You're welcoming the future with open arms
As you shrink from your own reflection.
Lost in creating that Utopian vision
Of the future
Which you think is waiting to walk up to you,
When all you have done
Is to run to the past for solace,
And away from it when you were you realised
You'd bore enough.

Before you soar off on the flight of dreams,
Dreams you're afraid to call your own yet,
Watch where to your thoughts sway
Amidst the sands of time.

I am
A question mark
Slouching, lurking behind the wall
Waiting to stretch out
Into an exclamation mark.

They, you and I.
Are?
Interpretations, opinions,
Fears and convictions,
Likes-dislikes,
History and anticipations,
Of life.
All, save the living of it, maybe?

A song heard months back in time
You mused over the major & minor,
I'd pondered over the rhyme.
Each of us
As convinced about its presence.
Winter tastes different in my memory.

Epilogue:
You must choose between
His bespectacled vision
And my retrospective conclusion
But you must know
Which you chose
And why.

As I brushed off
The six week old dust
Off the mirror the other day,
I was happily taken aback to see
Myself a tad bit prettier, after weeks.

Funnily enough, I had made
The mistake of believing my
Reflection to be me.
Introspection's a better mirror,
I reflected.
Why does one look into the mirror everyday?
To remind himself how, or rather who he is?
That opaque shard of glass
Could never encompass
The zoetic surge of thoughts
That have gushed forth from me
Since the time I have existed.

I'm sure, the mirror pities
It's own lack of identity.
Manipulated by reflections
Of a myriad kind,
The mirror manipulates us thus,
Mirroring us and itself
In another way.
They thought this opaque shard of glass
Could contain the infinitude within us.
It has only mirrored the illusions
We projected each time we looked into it.

I am only distanced from myself
Each time I seek to find myself
In that stagnant pool of perceptions.

A guest uninvited, that gust of winter wind,
Thumped, seeped and snuck
Through the window in my room the other day,
Seeking shelter in my room, maybe?
Did he guess someone was up still,
From the embers in the fireplace
Shining through the window sill?
Making him feel uninvited
In his own season,
I closed the window,
Drawing the curtains on his misty face.
Back in my bed, a while later,
With toes peeping out of the blanket
Doing a temperature check,
I stepped out into the backyard.
Walking upon the dried up leaves,
Looked up and saw the sun curled up,
Beneath the blanket of clouds.

Nearly scared a kitten almost asleep,
Feigning pretense to stay awake,
I’m guessing it decided against
Venturing to catch another prey today.

An encounter with words in life hitherto
Brought me asking yet again a helpless -
"Now, where to?"
For company was all I had back then      
An ebbing ebb of
Self-assuring words at times,
To a frenzied slew
Of words, twisted & few
Which sapped & gnawed away
My spirits into mute stillness.
Like no adversary had ever managed.
Then another capricious turn
To a voice of rhetoric that mocked,
At every occurring thought
In my breathing existence
Angry at what, I knew not.
Every mono-syllable I pondered over, or dropped.
Words plundering away words
I had uttered, memories earlier,  
Words I saw, heard, smelled, lived -
Were they ever in my favour?
Or was it a path, I ought to have taken not?

Those words had more life in them
Than I then did, let me tell you.
Now and then, a war of words with
The consciousness of words
They and I had created
A dialogue, now supporting, now doubting,
I had become a dilemma.

Words are all I had at all those times,
And they failed me when  
I needed them most.
They sought a different muse.
Conscious of their mistress's dormant existence
Stammering her way through life,
Were they teaching me a lesson?
To take ownership of my articulations
With courage, wisdom & tact,
That which I probably lacked

Here comes news
Within dreams, with strides taken,
With gestures, glances, I awaken
As I cross paths again with words,
Uttered - un-uttered,
Now knowing their worth
Breaking the slumber
of
Clenched fists,
Asphyxiating knots of syllables,
Scripting now,
Drops of ink
That shall make a million think.