Tattoo a life.

Making queer little lists
of crazy things,
you hope to mark your light
among a billion other
glowing specks.

Eccentricity speaks.
And is sought after.

Gauge into your skin
shapes that are
you and you
alone.

Chisel a place in their world
with ticks
off paper: achievements
we hope will lift
us above the rest.

Find a niche,
crawl into it;
stay put, heads
between knees.
Scared of falling, changing
ending.

And then one day,
cease to be.

Alter.

Love would be

our atoms

aligned.

Something that life altering.

Sugarhigh, sugarrushed, sugarcrazy.

Crazy.

Know each fibre of my body

as well as your contours

under my fingers

are known.

Feel earnestly for me;

realize

I miss you

so much I could

turn to vapor

and rain over you.

Love, yes,

has to be that.

Anything less would

not

be obsessing, insane, delirious;

Anything less would

not

drive me nuts;

Anything less would

not

be worth it.

Of things that make it happen.

It starts simply enough. 
At one crazy moment, a leak in the faucet of good judgement, 
I give away, despite caveats, my happiness to your will. 
Flavors, distinct, overlap and grow confused;
entangled then disentangled are braids that've knotted themselves over the months,
in gloomy webs.


And then when you go away, 
it's not for once and all, 
you step in and step out; 
probe and question not knowing what it does to me.


wisps of your words return; 
wings span wide enough to shadow over my dreams and intrude in; 
look into my deepest secrets and desires; 
you unfurl things I don't want you to know. 
You read into everything though I want you not to.
Do you want it at all?


Because in the end, as we know, 
an inevitable death is not what you deserve, 
or anyone at all.

Haiku.

Cold, quiet nights.
A song that plays
again and again.

Heartbreak.

Outside,
it’s hot and abandoned,
a glaring yellow,
this July afternoon.

Inside,
there is a still coolness,
the smell of jasmine and incense,
and inactivity.

Tidbits stacked through life;
conch shells on the shelf
and a Ganesha idol on the table,
all a little dusty.
Paintings on the wall,
signed ‘S.P, class VIII’;
and herself on the couch,
the remainder of what had been a plush, red pride;
like an artifact,
ancient, unheeded
that this house
sucked into its vortex,
somewhere down the line.

She runs a hand
over the faux leather cover,
brown over brown;
wizened over smooth;
wrinkles thrown into relief
by an overhead lamp.
And in the harsh tungsten glow,
she turns the pages.

"1971:
There was the honeymoon
in the hills,
Shimla.
Orchards and apples,
noses red in the cold
and funny sherpas.
Trepidation.

And then there was the fight,
something this picture does not document,
where you're grinning at the lens,
and I just look meek.

It does not speak of
how you walked out on me.
And how I,
in the midst of strangers,
stared at my cup of chai
and cried.
My young heart broke just a little.

And this picture here,
right afterwards,
I'd seen you catch her eye;
I remember her Cashmere shawl,
cream and rich.
And even though you're staring out
at me now,
I had known
so much about you. "

Outside,
it's darker.
The sky gets gloomier
with distant peals of thunder.

She shuffles slowly to the window
and it creaks open
to swirling dark clouds
and a smell of mango blossoms,
heavy and floral.
She aches for the past.

"Eighth grade.
You're missing from this picture.
He's tall and sweaty,
and proud.
With his arms around me,
my eyes betray the fact
that in all his years,
he's been dearer to me
than you ever were.

But of his history,
-lost among crayons squiggles and coloring sheets,
your non-committal agreements
and carelessly gifted toys,
and a very lost mother-
like all the others,
this picture says nothing. "

A few fat drops
have fallen
onto the parched ground.

Her eyes turn,
cloudy and moist
to the window
as the world dissolves
into a haze of gray
and sounds merge into
a steady hiss.

"Images and voices
seep in, unbridled.
The deepest layers trawled
of waters I'd only skimmed
the surface of.

The phone call that set it off.
The nurse who took us to the body.
'Asha', her tag read,
that was all I could look at.
'Hit and run', someone's voice.
Your stoic face.
Realizations.
Being freshly childless.

Losing you,
gradual, succumbed to,
was terminated
when I lost you to her.
Losing him
was having my heart teased out,
a little bit every day.
And so,
I'm losing him still. "

The rains lift up
as evening sets in.
The sun,
a more benign orange
glows on glossy leaves
and painted surfaces.

