You are reckless colour
and I'm the muted grey
backdrop to you riot.
I let you run wild
while you carry the world
on your tired back,
dripping paint on the
canvas of space and
time. You paint universes
in sorrow, stars in
exhaustion; you drown
oceans in skies and
raise mountains on
plains. You are wild
imagination and I'm
the steady flow of
words to keep you
solemn company. You
are the last dregs of
chaos, strong and pure,
and I am the smell of
an old room, always
there, forever constant,
forever lingering. You
are great joys sprinting
across the canvas and
I'm the borders that
you leave on the
windowsill. You are
violent song, trembling
tears; I am the quiet nod
of a great tree as it listens
to the whispering wind.
You are a million sparks
of power, behind a dam
of subtlety, and I am the
river, waiting for time to
pass. You are autumn, or
what it feels like to fall,
and I am the warm summer
with my joyous abandon.

You and I are forever in
balance; you observing me,
me writing you down.

You are vibrant patterns
of colored star-dust, and
I am a mute spectator.
You are streams of clouds
bursting with music, you
rain pure joy, and I, a
welcoming blossom.
You are infinite pools of
pink affection and I am
a blank sheet. You are
the movement of life in
the skies and I, an observer
on the ground. You are
sensitive ideals and I
am malleable motion.
You are incessant love
and i am staccato
acceptance. You are
clear head space and i
am poorly articulated
mumbling. You are all
the color, all the joy, all
the love. I am scribbled
footnotes in browning
novels.

you are swirling pools
of azure, and i am the
noiseless motion of the
sea, and we shout into
the nothingness. you
are foam upon the
crest of a wave, and
i am a shell stuck in
the sand; always
shifting, but never to
disappear. you are tepid
vapor rising from the
sea, and i am sea cress
on the coast, both
clouding vision in one
instant, vanishing in
another. you are the
dipping sun, orange
as it drowns, and i am
shafts of red, flowing
over and spilling onto
warms sands, and we
both go down
together.

We've been this way for a very long time, we've been together for more time than you can imagine. Little weary chains link our minds, looping in and out and up and down. We're this tangled mess of synced thoughts and synced dreams, and sinking syllables. 

Every sigh that you let slip from your tired lips is an indication of my exhaustion, because you and I, we lie in comfortable tessellation.

You and I, we've been through magical realism, and the romantics, and the surrealists, the grammar nazis and the pretenders.

You and I, we've etched each other in shifting sands, in clumsy waves.

You and I, we know each other's movements across a blank sheet of paper.

You waltz onto empty pages with constellations for punctuation. Screens may read verbose sacrifices to the patron saint of inspiration, but you, you don't stop or pause to check for abbreviation.

You take half hearted syllables and turn them into poetic nations, you build monuments to love but you neglect infatuation.

You try to touch every single figment of my overactive imagination but then you shuffle away so as not to cause complete annihilation.

You speak lucid languages in times of complete inebriation and you continue this slurred speech against all drunk invitations.

You try to write me down in moments of utter desperation but the grip of your words falter as I run to my wild desolation. 

You and I, we've run across clouds, left our footprints in the wake of comets.

You and I, we've sailed all the seas of consciousness, those that can be fathomed, and otherwise.

Slowly, your step exceeded mine, and your stride was longer, so I struggled to keep time. Slowly, I felt our tangles unwind. Slowly, our roots straightened out in a single line and you crossed it.
You crossed it.

Un Saut dans le vide, a leap into the dark, and you were up, up and away. I wanted to trap you in cunning similes, but you were running as fast as the wind.

Little weary chains that linked our minds now struggle at the seams, tiny links begin to
unlink,
unlink,
unlink.

one
by
one
by
one.

you are gentle breeze on
a seashore, and i am small
flitting pebbles stuck in the
sand, shuffling in and out
with the lazy tide. You are
the unending pools of blue
under a cerulean sky, and i
am small ripples of information
across a canvas made of you.

