She could see her arm through the sleeves of her dress
They rested so far from one of the sides
And yet the mirror said she needed to be more light.
Most of the days
She was afraid she would be too much
For a guy to own
Her heart had long been strangled
By her load
And so she no longer ate.
But, here she was months later
Owning half of what she had
And yet carrying too much ,
Her heart was a bit afloat
But still dragged was her soul
For the mirror said
She needed to be more hollow.

Her ribs poked her chest,
She felt them with her fingers
When she was in her room alone,
No one could see them,
She wouldn't let anyone so close
But she wondered if they could feel those bones
Maybe they would have considered her light.
Undressed after a bath
She would turn around at the mirror
Gazing at her backbone- gazing back .
It was all so clear now
You could almost count the bones
Yet the mirror said she must be a bit more hollow.
Her hands were now so much more thin
You could hold them in the stretch of your thumb
And maybe your little finger
And even though you would laugh at her length
She would be scared by your touch
So that you do not know.

Of all the things she lost,
Her sullen cheeks to her coat,
Her smile was the thing she misses most.
Now her smile was too empty,
Previously it was fastened to her face
Now the hollow mouth almost appears
As if her smile would just fall of,
She is now shy to smile
She often wonders back to the day
When that guy had said
She had a beautiful smile.
But you wouldn't know
Photographs never really captured her
Now not anymore.

She often stumbles now,
Lighter to her feet
She does get up herself,
But she wonders now and then
If it had been because most of her
Was now gone.
So vacantly, emptily she walks
A few watch her go,
The world is the mirror
With no memory of the past,
It still calls her heavy
With no appreciation of what she has become.
She has lost herself
And the world needs her
To lose herself more.
She wonders if it's time
To have their demands finally denied.
How much more could she afford to lose ?
How long until she dies?

There was a storm today,
A tree older than me,
Taller than the walls of brick
                                          Broke.
Why can't I stop thinking about it?

Awakened by whispers from a friend
On the other side of the earth.
He perhaps forgot how time
Lacks to treat us the same.
He was bouncing from
One classroom to the other,
I was in my bed
Sweat drenched in my dreams.

I tried to muffle his scream
But he yelled louder,
Bloodshot eyes, I spoke,
Careful not to wake my mother.
I asked and asked if he was alright,
I was afraid he was thinking up
The actions I almost followed.
I asked him again
If he was fine,
He replied with a "good morning",
I said "goodnight".

My head was thumping too hard
I knew the morning would begin
With my weekly dose of migraine.
He called me back,
I asked again if he was alright,
It's 3 **** clock in the morning,
I would sleep if he was fine.

He acclaimed that I lied,
"I was hurt so I was up
Or else I would never have taken his call"
He said. I sighed,
He couldn't hear.
I told I would be back in two hours,
I wished he would rest
Get his head straight.

He acclaimed that I lied,
I wasn't gonna sleep,
I was traumatized,
He asked again if I was fine,
I replied "relatively".
I wondered what I meant,
He didn't ask to clarify,
I declared I am going to sleep.
I lied.

I was up till past 4,
My alarm set to 5,
I would speak to him then I resolved,
He could do with not killing himself
For two hours I analysed.
I slept for minutes 45
I called but he was gone.

I tried to decipher my strange dreams.
It was about the dogs
Chasing me,
The fear I always have.
I try never to think of love,
In my dream I had no way out,
That was when he had called.

I reminisce now
Was he looking for me to save him,
Or did he save me?

From your neck
Crawling its way up to your head,
Like a river cutting across soft land
The pain follows upto your brow .
You squint your eyes
And shake your head,
The pain taps your mind.
This is the pain from hopelessness
There is no escape, feel it,
Embrace it.
Pray that it busts your head open
And your brain splashes across your bed.
Pray that you evaporate
That you disappear,
Leave back a stain
For that is what your life has been.

You lay on your back
Silence broken by the blood
Running around in your otherwise limp body,
And you hear a screech, a whisper
A mocking?
You turn your empty
But strangely heavy head,
You see the creature
whose children you killed that evening.
You had hunched over the broken egg,
Its insides now spilled outside,
And the other one still lay across.
You had nothing to do,
You wiped the goop that could be life
With a torn bit of paper ,
Haphazardly poured water
And wiped again.
Who would say
The floor had seen death today.
The other egg you rolled to the side,
You knew the creature would cry tonight.
You went about with your life.

The creature is swelled up again,
You noticed
Life would get a chance again,
That is how it works you wonder,
But she must be furious
You see her staring at you.
You are sorry you say.
That's all you had to say
Until today.

Today you are thinking of striking a deal with her
Today you will ask her
To spill your head open
The way you had spilled her egg.
You will ask her to give you peace,
To give you your awaited escape
And in return she can have her justice.
Tell her you can be killed,
All she has to do is drop you
From a height
The way you had dropped her egg
From her home, your rolled mattress.
The only difference you had no intention
Of taking away someone else's life
But your own.
So today ask her to correct your mistake.

My blood will be wiped
My stain will be removed
Someone else will take my place.

