Gershom

You lie awake in your scanty room waiting for morning to take away the blues in a city full of strangers. I'm a stranger in a strange land, your heart whispers every now and then. Your thoughts are full of frail arms somehow hold the key to your destiny. Morning and night, you await her voice that tells you that there are worlds in time, just beyond an unopened door.

A sweet tiny face gives music to your solitude and makes you want to run forward in time by a few years. You listen to your friends tell you what to do everyday; for every one of them has a love-story that they tell you with happiness and one that they never talk about. The unspoken one are full of silences and lessons that you can learn from.

For even your heartbeats know that only she can make a difference to your life; like the way she has and you know that she's the soul-mate you'd dreamt about. You wait for the dawn in the hope that this is the day that she will love with the same passion and energy that exists in your heart.

Only another listener, I hope that the dawn of love is nearby when you can tell all your longings and dreams without fear. A few shifts in time and we will all cheer you on the day of bliss, when dressed in red and bedecked in jewels, she will stand next to you smiling, when you will realise how this dream has turned out to be true.

The here and the now

You and I were always like this, spending time together without demanding much from each other, what others think as necessary. I think our priority was togetherness first though we belonged to two different spaces altogether. But when I look back, I am amazed by the thoughts that we shared though we were so distant and by the kind of support that we were to each other.

Nowhere but here that's what I wrote when I thought whether you might be wondering where I was, being away from you. Now, in the present space, when such togetherness is no longer existent or real, I look back with wonder at the beautiful days that we had spent together, weaving dreams out of words.

History

This is the story that I have always wanted to write, the story of you and me, not just the pain of parting and break-up, but the sunshine and laughter and a few moments that remain clear like the bright blue sky above me on this beautiful day, unusual blue that stands out with little wisps of cotton clouds. What all fears did we hold out in the palm of our hands that when we reached and spoke with our hands held together, the fears spoke aloud and we could not stop the hands from finding and fighting the fears by melting into each other but time came and took it all away and our love was not writ in stars, but only in water, our love was written in only in water. Yet the love that hands founds and the body vaguely remembers could not remain in the sudden tides that took us apart. We wave desperate, deaf and blind, on either shore, having burnt boats and with tears, shout to each other, helpless.

Mine

 

If I hadn't met you, I would not have known what it meant to be in love, the meaning of three little words, which you used to say so effortlessly daily when it has taken me ages to even utter those little words.

If I hadn't known you, I would never have understood what true companionship meant, the nights spent all talking, watching movies and fighting like hell.

If I hadn't loved you, I would never have known this sinking feeling that comes when I hear someome criticise you though you are no longer mine to own or to defend.

Memories

Your sky blue shirt with chocolate stains, your cheeks that were smudged daily with my parting kiss, your eyes that lately were filled with a longing beyond words; 

The songs at midnight, how you croon the blues, then in those amazing days the things that you did to please me and made me sing those melodies that make you laugh. 

These eyes that never meet yours scared of what you see in them, afraid of what it knows to be true, too shy to show what it really want to say in words, despite of your pestering. 

May be, it means all the things that you don't want me to say and you don't want to say either because of strange misgivings. 

But when you say those three little words, it's like magic and the world lights up in zero time. 

Life-lessons

You are my other that helped me to grow, to learn more about life and even about my own self. You might be a person, an event or a book that has left an imprint on my soul. 

You are my first love, this entanglement with melodies, the way my soul lifts up in the Hosannah or feels happy with the Magnificat or bursts out in a raga with the rains. 

You are my ever existing dream of weaving together dreams, words and melodies into a book of poetry worthy enough to be engraved in a beautiful script and to be set before your appreciative eyes. 

You could also be my love, the one that never found its way to express itself yet reaches out to you in words, gestures and memories wherever you are. 

You are a lesson, a mistake, may be a chapter that I cannot forget, a memory that I cannot erase despite of all the bitter strife of these years. 

You have taught me how to be, how to love yet not to lose myself and the lessons are not bad as you can see for yourself.

Nostalgia

Endless

You live a life of hope that everything will turn out to be alright while I hold this mixed life with laughter and tears.

Your dreams stand apart like strangers who wait to be introduced while I plod on weary with the little that I have.

But some days when I really make an attempt to listen, I realise that you and I are not that different at all, only two names for the same endless quest for fulfilment.

Home

You have always held me back;  with your words, your written and unwritten rules, your opinions on everything, teaching me to lose again and again rather than win.

You have never given me breathing space; instead choked whatever breath I let out, holding me by the neck so much that in your absence, my words were like a fountain.

On days, when you are away, your voice enquire in subtle tones whether I have missed you day or night; and I answer that I have found my sacred space again.

Even the walls don’t hold me back any longer; the sunrises and sunsets looked splendid in the vantage point that I had, of being a demigod in my solitude.

But these days are past now; it’s again time to relearn your rules, your language and your way of thinking; do nothing except what you say; it’s time to go home.

Calculations

For you and me, the numbers are important. We spent most of our days counting and performing the basic acts of arithmetic. Neither your joy nor your sorrows reach me except as vague waves of depression that may be carried into the next age as well.

It has happened more than a single time that the numbers showed how between the cup and the lip, a victory was lost and a dream was crushed into nothingness.

This mad heart still loves to make vague calculations that makes it easy to swallow the hurt and the pain of the past and the present that never lets it be. This dream might appear after a century or never but the days are full of expectations and the nights full of longing.

Whatever time may bring, the days are spent in tying a few words together that appear without embellishments but form a perfect crown of flowers for my king. These are seen by many as calculations meant to trap or attract but this heart knows well that they are calculations to write away a foolish love.

