It did not happen because I worried too much about it.
It happened because I did;
Somehow it also happened
When I was wrapped in the blanket sea of thoughts
Completely unrelated to the pressing needs of the hour.
My friend said it happened
Because he thought about the tic tac toe of it all
Another said she made a polygon
Out of her worries
And a diamond carved itself out.
For me it did not happen tonight, or maybe this year,
Because it won't
Simply because.
It was beautiful tonight,
My friends weren't here and that's something
I can forgive myself for.
What else? I speak another tongue now
Again
Like before,
Sometimes the only thing that is unearthed
Is a fistful of smoke
Passed around through hollow faces
The only thing shared
Like a compromise.
I don't know how old I am
How serious or juvenile
The moon looks the same to me,
Maybe glossier on some days than the rest.
I love that I don't have to explain myself
To you
Or to the ones I wrote to
When I was young and stupid and bored
I love that I get little time to pour over my lack
Sprinting and scurrying about
Like the overchild that I am.
Trust me,
I do laugh and wail and wet my sorrows
To gulp them down
Or look blankly,
Like an old woman who doesn't get the joke
And doesn't care
When they make fun of things that aren't funny.
I berate myself, I am not radical enough
My days are spent hiding my soft teeth
You can't wring me out of my burrow
Not today,
Perhaps never.
I will light a cigarette tonight,
Smoke it alone, and unusually;
It is going to be a long night
Hiding and hibernating
My breaths will be my only friends
For now.
Before I go back to sleep
I have so much to write.
Yell
Spit
And cry.
If I weren't so sick of myself,
Would I crave sunnier days?
Wait for golden brown pages to read,
Sit on the balcony on a lovely afternoon
Noticing the sun set and
A lone cobbler walking down the road,
Like in a Rituparno film.
Will you get me back to who I was?
I miss my mother's scent.
Primordial needs,
The city is too fast and the work is never ending
I always have too much to yell and cry
So I write.
Maybe I want to read something familiar now.
Bask in an old sadness,
Or less than that
Anything which floats but is deeper than
What I see daily, now.
My life is curdling into wrinkles
So much new, so little substance
Will the gods remember to make me fulfilled?
I will read tonight, even if it's only a poem
Or two.
Return me to the smouldering aroma
Burn me afresh
Wrap me into my soft, mellow life.
Would you film the filth in my breath?
I have spoken
Now the fire is unleashed,
Smoke hanging on your lips like those annoying flies
We're cocooned too deep, too long.
In another January you won't remember
To call me or remember the meds I need to take
Tonight you gladly suffer my verbs and nouns
Whatever expletives I throw up
You let me rant and enjoy my day.
I let you let me do anything
We're trapped, happily,
It's only for a moment or two
Every other year I will remember you less
You too, I hope.
This evening we are what we had pictured
In another evening like now;
The cars rush by and the smoke and the tinkling
I am not unhappy with myself
The moon shines quite bright
Even in a place like ours.
Maybe the sky is the same everywhere
But it isn't.
I will not spend any breaths discussing
Delhi's AQI or the stale humidity of your room
The sky is, I will tell you,
The same:
You are not looking at it with me.
I watched a few films last night
You would've cried
I didn't
The films are the same all the time
You aren't watching any with me, are you?
Today I want to wear red lipstick
The kind that doesn't suit my skin
To go out with a man of science who worships nothing
But me.
I know my limitations
Daydreams, they call them
Maladaptive
I am adapting well enough, why, thank you
Can't a woman dream?
What else is there in life? Dream big and small,
My sisters,
Shake out every bit of happiness that you can get.
No one is going to give it to us,
Sad, sad world with a just enough time to dream.
Last night I dreamt of being in a completely different city
An entirely different girl
I was happy. Excited, nervous, reveling with friends
Waking up I saw my calendar and went back to sleep.
I'm still thinking of wearing some red lipstick
With or without a man in my arms
Only to wipe it off and shower away my dreams.
If it's because I have never been in love
There is nothing else to write, perhaps, I am right
Or that's what I thought.
My friend, however, tells me
My friend, who is young and old enough to have felt the pangs
And their dull reverberations
During lonely cigarette breaks
My friend who I will cherish for life, tells me
A heartbreak is a heartbreak,
Small or big, love or not.
I look around, I don't meet any eyes.
I remember you, and you too, and perhaps you, once,
For a second,
When everyone is dancing and the buzz swirls in their cups
I look away to find the source of my empty arms.
Of men I don't think about and women who I aspire to be
I will not write tonight
Tonight is for me,
My cold hands, silent nods, terrible, terrible
Terrible lack of a language
My smooth sorrow chugged down my throat with every beat.
By the time you think of a name,
Roses will rise and lower in a cathartic gloom
Would you know? What you had wanted?
How you throned yourself in an empty room?
I am traveling tonight
Womanly and sharp gutted
Accurate and solemn
I could tell you about the storm, but you are a child
Soft and quick, eagerly elbowing all that comes
In your way
I could tell you about the storm or shield you.
Would you dare throw me under the rug?
The clock is running like she will miss her man
I am daydreaming
Again.
