Sunday 28 December 2014

A Letter to Heaven

I haven't ever told a soul
That I sometimes can still feel 
Your cold and wrinkly stubby fingers 
Intertwined in mine 
And see the way you flashed
That toothless smile 
Lying in that white bed
Tethered to various machines
Working every second to keep you breathing 
Inside those pale walls painted blue 
When I told you I'd come to meet you the very next day
But I never did
And now I cannot.
I cannot hear that breathy sound of your voice
Praying for my health and wisdom
For He who you used to pray to
Called you to Himself 
And now I cannot feel the gaze of your 
Light blue eyes looking at me intently 
Every time I read out a new essay I wrote
I miss the way you used to pinch my cheek
Every time I kissed you goodnight 
And I'm sorry that I didn't do it often enough 
I'm sorry that I never came back to see you 
To make you smile like you did 
And maybe help you live a day longer.
It's vain and it's futile now
And I haven't ever said this aloud 
But I miss you

Thursday 6 November 2014

Captive

Your shackles that tether me
To the corner of this room
Shadow me
And compel me to
Give in to the darkness
Forcing me to shell into myself

I am a free bird
With a heart that goes berserk
On seeing
This endless ocean
Stretched far in front of me
The places I haven't been
And the memories I haven't made
Make me go weak on my knees
For there is a hunger
Raging ablaze inside of me
That aches
To explore
And wander
And never look back

These redundant regulations
That you suffocate me with
Are a waste of your time
And mine
Let me be
Let me learn as I fall
And learn as I fail

I desire
Adventures
Experiences
And knowledge
And your grounding obligations
Take this life away from me
I can foresee
This will end badly for me
And tragically for you
Because once I leave
I shall never come back
And you can watch your precious
Fade away into the distance 
Taking all the sunshine
And happy days
Along with her

Don't cage me up
Let me break
Set me free

Sunday 12 October 2014

Salvation

This dark corner
Of my large house
Lit only by a faint bulb
With moths fluttering around it
Is home to my heart
Heavy with emotions
My eyes
Brimming with tears
And my mind
Burning with the need to express
But I cannot comprehend 
What this heaviness is
And I cannot fathom
What these emotions are 
I cannot unravel
This need to express
And as I lay wide awake,
Deprived of the ability to sleep,
My mind races back 
To the last time you lay here beside me 
But I know for sure
That you are not
What this aching soul needs to express
And I won't let you be
The reason for this aching soul
Because you are neither my life
Nor the centre of my universe 
You are not what
Other poets claim their lovers to be
I am a free soul
I won't let you be 
Everything I need
I won't let you be
Anything more than
Just a fragment of my life
I shall not float so shallow
I shall dive deep
And find more to my life
Than just you.

And somewhere unknowingly, I created another piece about you. I am dreading that you might as well be the reason for my salvation. 

Monday 29 September 2014

Verboten

Today I found out what destruction in love really means. 

I remember when I was a kid, I had a stuffed monkey that I always used to carry around with me. Mr. Brown was the only true friend I ever had. He accompanied me to the tea parties where no ones else ever showed up and helped me fight the monsters under my bed and slip into deep slumber. And then came that horrific asthma attack tat took all my stuffed toys away from me including Mr. Brown. I would cry for days reminiscing about all the good memories we spent together and how my Dad forbade me from using anything that could trigger another attack. 

The lesser known truth is that I sometimes used to take him out of that steel metal storage trunk where he was kept hostage and hug him tightly, take his smell in and try to remember it for as long as I could, for I did not know how long it would be till I got to see him again.

Love.

Irrevocable.

It will all be fun till it'll be time to bid goodbye until next time. And the uncertainty of that next time will haunt you. It could be a day or a week or a few weeks, you would never know. 

Loving the forbidden will be the toughest and all consuming. It will take the life out of you. Those moments of loneliness when you need them so much and yet they sit out of reach will be savaging. The helplessness you will feel when they're in need and you sit with your hands tied and can find no way to break through that rope that binds you will be ravaging. 