Historian

You are a historian because you studied events to make sense of your uneventful life. You lost your father in the travails of war and throughout your life, you searched for the codes and nodes that could offer you a clue as to what you had lost with his death.  You marked the places and went from one end of the earth to the other just to see what your father’s eyes had seen and felt. Now, when you hardly recognise faces or reality, you are a child of three score who searches for meaning out of a lost father’s found letters. 

Apology

Who am I to give you dreams and then spread snow all over them? No one would do that if they are in their right senses. But sometimes, when nothing remains sacred anymore, there is a sense that comes with breaking rules and running away from multitudes.

Now, the words themselves have lost meaning I guess from the time I last uttered them; totally meaningless chatter full of nervous laughter that doesn’t make much sense. May be the Gods are cruel because I am cruel to you; or may be they are not.

Only time is judge as to the torture that I inflict on you by giving dreams one day and spreading it with snow the next day. Words don’t mean much do they, but let me say that I am sorry for all this mess that I make everyday! 

Adorable

You are my reason to smile when all around life has become weary and tired. You worship me like a goddess counting each and every one of my steps on the ground while I rush past through the hustle and bustle of life. But in the toughest of these times, I hold your love like a talisman close to my heart; looking at your innocent ways to make me feel special, loved and cherished. 

Stories

In a way, each story has the same kernel in it- our dreams, hopes and longing all lost and found again- the fire and the smiles and the hopes that love kindles and brings joy.

The stories that we write are not what really happened or events that could really happen. These come from an imagination that loves to wander and see what would have happened if!

Sometimes, it is sunshine and laughter outside; depends on the state of this mercurial soul. The reality looms large taking everything away and sometimes giving blessings unasked for.

Your stories reveal the joy of finding happiness in new things, which are in fact, new ways to name the old likes and loves while I harp on change and about moving on but have stayed in the same year where I stopped learning.

The fire still burns in these kernel stories of love, longing and loss and we have become like straight lines that run along throughout the many lives. 

Mistakes

You are my other; the one who helped me learn about life and my own self. You might have changed shapes, names and faces but you have left an imprint on my soul.

You called me sister and played with me beside the River Green. Then with the passage of time, you became a stranger who loves new faces and new sisters.

You called me love and entangled me in your passions and broke my heart with the ease of throwing away a used paper cup into the dustbin.

You called me mermaid and lured me into a whirlpool of words; only to show how good you were at playing around with words.

You are a lesson, a mistake, may be a chapter that I cannot forget, a face I cannot forget in spite of the years, in spite of all the bitterness and happiness that has filled this soul.

You have taught me how to live, how to be and how to love; the lessons are not bad as you can see for yourself. 

Shadows

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Your words dance across the pages,

They swirl and twirl and laugh.

Mine are like bits of coal before them,

I hide them away in embarrasment.

When I miss you, I seek their laughter,

Your lightness and your fooling around.

Then I remember that though like coal,

You hold them close to your face.

How else can I put a finger on my joy,

That comes to me during saddest hours.

How else can give a reason for your face,

Dark and long for so many dreadful days,

The dark shadows are still on your face,

Though it's been a long long long time.

Expression

  FIVE years have past; five summers, with the length
  Of five long winters! William Wordsworth 

A mere string of words
A string of musical notes
All come from the soul,
Of an artistic mind.

A harmony that creates
When from all around
Noises scream at you
Real and imaginary.

A monumental silence
Eclipses everything else,
Unspoken unuttered
Unlived unspent.

Five years have gone,
Since I lost my words.

Perfect

Someday, I want to write the perfect words for what I have in mind. Perfect words written to evoke the perfect feeling. The best of all phrases, wrapped together with the right mix of spices, none too much, just right, none too serious nor too trivial, just mixed like life.

Someday, I would like to gather all my gains and losses, inheritance of words as well as silences and create new music out of them, blending words of joy and love and pain and everything into a perfect little potpourri just like life.But such a perfect day, when perfect thoughts melt into perfect words is yet to be. 

Sunshine

You advise me to write about my life and the things I have known closely and clearly; beings that I have cared about the most; so that you can read into my person and know the workings of my mind, which changes from transparent to translucent to opaque all the time. All you want to do is to know me inside out.

But when I think upon writing about my life, a rein of reticence falls on my hand. It pauses suddenly. It thinks twice before going into details- about writing out its venomous accusations and repressed memories of loss and longing. It hates to point fingers at the usual figures of contradiction who inspire mixed feelings of love, hate, fear and freedom.

Is there truth or only versions of it-yours, mine, theirs- that have become too vague to be recalled with accuracy. So, this heart dislikes to break its own shell of peace and refuses to indulge in resurrecting skeletons in the cupboard, that too in these days of love and sunshine.

Love

How do years pass so fast? Still we are bound by the same mind that once felt too small in a large world. Humbled by our own insignificance, we lived by retreating into our own well-crafted shells. Until we met the deaf, the mute and the blind, who were all made senseless by their exaggerated sense of self-importance.

For who can feel free or breathe in the presence of the those who are made senseless by the power and the glory of their past, which they claim is brighter than what they had really known. Whatever that be, when words do come, they all carry within them a tinge of bitter loneliness.

Peace and silence are hard-earned lessons; so is a smile or a cheering word. Still, I count my blessings in these days of silence and understand that this too will pass, like all the other days before it. Moreover, you are a newly found joy; one who loves without asking anything in return, whose heart is filled with longing and love and one who awaits my words with eagerness.

Love begets love; so the wise sages have said. So wait for these days of madness be over and I can come back to you for more pleasant days of togetherness.