Inside,
she is still,
on the ghost of the couch,
with accumulated death
over the years.
Life,
battled with, lost
surrendered to
and piled on heartbreak.

But the coroner's report
would read
'old age'.

Ultimately.

You simply don't belong anywhere;
the only thing that stays
is motion, fluid, loss.

There's no home
for anyone.
No one to come back to,
forever.
No one's coming for you
either.

Equations.

I do all the expecting, love.
You do all the turning down.

I push you away
and lug you around.
You stick, trying to formulate
your theories
to identify me.
I'm your equation.

Between us,
we're balanced.

You and me.

You are
the things that define you.

Cyclic, changing,
transient;
like your volatile ink;
the pixels on your screen;
your fickle moods
and the seasons you live through;
your voice that vanishes
into the air.

It's not a crime,
playing with words.
For though we've all heard
a million times over
what hurt they cause,
they're not weapons
after all.

Your words, though,
damage.

No,
you're not a good person.

Your moods will pass,
like everything else has.
Those pixels will replace your words.
The seasons will roll
for the heir of those you hate.
The paper with your ink
will crumble away.

Pride,
might give way
to non-existence
someday.

Your voice will be gone
and your words too.

I wish,
for you're not a good person.

What could've been.

There's no album
with you in it;
And a stretch of blank wall
where you'd have stood.

And the world
that would have bits of you,
with all these people who'd know you;
things you'd have touched
and hated and been mad about.

all the things,
that could go missing from the fridge,
from the hidden jars;
the stash of smokes
in the drawer;
the secrets in our diary.

the guy you'd leave red-faced
after school,
in that lane behind your house

all the weird accents you'd take on,
the phases you'd go through;
how you'd make me cry in fear
of you getting out of hand;
all the boys we'd hate because of you.

the guy you'd meet at the library,
who'd love Chaucer and Bronte too,
and sappy pop songs;
with his stupid hair,
how we would all be unsure
and how he'd turn out to be the one

the huge stuffed chair
with gaudy flower prints
that you got cheap;
and the pictures on the walls,
wood-framed, amateurish;
and all the decor I wouldn't approve of
and you'd be proud about.

that part in the face
of two little girls
you could've mothered;
that bend to their crooked smiles,
the brown of their eyes,
and the freckles, among so much else.

and so,
all the little things
in the world
that'd have bits of you
are missing.

There's a blank wall where
you should've been.
And there's no album at all.

This makes no sense.

She drew a flower,
black as death,
from the graphite
of her stubby yellow pencil

She embellished the thing,
added to it every detail she knew,
creepers and twirling thorns
and bulbs and snarling leaves;
a child of the crevasses of her own mind,
a monstrosity.

It grew,
from morning,
it's branches reached farther
over the mildewed wallpaper,
wearing the pencil down.
sinuously,
buds and prickly nettles bloomed
till it was night
and the candles sputtered to their ends.

It crept through
the walls,
it sneaked through the cracks
in the windows,
the despair,
and darkened the little flower
day after day.
And one morning
it was venomous.

No.

You don't know what I'm like.
The bits that make up my life
are as you said,
trivial for you.
My little joys
are alien to you

What then, should we base our love on?

Songs do not make you cry.
Stars don't make you wonder.

A dreamer for me.
For you, I do not know.
Not me, surely.

An year later.

Early morning, maybe four.
In that little window of time when it's only still dark for a short time,
or perhaps the faintest bit of light beginning.
The darkest hour, they say.

You're in the hall, by the table,
the ancient sun mica covered monstrosity that we hated,
the one with greasy smears that you couldn't get off
and brown coaster marks.
Ugly. 

You're by it and outside, 
it's sleeting and frigid 
and when there's enough light,
we'll know it's foggy.

It's cold, very cold.
Your pullover doesn't help.
Your hair is a mess,
the coffee isn't warm anymore.
You haven't really slept because you had to wake up in a few hours.
And so you're sleep deprived and feel sick and glum.
You shake your foot because that's what you do when you don't feel good.
Again and again, in weird jerking motions.
Your slipper comes loose.

