I live on the inside more than the outside.
But, I allow the outside to get in sometimes.
I let the outside slowly caress the inside and ****** it.
Come out for a walk with me, he’d say.
Words don’t matter here. You can be who you want.
The inside, she’s soft.
She resists the brightness, she craves the cave --
The land of mirrors we’re walking through that she’s so used to.
Where it’s just us and our words and the magic we weave with them.
Outside, we grab *******, we grab attention, we grab,
We don’t differentiate between the sinners and the saints
We take and we take and we take.
Just like the song, just like the song.
We’re not here to fight. But, the inside, she’s defiant.
I hold my insides and weep,
I weep for the the land grabbing
My body is not mine anymore.
I am a slave to the outside.
The inside pulls me back in and we bulldoze through the Land of Mirrors.
We’re not alone anymore.
We’re a lot of voices.
We’re a cacophony.
We’re a chorus.
We’re a choir, raising our arms to the heavens.
Take me out, dare me to fight
I will write;
I am inside and outside today.
Grab what you can, extra extra this just in!
We’re crawling out of ourselves and dancing on the streets
to reclaim what’s mine and ours and yours.

You’re prosperity, I’m wisdom.
I could count.
You could walk into my castle of dreams.
I write you out.
You fill my life with the riches of your eyes.
My words may not live long.
But, love, your eyes will never die.
The way they have become the sunshine outside my window never will.

Wisdom and Prosperity.
If we’re fools, we’ll part.

To doubt is to be sure
that you're only seeking
the highest peak of perfection.

To doubt, you have to know
what it is like to be good just once.
Once is enough to crave
the high once again.
You chase your heart
and you chase the hearts of others,
only to doubt your need
to be loved.

To love is to find
courage,
strength,
patience,
and trust
within you --
wrapped up in layers,
like Russian dolls nestled
within each other.

To love is to rise
and fall from grace
all at once;
to understand what every song means,
what every poem spoke of
and what you looked for
when you grabbed a cold hand in the dark.

To love is to doubt.
To doubt is to love.
To do either well, we must do both
till the answer is found within us.

You're the answer to all my doubts.
And so, I love you without doubt today.

Here's the thing--
I don't like to lie.
So, if you asked me where I am from,
I'd have to assess you and your prejudices before announcing in a single breath --

"I am a Malayali from Bombay raised in Saudi Arabia."

My identity comes in as a triple threat.
And people treat me like an escaped convict
"Oh, how many burqas do you own?"
"Four, and they're still not enough to save me from your ridiculous questions."

I don't like to lie.
So, I'll tell you I've had a terrible day
and the best thing that happened to me today was lunch.

I will voluntarily admit that my feet hurt in those shoes
And I'd rather be at home.
But, my pen refused to stop writing.

I choose not to wrap my truths in acceptability
Because my identity does not need to be graded
(not like I deserve less than an A+)
I decided to let my bottom sit on a throne in my own mind
Rather than at the feet of self-proclaimed lords of the universe
I'll fix my sights on what's here today.

I'm a queen of my own will;
Of shoes that fit
and jeans that never will.

I am also confused and I write to confuse some more.
Maybe I'll just wrap myself in words
And hand myself over to you and say --
"Congrats! It's a story."

My body listens to my commands.
Back straight, stomach in, legs together.
I have trained it well enough to not sway to the whims of other hands.
The back of my neck has learnt to not tingle at a touch anymore.
The lips don’t quiver when someone says my name.
Boot camp ***** is under control, captain.
No one crosses the line that has been crossed before.
We don’t speak of it,
but the legs did open before they knew how to behave.
With a sneak attack from the side,
And right between my thighs, I found fingers exploring
me like someone walking into the restricted section of the library
with caution and excitement, but all disregard for the rules.
There were no rules then, rather.
My body froze in attention.
I was a pawn and I moved one inch at a time as asked.

My mind led the coup to reclaim the kingdom of my body.
Pleasure remained locked behind doors
And muffled in pillows.
Obedience was learned
when the body woke.
Stay woke, stay woke, stay woke.
I am my own marching band now.
I am my own army.
I fight every day
Defending
Disagreeing
Shoving
Hiding
Covering
Curling in
Curling up
Shouting out
Screaming in.