People have butterflies  
In their stomach they say, 
When something tickles their heart away. 
They say something dances in there, 
That something gets them all red . 
That is how they know  
When something is good for their heart, 
The butterflies, I suppose is a sign of love 
-captured in their heart, 
Making their way around, 
The butterflies dances to someone else's songs 
And the world they live in  
Gets brighter. 
 
People say  
They have butterflies  
In their stomach, 
When someone tickles their heart 
But all I feel is a burn 
As if acid churns up my soul. 
It rises in my guts to my heart  
Perhaps to burn the love  
Or the fingers perhaps that tickles it, 
Perhaps because  
the butterflies in my stomach 
are dead! 
In others they remain dormant  
In mine they just died for living too long  
In hope but no fingers to carve their world. 
Maybe they died in their pupas 
Suffocated by all the strangling hands, 
Or maybe they flew away  
In search of someone in the past. 
But the acid I feel 
Is their ashes still ablaze, 
I guess that is what is most probable 
That they died long ago,
Been stuck there for too long 
Held hostage by my fear 
And burnt by the matches
People unknowingly rubbed along. 
And so every time something, 
Every time you tickle my heart, 
I guess it is good for it, 
Fire burns in my stomach, 
Rises up my guts  
And I run to throw up, 
To throw it all away. 
I don't think I am made to tickle. 
I have fire in my heart, 
It burns everything away  
And I have carcasses of wings to clean up!

The heat knocking through the glass,
Shaking the metal,
Our seats impersonating
Our body heat.
I looked out, a brief pause in journey.
The red light tirelessly blinked
Then and now,
Green would be a go.
He was peeling it off,
He asked me, as usual I said no.
One was handed to the man
With an upturned mustache on the front,
I could tell that was his pride.
Three were alined in a plastic bag,
Their fate still undecided.

Gentle but hurried taps on my window,
They had cars to cover
I think now.
Two little kids in ragged clothes,
I wonder is it the dust of the world
Or the filth of a society's failure
That stains their clothes brown,
Their faces black?
One was of the usual age
They're grown up at,
The other, the age
They begin at.
After a brief and short
And "matter of fact" discussion,
Bearing in mind the kids' busy schedule
I wound down the window,
And decided the three bananas' fate.

The grown one just ran to the next car,
Grown you see,
The little one
Yelped in happiness
Of the fruits rejected by me.
Nothing could sound more beautiful
Than the kid's exclamation
"Bananas"
A giggle.

The red turned off.
The driver smiled
Yet every act was but a drop
I could not collect
To fill the desert of doom.
The heat hovered
And hovered,
The heat that turned
Back at my home
Many bananas black
Until they were discarded.
The flies feasted upon,
The gun is pointed
At the kids.
Sometimes blood leaves no stain.
Sometimes the black stains
On bananas are of our souls.

The entire day I spoke to countless mouths
At night I fell short of tales
                                                  To write.
I wonder now what did I have to say in the morning
When no event ever took place?

(Clearly I wasn't even listening).

I had too many things in boxes
Shut for too long.
I had the doubts hidden in the memories
And the faces I tried to recall.
I let them all sit in darkness
As they pounded my mind
Slowly I let go of it
And I preferred driven mad inside.
My heart was all I listened to,
I must have forgotten
How the beats were mine
and mine replied.
All the questions I repeated
But never asked you once,
Two possibilities I believe -
I thought I knew them all
Or that I was scared of what I didn't .
Now you have left my heart all empty
Too empty and I'm unable to have it shut.
The boxes have spilled over
And I stare at them
Strewn across my feet.
They are brown and bland and boring
As I used to be,
Insides are the truths
I denied my heart to see.
They lie so lifeless and dark
I am scared of its sight,
You have left me where I once had lived
But now I am scared of the things I see.
They are the remains of my heart
All broken and hidden for so long,
But they are the only truths of me
And I hid them from you, all.
My heart was a fool
Always have been,
It tried to win you over
But my mind was what stood of the truth.
Now you are gone
And the boxes have all fallen
Off the shelf and off the rack,
My mind is now all empty
And I can fill it with the world.
I should have shown you those
Maybe you would have been gone long ago
Now my heart is all vacant
It gave away echoes of your words.

I sit here now staring
Upon memories and memories
They resemble so much of the lies I know
I am almost afraid
Of the truth taking over.
I learnt my lesson
I learnt the truth ,
My mind has spilled over
And stained all that I knew.
I stuff my heart with boxes
Boxes I will never use,
They have your words and your promises
That you have kept
And my mind is now open
And harbors the truths I knew
-you would leave,
You would forget,
We will live as if we never met.

There is one box though
I don’t know what to do with
Whether to give you
Or have it hid,
It says the thing I never said ,
The one truth that overlaps doubts
And each and each possibility we would regret.