You are the familiar strum of
a gentle guitar on a slow Sunday
evening when the wind tries to
sing songs of me and you, and i
am the trembling, faltering voice
trying to challenge this wind to
a duel of hopelessness.
You are a slow walk in leaf-
covered alleys sheltered from
a busy life, and i am anxious skips
crossing the road, but only looking
at you.

You are the steady gaze of a
warm feeling spreading in my
heart, and i am nervous flits and
distracted movements, a shaking
body, and a cool heart.
You are the welcoming silence
into which my words fold
themselves, covered up with
blankets stitched with sighs,
and you tuck them all in.

And i,
i am the clutter of syllables,
against an electric sky under
which we sit in peace - draped
in rambling silences. Your search
for more, my search for less,
your heavy eyes, and my quivering
voice.

And we both go down together.

Sometimes,
i wish i had hollows for cheeks
so your hands would brush
an e m p t y s p a c e
filled only with the weakness
that you think i possess.

Sometimes,
i wish my smile revealed
histories of stories untold,
the crux of a plot
now never to unfold,
the heart of soul
that didn't mind going cold.

Sometimes,
i wish i stood a little taller
so i could e
                      s
                         c
                             a
                                  p
                           ­          e
the condescending petting of your hand.

                   floating fingers

                      that land
only to let your fingers glide
along the few strands
of unnecessary ambitions
that run deep in my brain.

Sometimes,
i wish i could shrink
back into the flames
that left me with the thirst for more.
i wish to go to back to the times
that you thought i could not settle a score,
when you saw me as weaker than i was before
when you thought that
my only refuge was
the cold hard floor.

Sometimes
i think that you hold me -
all 5-feet-nothing-chubby-cheeks-childish-smile-bulging-tummy-old-l­oose-clothes
i think that you hold me
to a lower standard than what i started out with.

Sometimes,
you make me want to scream
my strength out.

Sometimes,
i feel like breaking forts and castles purely made of doubt.
Sometimes,
i even wonder what a book about me be about?
an above average worker
or a little girl with a big mouth?

Sometimes,
you make me want to underachieve -
to grieve for my triumphs,
because now,
they need to sit in full public view.

***** you.

I talk at the speed of trees
that pass you
on a train journey.
Hundreds of thoughts
planted
tall,
loud,
incessant.
 I don't expect you listen to me,
I don't expect you to notice,
but then you pick out
one leaf
from the twenty-eigth branch
of the twelfth tree
 and ask me why
it's painted a deep scarlet.
And there's n o t h i n g
that stops me from turning that hue too.


*"To Stop Train, Pull Chain"

hello, you -
tucked in soft covers,
your head on fluffy pillows,
your name in the prayers of lovers,
your light dancing in willows,
hello.

you can't see it,
but you paint the sky
every night in lush silver.

you can't see it,
but every lonely eye
every solitary sigh
looks to you for comfort.

blue moon,
your light cups its fingers
around so many sullen chins,
you, a night vision,
dance on so many fiery skins.
blue moon,
you're making a joke of distance,
you're making night blossoms bloom.

blue moon,
now we're no longer alone.

skeletons in my closet
find that it is rather easy
to scuttle and shuffle,
to twist and hide
among piles and piles of doubt,
and the odd dress or shoe.

they rattle and rumble,
shift and crumble,
only piping down
when someone passes by.
they fold and clatter,
chitter and chatter,
but are deathly silent
when you don't turn a blind eye.

skeletons in my closet
know just when to shrink,
when to dress down their size,
to save themselves
from indecent exposure,
or me
from a pair of extra-enthusiastic eyes.

skeletons in my closet
live together in harmony,
and i know i shouldn't be scared,
but they're the ones who know it all,
and i couldn't clean my closet
if i dared.

You'll ask me why I go back to memories every time. Well here's my answer.

Soft sunshine played
with your golden hair,
teasing your eyes
and my heart
into imagining
all kinds of art near the sea shore.