The fruit of the wait will always be 'worth it' but the excruciating pain during that wait will damages you. It will  make you cry yourself to sleep every night and that hollow pain in your torso will  became so familiar that it will only be noticeable when it decides to fade away momentarily. Most of your time will be spent in trying to remember their smell and in trying to feel every touch that made your body left tingling. But the tryst. Oh, the tryst! 

Get lost in their eyes and memorize how they light up every time they talk about their favourite sport. Or how their eyelashes flutter and shut close when you lean in to kiss them. Memorize how their fingers get intertwined in yours and how that dimple on their cheek makes you want to look at them forever. Remember every contour of their body and how well it fits and shapes with yours. Let yourself be the happiest person in that moment because God knows how long it will last and God knows how long you will have to wait to feel all of that again. Let your pain fade away as you snuggle close to them and let your heart beat fast every time they hold you by your waist and brush a strand of hair off your face. Let yourself be because everything is so much more fun when you are forbidden from doing it.

Joy.

Until next time.

Thursday 18 September 2014

Unfaithful

I lay idle like every other night with abstract thoughts flitting through my mind and not surprisingly, it zeroes in on you.
My mind wandered to that night when you poured your heart out to me. You construed our first date to me from how you saw it with intricate details. You remembered every single conversation we had, sitting on the terrace of that high rise building, watching the sun slowly dip behind the trees that lined the horizon. You remembered every insignificant detail of my life I might have narrated to you. You have a wonderful memory.
You told me you saw a big part of yourself in me- carefree and happy- just what you seek to be. And then you jumped about two months ahead and described the goosebumps that covered every inch of skin on your body when I first told you I loved you. "The best birthday gift ever", you said. You confessed proudly that I had created a writer out of you. Putting your thoughts into words was a skill that never came to you without difficulty but you claimed I made it effortless.
I will never forget the way you explained every feeling, thought and emotion you ever felt towards me. While I sat their motionless on the corner of my bed with the phone glued to my left ear and my head resting against the poster clad wall, with silent tears gushing out and rolling down my cheeks, my body was numb from the pain of knowing that there is a sadistic devil in angel's form residing somewhere inside of me, deriving pleasure out of those who gave their soul to me and faking promises to guard it with my own while it slowly burns down everything that made you feel and sucks out every emotion that drove you towards me.
Now I lay wide awake and wonder if my love will ever be good enough for you. I am incapable of loving anyone the way you love me. You are giving me your all and I can't even warn you about that angel which will soon slip out of my control and render me powerless.

Saturday 23 August 2014

Confessions of a Monophobic

The days go by
Fluently and facilely
The people who love her
And the people she loves
Hem her 
In ardour and amity
As the sun is high
So is the thin line
Of her pink lips
Curved up at its edges
To make her face gleam 
Red from the summer heat
And glowing because of the people she meets
 
As the bolt of her door
Appears in front of her sight
In the dead of the night
Her fears envelope her 
And try to drown her
In a dark cloud she can't escape from
Her bouts of loneliness
And helplessness
When she has no work to do
And not a single soul to talk to
Her demons slowly crawl out
From that space
Where she buried them
For the sake of the happy daylight

The people of the world
In dreamland and repose
But her nocturnal mind
Doesn't let her succumb 
To the weakness called tranquillity 
As she sits upright
The realization hits her
Straight in the lungs
Like a strong blow
As the wind rushes out of her carcass
She gasps for air
Fumbles for a breath
Her anxious eyes darting 
In search of somebody, anybody
But all she can see
Is the pitch of darkness
That penetrates her being
And she fathoms 
That her worst enemy is herself
She's in wrong company
When she's all by herself 

Fanaa

In the dark you sit
With your face close to mine
A faint glow of light
Coming from far away
Illuminates your beautiful face
Our bare bodies touching,
And mine trembling with the energy
That your presence makes me feel

Every time your lingering fingers
Touch my barren skin
A spark runs up my spine
Like electricity passing through me
And every word you whisper
Sends my body rippling
Fervently pleading for more

In your arms I lay
With our breaths ragged,
Our hearts a symphony of uneven rhythms
And I knew
That I'd need this sunlight
To keep my head up to the sky
For every moment I spend living
From this time forth

My manipulative heart whispered
To my free spirit
That feared needing a soul
To keep mine alive
And loathed annihilating me
"Let yourself feel
All the good things
That you thought you were incapable of feeling."

