An ode to my friend

I watch you from the side walk, you talking and laughing,

As I sit and speculate how do you do that? So effortlessly!

You and I share the same skin, the same language, values.

You and I share dreams, fights, even our attractions for same men,

I watch and observe, as you flirt, I see yet another person being yours.

And that’s where I become I and you the other, the exotic, valued.

And I become just a skin, cheek bones, and voice, too shrill.

I want to envy you, hate you, as my skin burns in rage.

I watch you from the sidewalk, side tracked, sideways. 

Has anyone ever been triggered by a love story?

A benign yet extraordinary one that we hear again and again.

Trigger, such a weird word in a weird language where emotions get abbreviated,

Pain, despair, anger, desperation all wrapped up in one simple word, trigger!

As I sit and listen to the story, emotions come crawl up from deep dark depth.

As his face brightens, my shoulder droop, my heart stops, and the guilt overwhelms.

In last few months I have been told, unasked I need to cleanse my life by friends,

My intentions are well known for being as dark as my features and unapologetic as myself.

Is this world and all its happiness is stored for the cleansed, bright and apologetic ones?

Then why did I come? When did I get here? When did I lose my right to be loved and to love?

Trigger, a simplistic word to abbreviate so many emotions desperately, despair, anger, desperation. 

Cutie to a long QT, the journey took just a week,

A week that seemed like months-years and an eternity.

Our meeting so sudden, equally random the attraction,

The separation of two cultures, of birthdays ten years apart.

In one week, stretched in seven days for validation of number,

We made plans, broke plans, and remade to break them again.

It took us seven days to start a story and seven seconds to end,

Now when I see you down the hall way cutie, the long QT comes again. 

Dipabali

As the moon fades through its cycle, leaving the night with darkness,

Reminding, perhaps the only unfading truth of life is to fade away.

When the darkness comes, the night cold without light stands lonely,

And I, a mere human, put a light outside, in my effort to give it some warmth.

I tell her in assurance, I will be there for you, as you have, being my light.

I burn myself, to fuel the lamp that I put outside, taking some melancholy away.

And I plunge in my sorrow as I burn, and burn whole night, dragging the darkness in.

Oh my lonely dark night! Let me take the light back, for once as I need some light.

When pain becomes meditative,

Your mind wanders for a while,

And then comes back to same numbness.

When pain becomes absorbing,

You still feel anger, hungry,

Yet, everything is absorbed in darkness.

I remember a childhood song,

Only pain can heal pain and I wonder,

How many more healing would I need.     

A pain so profound and deep, I have felt you forever now.

You have looked at me silently from a corner, when I laughed,

thinking you are gone. You have sat with me when I mourned.

So real and still so illusive, you are part of my flesh and my eyes.

I felt you in my spine, and choked with a knot in my heart,

So much wished and prayed for you to flood down my cheeks,

And tenderly caressed you in a corner that no one else has been to.

A pain so deep, and profound, that I wonder if you are a pain anymore or not. 

i want to bleed

A child killed by a bomb, a woman torn or a man savaged.

I shed tears, I wonder if that is part of a ritual to forget and move on.

Is that a lavish fancy to make my ego bigger as a kind compassionate heart?

Then how come am not tormented and broken every moment I live,

Then why cannot I thank myself for one more bomb missing my limbs,

And why not be happy with whatever that is, and keep seeking more?

The worst thing about my brain is I think, and my heart is I bleed,

My brain is bloated with blood making me vague and cryptic.

May be all is my fancy, and my selfish way of coping with this world around.

But I still want to bleed, feel every time a wish in that far corner dies. 

My house is not clean and my dishes are not done,
I seldom cook these days as kitchen makes me blunt.
Am I changing for the better or for worse, who cares.
There used to be a time my friends said “stop being OCD”,
Now if they see me will shout and say buy a vacuum please.
I think of sex instead, a lot, and love and all stupid things,
And think of the day I will change the world with my brown skin.
Am I changing for the better or for worse, who cares,
I just know that now I love it to see things undone.

