Response to 'Beginnings' by Aditi Rao

He: I'm a coward.
She: I know.
He: Cowards are good at running away.
She: Where will you run?
He: Nowhere. Everywhere; I'll be a cockroach during fallout.
She: What's the bother?
He: Whats in my head is all around me.
She: What is in it?
He: Me, only me. Its too much, yet too little.
She: Let me take a peek.

No Title

People fuck people the most,

Hidden motives, disregard any sense,

A species dead set against itself

And everything else around it.

The world has been made to accommodate,

Our every perverse desire,

Convolution beyond recognition,

For our own cocoon of comfort.

A cocoon is only a phase,

Yet we have set it as our destination.

To live in it until it is too late,

To break free these bonds.

Outwards we have everything,

Creations cutting beyond

Our own abilities.

Inwards we are lacking,

No space to connect,

No strength to feel.

People are top dog,

On this blue-green paradise

We are all Chosen.

Language

The chain clangs on our wrists,

We bang them together

To create our own music.

It lets us scale our culture,

Ancestors sing their songs

When our throats quiver.

Their words fill us, Give meaning,

Circular tracks with endless reading,

Every lap another round ‘round

An old ambiance with a new scent found.

Inertia

A twisted head surrounds me,

Counting to ten used to be easy,

Now a trillion voices mumble,

I'm a juggler

who just can't but fumble.

Sponges absorb like minds,

What goes in comes out and finds

its world.
The world formed on a whim,
Inertia on a rampage.

The Ending.

I passed by a temple last night

it was locked, no visitors after midnight.

Even God switches off the phone,

forgets to hook up the answering machine.

The ocean sends back tragedies one 

after the other, sand whispering secrets

of salvation. Are we old enough

to ask for freedom from our own heads now?

The waves reincarnate all my faith

religion and lovers on the wrong side of the bed.

All the oranges are peeling themselves 

today. The switches have been turned off and on

so many times, we lay panic stricken.

Your lungs are filled with empty laughter.

Everything they told me is moth eaten

and but so am I. 

My bones shape-shift into a goddess 

every muscle a dusk tide. 

Hold on, every revelation 

is a beginning. 

In December

all the lights blink twice, 

q u e s t i o n i n g 

before their homecoming. 

I have been a smoke signal,

for most winters. The ghost in me now asks 

for concrete jungles. I have had to armour myself 

for so long I forgot

 I could ask for your hands. 

And maybe we be could be atheists tonight.

Maybe we could be lighthouses ourselves or

of each other. Most of my pilgrimages are to home 

anyways now. All of these ships

maybe realising the north is 

                           in each other

                   instead of the ghosts 

                   they make us chase

                    our whole lives.

Medusa’s Burial Grounds

There are burial grounds on my side of the bed, the clothesline swings in an empty melody

What does it think of these cold winds? Is it synthesising a lyric, a dance routine?

Twenty years of looking at eyes that wanted to make heaven a hell, I thought if I park

my troubles by your shore. I could almost have a dalliance with flowers birthing beneath us

Time is crucified. 

The boat’s screams river bound 

when I thought you were safe and sound.

It doesn't take long to pull up 

                                                the 

                                                      anchor .

                                                                    Why would you think you know my body 

                                                    better than my skin 

                                                            clothing all that there is of me

                                  yet becoming the flesh of orange itself. 

There are burial grounds on my side of the bed, multiple skins hanging on its shelf.

Would they know on the other call is my mother? Did I make it clear by edging them on the other side on a map between us? Or am I still voicing synonyms of negations in every language I know?

Today I am no longer walking into it. 

My body a bilingual leotard throws a pebble in the future. 

For the women burned at stake, I stand kissing the wells they were forced to jump. 

For all the graves we emerge from 

I am longer scared of the twists and turns your words will take. 

                                        My skin mine alone, we are rising in spirit and flesh 

                                        my voice no longer dangling in your throat 

                                        everyone will see the snakes

                                        rising out of your head. 

Today I am rising out of

                               every grave wearing all skins, touched and untouched

                                                                    let me flesh this hell back to heaven today. 