Fight on, little soldier.
Seek your own pleasure.
But keep your back straight,
your eyes bright,
your laughter in pitch
And your legs closed.

I devote myself to you.
I have found every bone in my body and every inch of skin on them.
This is all the treasure I have in the world to give you.
Skin and bones is all we are.
If you would, we could fill it up with the air of your words.
I’ll validate myself and sprout wings.
I’ll sit in the temple of your mind and listen to your thoughts.
Sing songs of these words I will learn to understand because that is all I need...
... I need to get through to you for myself.
Listen to my pleas, my secret love.
A secret only you and I hold in a box we forgot the key to.
I rise to the altar to look you in the eye.
I will not be blinded by your divinity,
nor by your claims of redemption.
Hands and knees don’t need to be redeemed.
They need to be held.
Hold me, for I have nothing but this body to give you.

Who said you're good enough?
You're not beautiful
Well, maybe, if you just tried
To walk straight
With your hair straight
Always smiling
Stomach tucked in
With your thighs at a safe distance from each other
But not far enough for someone to make their way through
Why were your legs open?
Why was your button open?


Maybe this is why you don't have friends.
You have opinions.
Why are you seeking God anywhere else but
A temple
A mosque
A church?
God says you're beautiful only if He can see you.
Maybe that's why you're not beautiful.

No one is looking at you because you're beautiful.
They look at you because you're a freak,
A circus phenomenon
You're on display
But in all the wrong ways
With your sides hanging
And your back in everyone's faces.
How dare you impose?

Stop being yourself.
**** yourself.
Build yourself up.
But, don't forget to go through the instruction manual.

... The only thing that hurts
is knowing that someone else
sees you through my eyes.

In a world begging to share perspective,
I hide mine like a cat's treasure
in crevices,
old corners,
poems,
laughter,
concern,
dismissal
and comfortable silences.

In a world where we're begging for company,
I'd rather be the only one who thinks you're
a lone star in the city's night sky,
a leaf in my old books and new,
sunshine on a windy day in autumn —
sunshine, always.

My eyes may grow old and go blinder
But, love, the light in your eyes must never fade.
There is so much universe inside you —
my universe —
and I struggle to keep up with everything that you are and everything I made you in my head.

You're my fantasy,
mine to make true.
It's probably why they say love is akin to madness.
You're not too far from delusion
or too close to reality
at any point of time,
till you crash and burn.

The light in your eyes still burns
and I burn along with it.

There are oceans in my body,
In your eyes,
And between us.

I have walked on water before and drowned.
My holy arms and legs said names and wrapped men as presents that they didn't deserve to be.

I am prone to wishful thinking
And my rapidly closing eyes
Are already building sandcastles.

Tear them down.
Tear them down.
Like you wore and tore me down.

Set me on fire and end me.
Nothing and too much are two extremes I have lived in.
Now bridge them and let me die.

Is there a way to get the touch of a hand out of your head?
There is no one who has truly been touched and forgets the feeling.
What do I say of your touch
except that I crave it?
I'm clutching at air here.
I'd like a hand to hold instead.

Somebody told me that you can always find your way home. That is because home is not always a place. As I sit at my desk, exhausted by nothing but what weighs on my heart, I realise — you’re home. You always have been and no one can compete with that. We can build a home together with our disagreements, our lonely nights and the love we think we deserve. But, that doesn’t matter as long as we keep it together.

You’re (I’m) the shelter I (you) seek.

You’ll kneel at altars and beg for a sense of belonging, but your home is here.

What is the cost of using up all your courage before you think you really need it?
You have nothing to lose so you pull off things you're not sure you can handle anymore.
Your heart has gone down a road
that you cannot walk back on.
You're blinded in a city that's got nothing but darkness to offer.
Your heart's not in the right place,
but you're hoping the light at the end of a tunnel is not an urban myth.
You dream of the eyes that were your only light when you could see.
You let it fill you up.
So what if you've lost courage?
Find hope.

If you think time waits for no one,
I am going to try to change your mind.
Sometimes, my watch slows down time itself.
Our days and nights are separated by distance,
Your skies a different blue from mine.
A word from that end is all it takes to transport me to your nights.

