I make fun of his love
And his cheesy 2 a.m. poetry
He's chased her for six long years
And it doesn't make any sense to me
I say, I might be dead in six years
How did your love not die?
He says, he needed the six years
To be able to survive his life
That she reminded him of soft sunsets:
I reminded him, she was cold
He insists on her rosy pictures.
Oh, love and its blindfolds...
I laugh but he knows I'm crying
How does it feel to be loved? I ask
I wish I'd caused six moments of longing
At least six seconds, perhaps
I remember those who said they liked me
After six minutes of mindless chats
I remember being amused and flattered
But never moved by any of that
I never felt connected, I tell him
He asks me if I felt stuck
Yes, I didn't feel loved, I say,
In any case, not loved enough
I suppose it's just me, I finally say,
But I think it's too soon to conclude
He says he'll chase money now
Chasing love is of no use
We bond over our lovesick hearts
Our fragile little friendship starts
As we wait six years, both of us
To woo or to be wooed.
You spoke to me and I listened
When I spoke, you smiled
I teased you so you'd blush
And it wasn't a lie
I really did laugh at your sorry attempts at jokes
But I could never call you my jaan
Because loving to talk to you
Isn't the same as love
But you refused to be my dost
And we're forever undone:
Neither my friend nor my love,
I wonder what we have become.
He was singing with sleep in his mouth
My head was full of waking dreams
Our arms melted into skin in love
My sleeplessness was soothed by it
I asked him who he was
He said he has always been,
Sometimes the drop of yellow paint
On the dusky city sky
Sometimes a bubble of nostalgia
Of familiar roads I pass by
Sometimes nothing more
Than a ray of hope
That there will be another day
Or maybe a poem I wrote
Thinking about things adore
Or complaining about those I hate
He sang to me until I fell asleep
Blessed me with dreams to dream
I don't know who he is or will be
I know he will give me wings
It was the year when millions died And a girl woke out of love It was when shells were broken Souls roamed free Bodies stuck to their cages For what seemed like ages
People online played board games A man broke his back Scratching miles on earth To and fro, a migrant and a labourer Nothing more nor less Perhaps a little less human
Sunrise dripped out of the sky The youth shed tears Mourning its days of freedom Hearts beat as fast as Fingers typed on screens Reality had shifted its venue
And the old, they died And I remembered the saying Death is the death of the fear of death But death is real as real can get. It was the year we all broke anew It was the year I fell for you.
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.
Wear a brown shirt for me
I'll find a white flower for you
With petals broad enough for me to scribble
"I love you"
In black ink
Or maybe with some kohl.
Will you let me put some under your eyes?
Put the flower in your chest pocket
You've always loved lilies, I know,
And flash a smile at me
So that I can call you my
Textbook of love.
Remember that tattered book
With brown cover
Short stories and poems inside
English Reader Class IX?
No, I didn't know you then.
I didn't know what love was
But I knew what it might be.
Early butterflies in my belly
For a boy I sat beside
And this one poem in that one brown book.
"If thou must love me, let it be for nought
Except for love's sake only."
Now you, you, yes, you
My book of poetry,
My song of love,
I love you for love's sake only.
You are the textbook definition
And I can read between your lines
This book can have a miserable ending
It can break my heart into bloody shreds
But I'll read it again and again
My brown textbook man
Look at me with your smudgy kohl eyes
Consume me in your gaze
Devour me in your lines
While the music keeps playing
And the evening is bashful
I want to be a verse in your pages
While the fan whirls in this room
And the curtains bathe in dusky gold
I want to curl up inside your stanzas
We'll stay as one until words fall apart
Until it's too dark to read
Until the end of poetry.
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?
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
mimimusing 