                                    

Response to the poem After Love

Response to the poem After Love

1 

I learned love when you held my hand,

in back alleys of Delhi, two-long haired girls in ponytails

one swinging to the beat of radio, one swinging in the rain

of impossibilities. 

2 

When it showered in June my bedsheets damp 

with cold leapt awake every night in thunder. 

The walls sore with having to split open

and seam itself back after he took out all hinges

leaving all doors broken. 

3 

The tea sips itself in the cold, 

after the cold begins to turn hands into glass

Today after my mother picked up the glasses from the 

floor, I bent down to blow apologies that never came, into them

She held my hand while the cupboard shook 

with suitcases falling to the ground. 

4 

I met a girl whose skin

burned with love every time I held her

I wondered how it didn't burn her

when I was soaking wet in gasoline

Maybe I still had to learn how to origami 

 wings of a phoenix from the tails of my spine.

5 

His father hung him like a bird, 

in memory drawn from flesh, on sunday

evenings he was a wooden puppet

swinging from the porch,

I can 

still 

hear his 

call. 

6 

   Marine Drive calls my name

   with tongues of silk wrapped up 

    in verses of lozenges only when 

    I’m in Delhi. The ocean asks my 

     Yamuna if it’s 

     too late for tide? 

7 

   I let the curtains fan the bed, the window

   decides it doesn’t want to look at 

   my face or of the world, it paints 

   itself white sinking into a slumber 

   of no eyes. 

8 

    The world is full of

    graveyards, countries folding my love affairs

    with cities I thought would welcome me. 

    I wake up from graves every week,

    you can't stop me 

     from wanting all the afters. 

9 

     The money plants in my room 

      have started to reach the walls, 

      This year I learnt how to soak 

      up the light again.

      I wonder   

                     now if it’s this easy to

                         hold my palm up

                         against the roof?

    Now that my heart has walked back

    to my body after twenty years of living.

                        

10  

      You spent summers in museums, 

      picking up postcards for me, 

      I left them to burn the month after

      I found your bones forcing themselves inside 

       of me. I grow again from tree trunks

        and sew my marbled skin from scratch.

                       There are many ways 

                                 to be a woman. 

Do you remember how secure the sand felt before?

Response to the poem “Sometimes, When Prayers are Shouted from Rooftops, Echoes are the Answers” by Aditi Rao

Response to the line- Do you remember the first slipper the sea sucked
off an unsuspecting beach—that blue disappearance? Do you remember how secure the sand felt before?

When you came into me that night I looked for the exit signs till I became one

I always thought I was your last prayer before the floor caved in, once a boy told me 

he took to his love to a temple and held her hand when she closed her eyes

kissed her way back home in the lift. Dazed, lingering, maybe 

this is what religion is. 

The first time I went to beach was for the turtles, second time for the way

the waves curled up around my toes, waiting to swirl ours skins under

Maybe I would have found Atlantis, Maybe I would have floated

till Antarctica on backs of Dolphins. Maybe I would have 

been lost before you could have 

become the gluttonous ocean, fangs out in the middle of Dadri. 

My skin seems to break open at all seams, every time the table touches my thigh.

every time I see your face my veneer turns pale, winter skin drenched in regret

soaked in shame for I couldn't see the sand slipping beneath the roar of the waves

I wait for gulls in Dadri to pick up the pieces of skin and flesh you took

I wait for them to come sliding down in a row squawking apologies.  

In between the wild grass and lovers who have tamed themselves to see the best

in each other. I hang on to the wet land claimed by the ducks on a vacation 

calling each other Honey, Baby, Love. I’m sure we have mistaken their cackling; 

for when I cant remember how secure the sand felt before, everything could be 

anything now. My heart could be another world for leaping, my body no longer a 

sour breath. Months stretching into skin of steel, no longer

a museum of exit signs

or a wound beckoning the saline water.

Hey best friend

Hey Best Friend,

It’s been a long time since you last texted me.

I know I share the blame too.

But I really wished that you did.

Hey best friend,

I don’t drive my scooty at 20 anymore,

Not because I have started liking speed,

Cause’ there is no one to talk while driving.