Doodles of the lone yellow blossom
pepper all my books
from the last time
your loving looks
swept like waves across my messy hair.

I couldn't help but stare
when you looked across the sea
to the other side,
and we wondered
why gaps are never deep,
they're always w i d e.

And the melting music
that flowed between us
showed me that
silence with silent notes
from me to you
are better than
the violence of interactions,
that my thoughts f
                                  l
                                      o
                                          w
                                              d
                                           o
                                     w
                                 n
                         in words,
and your words in f/r/a/c/t/i/o/n/s.

Matching your pace
through hooded lanes,
wooded alleys,
your laugh made me
want to find warmth
in every valley in my heart.
Our hands on fresh book spines,
touching worlds far,
                                     far away,
the two of us drunk
on the wines of company and conversation.
If touching words that made no sense
to either of us were a dream,
honey I'd like to flash it across every screen.

You'll ask me why
I go back to memories of you
every
single
time,
and I'll tell you
that our time is sacred, jaan.
All my hours are yours
and you are mine.

You are the waves
b r e a k i n g
against the sea,
You are the golden sunshine.

my body already knows
that not-light lies behind
door handles that are cold
to the touch,
skin is not stupid.

the door swings open,
the crescendo of blood pumping
in my ears
screams to a stop.
there is quiet, but no peace -
there is silence, but no comfort.

wiry arms made of nothing
reach out,
hidden,
yet so clearly visible -
dancing around my ankles,
measuring my shoulders,
wrapping themselves around
the air that i
so sparingly
exhale.

there are eyes watching me,
their sight made sharper
by the absence of light,
finding shards of black
along which they trace their way
to me.

my skin revolts,
but my limbs aren't mine anymore.
my eyes are wide,
but my brain cannot see anymore.

the dark isn't a state or a condition -
it lives and breathes,
hunts and hounds,
it has fingers and a mind of its own,
it rests in shadows,
but also makes a home of its own.

people aren't afraid of the dark
for no reason -
they only fear
that it may just be more human
than they are.

i live on the line
that is supposed to divide
fury and peace,
but i studied theory,
and binaries are overrated.

i dance along the madness
of a zone where
functionality meets sadness,
and let me tell you,
i get so much work done
when i'm hurt.

i run across fields
where ruins of patience
are overrun with the
violence of life -
reds and blues and greens
bloom and disrupt
the unnecessarily calm earth.

i am a study in dualities -
of smiling rage,
of cold fury;
a filled laptop screen,
a blank page.

i find safety in numbers -
how many emotions can i fit
in my head and still survive?
i'll let you know when i do.

i remember moving
in my mind
as if it was just yesterday,
but my limbs seem to stutter
as i begin to utter the prayers.

there is a rift between
my words and my feet,
like a curtain
between the felt and the seen.

i want to write an elegy
to the way my feet knew
just how loudly they must land
to match the beating of my heart.

i want to write an elegy
to the unspoken oath my back took
to never let me look like i was let down -
to always curve and arch like
the weight of the world wasn't on my shoulders
at least for an hour.

i want to write an elegy
to the wonders that my hands created,
an assortment of fury, love, shame, and passion -
hypnotic
in the way they followed the music.

i remember breathing in dance
like it was the only air
in a sea full of fear and despair.
i remember feeling the floor change
into a sentient being,
giving me strength and joy as i moved.

there is a rift between
what my body remembers,
and what my mind wants to remember.
i can only hope
that i don't have to write an elegy
again.

instructions:

hold the door open when she arrives -
she will either storm in or hesitate,
and you must prepare for both.
she will either drift away or gravitate-
you must decide this,
for she can only move when you do.
her hands may be tied,
but her presence can both
arrest and resuscitate.

smile at her when she steps inside -
she will walk into your home,
not knowing the words you will use,
she might either be wound up too tight
or shaken up too loose,
depending on how right you thought
you once were.

let her breathe -
in anger or in exhaustion -
either way, she will wait for you
to settle down first,
and ask for unspoken allowances.
give them to her -
it has taken her time and patience and tears
to get here in the first place,
just like you.

say hello, and maybe throw in another smile -
the pain only stops
when your fears and her tears drop
to the ground.

hold her hand -
she is either raging or grieving.
either way, your hand on hers
means that there is a way out
from the cycles of loss that you find yourselves in.
(both of you)

listen to an old song with her -
when she is finally ready to leave,
she will either mourn you
or take comfort in you.
the words and voices of those wiser than you both
will guide you in this growth.
she is a part of you,
you are her home.