A few extra pounds here and there, a few extra scars,

The receding hairline and the proceeding age graph.

Some worries that are valid, and some too far-fetched,

Some friends left there and some family made with ease.

Life goes on, oblivious of my panic and of time and space,

The sun will still rise tomorrow and the river will flood again.

The receding hairline and the proceeding age graph,

Oh life you don’t scare me at all, I mock you with my heart. 

When I look around, I see too many pieces of my broken heart,

Far too many, what beats inside is perhaps just a muscular pump.

When it broke the first time, I was sixteen, a distant faded story.

He just looked at me one day and said “this is so very wrong”

And I moved on, thinking childish crush it was.

Since then it has been several, every corner filled with scandalous bloody pieces.

Some left in the river bank on a full moon night, some on a chilly night while we took a walk,

Some came as a surprise and blew me off, and some as a pleasant relief from a dragging pain.  

I am so numb with this pain, so deeply desensitized that I wonder if there is anything left

Do I still have my juvenile enthusiasm to move on? Or should I just wait till the machinery finally fails. 

The summer approaching our love-like a tiger crouching,

Melting and breaking the ice that we gathered between us.

All the coldness, the chill that we earned since the honeymoon was over,

All the fear and times when we were in the frozen embrace screaming freedom.

All those times I smiled seeing you but my heart said not here not now.

Oh summer come! Refreshing and life giving, melt all that is old and stale,

Break and penetrate your rays through our souls and give us a new light.

Let us rejuvenate let us be happy and say not here not right now. 

Everyone who loved me once has moved on.

Now that I am alone I wonder who was wrong?

The dream of having a nest in that corner with you,

Or the plans of travelling the globe with someone else,

Or perhaps the nearly irrational everlasting love forever?

Everyone has moved on, even the time tricks me these days,

Sometimes I cannot remember who came first and who left then.

Is this still part of my cognitive dissonance or some other heavy word,

Some other form of self-pity wrapped in fancy Latin vocabulary?

 I still find comfort in this cold night thinking there was someone,

May be two, three or more who once loved me a lot, and we had a dream together? 

On this rainy day when I sit by my window staring at the blank sky-weeping,

With a pale face and a soul blotted by thousand who never touched me.

My mind drifts in two opposite directions, one wants to stay in the dark corner,

The other craves and cries for warmth from another body, a touch that I haven’t had in eternity.

I try with all my might to tame my soul with logic, in vein! And it derails next moment.

Where are you today? What happened to all the promises that you made?

The flowers that bloomed and the rivers to quench the thirst seem all so fake.

Oh lord! why have you forsaken me! Why do I need to bleed just to be loved?

I am a river, frozen in the heart of the great glacier in distant mountain top,

with the first sun, I break her heart and start my journey.

Ah! the joy of breaking free! Forgetting the pain of the bleeding mother behind.

I dance, and break and flow down making a fall here and abandoning a channel there.

Would you blame me for breaking the frozen embrace, oh my awestruck visitor?

I give and I take, may be more, I kill and drown and am misery to so many of you,

But remember the time when you really needed to save your limbs and your child,

And how I nourished you? With my cool water filling your parched soul?

Have you ever felt oh Human! Sitting at the top of evolution or whatever you may call it,

How did I feel when I broke away from my mother, and when I abandoned my childhood friends

Atop of those lofty mountains? Have you ever thought how I felt when heavy with mud and guilt

I drowned your civilization, what crossed my mind? Did you ever see myself when you saw me

Finally reaching the sea and jumping with a sigh of relief thinking I end my journey there, for eternity?