Hey best friend,

The shawarma doesn’t taste the same now.

Although the chef says all the ingredients is in right amount.

But I think an ingredient is missing.

Hey best friend,

I miss teasing you whenever Barcelona used to lose against Real.

Now we just post on our facebook that our team has won.

El Clasico doesn’t feel grande enough.

Hey best friend,

I have a new crush,

I will tell all about her when we will meet.

Or not.

Hey best friend,

I miss you.

I didn’t know losing you will take away so many things from life.

Everyone talks about moving on from their exes or crush.

But I am having a hard time moving on from you.

In response to Aditi Rao's Love Letter for a Friend Leaving Home

Midnight Canvas

In the dark

I paint

Murals 

With my temper, 

My hatred and my love. 

The air reeks of my soul. 

Blood has never looked so

Beautiful. 

Tears have never tasted so 

Sweet. 

I am sorry. 

The Games We Played

Scissors, she said, cut through paper.
And dreams, thought I, dreams that are chased by sons and daughters under the old stone bridges and over the barren moon.
Dreams knitted into bright blue cardigans
And stars crochet right over their hearts
And gloves, sewn with expectations
As little hands struggle to write and learn to spell.

Paper covers rock
And dreams, I thought again, dreams of colours
And brushes and worlds of words.
Covered by paper heavier with years.
Reflecting my father's furrowed brow, his frown
My mother's eyes, her trembling hands
White shroud for their dreams.
Paper cuts on paper skin.

Rock smashes scissors.
And once again, no surprise, I think about my dreams.
Cracked by the hands that struck in anger.
Collected and stored in the back of my mind in boxes marked fragile
I remember my grandfather taught me how to deal with loss.
"Deal with the rock of my absence.
With no ground beneath your feet.
I shall leave with the smoke."
And the rock will make you bleed.
Scissors cut.

Paper covers.
Rock smashes.

And I?
I build. I construct.
The cement of my resolve poured over bricks of stardust from the bright blue cardigans.
Lined with the tiles on the bathroom floor, all the ones that weren't white.
A foundation of getting over hurt but not stewing in it.
Put up my words, my world on the walls of my home.
Cut through the rain.
Hold up my roof,
Hold up my head, hold up my own.
Rock.
Paper.
Scissors.
I have outlived them all.

A reminder from the future self

Hey Jerrin
Tomorrow is a turn in your life
A love longed for years
A dream lived in every sleep
is to come true tomorrow.

When your quartz struck one
under the noon sun
A confession is made
below the oak shade.

Her eyes might flatter you
Her smile might please you

For she truly loves you

For me, as I stand
years later
tomorrow is still a dream
For I cycled back home

Leaving her and the smile
below the oak shade.



A response to the poem 'Relationship advice to a younger self' by Aditi Rao

Empty the sea//The Fire Sermon

“I will show you fear in a handful of dust.”

-T.S. Eliot

Amma in the garden,
Singing with the birds,
Making beauty from dirt.
I am not like her.

I am oceans of terror.
They call me
The bad daughter.
Slap. Slash. Fire.

Rub two stones to make fire, Baba says.
Rub two bodies to make the same, I say.
Get two distracted minds together.
Span different universes within our skulls.
Multitudes of black holes within our bodies.

There was a flash of a feeling

Right before the sound matched the sin.

Right before our minds stopped

When I said I only loved you in poetry

As you crawled under my skin.

I will not care.
I will not breathe.
I will not drown in the overwhelming desire to do so.
Minds troubled with emptiness look for each other.
Everything except you in my head.
Everything except that on my body.
We're watching stars collide.
Here on this holy ground.
Are you still breathing?
Are you still bleeding?
Are you still feeling?

Baba once told me
That I was a white lily on fire.
I could set the world aflame
And not give a damn.
You wouldn't dare
Want to know how
Furious I can get.

But what am I when
This anger leaves me?
Bloody and beaten and crying.
Grief setting in the
Promises of loneliness.
How in hell can a lily be
Driven to burn down a city?
How much hurt can I take
Before I become it?

