,
like comrades on a battlefield.
Both of us will emerge alive and victorious
on the other side.

I’m a good friend, I will help you lose those ten pounds
But don’t for a second think I’m going to let you
shrink yourself out of fear of taking up too much space.
When the crowds hit you with their acidic words,
I can’t promise that I can keep them all from hitting you
but I will help you wash away the ones that do.
Together, we can watch the words dissolve into water.
And your pain with it.

All of this, I can only do if you’re willing to let me.
All I need to know, is that if I hold out my hand
will you place yours in it?

When you ask people

about their biggest fears

they’ll say things like

the darkness, failure, loneliness
but a lot of them will say change.
The idea that change is something

to be feared has always bewildered me.

Perhaps because I’m one of the few ones
who isn’t really scared of it.
I accept change with open arms,

even if it’s something that I know is going to hurt.
I think this is why when I went back 
to the place
where I lived for most of my life,
the fact that everything was still the same
scared me far more than leaving everything
I’d never known in favour of a new city.

Static. Same. Never changing.
Seeing the same buildings,
same people, with the same expressions
made me uncomfortable.
We run away from change because we’re afraid

it might destroy what we have.
But from the deepest of pain

comes the purest of joys.
This is about more than just me and you.

Change is universal. Change is the only constant.
Without change, there wouldn’t be caterpillars
turning into magnificent butterflies.
Without change, there wouldn’t be summer
turning into autumn giving out to winter.
Without change, there wouldn’t be the constant circle

of endings turning into beginnings.

No destruction and creation.
Shiva and Kali would weep in the heavens.
Without change, there would be no beauty.

There would be no life.
Change IS good.
It is the background noise of the universe.
We can’t ignore it.
One day, a hundred million, billion, trillion years from now;

when the earth is long gone and the last of the stars burn out.

Long after the the black holes turn to dust

and the dust turns to atoms
and the atoms turn to… nothing.

When the universe is just a sea of photons,
witnessed by nothing and no one.

When there will be no way 
to set apart the past from the future
We will listen in from the other side.

Listen. *Silence.
*
Maybe that is when will miss change the most.