Sometimes I look at the old photographs
Pressed between worn out pages
Of times I do not remember,
For the times I keep guarded
I keep no mark of.
So I stare at that little girl
Whose eyes are same as mine
And has seen the same wars as I,
Because the damage was done
When I was a kid.
From then to now
The wars have ceased,
That little girl has seen too much for her age
Than now I ever will.
I wonder when I look at her face,
I fail to connect
That's how I stay away from people.
I wonder if she thought of the future ahead
How her strength then would let her live?
If she knew why she continued to fight ,
If she ever had any hope at all,
Or she thought she couldn't simply die?
Because all I can think now
Is ending it here.
I have hope, I really do
But I look at her decades back
And I don't see the point.
She was so scared, all the time
She had her walls so high
She, the moment she understood
Spent her time wishing to save others.
Her life contained days
That belonged to everyone around,
Her fight thereupon easier.
I guess the problem ensued
When she started to have her own.
I look at her, I look at her
She doesn't look anything like me,
I don't feel anything at all
But pain.
I want to tell her
That is all she will ever feel,
That pain she thought would go away
Would bury itself in her soul
And she will never feel alive again.
I never really recognize her by her looks
It's always how she makes me feel,
I stare at her
And the sadness has remained,
The fear still lines up
And happiness for some people
Is a momentary event
That simply intensifies the pain.

The last three days were hammer on a nail,
A nail that doubt planted.
You went thud thud thud
And the nail burnt a hole in my heart.
Thud. Thud. Thud.
I moved not an inch,
I gloried at the sight of blood
That sipped to validate my fear.
Thud thud thud.

I was clamped up in terror and pain
For months past now,
Words I counted before sending them on.
You scoffed at them
And wielded the first thud
You screamed at me
Two nights back.
I smiled and fainted to a sleep
That lasted until you dragged the hammer
With a screech,
The nail rusted a bit with my blood
But it stayed.
Thud.

I grasped my words tight to my throat
Only muttering a handful of them now,
You played with your other tools
And I happened to see a weapon in them all.
A sharp edged knife,
A gun with bullets,
A cannon from a war,
I was crouched in a ball
Still looking at you.
Thud. Thud. Came the second blow
You whistled at a bird across.
The nail bent a little to the right
And made it far beneath my skin.
The blood now formed a wall,
Like concrete and bricks
Blood and rust.
Thud thud.

I shivered between sleep and wake,
Flinching as you dragged your hammer,
A bolder screech across the wall,
Like your voice before you speak.
And then as if a habit
You raised your arm
And dropped was the hammer
On the nail,
Thud thud thud, the last blow you made.
You said how I was made to mend,
By a hammer in your hand.
The nail tore to my bones
And lodged itself as a note.
The hammer ringed in my head,
Blood didn't flow like sleep out of my bed.
I cried in silence
And was gone unlike before.
You dragged your hammer still,
I know.
Thud thud thud.
It rings,
You were hammering my memories.
Thud thud thud.
I was gone now.
Thud thud thud. Stop.

There is a nail lodged in me
But that will be all,
Thud thud thud
I walk on.
Stop.

A paper box filled with crumpled newspapers
Carrying death notes, attempted ****** stories
And the failed political agendas
(Failed I say for I personally see no difference).
Neatly stacked they would take
Only the bottom half of the box,
But since the papers were to be rid off,
And the papers carried blood,
Shoved were they like ***** secrets
In that plain paper box.
That action somehow now
Turned the box into a closet
Filled with dusty winter coats
From a life past,
The clothes might fit your body
But they won't fit your soul.
O' my friend added today
How she hasn't seen me in black
Since the last time I returned,
She said it as a fact,
But somehow that hurt and
It felt like fear- my mumbled ignorance.

The box lay in the middle of the room,
The room itself empty,
Sold were each artifact
Over the past few months,
To get back
What they had stolen in the first place.
I no longer fought when
My favourite tin can was taken,
It too had rattled the pockets,
It bled for our tummy.
The box lay out of place
Like all of us,
Trying relentlessly to fit in,
The balled up papers
Sticking out the *****,
A triangle there and a lonely strip here.
I could read few words of different stories
And create a new lie,
But the lies seemed silly even for me,
I needed something else.
You might ask why not burn them,
Why not shred them,
But even fire creates smoke
And secrets never really die,
We always, always hide them,
Paint over them with lies.

So the box,
Now being there long enough,
Wasn't kicked over
Like the many times before,
It lay there, carefully maneuvered
By the liars and the sinners
Of the house.
But their breath stopped
Every time they walked into the room.
Like they didn't wish to inhale the dust
And the stories of the box,
Like their lungs would be infected
The same way their hearts were.
But the shameful box had secrets
Staining red over time, dripping blood
And spilling black soot of lies,
Flies buzzed around now and yet
Why did we not discard it,
I thought.
What was so special about our lies,
Our sins
That we keep the box around
And not hide it but be ashamed of it?
Why do we keep it in our homes still
If all it does is poison us?

Why do we keep our old loves
Alive in our memories?

I CALCULATIONS

A bird from the window
Pecked at my papers
Lined with my scores.

Now trees are dead,
And papers are gone.
This is the computer age.

I will break it down for you.
I even made a list,
Would you like to count?