When Hurt leaves,
just ask that the next time she must visit,
she brings Hope along.
Three voices are less lonely together
than just two.

Now
i am one
with
the air.
i float up,
ever so light,
to greet the pale blue
dream that awaits me above.

Now i am a cloud
un  nuage, una nube
एक बादल, nubes
i am one with the cold drops,
i am one with these headwinds,
i am one with the heavens.

Now i shall stir
i hear the peacocks
wailing
in anticipation,
waiting,
waiting for me to
to gather strength,
to g r o w in size
till i finally descend
thundering,
quivering,
carrying fierce energy
  in my arms.
   i cradle her gently,
              and then she
     tears through
  my dark expanses
a flash of light,
to momentarily
illuminate
the fields.

Now
i could crash down
with all my might
and bore h o l e s
in steady rocks,

or i could be that
   life-giving shower,
        caressing
          the earth,
              landing gently
                   *to rejuvenate

To tell you the truth about travel, I hate it.
Someone once told me
that travel is a compromise
for teleportation.
Everything
is basically a compromise
until higher tech arrives.
To tell you the truth about travel,
I really don't want to.
I want to let you hold my image
against long winding roads,
against the sad shrubbery
by the side of the highway,
and believe
that I'll be happy
when I'm not at home.
My loud voice and excited manner
may even trick into believing
that I adore the hustle bustle of a new place,
new people,
     new traffic,
           new smells,
                sights,
                      sounds.
But to tell you the truth, I really hate travelling.

Save me from suffering the pains
of packing a bag
with the most essential items
designed to make you look like
a Prudent Traveller™ - I want to carry
only my fatigue
and annoyance
at being asked to move out.
(Some Hajmola, perhaps - the green and purple flavours)

I am not seduced by lines on a map
telling me where to go,
and how to get there,
I swear.

I would rather have
someone trace the edges
of imaginary continents
across my mind
by virtue of their words.

Cartographers aren't redundant to the world,
perhaps - but have you ever had
a laid back holiday with
only
*i n t e r m i t t e n t naps?

Anyone would be upset, right?

You took a slice of my cake,
It took me seven hours to bake.
Red Velvet is hard to learn,
That one slice, one should earn.

The vanilla layer was hard to lay out
At least five times, I was wracked by doubt,
Whether the cream-to-butter was three or four
And the icing or the colouring comes before.

No, steal the extra crust you can,
I don’t need it anyway in the pan.
What I wanted was the tiny sprinkles,
That you licked off without a ******.

Go away, don’t touch my cake.

Do you know I can see you
tucking your fears
behind your ears
as you watch me watching you?

Do you feel your eyes on you,
when I show you the magic
you've stashed away
in all my corners and edges?
Are you moved
when I watch you move
side to side,
from the shores of one insecurity
to another?

Because I do.

I do,
and I do not think anyone so ornately flawed
must strive so hard
to lock up every shard
of themselves
behind every ray of light
you get from me.

Pick up your falling smile,
because I can see two hands
reach out for the parts of you
that complete you.

I watch two eyes
watching every joy
that etches itself
in your skin.
I can hear you dreaming
of perfection,
without realising that
it lives in you.

