lucy in the sky

“I saw you.”

“I… it’s not like I was avoiding you anyway.”

“Why would you avoid me?”

I am told I have a throaty voice, but then I heard Bugs Bunny and he talks (he doesn’t talk of course, he was voiced by a man called Mel Blanc until he died in 1989) a mix of ‘Brooklyn’ and ‘the Bronx’ which are dialects that people speak in New York. Then I decided to call my voice as ‘Brooklyn and the Bronx without the accent’ though I know that is incorrect, because I know that people are allowed to do incorrect things sometimes, like lying or cheating or leaving other people. But it’s only as long as it’s once in a while.

“So…”, she scratched her nose and shifted on her seat. “I see you have changed.”

“Yes”, I said. “I took to wearing shirts and I go without a belt because I get rashes around my hips. But then my pants slide down and the elastic on my underwear shows and I let my shirt out because I don’t like my underwear being seen.”

She laughed. I like how she looks when she laughs, her eyes reduce to creases but her pupils show, magnified by drops of tears. But I don’t like her laughing because I don’t like people laughing, because laughter to me is always one sided. And then she took a cigarette, clicked her lighter two times because it failed to light up at the first and she lit her cigarette with it. She took a puff on it and turned away to blow the smoke out. And then she looked at me.

“Heck”, she said. “I almost forgot…” and she made to throw the cigarette away.

“It’s alright, I don’t mind.”

And that was a white lie because I do mind smoking in real, but I didn’t mind other people doing it because I know it’s part of their system and that my repulsion would only be the same as that of a vegetarian towards someone like me who eats meat and feels good about it because it tastes good.

She looked at me for a half a minute, cigarette still in her hand – the longest she did in the twelve I’ve been with her. And then she smiled, and I smiled too and it didn’t bother me much. I like smiles.

“Did you know that it takes 8 minutes and 19 seconds for light from the sun to reach the earth?”

“Jo”, she said, her smile subsiding. “Do you still think I care about those things?”

“I know you don’t”, I said. “You’ve told me that twice – three times if you count this one too.”

“Do you want me to leave?”

I looked up at the sky because I didn’t want to look at her face because she looked angry. And I know that skies are more interesting to look at because there are things happening as you see them, like stars dying out or new stars being created, only that you can’t see those. And I didn’t answer her question.

“Scientists say that the Sun would die in 15 Billion years”, I said. “And before that it would swell and engulf the earth or boil its water away. And that means the earth would die before the Sun and that the world would go a lot before it. And that means there is no forever.”

She leaned forward and rocked on her seat repetitively and then she placed her face on her fist and looked what people call as ‘distant’. And then she spread her fingers out to cover her face and she shook for a while, like when someone laughs or shivers in the cold. And then she stopped shaking and looked up at me and her face was wet with tears and dirty with marks from her eyeliner. And then she looked away and looked down and asked me if she could leave. And I told her I had to go too.

“Oh…”, she said pointedly, past a sniffle and a check on her handbag. “Who is it this time? Andromeda?” she threw her bag over her shoulder. “Or Bellatrix?”

“No”, I said. “It’s Lucy.”

the Duet

Here's something that 'was' - the piece of me I'm done with anyway. Part of 'the Patricide' (draft One) and probably better than what I subsequently came up with, but incoherent. And I guessed it's better to make sense than to try desperately to not.

the sky is white,

its spaces blue,

its diamonds bleak

and purple too

with leaves in grey

when leaving brown,

with orange lights

to smile a frown

and with you around

your jaded gold,

what can I say?

it’s a racial world.

now the sky is red

and yellow too,

with all the shit

that’s falling through

and I do my best

to keep it clean,

and not wait for yellow

to turn to green

yet I find my name

stuck in the flow,

what can I say?

it’s a preposterous world…

the sky is crying

the sky is crying

the sky is crying

go make it stop

no bucket enough

to hold the drops

but one like you,

you’d soak it up;

like shit in water,

a face in the mud

you pulled my chains,

you cleared my line;

but… (emotionally) I’m not gay

Rozario: Neither am I.

the scene ends with both of them (there's two people, unless you haven't figured that already) looking into each other's eyes, pretty much at kissing distance. And both are men, yes. Probably think Marlon Brando with Dustin Hoffman (or someone equally tiny, and as intense) except that he'd play guitar - enough to walk on Clapton, King and Stevie Ray.

I know. I'm from Mars, or a parallel equivalent.

first love

It’s curious how I need a worse load of bullshit to actually get me to do this, you know – I find that I simply cannot get myself to write unless I’m decidedly screwing myself up in a major way that this seems less intolerable. It’s a sickness to sit with words and arrange them on a document, but its torture to approach an examination without digression. Hence, here goes.

