Of pretty songs and primary colors and loss.

Some rare things make me feel for tiny moments such as this, that love- the pure kind where it's bliss (and possible) to wake up to look and marvel at a face each morning- is possible for real. I like the thought and I like keeping skeptism away at such moments. Not because I'm hopeful but because at those times, I'm again a younger, more trusting, less cynical me. I belong yet again to a time when happiness was found full in tiny things, when nothing was desired, when pink evenings made me want to run out and soak in summer and birdsong through my skin, when wildflowers were arranged into bouquets, when life was simple, music was love, not meant to be stripped down to be memorized and replicated, when hands were pretty unadorned, hair wasn't fussed about. When writing was for me alone.

And so, when I'm that girl again, there's still beauty in the world, songs can have different annotations with discrete memories attached, behind layers of notes and words of love. There are, once again, so many different possibilities for the future, all a different primary color.

Above all, I miss my notions of love. And the belief that it existed and would stay mine forever.

What do I do with the weight of all that I have grown to lose?

What waiting taught me.

There was this place. It was cool and silent, and it was a living room. The place of someone who wasn't particularly friendly. I remember waiting. And shyness; the faint smell of incense and the muted clink of cutlery from a few rooms away.
I remember expectation. And a little evening sunlight filtering, orange, through the heavy curtains that looked like they'd been sewn with canvas material.

And there was one of those china dolls that danced if you pushed their heads. Bobbed to and fro. I remember stifling the temptation to push its head.
I remember caterpillars in the lemon plants in their garden.
Above all, while waiting, I remember their animosity. It was a weird realization for a kid.

Today.

It was a strange sort of a day.

Words were jotted down and erased, hurt and pain felt keenly, dreams unheeded and unfulfilled, like so many other days, love lost, ambitions left forgotten, promises incomplete, nightmares loomed large, endless mugs of fluid fuel, some fights, irritation, resignation, texts, loving words not really meant, futile relationships, pointless lies and lives, crappy songs, guitar lessons, Christmas eve.

Somewhere, millennia ago, maybe a guy was born. Maybe not. The result’s turned out equal. We have wreaths and pretty lights on trees and presents and pie. And heartaches, masked; loneliness, unacknowledged.
Drinks, after the others have gone, late into the night, burning down throats, amidst thoughts of why alone, why now, why me?

Or maybe for some, company, love, warmth in the outside cold, clasped hands, beauty and gifts.

Is that what we're going ahead for? The potential of companionship? Some intermittent success and the resulting brief sparks of joy? It seems rather desultory.

Or maybe to tell a few stories of equal failures and fictitious happy endings, make some music, figure another equation, create another machine. And then die.

Smells like love.

It's old. There are some cracks due to earthquakes that happened decades ago. There are dead leaves, strewn, invisible in the morning fog, but clear and dry brown in the yellow of the day. Suddenly, you're old enough to notice. To love and not love the place that was the bestest, awesomestest, funnest place in the world for you as a kid. You see flaws and gaping imperfections. And yet, it's spellbinding how beautiful the place still manages to be. All those places, every angle you look from had a meaning, an annotation to you. The dead leaves were crunchy to walk on; the cracks unheeded and forgiven; the sunshine, surreal, out of the world, so pretty on the trees, it's like no other time of the year. Like. Dislike. Unable to pull apart.

It's like love.

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?

Home

home is
soft, firm
cushiony
tender and mortal
strong in its weakness
content in the knowledge
of its safety

home is
always
a warm bed
to go to
to dream of Santa
with tiny quilts
and stocking'd feet

home is
milk and cookies
the smells of the morning
invading your sleep
cool showers
and white towels, fluffy
like arms around you

home is
a voice
that kids and scolds
comforts and confides,
the walls
knowing all your secrets,
your own sky
with its stars
twinkling kindly at you

home is a song
the tune
timeless, that
embodies
the colors
the tastes and the love
of a lifetime
of lives spent within

Tile #2

in winters,
swiftly, before it's known
it gets dark
the cold creeps in,
windows to the world
are shut and latched
and it's quieter.
nightfall,
orange quilts and socks,
mothballs
smelling perennially of winter to me,
carrots
in soups I do not like
peppered and hot.

silence
in the dead of the nights,
the littlest of things carried so far,
cell phone vibrations
and smiles,
tinny whines of earphones,
and chilled fingers
warmed over lemony mugs
taking in the vapor,

if I open a pane
of the shut windows
the cold air numbs out the smells.
late winter, though
smells of newer life to come
and of hopeful soil

Tiles of my mosaic: Tile #1

mildly stormy,
scribbling away in my room,
padding into the kitchen
bare feet,
the smell of the burner flame

propane, pleasant, dangerous,

the muted swish of rainy wind
on the roof
and the silence of the house,
a dead mango leaf
dried and wet
flies in through the window-
smelling faintly of mangoes
and summer
or maybe, it's the wind-
as the milk turns and boils
and the smell:
milk and mangoes and rain,

heading back with the mug
through the blue in the hall,
my white table lamp
and scattered around, all about
bits of me
my definitions.

That July afternoon,
it hails outside