I was told once, that memories meant nothing,
They withered into the ether of forgetting,
And yet, I have found that the mind
Is a vast city, the streets little strands of emotion
that join vast boulevards of emotion,
To lead us to buildings that are memories.

Even as I wish to bulldoze this skyscraper,
that is the memory of her,
I find the boulevards that lead to this magnificent ruin,
Will leave me longing for too long.

If this Palace of dreams, woven in the fabric of time,
Is brought down to rubble,
What would the landmark be?
It would be the ruin, and the memory of it being destroyed,
Would bring me to my knees.

A skyline stretches out, much like Mumbai and New York,
Los Angeles and London,
And the towers that stretch outward to the sky,
Are the projections of her and me,
forever stamped till Alzheimers consumes me like a storm,
or Death liberates me.

I'll wait for her calls in between shifts at work,
Or in between chapters of textbooks.

I'll wait for her voice to greet me through the static,
Having traveled five thousand kilometres.

It'll be love, it will be quiet,
and every time I see her on the limited rectangle of my screen,
Distance is an illusion.

In time, I will meet her, a roaring aeroplane will tear across the sky,
Over seas and oceans, mountains and wars,
and upon landing, in a timezone far away,
past the corridors and waiting rooms,
amidst throngs of waiting people,
I'll see her and it will be better than a thousand dreams.

I've lost my lovers in a haze of self loathing,
revulsion and disgust,
I've lost them all, and no odes I write,
Will ever reach them.

I can't remember the last time I laughed without coughing,
I can't remember the last time I sang, without going silent,
As if I remembered something that broke my heart,
I can't remember the last time I watched the world go by,
Without thinking that my time was up.

I can't remember the taste of joy, the mirth that has left my lips,
Is forgotten, gone in a puff of mist,
I can't remember the last time I walked with ease,
I've forgotten what it is like to feel something more than buzzing in my mind,
I don't know if it is the injuries from a lifetime that hurt me,
Or the wounds of the days I chose to not live.

It took me hours so think about the words that could,
Like clouds, discover, what I felt when I sat defeated somewhere,
My fountain of youth is so far far away, and I sit,
knitting words together to form a platitude.

The world is a greyer place than last I saw it clearly,
I walked down the Boulevards of my youth and naivete
Wondering if the men that never returned from the guns of hell,
Would miss this grey, strange land of ideas and people
That are indifferent to what they cannot see.

I looked at the house of childhood, bag in hand,
There is nothing to return to, I walk onwards
And book myself in a hotel instead.
The inky dark sky reminds me of the trenches.

The evenings are too cold in my civilian clothes,
The fabric is too soft, the water that runs is too cold,
I lie awake on a bed that is soft,
Hours later, I find myself asleep on the hard floor.

There is something in the room that I cannot understand,
It is a painting of the hills, and in an instant I can see
the bloodstains on the meadows and blades of grass.
I can't even appreciate a painting anymore