Not that this is going to be anything new to anyone who knows the remotest part of me (or those who like to think they do) but I’ve suddenly taken too much to this song. Okay, well… It’s ‘Half of my heart’, there I said it.

“half of my heart

has a real good imagination,

half of my heart’s got you;

half of my heart’s

got a right mind to tell you

that half of my heart won’t do…”

no one would take my word for this as is immensely obvious, but no one other than Mayer could possibly spring this up and mean it too. I mean, I see him board a taxi in that absurdly underdone music video and it’s so… relatable?

Consider this, and do so seriously: Do you think you actually believe in love? I can’t probably thrust expertise into this after Woody Allen, after all that’s subsequently happened, or maybe I’m ahead of the bend and I look behind and see nothing. It scares me to think that I don’t really even think about someone I used to think about all the time, how frightening can emotions get, really. We’re so excessively reminding ourselves to do things that we forget that we wouldn’t do them at all if there weren’t that unnecessary bit of driving force. And why do you have to do that?

Heck, I’m exhausting myself again. It’s sick, seriously sick to having to read myself write what I know already… I mean, how productive is all this, what am I writing this for, am I actually going to change anything by putting this thought out? It sucks to think that every little burst of thought, every possible inspiration to make something is nothing but masturbation, that you only want to get it out but you don’t care where it goes – even if it means ‘down the drain’.

But take this back, though – I never even think about a lot of people that I thought fascinated me at a point of time, maybe they do even now but I just see their Xs and Ys, I place them and now that I know, it’s not as intriguing at all. Nothing is, nothing can ever be. Everything has this expiry date, everything is this milk product where you’ve got to eat it and not save it for later or hold it out for a half a lifetime. And when you eat it, you’re done. It’s done. And I don’t think I need to tell you about what it becomes, then – you’re bound to think that I’m some sort of weird-freak if I did say that.

I think this, I think ‘Bicentennial Man’ – 200 years, hell. Thank the force that that was a robot.

lydia(?)

Maybe I’m getting to speak so straight these days that I’m not getting to ride the bend at all? I don’t know, but it’s a hell lot of fun to be coming from around the bend because people don’t see what’s coming until it hits them, or even after it hits them, and that makes the bend the only tangible way for the world to be dealing with things it already has.

I’ve been having these thoughts lately, and these aren’t cosmological thoughts, they’re just plain depressing ones, perhaps, or just… thoughts. I’ve always questioned the idea of a lot of things coming from a less-constituted something that was actually pretty substantial to be making the whole of it, and then I figured the earth was just a mass of an oddly shaped solid ‘balled’ by chemicals – and that that’s about all of it. It’s not a round anymore, it’s just some weird spiked ball, it’s chemicals and it’s gravitation – just like some bunch of laws, observations and interpretations stringing it to be what it is, and boy isn’t that depressing!

Kind of made me remember the ‘Dreamers’ quote again – “Everything shrinks.” Everything does shrink when it starts to make sense, and then I wonder if it would be better left alone than explored. That way footballs would stay footballs and not projections of ultramicroscopic dots in space.

Let me head out of that track with that picture. I’ve had this ‘Annie Hall’ idea inside my head… okay, wrong way to begin it. I’ve been having this idea inside my head to make something out of what I’ve come across about ‘two people’. Wonder if I could make it into a term, you know ‘two-people’ and kind of brand them as an entity that can simply not exist in fragments. Like, if you’re taken once, then you’re just half the man and you’d always be so. And this isn’t some cushion for the ‘singles’ to lean on. It’s just a special kind of ‘singles’ who are allowed to empathize, and that’s ‘single’ and not ‘awaiting response’ or ‘taking a break’ or ‘bachelor party’. I hope you get what I’m saying.

It’s going to be a huge challenge to write this without actually resembling anything in the varying degrees of history – ‘Annie Hall’, ‘(500) days of Summer’, et al. And it’s not admitting defeat to actually base things upon those movies and go ahead and embrace them, instead of trying to stick out. A Woody Allen type of humour is entirely tangible, as is Marc Webb’s (I forgot the writers’ name, not looking up) idea of making sense and steering clear of bullshit. So, I don’t know where I’m heading with this from here, although I see some patches of road blurred by sun – sometimes things are too bright that you can’t make out what they’re structuring themselves to be. It’s not always darkness that blinds, or it’s never the darkness that blinds. Someone quote me on that.