You're at the same table as me, while I write this.
Because I wanted you exactly an year from me.
The light from your cigarette butt from today evening would've reached a star by now.
The smile, however, vanished as you turned.

We don't wait.
We don't expect this to have an ending, of any type.
Happy or otherwise.
We go on.

In the ugly overhead thing, all steel and glaring white light,
you're at your weakest, your sleepiest.
It is cold and lonely and unhappy.
But. It will get better.

And when morning comes, you will be through with me once again.
All over again.
Ragged, cold, tired, sad, crying perhaps.
And yet at the beginning of a new day.

Go back to bed.
And ache for me.
I only live in those moments you think of me.
And I don't want to die just yet.

Fleeting.

The perfect things,

that picture taken just right;

the best sunrise ever;

when you cross the bridge on a foggy morning

and it's like driving over white air.

The things that song reminded you of;

the way he looked at you;

just the right lyrics that said how you feel;

the way you felt when that book ended and you cried.

The best Christmas you had,

lights and love and laughter;

the jokes shared with that person you don't even smile at anymore;

that letter you wrote so well.

Where does all that go

when you die?

Alternately.

Some days
it's like it doesn't matter.
Not you, not me,
not one bit.
And the grey tiles
that we work so much
at coloring pink
could just stay so.
Stark, chalky,
lining an empty room

And I'd mix white and green
and paint the walls
then hate it
because misery is pretty.
There would be red Chinese orbs
that'd light up a lonely hallway
that would soon fill up,
cluttered with bits of me:
private, intense, red.

And I think of
how it would be
to watch the sunset
alone,
a little chilly
from a park bench,
watching the sun fall behind the edge;
surrounded by doublets
and shrieking little testimonies to their love.

I imagine
what it'd be like
in a noisy cafe some night,
with a hangover
and smokes for company.
No one to look forward to,
to look good for,
in anonymity and color
and life rushing by.

Or waking up one morning
to an empty bed
my shapes and impressions alone.
Padding out
to the cold.
Joke-less mornings
some songs perhaps
and words,
from a sheet of paper.

Walks, singularly,
and all the little things
that could've been
are all alone.
Without you;
after you
if that ever comes to be.
Unshackled, would it be?
Or merely terrifying?

That we live
in this little shell,
where we reassure
and reach out and touch,
does it really matter?

There could always be
some rain,
some day,
that I'd watch through the glass
and write about
how I could be with you.

thisdoesnotmeanathing

Through the years,
you begin to look, to read.
You live a little and die tiny deaths.
You make some sense. You make sense not.
You cut yourself with tiny slivers of glass,
and then look up at the world through them.
Sometimes, they're tinged pink.
And then. You go. The final time and for all.

growing away

do we grow

out

and away?

or over,

and spill?

or out under from?

do we grow

within

and curl inwards?

things

...that hold you
in tiny spells;
like poetry,

pictures,

or even fluid silences,

- time too, then

or love-

no, nothing as romantic

as you dream up;

just maybe, thoughts

that make your heart go funny.

does beauty do that

to you, ever?

cease everything

in you,

in wonderment;

the beauty of words,

of red ink,

of something dreamed

a thousand miles away,

reaching out to you?
does it?

- well, you do

Knowing.

I've learnt.

That there are more questions than answers.
And that sometimes, it's worth taking the long, winding way, even if you're in shoes that are killing you.

That often, dreams will come back to haunt you.
And that no matter how deep you are, someone will have known and said it already.

That when you're down, you might really drown.
And that then, there's no coming back.

Cut

I look down,
the lines seem clear,
brighter,
the green almost in relief;
perhaps it's the light
or just me.
I can trace the branches
and at the closest to the surface,
I can read

'cut here'

White

and you have been
so white for me,
changing so

from a five petal'd flower
in so many shades:
from a tungsten glow,
to pearly,
and the rich blankness
under the sun;
deepening purple
under an inky sky,

to the white
of sea foam
furious, churning
a salty ghost
but really
just froth and motion
nothing but air
speckled with the sea

and to the white
of death
of pale bodies,
of the sheets over them,
and fear and revulsion;
the white
of a dying sky
bleached by rains
shunned by light
empty, endless
shallow;
the color
of quitting,
of there having been
nothing at all
to leave a mark under;
of not just an end
but of nonexistence