But I thank my body every day,
That it is only the eyes that fill with tears.
If my lungs could scream, if my heart could cry,
The insides of my body would drown in a second.

 (In response to Aditi Rao's A Fear of Particular Men)

Sometimes I miss who I thought you were

​There are times when I've sat on your bed and looked at the mess you left around. And in those moments, I wished that you were back just once last time, even if it was to hate me for telling you to clean it up. You liked cleanliness but you lived so messy. I never bothered to plunge myself into the depths of your mind because I was sure I would lose myself in the sheer volume of emotions and information that you kept to yourself. I’d drown without wanting to come back up for air. There are currents and waves that would've swept me away. My turbulent mind is held back by the fragile dam that is my mouth. Sooner or later we all break. I've kept going because I want to be stronger than you. Just you. And you broke almost a year ago. You weren't true. If you were, I’d never have let you go. But you gave me a taste for what lies for me if I fall and if the ground can feel so warm and comfortable, then I am ready to stand up and climb once more. You probably never even think about me and that’s okay. I’m sure you don’t remember wearing my jacket when I forced you take care of yourself. But I remember giving it away and holding your freezing hands. I remember holding you when you cried about an apparition that you never saw. And remember loving you and I will always remember not being able to forget you. If I gave you all that I could, I can give myself even more. If I was ever true to you while you lived a blasphemy, then I shall hold myself, a prophet of love and in all my fierceness, I shall forgive us. 

(In response to Aditi Rao's what i want now)

Dear Mr. Donal Trump

I am a woman Mr. Trump, not just someone for you to feel up.

I have hopes, ambitions and dreams of jobs, consent and ownership of my own body.

When you encourage men to grab women “by the pussy”

You encourage the 250,000 men out there, who are doing exactly that.

When you talk about your daughter’s body and comment on underage girls,

You encourage the 63000 men, who make young girls insecure in their own homes.

You own pageants and claim to be a connoisseur of beauty in women of the day,

But Mr. Trump, women are not just beauty and trophies for you to display.

You call women fat, ugly and piggy, blame their husbands’ shifty eyes on them.

You try to insult your opponent in a presidential race for the whole world to see,

By threatening to bring up her domestic troubles and her husband’s infidelity.

You call out TV anchors, reporters, comedians, editors, actresses and sportswomen

Using “ugly”, “fat”, “bimbo”, “piggy”, “irritating”, “overrated” and of course, “trash”.

You talk about menstruation and “blood oozing out of ears and everywhere else”

You talk about breasts and backsides and decide whether women are hot or not

 As if every woman’s life’s work was nothing beyond her sexual organs.

You want to tell women what to do with their bodies and lives they grow inside them

When you also blame women cohabiting with men for instances of sexual assault.

You judge women by their ability to please their husbands with the perfect dinner

You are sexist, bigoted, foul-mouthed and a caricature for a politician Mr. Trump.

Along with good governance, empathy, human decency, diplomacy, intelligence and wit,

Another quality you obviously lack is the knowledge which tells you when to shut up.

(In response to Aditi Rao's 'Dear Mr. Yadav I too am an Indian woman')

People

If tired was a person,
He would always droop,
Limbs, skin, eyes, smile,
Would all barely combine
To make him look alive.

If anger was a person
He would always boil,
Fists tight, eyes bright,
Ready to lay on you
For not being his kind of right.

If sorrow was a person
He'd just want to be
Left alone, all eyes averted
Tears swimming, shoulder dropping
Crumbling at any reckoning.

If mayhem had to have a name
He wouldn't pick one
Just to drive you insane
He'd crop up anywhere, at any time
He'd stir it up and toss it around
Before you were even aware he had a bomb.

Endings

He: I detest too much milk in coffee.
She: Sometimes I feel the luxury of choice taken away from me.
He: The blue brings out the pearly white of your skin.
She: I'm decorated black and blue on the inside.
He: Winter comes with it's own pallet of hues.
She: I could never see distinct colours clearly as a child.
He: Elevator conversations cannot really be considered conversations.
She: Small spaces make me feel drowned and burned at the same time.
He: Is this space too small?
She: Perhaps not for someone else.

