Blurred

Sitting at the edge of the seat, she turned to look at him and found his gaze upon her. Involuntarily both of them burst out laughing. As he got up, he extended his hand to help her up. Clasping his hand, she got down the bus.  They walked towards the square forgetting to let go of each other’s hands.

……………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………..

It’s been so long

That I forget

Who was who.

A hand had reached out

And another had taken it,

Leaning in you had kissed me

On my expectant mouth,

Or was it the other way around?

Was it you who had first whispered

Sweet nothings in my ear?

Or was it me who had trailed

little sighs on your lips?

Was it you who had first sworn at me

For wearing so many clothes,

Or was it me who had torn away

At the buttons of your coat?

Whose moan was it

That first broke the heavy silence?

Whose bite made the first mark of possession

Over another’s soft flesh?

Was it you who had yanked my head up

Pulling my hair?

Or was it me pushing your head further down

Whimpering at your touch?

Was it you who had pinned me down

As I had soared?

Or was it me who had taken you

On a psychedelic ride?

Was it you who had carried me

Over the threshold?

Or was it me who had roughly

Drawn you down?

It has been so long

That I forget

Who had who.

Was it you who had melted away into the wintery morning?

Or was it me who had faded away with the evening light?

 

Embers

Just as the glow diminishes,

You come back 

And rake the embers.

How many more times

Will it take

Before it dies completely?

And all you will find

Is eye-watering,

Throat-burning smoke.

After

It is easy to fall in love.

When you walk this earth,

Lost in untangling the knotted balls

Of thoughts and feelings, 

Time and again you stumble into someone

Dropping your ball.

It falls noiselessly,

Unravelling several threads

Of unexplored feelings, frayed thoughts and inexplicable emotions.

Wobbling away it collides

And entangles into the ball

The other dropped.

Before long,

the threads entwine,

Ravelling into a wreathe.

No longer discernible

Which comes from what.

It is easy to fall in love,

when the light plays 

A similar symphony with darkness

In the other’s mind.

It is easy to fall in love.

What’s tough

Is to realise you are 

An entity unto yourself,

Required to exist

Stand-alone,

When the other melts away

in the bewildering labyrinths 

Of echoing shadows.

It is easy to fall in love.

It is wrenching to live after it is gone. 

Stolen moments #4

The weather has been oppressive. Dark clouds gather promising a reprieve from the heat. Sitting in the balcony, she is sipping coffee pensively. Dark clouds always remind her of him.

 

That day she had forgotten her umbrella in a rush to leave. As a sudden downpour drenched her, she’d cursed herself for her forgetfulness. Standing under a building’s awning, she was berating herself when she became aware of someone else sharing the meager cover. As she lifted her head, she found herself looking into a pair of dark amused eyes, crinkled at the corners from containing the mirth. She had felt instant annoyance at his apparent amusement at her discomfort. She opened her mouth to tell him exactly what she thought of him, but the rain stopped as unexpectedly as it had started. Forgetting her annoyance, she gathered herself and stepped out to hail a passing taxi.  

 

She had never liked the rains. She hated how the dark clouds made the sun disappear. She hated the slush on the roads, felt positively irked about skipping around little gleeful puddles of muddy rainwater. Rains always made her lose her otherwise cheerful disposition. She had never thought she would ever change her opinion about rains until the day she found him chuckling under his breath at her displeasure under that awning.

 

She gets up, putting down the coffee mug on the balustrade. Rummaging amongst her books, she quickly takes out a paper and sits down to write. It feels as if she didn’t write to him this very minute, she would implode. While she scribbles a few words hurriedly, she can hear thunder reverberating through the house. Dropping the pen in mid-air, she hurries out to take down the clothes drying in the balcony as fat water drops splash around her.  Rain fills up the forgotten coffee mug.

——————————————————————————-

 

In all these years, I have sat down several times to write to you. 

          Hi,

          How are you, Love?

I begin, imagining standing next to you holding your warm, calloused hand, looking in your dark eyes only to find them questioning- Why? 