And then the sun comes again metamorphosing my cursed soul, lifting me to the same mountain i

Left a century ago? Joy I feel finding myself in my mother’s womb knowing a mighty journey awaits.

motherhood

i look at the ancient temple with my young eyes wide open,
the image of the Goddess bending over with her overwhelming breast.
i ask the priest with childish innocence and he tells me the reason.
she is the mother of the world, nurturing and nourishing all with her breast.
and hence the image of motherhood, femininity gets ingrained in my mind.
i wonder does she need a big breast to contain the love for all?
i grow up everyday, feeling i can too nourish and nurture but fear the lack of body parts
and tell myself motherhood is not an instinct but just genetics and a pair of breasts.
and then my friend i meet you, in a far off land, not a priest, far from it actually,
and you say a thing a simple thing, i do not need to be a woman to be a mother.
how utterly simple it is that it becomes profound and breaks my slumber.
now i know,your chromosomes might let your grow beard or bleed every month,
but now i refuse to be a chemical reaction, with predetermined outcome.

i had a thought, carefully wrapped in few words, for you,
thoughts that might take a century or a day to reach.
it will scale the mountains and swim the waters,
and still remain unspoken forever.

now i hear words travel fast,
passing through metal wires and the space,
is that why so much is spoken every day,
but still it remains so dry! so empty!

when tonight everyone leaves me, my Love stay here.
light the lamp with your touch which was hidden forever,
fill my life with the lonely fragrance of the wild forest flower,
and stay back with me when everyone leaves me tonight.
when the night ends and the day brings promise of companionship
when a new light shines outside fading the light within me
and i run behind the thousand glitters that will fade soon anyway,
stay back deep in my heart oh my Love, when everyone leaves me.

the bird flew over thousands a mile,
spreading his wings like a forest fire.
in search of warmth, a nest undisturbed.
crossing the cities, tall buildings, all the glitters
and it flew over lofty snowy peaks, and frozen rivers
all his flight he longed for warmth that will heal.
until he found the warmth in your eyes,
and so he made a nest in that corner.
a nest so perfect, so loving and dependable,
where the snow never fell and the sun never scorched.
he rejoiced at the end of his long journey and rested his wings.
but little he knew the winter was flying behind, as if stalking
with a cruel vindictive look, with a smile saying be happy for the moment
and then like an eagle falling on its prey, fell on the bird, breaking the nest.
and he flew again, crossing another thousand a mile, with broken wings.
was it the winter to be blamed or the ignorance of the bird i wonder!
is there a real nest ever? anywhere? does our journey ever end?

charaiveti charaiveti: keep moving keep moving on

keep moving, keep moving on, came the words from forgotten past,
still we made settlement, made home with bricks and with flesh and blood.
made a nest in that corner of the world and desperately made a room in a heart.
came up with ideas, with styles, with decor and with outfits that made identity
knowing somewhere deep down all are so fragile, crumbling with time and space.
let us be homeless now, without a statement, without a nest, without towering ideas.
let us not grow  roots, drop an anchor or find a resting place in this expanding universe.
keep moving keep moving on came the words from an untouched dark corner of my inside.

journey without start

Death, a word, a natural event that has been in my mind since childhood,

Not as a morbid thought, not always, but as a thought that needs no action.

Is death the end, the beginning or just a point in this long journey of existence?

True it is I know, for sure I feel it cannot be the end of the eternal life that flows,

It cannot be a beginning as I do not know what lies beyond the day we part.

True it is we cease to exist the way we did and no one knows what lies beyond.

No one assures how do we come back and even if we do to this state of being.

Perhaps, in that way death is the end, the end of me the way I existed for all,

The way I lived, loved, hated and was hated by all who will all pass one day.

Beyond that starts a journey that will have no name, face and form that is me.

my caged wounded love

The flower that I lost in the garden is in my heart.

Oh what magic charm gave this spring to my heart!

The dried leaves sing along the music of my heart.

The hardened soul is quenched by the nectar of my heart.

I do not fear pain anymore, separation is my home now.

But still the music in my heart plays on, I wonder why!

A dream for bliss has made a nest in my heart, and I know it’s there.

Let me free my caged love that has been waiting, wounded in my heart.

The flower that I lost in the garden is in my heart. 

my cursed veil

Oh my glorious veil! studded and refined

Bearing the morning stars, my joy and pride.