II THE LIST

1.This is the computer age              
    Of digitized proofs
       And

2.Authority attested identies,
     With participants' certificates.

3.Our own words have lost meaning

4.We are now vessels                     
With our definition stapled on screens
      And

5.Meagre salaries    
    Tagged on our foreheads.

6.We are our grades.

7.The given guidelines,
      Projects we finished overnight.
         We are the cheated test scores,

8.The printed marksheets
       From the renowned buildings.

9.We are a bunch of degrees.
      
10.We are a box of experience
     With a reciept of coffees we bought,
         We are a cv of what we did.

11.We are the said lies
        And

12.The stress calmed by mummbled slurs.

13.We are the second employee
        Shouted at.
          And

14.We are the hundredth consumer
       With company approved needs.

15.We are the salesperson with quotas to meet.

16.We are the owners
       Of a dying business,
         A pending debt.

17.We are the numerous people
        Of covered faces on the streets

18.And exposed bodies in the world wide web.

19.We are the constructed
         Digital photographs
            With deconstructed heads.
        

20.We are a bunch of numbers

21.We are a bunch of numbers

22.We are a bunch of numbers,

23.When did we become
      
24. A 0 or a 1?

People shouldn't even fit in a whole encyclopedia

And yet here,
Are you looking for a number 25?


III RESULT

Well I gave the papers to the bird,
She put it in her nest
And made it warmer.

You call me crazy
But I will always
Call myself a free bird.

I never got the sun,
A shooting star got there first.
So I played catch with the moon
And when I took my hands away
My fingers bore
                            Burns.

But the moon doesn't have flames,
So the fire must be in me.

On my bed,
The sheet climbing off the sides,
My cover a pile at my feet,
And a transparent stretch on my face
That blocks the light from within
But not without.
Tiny dots across the window
Glows like fireflies in the cone,
A dark, dark room.
(Rough edges.)

The world outside
A buzz of flies
Waiting to die,
You could use a gun
To shoot at them,
And they would thank you
For all the destruction,
The blood so little from them
You won't even have to wash them off.
(Is it even red?)

There is no glory
There is no pain
In the killing of lives
Tinier than our egos.
The buzz flows
Like the wind,
Or the air in the conch
The blood in your vessels.
If you don't put your ear next to it,
You won't even listen.
(Silence.)

I was twelve
Probably ten,
My brother held his breath
While he explained the Schrodinger's cat.
I listened the same,
I cannot and will not say
I understood it
Because you can never tell
At which age
Things became what they are now.
How can you tell, its your mind that grew
And not the thing itself?
(Questions.)

I have given up every single noon
In the past few months,
And have gone to bed tired,
Wondering if I ever should feel,
What is the meaning as I start to weep?
Tears stain my cheeks,
The corner of my eyes red,
Swollen like petals folded out,
I stared out into the dark
And I saw darkness staring at me.
I asked my friend yesterday
What was the meaning of my life?
She never answered.

I saw adults fight,
I saw one scream,
And the other one kept on hitting.
I saw a blood pumped boy
Pull out an accessory sword
And wield it to ****.
I saw a young girl
Kneeling to God
And I saw her sister follow
But she gave up soon,
When she was touched by a man
She never even knew.

I saw hope burn up into flames
And I saw a veteran die blind in bed
All alone.
I saw the poor man dying in an empty stomach
Without his wife on his bedside
Who went out feeding strangers.
And I saw the rich rob people
Of their dignity.
I saw a father slapping his sick child
Because the medicines hadn't kicked in.
I saw a mother corrupted by cancer
As she prayed to heal others.
I saw a son grow to hate his father
And yet needing him.
I saw a daughter being failed
Even though she was the only one trying.
I saw a grown girl cover her eyes
To hide from her father.
I saw chairs flung onto the floor,
I saw glass smashed by bare hands,
I saw utensils fall into each other
And I saw quiet men enraged.
And I don't think
I ever once saw Him.

Yet I woke up this very morning
And for a few seconds
I couldn't make out my room,
And in that oblivion I realized
Hope wasn't in the good,
The happy moments
It was in the denial, the ignorance,
It was in the wait to die
And yet living.

Who'll you blame for the falling stars
When you're the one picking at them?

       But I only tried to rescue the moon
       He was stuck after the sun.