(In response to Aditi Rao's Beginnings )

The Process

Spent two hours staring at a blank wall.
Wondered why I didn't eat more candy floss as a child.
Called my best friend, brother and mom and spoke to each of them for an hour.
Made coffee, then Maggi, then more coffee.
Clicked a picture with the laptop screen throwing light on my face.
Learned all possible formatting options of Microsoft Word.
Agonized over the perfect title, then settled for no title at all.
Reorganized working space, optimized light for "serious" mood.
Read a chapter of the book I'd been meaning to get to,
Oiled my hair, then decided to wash it, picked comfortable clothes
Shifted from the bed to the table and back to the bed
Wrote two lines then shuffled music and found my dance anthem
Decided to take a break and find out how others had fared
Snapped back to concentration for for a page
Eyelids drooping, realized it was 4 am, 2 pages out of 10 is progress
Within the next five minutes sleep had won, the deadline would have to wait.

Trying in love

The citrus scent of the candle he bought for her
permeates the soft candlelight of the room.
She's wearing new lacy loungerie.
The soft cotton he loved sleeping against, doesn't 'put him in the mood'.
Her usually cherubic face is dolled up,
with the dark makeup her best friend assured her 'always works'.
She has chilled beer in the fridge,
he doesn't really like wine anymore.
It's 11pm when he promised to come over at 9,
the food she cooked for him has gone cold but her hope hasn't.
He'll come. He promised.
He does, with his goofy smile slightly lopsided and his steps staggering.
The scent of liquor tells her she won't need the beer,
he squints at her struggling to recognise her, but presses a messy kiss to her forehead.
He talks about his night and his friends, about the good liquor and colourful pills.
She daren't to ask, she doesn't want an fight.
The TV is turned on and the volume tunes out her protest.
He's full and asks her to go ahead and eat,
he tells her about the wild night ahead he's missing out on,
She nods, holds his hand and keeps her smile in place.
Because he's giving it up, giving it all up to be with her, but is he?
They start to kiss but he doesn't smell like him,
his hand touches her but she suddenly doesn't feel like it.
He pulls her closer and she's been waiting for this the entire night.
Don't think, he's here, he's with you, that's what you wanted.
He doesn't want to leave the couch
she's struggling to ignore the constant chiming of his phone.
He doesn't bother to undress her or himself.
She stares at the ceiling as he finishes, he collapses on top of her and sleeps.
Her tears disappear into his hair,
she's desperately searching for his scent
and falls asleep tracing idle patterns through his hair.

good night

another response to Aditi Rao's The Fingers Remember

when my granny lived
i never went to bed early.
she crafted many ghosts
by night for years. these ghosts were too loud
                               in a house for two to sleep   tight.
each night i've heard her ghosts
scream and sniffle in her weak arms - between her bow and fiddle (also where they were born)
their bewildering uproar had never let me sleep
i listen until these ghosts dissolve into nihility - into a resounding decadence where i'll eventually
sleep. now that my granny is dead, here ghosts don't scream
           and this silence in a house for one never lets me

exfoliated butterfly scales

response to Aditi Rao's The Fingers Remember 

a butterfly spreads its wings
on a woman's shoulder for
everyone to see.
it was blue and barely
ink under her skin. you

were captured by

its mere blue wings.
but woe
         
           this lure for everyone to see didn't
move. because it was nothing
           but for everyone to see.

look at you, captured by its simple pale hue.

but those that did
move, those that did
  twitch
not everyone could see.
         neither could you.
these butterflies laid deeper in the flesh than
anyone could command. Their colossal wings were    coarse and flapped fiercely in wild
                                                                                      commotion against her soft tissues.
They perched heavy
         on  her
       
          heart
          with piercing legs and siphoned (as if it was a flower
                                                             they always sought) more red out than any needle ever
                                                                                                                                 infused blue.



