My aloneness is an island Walls so high that a tsunami can't break it down My aloneness is naked I keep trying to clothe myself in strangers' words But my skeletoned yearning is exposed and loud It's battering my brain I am back this time again My aloneness is punching me to a pulp I have no memories to eat I am hungry and in need I think I'm going to throw up.
I don't need to touch you To feel your golden glow I don't need to kiss your lips To drown in a warm rain Being with you is all I ask for When the summer sun hits your face You battle the oppressive heat With warmth that is kind My anger at myself subsides When I look into your sky wide eyes I am no longer scathing hot No longer irate at myself Hotness burns but you melt me You soften me into a lover And I become forever yours Forever warm And never sore.
I'm stretching my smile to cover my face I'm blinking too, to punctuate your gaze I'm learning to stay and not say no Because I've learnt that I can't go Not when death is alive and cold Uninvited guest at our doors I will stay and learn your steps You will stay and hold my waist Us against the world, so naive; We kiss and love and stay alive.
How many arms did I touch And flinched away Before the blink of an eye? How many words did I miss To mouth into a phrase To greet a passer-by? How many smiles did I keep Chained into coldness Instead of laughing wide? And more importantly, Why? Why is it that I look back now Recalling names who could've been friends Heaping on sighs as the hours go by, Why is it that I know I'll drown Making the same mistakes again and again Knowing I'll never be able to try Am I dooming myself to loneliness? I wonder what's the worse case- Feeling lonely in a crowd Or lonely enough by oneself?
“Take off my glasses
My eyes will hold your gaze
We both know it’s been ages
But it’s not about the days
That are gone; it’s only about you,
About us, and your shy confidence,
My bewilderment at your beauty,
My love for you, which had no ends
But which carried on in sorrow –
I have loved you still, as I did
Yesterday, and will, tomorrow.”
Once I thought I’d tell you this
(Years later, when we meet again)
When I’d known you’d never be mine
And wrote these verses in my pain.
Do you remember me, as I remember you?
However, I won’t pretend, I know it’s not true-
I remember only what I thought you were,
My infatuating dream,
The boy with sharp eyes and untidy hair-
You were more than him.
You had your flaws and a snobbish air
But of course I didn’t care
You talked to me once and I flew high
I never even questioned why-
You were the supreme,
You were my dream.
I know you’re not the dream I built
You’re just some pretty guy who’s smart
But what you made me feel sometime
Is what told me I had a heart.
I wink at my own God
I tell her it’s a secret between us
That no one should know
Wherever I go
I’m a cool atheist, a staunch one
I “agree to disagree”
With silky smiles reflecting politeness
I’m against the riot of religions
And the proofless existence of
Divinity one worships
Wherever I come from
I’m a defiant daughter
Disagreeing with my family
Trying to laugh away my father’s anger
My mother’s sullen look
They think I’m naive now,
One day I’ll understand
One day, I’ll conform
And when I’m home within myself
On a day when I’m battered
By everything that can go wrong
I laugh at my God
Tell her it’s a lie
“Save me but I don’t believe you exist”
What is God, except
The last trick up my sleeve?
How do I furtively rely
On something I don’t believe?
When I turn my words into theirs
You’ll see that I’ve been heard
My fingers tracing the skeletons of books
Sunsets resting on my earlobes
Water streaming down my sloppy hair
It will all come back
When I’ll play around in their tongues
For you see, I will make myself a book
For everyone to read
You cannot escape me then
Can you shut your eyes and say
You’ve never heard of that story?
I will dance with your thoughts
Shedding skin in their tracks
A miniature version of torture
That you’re inflicting on me now
I’ll be out of print someday
And you’ll be the one
Madly looking for my manuscript
To finally collect my soul
You’ll make my words your own
You will come home.
Paint a pair of eyes on me
So I can look at the world and not fall apart
Dilute the blood of a rose
Sprinkle it on the glasses I wear
Make some goals for me
Add a spoonful of meaning
Yes, I’m asking a lot
But I want to be hopeful even when I’m not.
What makes me happy
Is what makes me sad
But what I regret are the feelings I never had
Am I just following my peers?
But I am still here
The road is too long and everyone’s ahead
Who will I be when I am but blank
Eyes emptied into screens
Memories of sand
I am not even
A palimpsest.
A charcoaled page,
Gone to waste?
I exist for the moment
But my back aches with history
They have twisted my tongue into a rope
I’m choking on their words
I’ve coloured myself fully red in their lashing
But they’ve set me free
Oh it’s another postcolonial vomit
Each word I speak
Is a slap of my own doing
I am dragging myself
To reach the primeval forests
Through the mud of patriarchal torture
I take every line of art
To operation theatres
And I dissect it
Until I shred myself to pieces
How do I escape the injustices
Forgive the centuries of their bloody horrors
My back aches with history
I am black and blue
And red
I am spent
Trying to live
A clean Present.
The streets are empty and the sunny bricks of red call me home
I find myself in a saree
Rabindrasangeet playing on a loudspeaker
Bhalobeshe shokhi nibhrito jotone
Amar naam ti likho
Tomar monero mondire.
“Write my name with tender love
In the secret chambers
Of your heart, my friend.”
But the city is empty
Who do I call my own?
I rummage through the sheaves of paper in my hand
There are so many letters
No one to give them to.
I scatter them as I go
And I write a poem on the envelopes
Each telling them I’m sorry
I could not exist in my role.
The singing voice stops
The street is empty of sound too
The letters are but scraps of paper
Words melted into dust.
I empty myself in the deserted street
The standstill hour of the sunny day
Reduced to one long moment
I cry without tears.
The city is still picture perfect
Beautiful in its sepia ruins
I close my eyes for a moment
Rest at somebody’s doorstep.
After a long moment again
I open the envelop of skin
Renewing my vision
The night has creeped in
And it’s still a deserted city
I see shadows in each corner
Nostalgia of the souls who left
I try to communicate but they are gone.
I vaguely remember for a moment that
I’ll come back again here tomorrow;
Before I can be certain,
The sun rises
I return with a stack of letters
A ear for music
A soul of yearning
And I come home.