They had the wall finished now
And added a few colored yarn in the front,
And they appear so out of place
With those grey bricks behind
And yet so beautiful
When I noticed them after
Almost missing out the hills this time.
There seems to be a new star added on to the sky
Which I couldn't count back in the city
I now survive.
And the moon is appearing so yellow tonight
As if to mock me
That in my absence
Nothing has remained the same,
And I plan to come back,
But come back to what?
And only the nights are used
To occupy your room,
The rest of the day,
You are learning the changes,
The added vase here,
The broken sink there,
The table that was brought just before you left,
And you wonder why in your memories
It still hasn't taken its place.
Downstairs, next to your door,
The two rooms now broken and open
That earlier housed a kid
Who moved and is now too grown for you to talk to,
You were never good with adults,
Kids, well kids could be smiled to,
Eyes widened, and mouth hung in an O
And you were good to go.
But now they demand words
And you would rather speak silences
As you recall the times you were not this old,
And you plan to come back,
But come back to what?
The water now here tastes funny
And you are almost shocked
At the face you end up making,
And I hate myself a little
With every gulp I end up taking.
So you wonder if
The whole city's water has changed,
And the sun, is the sun now fiercer?
So you go out
And stand in the sun,
To somehow burn the feelings back
And then you see
An old lady staring at you,
She is new here,
Wondering what you might be like
The way you would have wondered
If you were here when she moved,
Does she like you,
Plan to come back,
But come back to what?
So I ignore my friends,
Ignore the routes I frequented.
And if I happen to pass my high school,
I now look away,
Its funny when I realize,
When I can't even remember the houses
Next to my middle school, o' yes
Everything has changed,
The people in the houses too.
And I plan to come back,
But come back to what?
So I guess, once you leave home
There is not much to look back to,
Nowhere to permanently belong to,
You simply move from city to city
In a hope to feel at home,
But all you get is a longing,
A memory to compare to
With all that you are missing,
That you once had,
And every little discomfort mocks you
There is nothing to go back to,
Not even your home.

Don't come back...

I was humming to myself,
I often do now.
A way to distract my mind
From the clouds of thoughts
That ultimately rains as sadness.
I was humming and I was unequipped.
And the trouble with being oblivious
(An outcome of humming or doodling
Or daydreaming)
Is that we shut our defenses
And open ourselves to attack.
I was climbing up the stairs,
Hair dripping water
And wet clothes in one hand,
I was climbing up the stairs,
I was humming to myself
                                      Unarmed.

(A question- if we are unarmed
And see an armed person,
Is it necessary that person to be dangerous
To feel in danger?)

I moved the thick curtain,
A choice of my sister
I say,
I can't confess how I picked it too
But I hate its colour now.
I danced my fingers through
The waves of it,
All I wanted to reveal
Were the steps that continued
But there he was
                              A beast.

In a stance, staring right at me
In my own turf
He was questioning me.
He was the stranger not me.
He was the intruder not me.
But I was unarmed
And his claws dripped of dried blood
I pictured,
We stared at each other for
The nth of a second
That seemed like ages.
I was drowning in his eyes,
An effect of humming beforehand
I believe.
Then my mind snapped
Like a rubber band
Stretched too far for too long
And a scream
As shrill as that of a kid
Escaped my mouth.
Broke all my teeth
Parted my lips
Tore away my tongue
And I screamed with all my might.
(I feel it was all my fear
Rolling out all at once
At the slightest chance of an escape).

Whether my scream faded
Or did it stick to that very step
Or did my voice die down
I can't say,
But as fast as my heart beats,
I was down
Behind a glass door closed
And a wooden one slightly ajar,
I was now a captive in my own home.
My screams now words,
It's silly how human fears
Are better described by sounds
With ill fitted
                        words.

After moments gone,
Having gathered my strong,
Calm demeanor
I carry most of the time,
I grabbed a stick.
I swear I wouldn't
If it didn't just lay there
As a lonlely toy that needed holding.
I couldn't wield it to hit
I know,
But I could make some noise
As if my voice wouldn't have been enough,
The beast had ran
                                Too.

Listen to me, he is the dangerous one
Not me, not me ever.
I tapped the stick at the railings
As I climbed a step then another
All the way till the point
Where my scream lingered last.
I bobbed my head slightly ahead
Of my body,
The beast could tear my face off
But not my heart I reasoned.
There it was, a mess,
Milk, and rice,
Cereals, biscuits,
Containers open and spilled,
Things scattered but things I say,
To the hungry beast
                                - Food?

I climbed up the remaining stairs,
Following his footsteps,
The markings he left,
The dripping water off his soul.
Can I confess now,
The beast was a kid,
And his tiny hands couldn't hold on
To all the food he stole?
                                        Borrowed?
        ­                                                  Needed.
And finally at the door,
A whole packet of cookies
Lay there, like a star
That fell from the sky
Unhinged it dropped on the ground
Where it didn't belong.
I didn't pick it up I followed ahead,
He passed that door,
I concluded from where he
                                               Broke in?
                           Discovered through.

And went ahead to the bigger one
Where we welcomed guests
That neither belonged.
I shut that door,
Locked it now.
And came to my room.
Kept the stick aside,
Leaning it on the wall,
Like a dancer resting his feet.
And sat on the bed
                                  Evolved.

                 ­     I fought off a beast?
A beast scared off a hungry kid.

(I hope he managed to steal something away
At least bit into something before I intruded.)

On my way back,
He got angry at the seats
Assigned separately.
A little too far,
She, a little too dimwitted,
Those who travel together
Sit together,
Now don't normal families do!
But we couldn't,
The seats were empty,
We were the first few to arrive,
She has no excuses
Other than her mindlessness.
I stopped the formal complaining
And would sort it I say.
(Rough edges).