*And it lives in me.

i do this thing
where i let people
make their homes
in the midst of my words.

they are cordially invited
to bring their joys into my home,
(sorrows optional, if you do not
have sorrows of your own,
some will be provided to you)
i am always excited
to have new inhabitants living
in electronic pages of my memory,
if only for a night.

i love it when i know
the weight of a soul
just enough
to set it down gently,
surrounded by literary furniture
so it feels at home.
i love to watch from afar,
patiently,
while these people
find their bearings
in the monstrous maze
that is my poetry.
they get lost sometimes -
in mixed messages,
messy metaphors,
silly sentences,
violent verses.
I am in awe of how gently
they can navigate my mind
and come to rest
in a corner that they make
for themselves,
and no one else.

i do this thing
where i let people
make their homes
in the midst of my words -
a small colony,
a peaceful civilization -
with the occasional war,
a rare skirmish.

their homes have windows,
and on most days,
i don't mind
letting the world have a peek.

at first,
i assumed that the universe
is like a table at one of them fancy conferences -
where the screens are shiny
and the water is packaged for no reason.
i thought i'd have a place card,
one shade darker
than the cream-coloured tablecloth
it rests on.
i thought that everyone at my table
had their own too,
placed as if by magical premonition,
or something even more abstract
like cosmic preordinance,
or something even weirder,
like fate.

and then i grew up,
and someone told me
that places and spaces
are found, not given,
and that i could make my own
from whatever i found.
i had no help from fate,
or cosmic preordinance,
or even magical premonitions.

you see,
i found so many places
and so many spaces
that all seemed like home.
you see,
it's not all pretty cafés
and painted nails,
it's also smiles and laughter
of the people you love;
it's also rain and hail
and a grey sky above;
it's also wide eyes
and open arms;
it's your love that lies
in lucky charms.

places and spaces
are everything that you want them to be-
the universe can always, always
make room for more.

I am power

I watch eyes leave the ground
and walk up to her lips.
My magnetism has them lingering for longer,
hoping for a stronger look thrown at them.
I see double-takes
and furtive smiles,
I see her glide through crowds on clouds for miles.

I am war paint

She has no smile on,
her jaw is tense,
and you better not approach her
without an answer to your question.
I have nothing to do with defence,
I am a shield
but only to brandish her strength,
don't worry,
she won't reach for your jugular
till you do.

I am grace

I am an involuntary parting of the sea,
I see her bring down empires of doubt, and thrones of inadequacy.
She has no smile on,
but you hope to see one anyway.

I seem to have that effect on her.
She seems to never pick her battles without me,
and her wars are somehow always smudged with my name.
She refuses to be tamed,
she says the others don't suit her the same. 

I am constant support.
I am faith.
I am visible signs of the strength within.
I am deterring, I am inviting.
I am living legends played out on her lips, I am quiet histories whispered into no air. I am fire and rescue,
I am hope and destruction.

My name is Red.

Poetry carries the weight of
ten thoughts,
     nine feelings,
        eight emotions,
                seven sins,
                     six thoughts,
                         five complaints,
                            four heartaches,
                                three joys,
                                  two heavy eyes,
                                       one pouring soul.

Poetry fights her way
through layers
and layers of jargon,
through depths
of useless words just floating,
skimming the surface of nothing.
she claws her way
through overgrown shambles
and tangles
of unnecessary parts of speech.

Poetry slashes her way
through tumbling creepers
falling from broken terraces.
she drives away unimportant thoughts
from fertile fields of words.

i see Poetry survive against all odds -
against joy - that sweet, sweet burden.
against rationale - a double edged sword
against doubt - a ghoulish green monster

i see Poetry survive.
no, rejuvenate.

and then i know
why poetry takes a feminine pronoun.

What a funny thing to be Time,
To go back in history and change any rhyme,
To make "yours" into "thine",
But never you into mine,
What a funny thing to be Time.

step by broken step
brick by broken brick, one day
it will all fall down

eye by closed eye
soul by closed soul, one evening
it will all fall down


destruction knows no
real obstacle
except for the softness of love

There's something about
opening a bottle of colour -
knowing
that any way it spills
won't spell A-R-T at your hands.
let's call it the audacity of trying,
and
move on.

