I licked the ink-pot For leftover words— Words whose foeticide haunts me Like laughter At the end of my eulogy
I succumb to the watered down version of myself They watch me— As I haunt fireflies under streetlights: Like a modern mosque, Some cannibalised church A trapped temple Random discourse A faint idea Keeling over the volume of vomit Ready to be regurgitated Like a scripture Of my life
The moon pools like piss Around my ankles As I weep Watching my nightmares Walk the night Whilst I fade— From sky’s painted blue to horizon’s scratched red When I follow The pole star of no path Like a wish Yearning to be granted A Yggdrasil, dying to be planted And then Left alone To be inert At birth
Standing somewhere I apologised to the air- It isn’t fair, I said Half grateful, part afraid Of being proven wrong in my regret— The closest thing to a closeted fate And it’s easier to evaporate In the space between My neck and my pillow And became the indivisible That incalculable afterthought Which succumbs Ever so wilfully To dream’s dying desires- Like a wound Unwilling to heal And able to feel The hurt, all the pain, Driving the flesh slowly insane Inch by inch Till all that remains of one Is a red hand Reaching for the heart
I let my mind unravel Like a knotted string That never went through The eye of the needle My theory for this is that sometimes The affliction comes from affection- Affection for the effects of the affliction As if the race between the tortoise and the hare Was won by the tortoise While never being there At the finish line
And there is much I need to ask From myself before that, But the catapult of questions Can only aim so far So I vie for the fruits Hanging on the lower branches Sweet residues, softer shadows Of a grand world Made of crystals and confetti Confessions and curiosities A woollen world Of shapeless horizons And mirror-tinted sea Made of mythical people For whom the world comes from ‘Me’
I wish to cover the world under the blanket And tell the ghost story Of how it all ended At the very beginning
We are sitting in a sun-blown café in the far corner, alone, at 6 in the morning.
You are wearing your blue jeans and my t-shirt— washed out, white, far too large— fitting you perfectly.
The waitress is dusting the tables, pulling up the chairs, shaking the table salt containers, piling up tissue paper.
I watch as the dust motes play in the breeze by the window—behind your hair. They glow auburn—your hair, not the dust motes.
I was wrong to ask for open hair. It looks lovelier now, tied in a loose bun, with wayward strands falling and cupping the contours of your face.
I watch in silence as the cups of coffee are laid, watch as the steam rises and veils your face— You wink. I smile. You sip. I smile again.
You ask something. I nod, far too captivated by the rings on your hand— the black from me, and the blue from your mother.
They rest on your skin, absorbing your essence, your touch, the warmth I long for— something more than black coffee.
The conversation begins, and I try to keep up as words cling to your pink lips and memories roll down from the tip of your tongue.
Your eyes dance, the brown in them melting under the sunlight. I wonder what you see— how deep, how far? Can you see my soul, that I wear so close to my skin, almost like a second shadow when you are around? Can you feel my heart beating, painfully, avidly, as it grasps the reason for its existence— sitting two feet across, legs crossed, feet dangling, covered in white socks and tan boots…
Maybe yes, maybe no— but I long to know.
The breakfast comes: omelette, jam, butter, and bread. You look at me and ask… “Was it something I said?”
If one were to wipe me from your memory, you would still be you, and I would still be me walking the same paths, crossing the same crossroads, eyes on the sun, hearts aflutter, searching for a glimpse: one for the brown hand, and one for the white, one for the long days, and one for the night.
I wish I could close the world, draw each corner of it unto me like a blanket, like falling asleep at the center of petals and let the silence mould me into something beautiful, something lost, something forgotten, so that when I am found in the middle of nowhere, a child unable to understand the depths of the finger he holds to walk I am appreciated, welcomed home, and not left like a wrapper on the road.
I feel the feathers in my bones, and eddies in my soul, as my mind flows passing through life, through gentle retributions, via murmured aspirations like wave after wave, conquering and crashing, a second of victory, only to dissolve, and dance on the auburn sand between time’s pink toes, walking on eternity’s shore, barefoot.
Half the time, I just exist—like husks of wheat. I move along with the wind, without a thought, a care, or ambition. I do what I have been told. I pray, I preach, I learn, and I teach. I exist for the benefit of others, like a common condiment.
The thing is—I could be much more. Much, much more. Like saffron or vanilla.
But there is a sadness inside me that pulls me close, a sadness that makes melancholia look adorable—romantic in ways that rejoices my being. I wonder if there are pieces of plastic latched to my soul, making me incomplete.
Outside my window, the rain speaks. I hear the conversation between the trees, the pathway, the creaking seesaw, the blades of grass, and the drowning ants.
Should I, too, put in a word about my world?About how I have surrendered to my surroundings? How my ego has mounted a paper boat and is now heading towards the eternal eddies of societal suicide?
There is a knock.
The floor feels soft without my slippers. Numb feet makes quite a carpet. The latch has brown patches on it—rust, spread out like a map of Europe.
I remember first hearing about Turkish Delight in Narnia—how the girl opens the door of a cupboard and is transported to a land of enchantment. Well, mine takes me face-to-face with a plethora of files: red, blue, and green.
I wish I were colourblind.
But that thought is for another time. Presently, I am enamoured with my own incompetence. The door closes and the stench of garbage wafts in, with a peculiar rhythm to it—an echoing arrhythmia. It takes me four rapid blinks to come to terms with the fact that it is indeed my heart, fluttering like a stapled butterfly.
God is muted silence. For silence can be heard. But God? He cannot be. He has left the pastures to the wolves, and the forests to the sheep.
Rejoice, children! (I dared to laugh)
Is this not what every heart desires in the end? To change? To be something other than what one is born with?
Yes—the first act of violence that any man commits is against himself.
First, he desires to shed. Next, he desires to show. And finally, he desires to be sold.
We are slaves, one and all—slaves to life and love, to vision and division, to season and decision, to thought, to carelessness, to songs, to books, to faces, to sex, to laughter, to text, to limelight, to corners, to whiskey, to cigarettes, to auguries, to cabarets, to sugar, to fantasies, to all things other than reality—