Sunday 20 July 2014

Unveiled

You made me feel so vulnerable
All my emotions-
Blithe or bereaved
In your ascendancy
Ever since I met you
I have you
In the space of my mind
That once used to be empty and lifeless
You gave me a person to think of
All the time
You gave me moments to cherish
And long for your touch
You gave me a person to crave
And a meeting to always look forward to
You made me expect affection
You made me desire someone
With every breath I took
You gave me wild butterflies
In the pit of my stomach
Every time we touched
And you made me want more
You made me long for you
Every time we kissed goodbye
You made me need you
Like my existence depended on you
You made me want to share
All my secrets
And made me trust you
So facilely 
You made an open book of me
You helped me up from my dark corner,
Dusted me off
And put me under the spotlight
You made me feel like I was needed
Like your existence depended on me
You made all of my doubts go away
And all my pieces fit in
Like a jigsaw in place
Like a treasure map
And you proved me wrong
When I thought you to be
Another demon who would play with my mind
And stayed,
Waiting patiently,
Letting me take my own sweet time
Even when I tried to care less
About everything you did
To maintain my guarded self
And you still stayed
Even when it took you 
Tiring days and long nights
To bring down the wall I had built around me
You still stayed
And waited patiently
You made me adore you
And that is why I abhor you

Monday 19 May 2014

One Year Anniversary

Does your past ever haunt you
Flashing back
Right in front of your eyes
With those horrid memories
That kept you in the dark
For days at a stretch
When you didn’t eat
Or sleep
Or breathe
And ceased to exist?

Do you ever feel fatigued
And so worn out
So drained
That your humanness
Dries up
And all that is left of you
Is a spiritless body
Forcing itself
To function
But cannot?

Do you ever feel
Your sunny day
Overcast by dark skies
Takes away the laughter
From your being
When you suddenly hark back
And that stabbing pain
In the torso
Returns with gloom
And sorrow
Remorse
Chagrin?

It’s been ages
Since it ever happened
Your past way behind you
But suddenly it comes back
And you remember how you felt
And you don’t want to feel that way anymore
But yet you do

Sunday 18 May 2014

Of Broken Strings and Nostalgic Contemplations

I remember how we laughed
At the ‘best friends’ that broke apart
I remember how we laughed
When ‘true’ friendships that collapsed
But look at where we are
Yet another pair of ‘best friends’
That broke apart
And yet another ‘true’ friendship
That collapsed
I remember how we promised
To let nothing take us away
I remember how we promised
To stand beside each other
Till death did us apart
But now how it deteriorates
The relationship we once shared
All that is left of it now
Are the broken fragments
Of the strings that once held us together
The memories
Good and bad
Shall last for ever
But what lasts of us now
Are two people
Who acted like lovers
But do not look each other’s way anymore

Sunday 27 April 2014

Addled

A room lit
With only a bulb of yellow glow
A pen in hand
Trying to bleed the words
That hold her breath
But not a single word can she scrawl
Not a thought can she enunciate
Onto the white sheet
That stares back at her

Where her artistry went
She knows not
Where her afflatus wandered away
She cannot reach
The ache to delineate
The stories she keeps inside
Suffocate her
And claw her soul

She tries some more
To spew out the words 
That she holds within
Her heaving heart sinking
Into a crippling need
To do what she does best
_________

That night 
She sleeps 
With a cumbersome torso 
For she could not be liberated 
From the fervour 
That binds her self together 
And swells her hefty heart

Saturday 19 April 2014

Mettle

Armed with the INSAS
He sits 18000 ft above
Where no layman can reach
Or think of visiting

The need to protect
And to serve
The 1.2 billion
Sitting far, far away
Keeps him going
In the biting cold
In the scorching June