I know one thing for sure – I’m not going to name it ‘Lydia’ and that’s just because I know a Lydia and it’s no offence. Not ‘miss B’, either (not that I’m beyond ‘her’), I’m just looking for something that would cut me off of the threads that hold me down so I can at least float around and make some sense? ‘Lydia’ (as made famous inside my head by John Mayer, twice) would mean flesh and blood; a quantization, and I wouldn’t want that. I’m not looking for entities – I’m looking to create one.

Let me end this thing with a line I conceived for this play or film or whatever it would come out to be.

(pompous-looking ‘showgirl’ with coy smile) “you're imagining me naked, aren't you?”

(Woody Allen sarcasm) "trust me, there's not much for the mind to do."

goes with how she’s ‘dressed’. And that’s definitely not the ‘Lydia’ replacement.

titling not necessary.

wow, here's something that's actually entirely 'blah'. But I did write it, so... yeah.

propel some bullshit

to make it sell,

a mark of things not going well;

a mountain adventure

for the mole I need,

slipping down to make ends meet…

what’s with a fall

if you’re not falling hard?

what if it’s futile,

what if it’s not?

I mean…

I just found the flower

in a knowledge spark,

that if ends did meet

then there’s no end at all.

and I guess the problem is living with it.

It's confessional, conversational, I'm just springing something up. Could be potential enough to make you want to not come to this place ever again, but did you ever in the first place?

midnight train

the night was noiseless, so I had to talk. But I needed place, ‘anywhere’ didn’t seem viable enough as the moment saw it. Consciousness came with this ‘no vacancy’ sign, and I had decided to sit it out anyway. On a pair of legs and a changing road.

“I don’t drink.”

“I don’t play football.”

And I saw her smile, between me and her. And I smiled back because I got to see her for once at a place where I’ve not kept her but where she actually could choose to be. Because I know she won’t choose me, the ‘Which Will’ way and that’s knowing asphalt by the crunch of it.

“I’m this…”, I began, only to shake my head. “Consciousness freak, I... cannot let anything control my emotions, I… cannot lose my emotions… palm-of-my-hand, you know-”

“Do you really think I don’t see what’s coming?” she cut me across, when she wasn’t listening.

Gesticulation, overdramatic pauses and excessive emphases? I should stop writing dialogue.

Writing’s all about writing what you don’t think you should be writing anyway. But how would that work? You know what, I don’t want to write this.

----------

I think ‘Once’. I’ve this vivid visual of Glen kissing Marketa on her cheek and a dying sort of audio on ‘When your mind’s made up’, but is it only natural that I think that? Although it is unnatural that I seem to be going with a force of nature than conjuring up my own toothpick bit of bravery.

“but you are just a wisp of smoke,

in daffodils and diamonds, clothed;

no ocean strained,

no feather moved,

as off my chest to the world I blew…”

These bunch of lines are serving to be my present ‘Northern Sky’, the sort that gets me emotionally soaked within a moment of construction and faithful recount. Of hours of thoughts in the minutes I felt them, the time where my clock had stopped to pass me by. And then I think of the times that I looked down on the road that I was walking on and waking myself up from this state of mind that only completely refused to believe that I was where I was.

Like the time when I absolutely need a sign of green to let it flow; to let it grow. And it’s like these trains are full of people who aren’t meant to be leaving in the first place, and that they’ve stoked its chimneys full to fit a million years of stay.

kid on the Block

At an initiation-level, I thought of using this write-up to relate what could seemingly be the most outrageous twosome of all times, considering the fact that they simply cannot be seen together. Justin Bieber could disagree with me while his historical counterpart would abstain from comment, but that was precisely when I checked out one such ‘childhood’ album of his and figured what I figured loud and clear: The king was a king when he was no king at all.

A ‘performing monkey’ could be a better way to put it, for he danced to tunes adding songs to them; tunes that weren’t his, melodies he was to completely avoid throughout the span of his life and a form of music he would take to completely revolutionize in the course of his time, to an end product that lacked what he was most known for when he sang those lines he hardly realized. I had a fit of joy when I heard the fourteen year old render ‘Rockin’ Robin’ at the top of his voice, Chuck Berry should have been around then, you know, and Michael apparently had five such before his adult debut and sixth studio album the world knows as ‘Thriller’ (1982). The boy would definitely have not known the magnitude of vocals he seemed to be doing, but that didn’t really stop him from doing them good. Kind of those days when one goes by a pleasure of mind than to-do lists or the weight of a wallet.

I don’t care, I don’t want to know what went wrong, I don’t really need a look-in on how it came to be so, I could just walk it off, be the critic and size him up to be a wasted act that went with the flow, except that his heat had it turn to gold. I could go ahead and label the best of his years as not being his, but of a brainwashed world set to return the favour with complete compliance; with surrender. Everyone would find some tears to let out on his ‘Will you be there?’ or a ‘Childhood’, the statistics overwhelming. Everyone cried to him, cried to whatever he had to say, and it was just a matter of time (of which I know nothing about) before the effect handled the cause. And that was when the world knew for sure that their greatest star was completely theirs.