Flowing down like the arrogant Nile, creating

And flooding ancient lands, giving and taking.

Oh my glorious veil, I love you so dear and bright,

You have become so close that I don’t even remember

When was the last time I took you off, I don’t even know

Anymore how is it to breathe without you or to smile.

Oh my glorious veil! I love you so much that I wish you were

Not there in my life, I wish I could show the broken mind.

I wonder what you cover beneath, a receding hairline may be

Or perhaps a receding wish to fight and to smile for sure.

Oh my glorious veil! Take a leave from me, for god’s sake!

Let me be what I am, let me crumble down and cry.

my identity or lack of it

I want to be like the great lake, calm and still

Never changing its course, ever constant and deep.

Unlike the river that gushes down the mountain,

Breaking rocks in its way, then reaching the planes

Always carrying along the pang of nature with it.

Too much change and too much uncertainty,

I cannot handle it, hence I am the big lake, or so I think.

Is the lake really still though? Never changing and constant?

True that it never broke rocks, never flooded, caused

Pain and bliss, but the water still dries up in summer heat,

The same summer heat that dries the river and the seas,

And then once up in sky, the dried joy and pain melts together

They make love may be or they fight constantly to stay separate.

But one day that dryness melts, the lake and the river and the sea

Pour down on earth and make a new lake at the same spot,

And a new river and a new sea, but who knows whose water they

Hold now? So I ask is the lake really still and constant? Do I still

Want to be a lake knowing the perplexing uncertainty? 

let me leave tonight

If I part tonight, from all the glitters of this world,

What do I leave with? A dis-eased mind and soul,

A discontentment so deep that has made me numb,

A rage so outrageous that has lost its expression,

Or perhaps I leave with a nothingness, still and calm.

If am asked what did I leave this world with, a parting gift,

Does that question make me more fragile, reluctant to core?

I somehow match my math to the universe this time, thank god,

I have taken nothing with me, and I leave with nothing either. 

finding love

What is love I wonder, how is it to feel lost,

And then suddenly find myself in someone.

To make mistakes and then look at your eyes,

 Knowing that you still love me the same.

What is love I wonder, the wisdom of a Yogi perhaps?

Attained through ages of silence and compassion.

Or like the first ray of sun breaking through the clouds

Wonderful things like dew drop dancing on a lotus leaf.

May be like the passion of a Jihadi, fundamentally flawed,

 Full of passion, untamed, unreasonable, unconstrained.

Alas! Alas! I have felt the passion burning my soul day and night,

Have lived the hope day after day, have seen the wisdom grow

But still I am yet to see love, to lose myself only to find in someone.

Home

Home. A word so comforting and cool still so distant.

Like the sensation that we crave in scorching summer.

A simple word, home! What makes it a home I wonder?

Four walls, a ceiling and a floor perhaps, or perhaps the

Beating hearts that ache when I am late and the worried

Eyes that look towards the door often, praying my safety.

A place where I can make mistakes again and again.

I often ask myself, have I ever been home? Has anyone?

Or we just kid ourselves, with walls and warmth that we inherit.

I seek home, not just four walls, a ceiling and a roof.

Not just comforting embraces and loving kind hearts.

I do not know what makes my home, I just know I seek one.

let me be

There is no distraction for me tonight, I wish there will be none to follow.
No chit-chats, no expectations, no promises made and broken and no guilt.
There will be no warmth in my bed, for tonight and for few to follow.
A cold chill will cry day and night, telling me how forsaken I am.
Am I really disused tonight and the nights to follow, I question to myself.
Or was I abandoned every night when I took the warm embrace of a stranger.
There is no distraction tonight, or that’s what I wanted to be true.
But I find myself never been abandoned by my own thought and wit so as to say.
Oh how dearly I wish tonight, when I banished my seek for warmth,
That my own thoughts and words left me for once, once let me rest.
Pouring, gushing and breaking all my bones and my heart, like a violent water fall.
Oh how sweetly I will trade tonight a life of ignorance, of mediocrity with this.