It's days like these that time remains immaterial,
As if nothing mattered - not mind, nor matter nor me.
I wake to the sounds of my own days,
While you rest to your smoggy nights.
My watch, still on my wrist takes time to come back.
The dials are stuck in your days and nights.
My days, your nights.
Your nights and my days.
Always ticking away from,
Not towards.

The pause between pleasure and pain is more than ecstasy
and just a notch below eye-opening heaven.
I am sure your heart beats just as mine does,
when our fingers and bodies pretend to touch.

The world is connected by wires and machines we didn't built,
but are grateful for.
The world separates us because the machines now rule us.
You say you cannot pass humans through wires and the various things that connect and separate us --
screens,
borders,
hands,
bodies,
love.

Love, I could tell you nothing is impossible.
You'd know I am right because we didn't think we could feel this way before.
But, it's impossible to say things you want to mean but are afraid to say.
My words hang in the air
and my cramped body cramps further inwards.
I straddle you
like I would the elephant in the room that I created,
but with more love.


"Listen, I know how hard that was to say."
It's an understatement, telling me that my words were as hard as you got when I told you what I wore,
when you ran your fingers through me,
feeling me,
not just dipping your feet in the water,
swimming together,
body-on-body.
It's an understatement of the difficulty.
But -- love, sunshine, a sigh in the dark--
I won't say I'm sorry we both feel that way.

He told me he likes it when I know what I want
And then just go on and do it.
For someone whose stubbornness wrote her destiny,
I have been led to believe that you cannot want someone stubbornly.

That's not how people work.
"It's not that easy, you know?"
I know.

But, we'll pretend we're on this crazy ride,
You and me.
It's a great story to tell even if we don't know how it ends.
How do I make this end?

There's never a perfect time for a guest to arrive.
Unannounced, you didn't even knock when you said you want to help me.
I stopped being a charity case the second I picked myself off the floor.
Breathless, gasping for a reprieve,
I told myself I need all the patience my body and I can give myself.
I lifted myself off the floor
where I had earlier found pleasure in the depths of my mind,
in the arms of a neglected fantasy.
You're here uninvited, but I'd like you to stay.
Look at the peeling walls of my home and love them.
Love me or leave me.

"I miss you a lot these days."
"I like you. A lot."
"I would take you out if I could."
"I don't know if I can say that because I have never felt it. I don't know what love is."
"My feelings for you have changed since then."
"What do I do?"



"You're the only friend I have."
"I love you. I love you so much."

I wrote paragraphs looking to find ways
to explain why I write about this (you).

I found my way treading lightly
along the edges of truth and fiction;
just like my stories.
It’s not easy to tell the world when
you’re brimming with words about something
you’re almost afraid to share.
The fear of loss exceeds the joy of telling,
like being afraid to tell someone about the last chocolate in the jar you saved for Monday evenings or rainy days.

So, I would like to tell my audience to give up.
Stop reading between the lines.
I don’t write for anyone.
I don’t write for you.
I write for my dreams.
I write for the person I placed in
Houses,
Darks rooms,
And hearts.

Your naïve eyes won’t find the songs I hide in poems.
That is why we shut our eyes when we sing.
We only find our real audience behind the curtains,
Waiting to run into us backstage.

Are we looking for endings?
Or just a means to an end?
We're so used to the idea of stories not ending unless they end happily
that we must push,
bolt the door,
and plaster smiles on our faces till we convince ourselves we're finally okay.

What about unanswered questions we both have?
I turn to the pages of my diary to ask why you left.
To ask why you didn't try to stop me from leaving.
To ask if you ever cared or if you feel the same sense of relief that I feel now that you're gone.

What would be the last frame of this movie anyway?
Are we smiling as we walk our own ways?
Is one of us left crying at the table we shared drinks and curses at?
Are we going to be dragged kicking, screaming to our ends by our own egos?

Or will this end softly in silence?
Will a last kiss be appropriate?
Will a last time running my hands over a real, unpixelated body be enough?

There are more open doors now than ever before.

But, yours is the only one I want to close.

I fear the things my heart chases because they might not be good for me.
I fear the things my body chases because they might **** me.
I fear the things my mind chases because I might lose my will to feel.
I might be afraid of the fear that surrounds me suddenly like an ocean.
Or even like a prisoner in a tightly wound rope in a dingy cell.

I fear the words I write right now
for they might define me.
What if I was the wind?
What if I changed?
How dare my words become my only identity?
I am more. I am more.

