Life stagnates as people start trickling back to their houses. Some look forward to the expectant faces of their children, while some others dread their churlish wives. As they saunter along doggedly, the day’s events play like a broken record in their heads – a mimicry of sanity. A crow caws somewhere as though lovesick. Streetlights come on and fireflies hover in a daze. Bicycles, cricket bats, and skipping ropes are lugged back home by children who are repeatedly beckoned by overbearing mothers. Almost in a trance, the buzz of the day fades away as a feigned tranquility descends.

molten skyline…
an earthworm buries
itself deeper

under the tubercular sky
we wonder where to go

the pulse of midnight rain
one times one

picture postcards
of broken hearts
iron dreams
the alchemy of memories
in a gyzym of consciousness

forever was never till now
the everyanything of conversation

the walls are the same.

not much has altered
since the clock struck
twelve.

alone in bed,
watching a display
of fireworks
serve as the baton
to usher in
another year
in a new garb,
custom made
for the most part.

long-forgotten
adrenaline reminds
me
of all those things
taken for granted
the previous year.

lists
and
resolutions
eat away at the corners
of my mind;

a tab
that stands  
unaccounted for.

She bares her soul
to no one —
a façade for each mood
that infests her thoughts

like the plague;
reticence stalks her
every now and then,
as she tries shying away
from her darkest

secrets ripe as cherries
hanging from the bough…

a charade of whims
planted mysteriously
on her sealed lips.