‘In our small way’ did something to me, ‘The girl is mine’ (additional thanks to a certain Paul McCartney) helped crack a jig and keep it going. I don’t think I’m one to be sopped up by a ‘Human Nature’ or a ‘Heal the world’, but seriously, this monkey knew his wares pretty well, or perhaps he was made to. Just like how they made the clothes he wore, stitched some flesh under those and pushed a mind in to work as they willed it to. And then the mind just worked.

This could be considered as a tribute coming in late by about a year and a quarter and I can’t be blamed for the same. He just found me, you know, only ‘just’ and I’m just crazy, not blind. I guess it’s entirely like how she said, this girl I know: the world needed him to die to get to appreciate how good he actually was, and maybe he went exactly when he had to go. A couple of years could have meant oblivion, and he could have hit the ‘God’ button with something more premature.

In the end he’s just what he is. A cob of gold with diamond-sleeves and a painted heart that once was.

the heart of life (artwork)

and this, my friend, is the heart of life...

shirt

buttons on with hair on them,

and a girl that once

grew with my sleeve;

a bag of straps that overflow

to hammer-heart in elastic breeze

the only thing felt odd about

is to elbow through

an elbow pleat;

and embarrassment to live without,

hence clinging to the column spree

Could be the most personal bunch of lines I’ve ever written. Dan Dunn wears one too (many, actually) and so does Anthony Montana. I wear a shirt and I like wearing it: Kind of not entirely one for ‘slipping it on’.

Read this if you like your shirt. Like this if you’re wearing one.

fashionista (the lyric)

ocean’s in at Eleven, Sunday,

it’s wild tonight

when watching the fading rain;

there’s never a name

of all the likes of a fashion statement,

ritual dances for the sake of the game,

and woebegone

is the word I was looking for

bleak in her gown

here for the show when they’ve all gone,

the bones behind are all she’d count;

but she can count

the worlds that’ve barely missed her;

yeah, she can count,

miss underdone fashionista…

boredom splits and Velcro tears,

adulthood blimps,

yet she’s never there on your line

of “oh darling you’re all mine…”

but look at her go

just a stone on the floor,

watching in from outside your door;

in the crookedness

where she stands her day,

masochism as a state of play

she’s all around

in this world that won’t lift her,

she’s all around,

little miss underdone Fashionista

half a life in chaos dreamt,

dressed down citing innocence,

how bad can it be…?

and the rest of it, a bargain earned

of petrol drops that refused to burn,

and a heart that still believes…

it’s just the heart that still believes.

ten-second thought between skirts that get chased, and I'm not putting this in any way I'm not supposed to be putting this in. I don't want her to build my house: She's better than brick or cement.

I only wrote this to feel better. Nice reminder, though - a tilt-back of head and a whirl of thought and I'd be glad I have my feet on the ground. Wish my dad would read this.

summons

Another paranoid piece of messed-up fiction that I came up with. Messed up because it's half untrue. And don't even ask me about the other half, okay?

not another word that fails

to get my mind a mind divide;

like dirt upon a standard spade

that digs out everything I find

in my hand this diamond held,

sparkling in the night that shines

the air around, of shoeshine self,

in a winter that it left behind

so wind it up, I need the hour

of water cans in garden ride;

you know I’d use it, and use it good,

if you could get back to my life

'Little Rhymes'? Oh, I don't care where this goes. I just wanted it outside my head so I could see it new; see you new and find something out of that. Let me not state the obvious (unless you'd guess it anyway).

tomorrow

Guess I didn’t quite ask myself the obvious, but why is this an important thing to have written about? And for once, you know, I guess I could answer that. Because there’s this feeling of being too much in a dream that one forgets to be real? No it’s not an ‘Inception’ thing, I’m not one for it, but it’s just… everything happens in a dream, everything’s within reach that the fight of reality almost turns absurd and postponing becomes the thing to do.

tomorrow

crossroads up a road ahead,

count of miles tonight in bed;

a shorter foot and two a pace,

I’d get there even at half the rate

farther with the fight of fog,

frozen to the closest spot;

peeking through the ice around,

with warmth I sent to sit it out

same about the state of her,

half my thoughts, digested words;

struggle spent to make the plane,

and steal a smile and know her name

staring at the mountain wrought,

digging in and digging round;

a minute off my mind, withdrawn,

from the song called ‘do it now’

gutter stench on surface felt,

on every moment passing by;

I take today to wish me well,

tomorrow’s when I live my life

yesterday

yesterday I found this thought,

to write it in, to write it out;

reminded me of fallen stars,

of folded papers, golden clouds

I stand myself in the thick of rain,

hope to find you there again;

in water with my mind awash,

I close my eyes, and that is all.