Yet, I am so little. So small. So insignificant. A speck, a drop, a freckle, an atom, a cog in the wheel.

I am alone. But, I am not the only one.

Shame fills my entire body.
I was a fool.
Such a fool.
Such a ******* fool.

I believed the lies that you fed me.
I swallowed them like I took you in,
Eyes, smile, words and so much more.

I can still feel your hands creep up behind my back.
I have started pushing them back down or cutting them out,
But your words **** their way in through the cracks as they always do.

My anger rises and ebbs as waves bring in your words on to my empty shore.

"I'm only trying to do the right thing."

The right thing is leaving someone behind to watch your castle build in the distance.
The right thing, for you, has been throwing people under the bus
By playing it casually cruel.

Your righteousness will  find you a spot in hell and I will be at the doors: your worst nightmare coming to life, and death.

Hey

       Hi

Was just thinking of you

        Yeah, me too

Talk about your day

         Tell me about yours

While away some time before night falls.
The thing about desire is that the night dresses it up better.
Desire looks ***** during the day and I remain in rags till you;
till you say hello.
I’m boring, I pick the bed.
But, when you’re the same kind of boring, you fit like spoons in a kitchen drawer
and love, I am a small spoon.
I can only contain so much inside me that remembers details
of the spots on your neck,
or of the things you lost,
and the things you found
and the things I am to you.

It’s raining here.

  It’s raining here too.

You would have loved this weather.

                          Someday, I promise.

The promise of someday hangs over my heart like the blade of a guillotine waiting to strike.
I’ve made lists of the things I’d wear and the things we decide we’d rather not.
There are dark crevices and open spaces under greying skies where I’d hold you
to warn you I always have cold feet
and hope you offer to stay closer
or really, just stay.
Plead and please are not that far apart.
And God, I love it when you do both.
My fragile self breaks under the spell of desire mixed with the magic
of pixelated eyes I swear I can see right through.
That was when
I (you) found you (me) crawling under my (your) skin.

I miss you.

                  I miss you too.

I want you so much.

         More than you think.

We’ll count our dreams between sighs
and fall asleep in the arms of
your nights and my mornings
Enveloped only by the sounds of our own breathing
and the beep of the phone.

If someone gave me a time machine –
A time machine that worked –
I’d probably go back to a night of hushed voices and muffled laughter,
The only version of pillow talk we’ve ever known.

Being seventeen meant neither you nor I knew any better,
But, we were too busy talking to even notice.
We built our fantasies on nothing but clouds,
Wispy and filled with air, but so comfortable to float on.

I didn’t know the first word about love and you said,
“… and the best thing about him is that, he’s starting to fall for you.”
We laughed it off as a bad joke, but we hesitated.
There were many things I wish I’d asked you then.

But, I guess that little girl lived on those words for a week.
Put you on a pedestal built with the same pointless fantasies,
Just to watch you fall and not even being able to catch.

I'm clutching at straws
I'm hanging off ledges,
Parkouring my way down.

They were lying about the spirals.
I'm free-falling
In directions I didn't know existed.

There's my limb
And there goes my mind.

But my eyes are shut.
My faith is blind.

And I'm losing touch with home base.
Auto pilot, I run no vehicle.
Just crash and burn.

I don’t know why I stayed up all night
if I wasn’t counting stars in a sky
where there is no hope for sighting anything but fading stars.

There’s only so much warmth this blanket for one
And cat (for herself) can give someone.
So, I learn to curl
up into myself and find myself
talking in circles when I talk about this.

Where would I rather be, you ask?
Nowhere I know is better than home.
Nowhere I know is home,
as long as home is someone I know.

Do I deserve better?
Do I really deserve better than not sleeping
because I am talking to myself?
Do I deserve sanity?
Do I deserve the insanity that comes
with leading a life without you?
What was it like before you?

On a long scale that life and the universe make together --
I divide the time between before you and after you.
Or should I say since you?

Maybe I love you because I'm afraid to be alone.
Maybe I love you to be alone.

What if we said that we didn't have to fall to our knees to get our way?

What if we said that we didn't have to bend ourselves backwards for anyone but our own dreams? Or maybe not even then?

What if we could sprout wings and fly to anywhere we wanted to without asking for permission?