Same thing for a lump of clay -
lying in front of you,
waiting for creative violence,
but you know that your thoughts
don't have fingers,
your ideas don't have arms.
let's call it the pointlessness of wishing
and
move on.

Don't look at the camera -
the eager buttons waiting,
glinting in the hope of your touch
a lens waiting to be turned -
knowing that your eye can never
translate your sight into art,
your vision will never equal
an image.
let's call it the imperfection of waiting,
and
move on.

My last hope is a pen.
my fingers rush over it,
finding solace in known grooves
where my fingers have settled
time and again.
i call it the comfort of a story.

and this time,
*i stay

I save up the best ideas for a poem
in a bank,
trading thoughts like currency,
hoarding the best ones
for birthdays and
rainy days.

i count the amount of effort
each one will take
with two interests -
one being the love i invest in you,
and
the other being the joy
of your reaction
that i get back.

i keep thinking that one day
i ought to save up my words
and my thoughts
to string them together like a necklace
not of pearl, but of precious things -
memories, stolen smiles, lost glances.
i try to save my poetry for you,
only to end up poor at the end of the day.

oh but how not to feel like a pauper when i lavish my last words on you?

stars traced on our skin
we little, little dreamers
dance to the moon's ball

pure constellations
we little, little dreamers
pour down, drink it all

swimming in galaxies,
we little, little dreamers
learn how to fall

On most days
poetry feels like a testament
to your breath running away with mine.

On most days
poetry is your arms around me,
my own little shrine,
a heaven more than divine.  

Lazy writing like this can barely hold together my words,
because on most days,
poetry takes them and flies away
into your eyes.

On most days,
poetry knows she comes second,
she falls in line.

old men settle
like the last ashes
of a strongly worded editorial
in a newspaper -
burnt,
crumbling,
but carrying reminders
of words once powerful.

old men huddle
in centres
that have long since lost
their magnetism.
centres that once drew
the most powerful thoughts -
now host
shuffling cards,  
     shuffling gaits,
          shuffling shoulders.

old men whisper
wars can be won
and fortunes can be lost
with all that they have to tell you
if only you
listen
observe
absorb.

old men gather like continents
much like the mass of land
holds everything above it -
rooted
stable
*sure

I think I like you best
when you come to me
on wings of purple hazy drunken nights.
Cheers of new years,
flowers and happy tears,
a few far aways,
but almost all so-nears.

I think I like you best
when you drown out the sound of my worries
with one look.
Stolen stairwell kisses,
cupid's gold medal - all hits and no misses,
3 AM rug-on-the-floor blisses.

I thought I loved you best
when you came to me
in my memories.

But here you are,
and I think I like you best
when you're here.

one name
  followed by an address
      with a number below it
         and unapologetic confessions
        
that's all it takes to
lend wings to your words
so they may go and caress
their memories.

you scroll through stories
that you don't care about
that don't matter to you
and they never will

you talk about love as if
you're done with seeing your
fair share of it - as if
you haven't touched it
and it hasn't touched you
and it never will

इश्क़ मोहब्बत धोखे जुदाई से जूझते दिखते हो -
क्या कभी किसी के लिए दो शब्द एक खत पर लिखते हो?

we're not yet drunk on July showers,
we're yet to dance in August rains,
muddy and cool with pools of dreams
pooling around necks and ankles,
cloud-kissed flowers,
green hooded lanes.

we're not yet dizzy on thundering verses,
we're yet to feel the cold walk down our eyes,
assuring lines of certainty,
a definite landing on collarbones,
half-swallowed heaven's curses,
half-heard storm's lies.

we're not yet awake,
we're yet to bloom
the sun keeps us at bay,
warmth drives us away,
we're sheltered in each other's wake,
ribs forming a dripping room.

I will hide myself in cute gifs
on your phone, I will live in the tone of your happy voice,
I will make my home in "what if
she was here",
I will lurk in the background noise
in your earphones.