Unable to answer, I put down the pen. 

It is better this way, I tell myself. Unconvincingly.

Untitled#3

There are
Very few things
More painful
Than hope dying,
Breath by breath.

Stolen moments#3

She can no longer remember when sleep had come to her uninterrupted. Night after night, she had lain on the wet pillow till the tears no longer flowed. The pervading silence made her shallow breathing even more pronounced. All she could hear was the clock ticking away the seconds dragging on broken only by the soft sobs escaping her lips. Every night she played over in her mind the moments she had spent with him and the others that she had lived in a haze, intoxicated with his thoughts. Now no tears came, just the heaviness of breath and silent sobs which got lost in the labyrinth of her breast before they could reach her lips. Staring blankly at the light from the street lamp, outside the window, playing some grotesque game across the wall, she laid there with an empty heart.

————————————————————————–

Something still breaks noiselessly inside me at the thought that I would no longer wake up to your message calling me your sunshine. You would no longer send me the inane pictures that you clicked for me wherever you went. The silly names that you called me by, you would use them for someone else now. I would no more hear you sing songs completely off-key. And when I get upset over some trivial thing, you would not be there to distract me with your stupid jokes. Every time I take the subway, I would miss holding your hand while watching the world go by through the window. I would not hear your silences any more. The way you softly chanted my name, while we possessed each other, tracing your ownership on my being, I would no more hear those passionate whispers except in my fitful dreams.

Today I saw a young dog which I thought resembled one of the litter that we had tended together. The trees are sprouting green leaves once again. Four seasons past, everything looks the same still. But it is not. For I would no longer hear the ache in your voice every time you had to go away and you kept telling me- Baby, I don’t want to leave. I thought you would always come back. But the last time, you did not. And I am still here waiting, knowing…

Things you will never read#1

When you went away so abruptly

Without saying any byes,

Without any apparent reasons,

I knew my place in your life.

 

That easy, it was, for you to cut me off,

Completely from your life,

Whispered the treacherous mind.

Something I could not even imagine

Doing to you.

How could I hurt you,

When hurting you would hurt me too?

 

Equals

I had to fall out of love with you,

To find myself equal to you.

Let us not

Let us not talk of each other,

With anyone.

For the scab is forming.

 

Let us not dial each other’s number

And then hang up before the call gets through,

For it is nerve wracking.

 

Let us not think of each other,

With every inane thing that we do.

For it becomes a chore, difficult to finish.

 

Let us not dream of each other,

On the balmy nights,

For they will never come true.

 

Let us not yearn for each other’s warmth,

On cold, bleak days,

For cold numbs, and numb seems good, now.

 

Let us not sit on our bench alone,

Hoping fervently for the other one to come by, too,

For it gets too lonely, eventually.

 

Let us not.

Let us not.

For it still bleeds under that scab.

For the memories need to fade.

For an unattended call would hurt even more.

For dreams aren’t for us, we know now.

For the warmth might scorch some more, now.

For the other one is not going to come anymore.

 

Let us let the memories fade.

If#10

She:  You knew her from before me?

He:  Yeah, we were members of the same book club.

She:  Why didn’t you tell me? I would have been so glad. I liked her a lot. In fact, I had thought of introducing the two of you to each other so many times. But after that fateful night, I wasn’t sure if you would want to meet anyone from that group. When I saw you hugging her that evening we were supposed to meet, I laughed at myself. How oblivious I could be!

He:  I had stumbled across her while on my way to meet you. She had looked distraught and I couldn’t possibly leave her like that.

She:  If only, you had left me a message. You completely forgot about me. I went back home that evening. I waited for you, confident that you’d have an explanation. Certain that what the nagging voice in my head, that won’t quieten down, told me gleefully was all wrong. That it would all make sense once you came. But you didn’t come. Neither did any message or call. I waited for days and a month went by. I tried to look for you but couldn’t find you. In the end, I took that silence for an answer. If only, you had left me a message.