What if I could decide my own fate, my own destiny, my own consequences, my own future, my own life, my own world and never have to worry what they whispered about us?

I write words on you
with my fingers running along your skin,
chasing the sun's rays.

It's too early too tell if you're likely
to be tickled by the idea of staying.
I am comfortable in my own skin
(on yours),
so I don't have to beg.

As long as your eyes are closed,
we can dream of better things --
knots we can always untie,
flights we can always afford
and distances we can always ignore.

I’d say my guilt drives me down
the road I’d rather not walk without you.
We share the blame of our mistakes.
Our selfish needs get in the way.

Bodies intertwine in an exchange of words.
I give myself away for nothing but a smile.

I’d whine but my heart is full.
Overflowing as we speak,
Adding more with every sigh on my neck.

“You’re more in my head, I guess.”

I throw my head back and laugh,
intoxicated with power.
But, the truth is you are the one holding the rein in your hand.
Let me go.

Is this real?
Is this just in my head?
Why am I only listening to the voices in my head?
I am not in a dark place.
The room in my head is well-lit and well-connected to the every fiber of my being
Where every thought becomes pain in my body.

I watch myself bleed till I'm grey but covered in shades of red.
I count the shades to imagine a rainbow of all the bloodstains.
The riot of colours match the riot of voices inside my head
Till they both consume me.

I'm not sinking.
I'll never sink.
But, I'll keep falling.

What's behind the smile?
I am hiding at least ten secrets I won't tell.
What's behind the smile?
Ignorance is bliss, I guess.
What's behind the smile?
I think I remembered an old joke from way back when.
What's behind the smile?
Stop asking.
What's behind the smile?
I won't tell.
What's behind the smile?
I am not telling you how I counted every spot on your face and made a constellation out of it. My stars in my universe.
What's behind the smile?
I don't think you'd want to know.
What's behind the smile?
I don't think you'd like knowing how much I have been trying to look away from your eyes.
What's behind the smile?
You should never find out I probably won't ever be able to see those eyes on anyone else ever again, or that maybe the next time I see a smile like yours, I will stop smiling. So, maybe I am smiling because somewhere, I am thanking God you're okay. If God exists, he better listen to every word and every fantasy I am playing out in my head. It's a dream now, but how far are dreams from the truth unless we try. Right? You needn't know these things.

So, what is behind the smile?
I don't think I have ever enjoyed losing to someone so much.

I didn’t know I liked you when I saw you.
I didn’t know I liked you when you smiled at me either.
Honestly, I don’t know when looking at you made my heart rate slow down.
I don’t remember the first time you made my knees buckle.

I study you, sometimes.
As much as I can from a distance.
I learned the way your head touches the low ceiling when you stand up.
And how you neck cranes just slightly to the side, because obviously.
I have learned how the back of your neck looks when you’re worried.
But also when you’re thinking hard.  
And also when you’re laughing.

Sometimes I think I am making you up in my head.
I wonder if there is a dissonance between reality and fantasy,
But you won’t let me find out.

I want to hold your hand in the dark without anyone knowing.
I want to take you home to tell you what my day was like.
To have a meal with you. To sit across me on my bed.
Or to have my head in your lap.

I want to know what your day was like.
I want to know what bothers you when your head is on the table in a meeting.
I want to know what you have for lunch. And I want to know if you like eating your meals alone.
I imagine us as two separate minds silently chewing our meals in silence, crying as we watch our favourite shows. Alone, but together.

I want to know if you want me to know all the things I want to know about.

I want to find that sweet spot in your chest that I fit into when we watch something together.
I want to spend the night after that discussing the show in intense detail and end our stories with a kiss.
I want to share you in secret, and get to know you better.
But, you won’t let me.

I never want to say “What if”
So I’ll start with the “Why not”
Why not hold your hand under the table?
Why not find out what keeps you up at 3 am?
Why not find out what song makes you cry?
Why not find out what you don’t like on your pizza?
Why not find every corner of your body to tickle?
Why not let you hold my face when you kiss me?
Why not?

I keep thinking of the 4,000 ways to say these things to you
And 3,999 of them are just versions of “allow me”.
Allow me to knock on a door that’s shut.
Allow me to at least politely stand by as I ask for
A glass of wine, a laugh, a moment, a hand to hold.