In the aisle, a small traffic
I, the second car.
After a brief, polite but angered spat
We sat sepearate,
Say I will sort it.
The man I could tell
Spoke my tongue,
I waz getting better at observing.
After two lines of request he agreed,
And I waited for the aisle to empty.
(Questions. Answers.)

In the wait,
The man behind got up
And offered his place,
I couldn't thank him enough,
Our frivolity
Made his act a nobelity,
I declined.
We smiled at each other
Our truest of smiles
And things were better again.
We were one big family,
Looking after the other.
The man of my tongue
And the man of my family
Drifted off to a conversation,
And I to a digital page.
I can't speak for the noble man,
I didn't look at him again.
(Silence)

After a light meal,
I am craving a tea,
That's the first thing I ask now
Everytime I come home.
(It might be red.)

Five years or more
Or perhaps less,
Does it matter to you
Or me?
Isn't time a relative measure
To make sense of other conducts.

I was here, this city
My idea of the west
That still can and will
See me as of this land.
People were bright,
Were too busy in their lives
To yell at you about the dent
In the car's bumper,
People would narrate so.
That was to me, a declaration
Of our true values.
Probably that's simply a story now.
But either my mind grew
Or the things,
Who will attest to it?

In my car, the fan on full blow,
The heat musty though,
The sun burning with a new found motive.
In this city of people with hearts,
I looked out my window,
Rarely looking ahead,
Maybe this is why I fail
To memorize roads,
Or streets in my own place.
But the car halted and
The driver mumbled,
The accent a lovely northern,
One that sounds too polite
To instill any fear,
To pass as a slur.

My eyes darted ahead,
So calmly the man in the driver's seat
Sat, his both palms griping
The wheel a little too loose to turn,
His heavy chin on the back of his hands,
His back arched forward,
So calm and serene.
The man on the bus,
Sat same, his back though
Stretched way too forward
From his seat,
The distance greater,
He, struggled to keep that pose.

Both man on the wheel stared
Through the double windshields at each other,
If I didn't know better
I would say they were friends
Playing games.
If I didn't know about the traffic,
Blaring horns louder more by the second
I would say it was a new game
Likes of the bull and the matador,
Tad bit less dramatic,
And less action and work.

But my mind grew,
And I could tell this was a fight,
Raging between the eyes,
The victims of the peaceful blows,
-Everyone behind them,
Beside them.
Other people screamed at both,
None flinched,
Them, as sturdy as their vehicles,
The elders grew despondent,
I couldn't stop looking at them.

This was a quiet revolution
Of the new age,
The calm, polite age
And I wanted to watch it bloom,
Like a sunrise,
I wanted to clap to it
And yet not disturb it.
This was on a busy street,
Two men on their thirties,
Fighting for what they believed in,
In their own way,
It was funny
But it was also beautiful.
(I knew both of them were wrong.)

The driver curved around them
And my view was a passing glance
Again.

I want a room with a window,
White walls of the sun,
And a floor from the trees,
A hole for the stars to be seen.
I want a curtain across the door
The door far from the window,
A bed inches from the floor
Where I sprawl across
Just next to my bookcase,
A few pillows on the ground,
A soft rug below.
And the sun will burn through every morning
But only to burn the night cold,
And when it rains
It patters my home
And I see it roll from
The first drop of birth
To its journey of tiny rivers across.
And when I have much to think
And none to speak to,
I will watch the moon dance
With the clouds of disguise,
And I will watch and watch
Until sleep lulls me by.
I can picture it all so well,
So vivid, so detailed,
Almost feeling the heat of the sun,
Hear the sound of the rain,
The memories of the stars,
But here I am,
Sitting and sitting
Knowing what I want
But having no clue
How to get it, to get there.
I wanna make a home
A place of my own,
But here I am
And I can't go.

Thousands of thoughts running amuck
In my head
And no one in the world
Cares to understand one.
You pass by me
And don’t even notice.
I pass by you and I can see
Your whole life
And your world is a world
I will never belong in,
And I will try not to.
But you expect me to have results
Same as yours.
But I am not you,
Not her,
Not The person you would want me to be.
I am a shadow fleeting by,
Burned by the light,
So despearate to hide.
Let me go.

I understand when I look at you
How this is all you need,
A haze of days tangled in weeks,
Where you eat knowledge
And exhale not a word of your own.
I understand you will cure the world
Of its constant ailments
And I respect you,
That is your world.
But I am not you.
Let me go.

I breathe, I breathe
I live by seeing, feeling,
By laughing, by watching the strangers
I don’t have to befriend
Or isn't of the same house as me.
I live by people,
People whose world is built
By wood and chalk
And the dust flies likes ember ,
I live by their world
And get some dust on my face
And I breathe in their blood.
They are the people I want to be with.
Let me go.

Don’t get me wrong
I respect you,
I do,
But you don’t like me
And I don’t like you
And I don't think
We should do the same thing.
You are a block building a bridge
I am a wild flower lost in the wind.
Let me go.