                                                                                                                                 Those mad
                                                                                                                      butterflies died after all.

failing in their struggle to elude.

but on quiet days she heard those that still
moved and felt the exfoliated scales of all
the dead butterflies in her gut. Meanwhile
you're captured by what was simple blue.
                                                                                                                                                              

catch me guilty if you can

picking my nose
browsing kissing tutorials before first date(s)
popping pimples and blackheads
boasting drinking capacity in a company of two
licking the
 butter off
  of the inside
   of microwaved
  popcorn bags
watching Kausati Zindagi Ki
eating a family pack biryani
glimpsing a neighbor's fight with his
girlfriend
glimpsing a neighbor's fight with his
girlfriend, watching
                       Kausati Zindagi Ki, eating a family pack biryani
    Shirtless in December*
       

found it?

being unorganized is not to find things in their place
being unorganized is
not to
find things in
their place

yes.

because of a term paper

that's due on the monday

our vacation starts,

there's a student who

never made it to Goa

with his friends

to take a swim

in the sea

watching

girls in

bikini

and

another

who couldn't

attend her

favourite poet’s rcitation

whom she now only 

hears in her incarnation

they'll eventually

 end up missing

this vacation's

road trip which

they've planned

together.

The Secret

On whatsoever chance

the might of the master 

is discovered, witnessed or encountered 

and on those precious occasions

when the drunk disciple decides

surrendering to the sheer sway of the pure will

to ask the master

What is it

that must be done ?

ORGANIZATION.

replies the master

and slips back into

the serenity of the

all encompassing silence.  

Ronin Pt 2.

On one end the zenith 

nadir on another.

floating in between

spinning round and round 

Should I go this way,

Or the other ?

And um trust your gut maybe ? 

keep doing whatever you are doing... 

See I might now know 

wheres zenith or the nadir.

but I cant be sure. I can never be sure 

But somehow like this, this and that, 

I just know what I have to do. 

Either at one end or another.

From one fool to the other.

There's the experience. 

There's poetry.

The veil over experience hides the

subtle meek smiles of poetry, 

Between abundant simile of co-incidents, 

behind metaphors of moods and seasons,

at the stable center of iambic fluctuations

perhaps poetry lies in the experience itself.

One is not so different 

from the other.

And as the gaps are filled with 

Exuberant dance of sounds

Must keep reminding myself of this I,

within rhythms of this divine music,

Must keep reminding myself of this I,

Be awake.

Be present.

Be aware.

Be patient.

 

(Response to Aditi Rao's Relationship Advice to a Younger Self)

("Must keep reminding myself of this I" borrowed from The Patient by Maynard J Keenan.)

Ronin

                       Ronin

Under the starkly wide starlit sky 

when wondering where the time went by 

slowly creeping to the horizon

it stuck me on my silly little head.

What am I doing?

Is it even possible ? 

Surely somewhere high up there in the sky

Zenith, between billion stars should be.Right ?

But from the nadir where Im slumped at now

Each tiny little dot looks like the Zenith.

Night descends down, shrouds itself around

the road which winds round and round

fades far ahead into

the cold and dark distance.

Stomach cramps that chokes me within 

just keep doing whatever you are doing. 

But still I'll falter for a while and slip 

from the haze of this reckless little adventure

to seek the warmth of temperate temptations

But I do not know what it is 

That I have to do ?

Dreading collapse back to undignified

ghastly-forlorn-pathetic-pitiful,

hole where I used to hide,

slumped shoulders, head bent low

eyes stuck to the dirt in ground,

in between scary thoughts I drown

But extreme friction breeds fire 

and just ashes remains when

the glowing embers-crimson  

burn away the cold unsure 

and ill footed thoughts that roam

around the head like a clueless fish

Oh the wavering leap at Zenith !

whether I ever reach there or not

must keep reminding myself of this I,

Amids the disturbed against the calm 

whatever conditions the Moments set 

before doing anything else I 

must keep reminding myself of this,

I 

must keep reminding

myself of this, I

must keep reminding myself of this. 

Be Patient. 

(Response to Aditi Rao's Relationship Advice to a Younger Self)

(Last 4 lines borrowed from The Patient by Maynard Keenan)

Another Beginning

In response to "Beginnings" by Aditi Rao


He:  I can feel the loss of depth on the ledge.
She: I just need to smoke.
He:  Another step, and lights out.

