My city spews poetry like smoke,
In vicious columns of abstracts,
Of unspilled blood, untold hurts,
Unsung love and unrestrained joy.
Neck of an old refill snapped
absent-mindedly,
Sploshes a tiny blob of red ink,
On the table cloth,
And so flows musings and rants.
Smell of twilight rain mingles with
Incense fragrance of evening prayers
Triggering a burst of longing and love.
Electric bulbs and rainbows coexist
And emit more than just light.
My city breeds more poets than
The Lakes ever did.

I loved a boy once.
A painter,
A poet, a dreamer,
And a bit of a history scholar as well.
He would search for tales of lost years
In archives, dusty bookshelves and
Lonely alleyways.
History and poetry would coalesce in
Sunbeams suspended over dusty artefacts.
He would find a snapshot
In the tangled wires of a tungsten bulb
And a stray verse in a button fallen off
A greyish blue shirt.
He wrote verses for me too,
Bleeding words and ranting awe,
In trying to capture my soul
In a perfect litany of words.
I loved him, I thought
And he loved me right back.
With him, there were beautiful days,
Days of snaps and stanzas and tangled bodies
But there were also days of venting,
Of searing, caustic angst,
Of turmoils, turbulence and
Emotional breakdowns.
And so I failed.
I let the dark mark engraved by
His corrosive outbursts overpower
The soothing glow of the verses
Or the gentle warmth of his palm
When he messed up my hair.
And so I left.
He was calm when I told him,
Not like the eye of a storm,
But genuinely, truly calm, in entirety.
There were no more outbursts,
No more piercing litanies.
Just the dull thud of his final accusation
"You didn't really love ME, you know,
but only the romanticism inherent in
the sheer existence of a dreamer,a poet.
You loved me as an entity, not a reality.
You loved me for the present,
And didn't even envisage a future with me.
Today you give me yearning.
Today, you give me pain.
And hurt and a heartache.
Trust me, a poet,
Could ask for little more."
And so we parted ways.
Forever and ever and ever.
He was right, that day.
But today, as I flip through
His first collection of poetry,
Embodiment of the hurts and yearning
I had left him with,
My heart cracks a little at the edges.
Today, I turn a poet.

As the laser rays from Science City lit up the night sky in a resplendent rush of colours, I watched on,  quietly , from the balcony; my mind racing back to the class 9 Basics of Economics book and to that class.

Utility. A major concept in economics.
I had understood it so well then.
I had paid full attention to the teacher when she had explained that once I had had a spoonful of Biriyani, a little bit of my hunger was satiated and I would enjoy the next spoonful a little bit less than the first.
That was how utility operated, marginal utility diminishing with every spoonful.
Today, as the rays light up the sky, I think of him, and of the principle of utility.
Does the principle apply to first love as well, as it does to the first taste of Biriyani?
As love's bittersweet concoction explodes, does it render the following loves as only marginally utilitarian then?
As the first rush, first blush fades, as love's faces change,  do we begin to get satiated a little less than the first time?
And is it really because we are already a bit full, a little satiated?  
Or is it because the hunger gnaws on, craving that first rush, once again?

Stars, dazzling like little diamonds fallen off encrusted rings of love,
punctuated the molten pitch of the sky.You asked me to count the stars to measure out your love for me.
I tried, ran out of numbers and smiled.
The next morning, the stars had sunken under the glowing covers of the sun, bedazzled, disarmed.
So had your love, my love.
Like the stars,  it surged as darkness engulfed your soul, sought refuge in my trembling arms.
Come morning, it faded; sunken, dim,
draining my heart of the elixir of love.

A monumental yearning etched upon the sands of her heart.

At night, the sand castle glistens and glimmers as salty tears tease its pillars,

Catharsis is reversed in the moonless night of regrets,

The salt strengthens the foundations of the castle instead.