We were there
Somehow exposed,
So I broke my back to hide
Behind a girl I must now call my friend
Due to the norms.
After words over words
That made no sense to me,
(Most of the days it no longer does)
We sat there pondering,
How each of us ended up there,
Most of us looking for our place.
I wondered how it felt
Like I owned that seat,
But I never do belong.
So she drew a sketch from her memory,
It was her home,
Yet it appeared , I don’t know how
But as simple as a doll house,
How fickle are our lines drawn
They can never justify our memories!
We laughed at her richness,
So she started drawing what we called minimal.
There was a pointed roof
So far beneath the sky,
One bent door
And a tiny little window with no glass,
Maybe we all do wish a world
With no bounds,
But look at us
Chaining ourselves,
Caged in a concrete home.
Over the house she drew these tiny hills,
The sky yet to fill in,
And then the sun,
(I decided it was the time of sunrise),
And across that eye with long eyelashes,
Like the ones they all talk of,
She drew this crooked but fast little black likes,
Curved with a dash beneath,
Three in number
And staring at that I realized
I have never been this dead before.

I was messing around with words,
For people once messed with my mind.
Words carve truth
And sometimes are part of foul play.
Sometimes words are used in games,
Sometimes words carry wisdom
In disguise.
And all in all, words are human
They are flawed and they are metaphors.

I had a question
Of all the questions I have.
I baked it into simple bricks
To build symbolic sculptures with it.
But what use is a question
If it in itself is indecipherable,
Answers need a structured path to unwind.
I was looking for an answer
But I wasn't expecting one.
I feel most questions
Are there
Because they have indeed
No answers after all.

These are our constructed truths,
I used to say
When he used to accuse me of lying.
I always have a dark, dark humor.
But I have the luck
To meet bright people too.

I believed there could only be truth,
In absence of which there is a lie.
But the world isn't black and white,
White itself is of several colors
That serves together.
So who was I to question
The ways of the world?

Words from different mouths
Different they sound,
And different answers they form.
A house of cards
We live in,
Too light to sustain,
And yet some remain for days.
A blow would end them
And yet we don't.
We could build a whole world of it
And someone might as well try.
We deal with a deck of cards he said.

There is this big flaw
You must have heard.
This rebellion of bumblebees
Who fought over physics to fly.
Are nature's laws that sustain us
A lie too?
We deal with an illusion they said.

One card by itself can be torn to bits,
But cards appear too strong
When they build a sturdy skeleton
On their own.
Which one is the illusion
    -the one card that acts weak
     Or those in a heap, strong?
On behalf of the bees flying,
Of people revived after death,
Or people who survived poison
Or saved by the devil,
I have to ask,
If everything is indeed an illusion?
What exactly are we dealing with?

Then he came with the most important question of all
For what shall
We do with the answers,
What good does a truth do?

I don't have enough answers
It seems only questions.
Maybe in them hides answers
But maybe it does not matter
                                                   After all.
What did you pick?

(Questions exist because
There are no answers
                                      Yet?)

You see the man first
Your head above your plate,
The fork and the spoon
In your hands.
You skipped the prayer of thanks,
Or to even pause a second
To see what you had been served,
Even before the server could leave
You had your first bite through
And you could not tell how it tastes.
"You were to escape"
You used to say,
"Escape what" now you question.
Silence flows through you like blood
Must have on that man's face,
If you were courageous enough
You could have counted the slaps
That man had placed.
Instead you paused and stared
Too many answers in you mind
On how there were no words
But you skipped the right question.
You heard the fire,
You heard the structure falling
And you saw the crowd gathering.
There was so much you should do
So little you could
But you skipped your rule
And sat there the way through.
Years of rebellion
And years of righteousness
Washed in that moment of cowardice.
You sat there all
Just staring and answering
The questions you couldn't ask.

Do you remember what you suggested?
You suggested to walk away
To make the man realize his wrong ways
But silly you,
Why are you so much of a coward ,
I doubt
It was simply you running away.
For the thought you skipped to act
Was walking to the man
And holding back his fist
But you so had it all skipped.
You sat there,
A silent prayer running through your mind
Couldn't you tell,
You are no help to the world,
What were you doing there?

And so here you are
The sad, pitiful part
You worried about not having answers,
Silly you,
Now you pace
With answers alone
You decided to skip the questions.

Answer-
You can either comment on the fire
Or ignore the smoke all together
But you do nothing
To douse the flames
You skipped the

I am a heart under constant construction,
Decay and rot eat away at my grown roots
And I start again and again
With no time for new fruits.
I squint at the budding leaves
Unable to contribute
I weep for my bare branches
And wonder if I should
Chop it off for good.

I have friends
I can hardly talk to,
I stay away from home
And we are a family
Who feel more
And speak less.
But I whisper a few words
If ever people listen
To a girl muttering more nothing
Than a wise word or two.