I will secretly settle down
on the collar of your white shirt,
I will quietly circle around the small of your back,
I might lack subtlety,
but my invasions won't be seen,
they won't hurt.

I will pull covers over my head,
I will snuggle into your perfume,
my hair tangled
with ghosts of your fingers,
A loving web lazily designed.
I will make my bed in your dreams - sleep and I are old, old friends
- I'm sure she won't mind.

I will draw up a chair next to you,
in the hopes that you let me stay
and if you get used to my company, forget that the chair was empty anyway.

it feels so easy to
hurriedly pen down a bunch
of you-centric words
huddled together like
cold syllables around the
last embers of an idea
that i had a minute ago.

it sure doesn't take effort
to weave you in and out
of clever metaphors
concealing you from the world
but letting you shine
for those who know you -
a blanket of fractured sentences.

it comes all too naturally to me -
making your every movement
into a monument constructed
from love and letters -
letter by broken letter,
love by broken love.

it is so easy
to cheat on poetry.
all i have to do is trap
your last word to me
between ink and paper
and watch you struggle
to ever leave these
paper confines.

it is so easy to cheat on poetry.

Sleep caresses the
corners of my covers
stumbling over the pile
of clothes that I left
from yesterday's encounters
with the city.

Sleep tumbles over
the corners of my bed
stubbing her pinky toe
in this hurried process.
she has to reach me
before my brain takes over.

Sleep rushes in
before i have the chance
to say
.

oh but my love is not
a red, red rose.
i chose to replace
every tear on my face
with dying embers
of every memory
you said you would remember.

i trust
that you must know
that i am not a summer's day,
i will never play
at being warm
or temperate.

you can berate
me for not knowing
whether i am to be
or not to be,
but forgive me
if i don't play by the rules
and exit
the right stage
in a wrong scene.

it just means
that your music
is not the food of my love.
i will continue to shove
your thoughts
under a carpet of denial.

do not throw away
any vial you might find
in my room,
you sealed my doom
when you stomped down
that staircase,
tripping on the last time
we went for a walk.

my face doesn't run
smooth like the course of love,
you should have known
this truth.

my eyes are not rose petals,
my heart not a white dove,
my love
when they say hell is empty,
they haven't been inside
my mind -
here
you'll find horrors
of a sweet kind.

Many days,
Poetry will not coax me out of my stupor
with the zest of a child
on the first day of summer.
Many days,
she will not make a sound
as she runs through a house
made of my words - no anklet tinkling against silvery feet,
no soft swishes of her dupatta across the sofa.
Many days,
Poetry would like to leave me alone
- in my home of rust and rubble,
in the middle of technicolour trouble,
me surrounded by blunt edges
of half-chipped words,
half-baked rhythm (never rhyme), half-sighed syllables onto blank paper.
Many days,
Poetry sees me accept complete defeat,
with art gathering dust
in the pages of notebooks that will never need filling,
with pens that will never be picked up, with ideas that will never be strung into a poem.

And yet here I am.

Picking up frayed string ends,
trying to tie them into a verse,
to leave it on the first shelf for her
to hopefully pick up.

It might be time for Poetry
to take 29 slowstumblingstuttering steps towards me,
this is me taking the first.

Missing Someone*
is the name
given to the space beside you
that you assign to
someone else.

do I remind you of a summer's day?
does the memory of my eyes
slip between your skin
and your clothes,
teasing your spine
gently,
working its way
to the small of your back?

(small, like me - haha)

do my bad jokes
make you see my curly hair,
my crumpled figure,
all scrunched up
in the middle of numbers
that you can read
but don't register?

do my words flood your brain
and corrupt
whatever you're listening to,
adding my accents here,
and contorting languages there?
do your sentences lose count
of the number
of tongues they're made of?

