If my skin was not so dry Your touch would possibly never flake away Dandruff-like, settling on the floor with dust Stepped on like memories that promised once to matter. I could have made you into a small pillow Carried under my arm and protected with all my might We would sleep against a mango tree My fingers curling around your hair Or the other way round In the sweetness of a hot Delhi afternoon I would have nibbled into your palm To remember you like a treat. If you asked, I would make a sculpture out of your arm That reaches around my shoulder Your narrow back and the ebb and flow Of tidal hair gurgling in a voice that only suits youth I would remember you in the shape of a fairy. If you needed to know, I would spell out The beauty of your poetry that slips out of your dark vignette How I hate your brilliance, blinded by your shadow How I nurture your follies and relish in your love. I could also write, if you insisted, on the sunlight of your dreams Of visions as clear as a freshwater lake On your blotless reason and selfless stretch of a heart. If you wondered about yourself I would teach you, my friend, You are so unmistakably yourself That I am pushed towards some envy And a whole lot of pride. But I am a small woman, with a smaller heart Rough patches of fabric on taut, hollow bones A blowed up box of pleasantries and Nothing inside. I would like to remember you Like the purr of a cat against my hesitant chest So that when the world ends in a nondescript accident Or in a celebrated glory Or whatever I remember the pleasure of a welcome guest.
An old quarrel, a misfit love and a heartbreak
A child’s heart snaps like a chalk
It bleeds uncomfortably
Haven’t you heard it screeching on a blackboard?
I wish I’d shouted at you, but I didn’t
We ended
Neither on good terms nor bad
Just like a bird speeds towards its death
On a crystal clear pane.
Sometimes I use you like a compass
Not the kind that leads a lost sailor to his land
The kind you can prick into a soft flesh
In a sadistic drive you train yourself to feel.
I can move past you
Medical opinion forbids picking at old wounds
I should move past you to make room for more
Yet I need you, my original sin
Without your touch my pen wouldn’t bleed
I wouldn’t know how a child’s hand
Drops forever, limp,
In a school courtyard where everyone is blissful and stupid
Not marred with the agony of loneliness
Yet.
Before we settled for a lie, He was curious. What made me unique? I could make him laugh in monosyllabic grunts He could make me less alone, Wanted, chased after, like the pathetic excuse of a bitch I was, I am, and I will be And don't fool yourself thinking you could never be me I was used to explaining my jokes But he made me explain my poem I am not sorry it wasn't about him, if I'm honest. To sound like a villain is not a crime But he meant nothing to me. Why would I lie? His voice was deep but his words were shallow His decision that I was smart (Unlike other girls) Was as funny as it could get. How else could I be unique? It was sad, but wasn't it funny? Yet I feel a bitterness turning inside me It is getting Outside the script Oh shit it's getting heavy.
The candle is burning out I've been spread like ash long ago This is not about that Don't worry I'll have a lifetime to mourn myself. The green of the trees slip some sun through them My friends shine so bright Each different like pebbles sifted from sand Round, sharp, smooth, whichever way you like My friends are here And will be till I forget what Time is supposed to say. There is no candle, there will be no darkness I will tell myself this. I will tell myself I will be this embraced This myself Forever But the candle is burning and the sun slipped through the leaves Because they're waving me goodbye A city's open arms and a home's enormous heart If I speak I will reduce it and end up slicing it all into puns This life happened (the past tense a stab) Like no other life could This love happened, for once.
I don't always understand poems The enjambment tugging at my shirt too often, Or words too fat for my Indian teeth. Sometimes it's the pure unavailability of simple things Like the weather of snow and my Kolkata sweat Nothing alike. But it shouldn't matter Should it? I almost never understand myself How it gives up on imagination The very moments I need it, How else can I cry to that song? I keep writing about how I don't know how to read An unkind man would perhaps call me out Throw my circular logic at my face Push me to shout and accept my lack. I don't always understand poems And I almost never understand myself And if you ever ask me to explain the ones I write It would be like explaining a joke, Only a thousand times worse, Imagine period cramps that last all year, Imagine something else if you don't get them. Poetry, jokes, goals in life, I have to imagine something else if I don't get them But my brain (for I have no heart) gives up too soon I'll just keep writing about it, I guess, Or imagine something else to do.
I churn my blood like foam in a bucket Bubbles kiss the air and plop to their deaths, What a beautiful, terrific sound. If my limbs weren't torn I would travel so far, You cannot imagine, my love. I would not run to you, No. I dare not. I am slippery like soap I churn out foam, you could mistake it for venom You could mistake it for love I do not know what it is, I will admit. I will travel far, in hopes of finding myself out Before you can I need my blood to flow inside me and buzz in my ears I need my blood still and quiet Rid of bubbles Rid of the unfortunate unkempt ephemerality. If you don't understand me, Don't fret, Who ever has? Neither have I. My limbs are torn and all my blood splashed out and foaming freely One day I will tame it And the red moon will rise like my protective mother. You will taste the blood, I will pour it out for you to drink it, Endless.
Half of a night, a beautiful song kissing me to sleep A body is always making itself present Pain, a fundamental truth. Incompletion, an unfortunate calamity, Hearts sewed with a sloppy thread Detached too quickly. Cannot live with or without it, I know, It's a relishing moment when I feel like a woman A wonderful and horrifying creation, Living. My thoughts, feelings, words, all made up And dismissed By none other than myself Yet I am proud I exist in a way that has made me so happy Sometimes. The song drains my soul of all the clouds tonight I will crucially close my eyes to all that hurts me I am happy, I am Sometimes, sometimes. Alive.
I know a man who wants to be Reasonably happy. I pride myself in knowing nothing else But that There is no such happiness. He reasoned with me, his words washed into my eyes And hardened into salt. The loneliness of reason, doesn't he know? You throw your fingers out in the dark Trees shake and crumble There is no free will We try. I tell him, I try to, But my lips don't make a sound.
Leaving friends
I need to write a letter and burn it In hopes that the ashes will reach Every corner Perhaps a speck in the tea you drink Or the spice on a midnight piece of chip. I do not care about hygiene any longer I have been unhinged in your care, All of you, Who have pricked into my skin and left their scent inside Should know the weight of the grief On my feeble veins. Closing my eyes I would travel to a place I loved to complain about The first two words more crucial than I'd thought And now that its life is fissioning out To the corners of the country The place will cease to exist. I will write a letter and burn it My grief a precipitate of that reaction My tears, catalysts And I will burn too With a longing that will never die or live again.
Mid-sprint
I watched her words unfold I built my world around them, I tried, but Her hair jingled in a way I could only envy And I would pay to remember the sound. I got distracted, And I swam ashore to someone else Whose hair was cut short and firm Who did not know how to Go any deeper than the seafoam. What a waste, what a waste, All giggles and no tears Makes us madmen, don't you know? I flew far away, I had to. Now my mirror is shining black and only I can hold my gaze What a twisted way to confess The sad fate of Narcissus. I still get distracted, I'm looking for punctures If I escape through, will you be waiting? With my heart inside my palm dripping blood I can show you a life of running.