But here I might say
There are hearts,
Bare and raw
And sweetened
With delights of other's life
And hardened by their own.
And in my darkest nights
And blurred noons
They send words I could use.
I thank all my friends
I will perhaps never meet,
Never really talk to
But who talk to me through words,
Who love me I feel
For all my vain thoughts.
And to all those people
With so very few words
For words are never enough,
I thank you
For you have saved me
Every day as I woke up
You have all saved me.

.
                                  A week in my mind,
                       My body carelessly toured
                                                      My home
           And the world through a screen.

      I have been acting a moth on a wall
                      Repelling any movements,
                                    An itch on my nose
           Or a flutter of my devilish wings.

                   I drifted through the rooms,
          Making a few grunts in response,
       Words typed into measured boxes,
                           And my eyes cast down.

                                       But on my wings,
              Were two massive hidden eyes
                             Dressed as black spots,
          Almost as if they were torn holes.

                                           So things I saw,
                                                I overheard,
                                                   I observed
                                         And I scoffed at-

                            Two little glowing suns
                Blinding, lay in a pile of meat.
                                           Two little birds
                               That never got wings.

                                    A digital document
   Defining accomplishments of my life,
                                                   One big lie
                              I can't seem to correct.

                         One platform lined with
A millions dreams and secrets spilled.
                                       That shuts down
      Comes up but the dreams are tired.

           One big assembly of happy feets
                          A roar of laughter at me.
      An hour of lesson will be forgotten,
                                     I was a case study.

           One small group of broken souls
                              And delusional hearts
                                  To keep up my past,
                                               I abondoned.

                                             One thin book
                                Parted in the middle,
                                               Upside down
                                I can't seem to finish.

                                             Two sore legs
                                      And heavy thighs,
                                        Chipped off nails
                               In an attempt to shed.

                          Given up ideas on paper
                          Stacked inside a drawer.
                                           Dried off paint,
                                  Major white spaces.

                                             A swollen sky,
                                       A blistering land,
                                             Wilted plants.
                       Rain since morning today.

                                           An unmed bed,
                         Pile of shirts in the chair,
                   Wires tangled on two tables.
                                     A corner left to sit.

                                         One dear friend,
                                  Some unsaid words.

(I am a mess)
No point made (?)

I was high up, flying.
So I took the lights
On the land as
                         Stars.

But I cannot make out
From where came the lightning?

And now my words have died
Without smoke
Without a last sputtering of spit.
There are no ashes
No burnt pieces for me to keep.

And now my words have died
Without a last strong gasp
Without a mark of nails dragged.
There are no etchings
No last message for me to decode.

And now my love is gone
Without a residue of memories
Without any final words.
There are no photographs
No love letters for me to cherish.

And now my love is gone
Without a fight
Without suppressed emotions kept down.
There are no regrets
No second chances for me to go back.

And now the last drop of water has dried
Without a ring on the table
Without a crack in the ground.
There are no slippery edges
No soaked soil for me to collect.

And now all the water has dried
Without a river
Without a cloud of hope.
There are no oceans
No seas for me to reach.

I warn you my dear hearts
The end is nearer than you know.
The earth is dying
And so are our hearts,
Our insides ridden with cancer
Our blood drenching the hands of our friends.
The animals are up against us
Because we, we did them wrong
And mother nature furious,
Is breaking on us.

And I warn you my dear hearts,
Do not go, do not die
Without an apology.
All our lives
The lives we stole
From the genocides to wars
To the deaths we delayed,
I warn you my dear hearts,
The bodies we polluted
With our bare hands and thighs,
Do not, do not forget
To apologize
For all the blood we drank.

I tell you, I tell you
It is never the end of the love,
The disappearance of the words
That hurt me,
It is the fact that they went unannounced,
Silently, quietly
In my sleep
Everything around me died
And I couldn't even weep.

So cry out your apologies,
Your last words of thanks
The end is nearer than you think
So blow your horns out
As we leave.
We were a storm
A plague upon others
So go out with your hands folded
And pray all our sins
Are in due time forgiven.

I haven't slept for nights,
Waking up in my trials
Mistaking midnights for mornings,
Tired by the lack of dreams
And a need to see the ones I think come true.

I work like a clock now
Going round and round
Rising up only to fall,
Its all a routine,
The ticks follow some more lost ticks.

And I walk through rooms across rooms
Not noticing the doors,
And I end up in places I should have known
But I still don't,
I'm lost in a city I grew up in.

I listen to people as to how they failed
And I convince myself to follow them,
Though I know my ways but I abandon them
Due to my lack of trust in self and I complain of others
Never trusting me.

I sort through the truths
Discarding the unacceptable,
Constructing a few new
And feed them to the ones I meet
Watching myself crave for a confession and becoming a lie.

I ask others of their well being
Making through their masks,
And then they ask in return
I can't trust the words I reply
But they do.

I go out hating my home
And out in the world I see the filth
So I return alone.
The things I could do to better
Instead out there I become one with the guilt.

And I fall in love
And pray to fall out the next second,
I look at us and see how he is better
And then I look at the lovers
And pray that we never become them.

And I fail, I fall
As I stand steady
Grabbing at air for balance,
And I look around for stability
But instead I self destruct!