Missing Someone
is the name
given to the space beside you
that you assign to
someone else.

does my taste of my laughter
linger in the air
beside you?

nothing.

not any thing.

no single thing.

you see? the dictionary can't tell you what nothing means, and I expect me to have the answer. the only travesty is that I indeed know what nothing is.

nothing is the first blade of grass
that withers away come summer.
you thought you could play on lush greens, but dead dry leaves are a ******.

nothing is also the bottom of a
once-full glass - you emptied its
contents thinking "this too, shall pass".

nothing is the first page of a diary
that you intended to keep. it is now
used as a paperweight, a place for
dust to sleep.

nothing is the first lie you ever
learned to tell - to bravely decorate
your face with a smile even if your pockets are filled with hell.

my personal favourite definition -
nothing is the space I occupy
on your overworked mind - I try
hard to look for traces of me but
they seem impossible to find.

Two unending endless
Unbridled riots of joy
two reasons to laugh

Sunday would knock on our window pane - repeatedly.
once
  twice
     thrice

once -
sneaking out of her place
in the weekly schedule,
Sunday tip toes,
t i p p y t o e s,
into the bedroom -
she sees a troll's rule
on the floor,
almost picks up a broom,
but then lets go.

twice -
creeping into the kitchen
now - takeout pizza on the counter,
unimaginable amounts of sugar,
a pile of dishes flowing like
a fountain -
the chaos seems to amaze her.

thrice -
we've woken up, so she
skirts the living room walls.
as I untangle my arms from your hair
she sees your eyes rise to me-
then fall.

*"Five more minutes?"

Sea of turning heads,
burning glances,
semi-hidden shadow romances,
child's aisle-play-prance-dances,
on-screen France, off-screen trances,
eyes on you,
you practicing in-love stances,
one-second-when-no-one-is-looking chances,
slipped sights,
speakers-are-too-loud, a/c-too-cold circumstances,
your eyes on me,
my heartbeat on the screen's expanses.

Plots, characters, twists, turns, music,  
Arm, shoulder, skin-
Advances, advances, advances.

You are the silence
in an overflowing room,
overlooking the brim of
the glasses full of art that
are about to s p i l l forth
from you able hands. i am
the low murmur of voices,
ebbing through an empty
room - no shortage of
"excuse me"s or of
cleared throats.

You are love, when love
disguised itself as ink and
ran freely through pages
in lines that looked a lot
like poetry, only if
one looked. i am the short
staccato splutters of syllables
splattering and spoiling
fresh canvases of pure
imagination - rendering them
u n c l e a n,
        u n u s a b l e,
                u n d e s i r a b l e

you and i, we swirl through
pages and mics and minds
and crowds and rooms and blinds
like no shackles forged from doubt
could ever bind us.

Gushing breath,
joyous death,
toes half-dipped in happiness,
your secret signatures on my neck,
I am a function of the love you give me,
a happily bruised in-love wreck.

I sway to so many tunes,
I dance like so many sand dunes,
all you do is draw a horizon across my waist,
and I can taste the last dregs of unbound tears of joy,
hidden away at the back of my throat, love is a four letter word made of your two arms around mine.

Dorothy's lucky charm, my own invisible shield,
your presence dissolving in mine,
and mine in yours,
your lips on my forehead,
twenty years healed,
twenty more sealed
and tucked away.

We're built with lego pieces of light and love, and I have an eye for the little things.

i stand out
in any room
like the only exception
to any rule.
i recklessly disobey
the sciences,
math,
and art.
i stand apart
like every wobbly word
in a sentence
that lives
in a secondhand copy
of a book.

i am not easy to look for
in a room
full of talent, though.
i  h i d e
between the pauses
in a conversation that
i shouldn't be interrupting.
when you talk about
art
   and love  
        and life
all I'd like to do
is
hide.

besides,
i could never belong
in the same sentence
as any of the great artists
that you talk about.

so i stick to the walls
i line the sidelines
with a fraction of my presence
- one thirds of me
simmering away at
the bottom of the sink.

i think I'm the only exception
to a world-wide rule.