She: Flickering is my thing. Puff life out, bit by bit.
He: Shadows disappear in the dark. I might be one. 
She: grandma calls me Ciana.

He: Aren’t you the girl hanging out with the bullies?

She: Aren’t you the “Freak”?

He Seems like we already know each other.

She: We kissed in the eighth grade.

He: what changed?

She: I don’t know.
He: Yeah, neither do I.

She: Are you free this Saturday?

He: Milkshakes and burgers, like before?

She: Yeah.             I’d like that.


-Ciana is an Italian name meaning "LIGHT"

The Conflict

It has been my experience,
deeper into the ocean I’ve poised
to plunge my feet, farther inland
I’ve been hurled by the waves,
left to make sense of the maze
that always ends at the same place.
more the number of cities I traveled
to more, I felt, the conflict between who
I am and who I am supposed to be.
and then from somewhere
like the sun out from under the thick cover
of clouds, you appeared,
an inexplicable cosmic medicine, answer
to all the questions that festered
in me like an untreatable disease.
the whole of all the parts I had lost
over the time, you cut the wires
that I used to trip upon

and fear subsided as you lit up
every lamppost I passed on,
with you I rediscovered
treasures of life that lay invisible 

right beneath, where I stood.

But now,
they are gone

and you are gone too,

I am spiraling 
in an endless conflict again, albeit
a different one,

Is it you
who I’ve lost
or myself?

Mask of a prodigal

A mask often worn,
a smile often made and
within the dimple
hides
every sadness.

The sadness of a
loving father
with a shattered dream
on his
prodigal son.

What did you look like?

Between the turning of this page and arriving at the next, I

D
    R
      O

          P

      P

  E

D    the letters somewhere,

within which you were present. 
All jumbled on the tip,
sweetheart, what do I write about you now?

was your face an oblong egg or round as a coconut?
Your palms fit with mine( or did they?)
and the space we gave each other, was always enough but
we were never able to make an abode in it. 

Each day I forget a little
about what I saw. What I felt, however, remains unchanged.
The surface far below these alternatives

has the skeleton. I no longer remember what it looked like
wearing the skin.

Begin where we left off.

In response to Aditi Rao’s "Letter to a Kashmiri friend”

Goodbyes are meant to be an end,

a period after all the conversations
were to cease keeping us both company 

but that’s when I began to know you
and what frequently frozen ticks in my
clock meant, how the happy moments

are, a little sad, a bit incomplete,
like a city sprawling with umpteen wonders
but none, make it a place to stay forever, I  

miss home, rewind a decade, we
were atop the tower studying the cosmic matter,
how they moved past one another, sometimes

ahead of the other, you’d say “distance
equals speed multiplied by time”.
It’s true, and that’s how we drifted apart. I

moved two steps in the time you
managed one. I looked back for a while,
beckoned you to keep up, but you liked

to look at life, closely, and I was
already chasing far away galaxies,
I speak now from another planet. Last

Christmas, I had sent a broken
clock, a year before that too.
Gift of time is precious, getting and

giving, but I had stopped then.
There is, however, a new horizon I’ve
begun to see. Look up in the telescope. I’m returning. 

The sight of plum cakes

reminds me of

those carol singing

days. Friends 

getting together, 

door to door

singing, that

vital decision of

who is gonna be

Santa for the day.

Ceramic plates 

decked with slices

of freshly baked 

goodies which awaited

our arrival and not

to forget the fun

sound of maracas.

The onset

of winter brings in 

a surge of nostalgia

and all I know

is that Christmas

for me is more than

just the 25th of December-

it is a part of me 

which I dearly miss.

The stars and lights

on the evergreen conifer

shine as bright

as these memories.

At Will

I wish to play the keyboard at will,
just as I wish to be able to write.

I wish my fingers knew where to go
as my ears picked up the notes.

I fancy for a better swing,
to arc the TT ball in ways
that would rise the brows of my mates.

I long for the lost bicycle
and the special stickers I had on it.

I tell myself it would take time
for some of them to come to me,
time, the sense of which I hope to grasp.

Can you will them all at once, now and now?