I can settle for a name
Or a word
For poems or for jokes.
I can settle
Today or some years later
A few more marks stretching across my torso
Where will it end?
You tell me a story five times in a year
The endings remain the same
You share your life and take mine away from me.
I can settle for your stories
Or for your mass manufactured emotions
Or for the quiet unsettling way you weaken my woes
Say the right words. At the right time
I would settle for you if you were the right one,
Mine.
A few more drinks, a few more drags
And we will call it
Intoxication
We will call it friendship. I can settle for a friendship
My instincts retracting inside
I can’t settle for you
I step out with a sleeping heart
Dormant. Not a doormat
Smiles may bloom someday. Let’s hope?
Yet it was so simple, so long ago.
What if I touched your shoulder in a mindless space of joy
Can you swim through your past?
Don’t look at me like that
Don’t inhale my skin
Who can tell if it lasts?
Cities scattered, you grow lovelier
The song of the day is to mourn
I could run to you, small leaps, fast
Follow you where you go.
The smoke rings fly away, your eyes are deep
I could cry, I think I might
Words have no meaning. The end or the beginning?
Let’s quieten for a while.
Good, and hungry Underneath my metal bones I'm doing good. Just hungry Care for a cup of tea? A winter wish to weather away A summer urge to burn Leaves of pages I cannot read There's little I understand, you know? I saw a sea of faces Beautiful, beautiful Wide eyed. Narrowed. Scholars and sighs I follow the red bricks and nature's green But now as I close my eyes I want new ways of how. Kaise? Just some words on a wordless day.
I was smiling and I suddenly realised I am my mother's daughter: I share blood in my laughter. No escape from the same way my mouth twisted, smirked and hid itself All in a second or two No escape, and it's beautiful.
A thread of fondness glisten quiet Buried deep inside the muck All so vague, a knowing mistake Out of love. All out of luck. Leaves fall off. My tea shines, cold A final heartbreak No final home Fingers part, a newer start Feelings come unstuck. My eyes uncovered, my heart distilled. Flowers on a feathered field. Alone and pure and what? No strength to praise or blinding days A life of ifs and buts.
A cold smile brews like a spasm Through a love, Static in its undecision. If I could paint a flower, why would I paint it blue? Delhi rides in autorickshaws, and We slice through the winter wind, sharp I keep moving, on from you Only onwards. Only a new day. Only if. A quaint film, a lovely dinner The city paints its scenes I pour out my heart, like wine, They come and take a whiff. Grabbing joy at a picnic green, A ribbon drops from my palm Could I leave myself? My heart? My sighs? The crowd will keep me warm.
I don’t know any of you but You don’t know any of me than a girl who’s spent I don’t know myself Any more Than I can possibly invent. Where should I go? My eyes stretch and crash at the waves The sun shines on a sea of Abstractions We must make meanings, always, he says, And we are under construction, is it? I say Build me a house. Of wood. Or steel It must not break before I die Or, you could be sand and I, the seafoam Together, apart A restless life.
She is not satisfied with the end drop of his sentence His hair connects to the sky She could be beautiful, responding He could have some texture, Anything, really Beyond the black and the white and the ever-so-clichéd Grey. For the words to have life to them They have to speak in a sombre, essential silence Her hair meshes with the ground, look, The birth of another mistake. They were children once Before I reduced them to two characters Here, Right now Their hopes and dreams and resplendent joy I have erased To string a graph of cause and effect But that is the real mistake, is it not? If there’s no truth Then there’s no harm A taste full of tears with a dollop of warmth.
…
It was raining, could you see?
Strained my eyes so hard, man.
Not a drop. My eyelids are heavy and dry
And droopy
I couldn’t see the rain. Maybe it stopped?
There was a breeze by the valley
I wasn’t there but I remember my footprint in its soil
If only I could unravel my heart’s turmoil, you’d know
And if you’d know, you’d tell me
Won’t you?
How to wake up and feel the new smell of a day
How to age
And act like it.
For now I will just sit and stare
My time lying empty and bare, but not free
Oh no, never.
I shift cities and lay still forever
Motionless. Emotionless.
Waiting for nothing,
Nothing gets better.
You see?
Some people are soft. I talk to her and I melt, how can a girl be Cotton candy? I read books and I wonder Like my scant-smile professor asks Do we see words or sentences? Do I see meanings? Someone looked proud of me today So I decided to believe it’s summer after all Not the bad kind with scorching stress The good kind Of childhood, holidays and holiday homework Of evenings in swings and ice-cream nights Some people are soft, you see They are the good kind. Cotton candy and white coconut flesh joy Refreshing. But I will go back Churn myself over to those who will spurn me I talk to them and I sting How can a man be a tempting thorn? Or, like the other girl who’s so brilliant that I cannot trust her eyes I squint and keep still, she throws her skeleton at my arms Flaming thoughts rupture into my skin I wish to win affection from her. And him. Some people aren’t soft. But it’s not so easy You see They are the good kind, too Some souls help me heal Some break me anew.
mimimusing 