A bit of whiskey
To warm his soul
And to fill the aching space
In his heart
That longs for his family
Is enough today
To keep him going
Until he breathes his last

Sunday 6 April 2014

Accessory

Since their early childhoods
They saw each other grow up
Into the persons they are today
And ever since she knew him
She besotted him
Clandestinely
For nor he ever did
Neither shall he ever know

Philandered with other damsels he
And sought succour in her 
If one ever disparaged him
Never could he have conjectured
That she who stood by him
Got her heart slivered
Each time he admired someone else.
And ever since she knew him
She besotted him
Clandestinely
For nor he ever did
Neither shall he ever know

Their good and bad
Well versed to both
Their battles
Familiar to both
But he always adored someone else
And ever since she knew him
She besotted him
Clandestinely
For nor he ever did
Neither shall he ever know

Someday
She too shall learn
To be smitten by someone else
And love him more than anything
But that lad
Who she grew up with
Shall monopolize a personal space
Eternally in her essence
And ever since she knew him
She besotted him
Clandestinely
For nor he ever did
Neither shall he ever know

Monday 31 March 2014

Forlorn

All by herself she sits
In that room so empty now
The dark of the night
Lurks in every corner
Of those white walls
And he
Escapes into his own space
Leaving her behind
For the dead of the night
A moan escapes her parted lips
A moan that longs
His gentle touch
The contours of his chest
And his protective embrace
But he doesn’t come back

All by herself she sits
In that room so empty now
Reminiscing the memories
He left behind
His smell still lingers
And she can feel
The spark of his touch
On her skin
And the words he spoke
All the promises he made
The song that played
The first time their lips met
Every memory he gave her
Brings him back here
But he doesn’t come back

All by herself she sits
In that room so empty now
He is nothing
But a figment of her imagination
Anymore
No more those sleepless nights
From the butterflies that stayed inside of her
No more endless fights
On the matters seemingly arguable
But she craves for one last chance
To make things right
To kiss him one last time
To hold him in her arms
And to know it will all turn out fine
But he doesn’t come back

All by herself she sits
In that room so empty now

Monday 24 March 2014

Cést la vie

She closes her eyes and all she can see
Are those aphotic, lurid days she wishes to forget
The feeling of suffocation
Of asphyxiation
Always haunts her empty mind
But she doesn’t realize cést la vie!
Such is life.

Her convivial days gone for her
When she sits all by herself
On a bed that saw many tears
And many nights
Spent in malaise
But she doesn’t realize cést la vie!
Such is life.

Does she know not?
Not always will life be a flowery road
Stars shine, but not without darkness
Suffering often makes good stories
And that there are devilish thoughts also in the most angelic minds
But she doesn’t realize cést la vie!
Such is life.

Does she know not?
Her demons etch her today
For she cannot be beautiful but without little pain
Eventually will her struggles
Strike her as the most beautiful
But she doesn’t realize cést la vie!
Such is life.

Happiness is a road well paved
It bestows opulence to her stride
But can she garden flowers
Or sow saccharine seeds of prolificacy
Upon this sheltered gravel?
But she doesn’t realize cést la vie!
Such is life.

“To live really,
She must
Die a few times whilst she lived”
“She must
Persevere if she encounters fire and brimstone”
Said they
But she doesn’t realize cést la vie!
Such is life.

She must not
Wish away her days
In search of better ones ahead
But savour the ones
That she holds in her hands now
But she doesn’t realize cést la vie!
Such is life.




Wednesday 19 March 2014

Judas Kiss

They seduced her weaknesses,
Plunged into them
Incited her to the limit
Where she would cannonade with
The tremors she kept inside
But she stood there all by herself,
Eclipsed by their stalwartness
Drowning in their insolence
And she stood there all by herself
Trying to maintain her dignity
Her humility
Her heart burning for
A bastion
But they stopped and stared,
Crowed and continued
And all the covenants of aegis till ‘eternity’
By her ‘allies’
Seemed all like a delusion to her now
But they just stopped and stared,
Crowed and continued.