I might frown at the finale, I’m getting too obsessed, kind of. Maybe that’s wrong, but I don’t know, maybe that’s exactly what’s right about me? But I hate this, you know. Not how I sometimes defy it, but I hate how I live exactly what I write at times, and how they’re almost always exactly traumatic. And the strangest, yet most obvious thing is that I’d never want to do anything about it. To ‘YOU’.

MOONBEAM

like how I need her night

to light up my day;

like how she’d need a while,

she won’t come this way

why don’t you see her out?

there’s no fashion in disgrace;

cashing in

on the fall within,

on everything sustained

it’s better to be than not to be…

what’s with the white

when it’s time and only time?

what would this given do

if I can’t live my line?

and what’s her moonbeam

but a comfort to the eye?

a blessing in disguise,

when I’d rather see her naked;

her naked love tonight…

For all intents and purposes, this could be my experiment, which in itself gives it the innate value that it's one of my best ever. Not saying that as a flash of ego, it's just that it's something of a kind that I've wanted to write for so long, you know, like the 'starting in the middle' or the absence of relevance of any sort. And yeah, I know this is proving to be too much of pathos, but I don't know... I am what I am, and that's like 'everyone else' minus the pretence.

'Battle Studies' belongs to the Mayer lot. I guess that's how this belongs to my 'Book of Rhymes'. Tenth in line.

miss B

Well, I actually began this to be something else which I wouldn’t reveal at this point of time (mainly because there’s no real suspense as such) but then again, I just went where my drowsiness took me, and it was almost 2 am and ‘Back to You’ and stuff.

Calories to cook this up,

a night of her to burn it all;

wonder where the hell she is,

the morning finds her

good and gone

and you wanted me

to show my hand,

to twist it up, to sniff her out;

breaking down a pot of plant

to find the seed,

to shine your sun

Well, what if she’s too good for that,

what if there’s no candle-stain?

What if she’s not fussed enough

to prove her mettle, write her name?

Call the thief

and catch her too,

frame the suspect from the start;

call her cheeky,

call her brutal,

call her rude, but you know what?

You never had a shred of her,

you’d never find you never did;

a window at a solid turn,

its glasses painted, the world unlit

and looking out on towns so strange,

fast, polluted, river-made;

you bind the cord that ties your tongue,

doing things you’ve never done…

Yet, you try to work this out,

you gave a duck, she made an owl;

sitting with a point to prove,

to harness every hearty hoot.

I don’t know if this is a ‘Little Rhyme’. Perhaps it’s a little more substantial at a personal level than one, having been honest to this sleepy digression of mine. Long time, you know. And I don’t know if it was a ‘wait’ to think if this was worth it. To ‘YOU’, almost obviously.

THE SECOND DAY

It was 18:57 when I last checked my mobile phone, (before I got inside, of course) I remember minimizing my music screen to facilitate that. ‘In the Sun’ by She & Him, and I stayed put for an unknown bit. Maybe 10 minutes, but I’m not sure and that’s the whole point. I’m not sure.

I’m not hung over, mind you. Kind of a pathetic way to begin a sincere narrative but I thought I had to stick to the trend to illustrate I’m not part of it. I hope that makes sense. I spent seventeen minutes between 18:30 and 18:47 at the exact place where I had boarded the vehicle yesterday, and my clock runs seven minutes fast, not that I intend it not to. And it’s not like I couldn’t wait longer, but I was struck by this better idea or at least something that looked better to me at that ‘lost’ point of time, so I stopped the next vehicle (a ‘share-auto’ if you must know). I asked for ‘Thirumangalam’ and he nodded. I hopped in.

Once right away, once when we turned at the arch and quite extensively from then. I remember ‘Ridin’ in my car’ pretty well, and I also remember me losing track of time and place at that point. I was doing it subconsciously, like a sort of normal emotional reaction. She had me hooked, yeah, I’d never deny that. I prayed that she wouldn’t get down at the next turn and she didn’t, thankfully. She only smiled even more at how I reacted to that fleeting rise she threw my way.

No, not here. Not here. I remember this illuminated white strip on an otherwise dark kind of road (it’s the same road, portions of which are darker than usual, a sign of uninhabited state). I didn’t have time on my side so I ought to be deciding fast, or so I thought. And I found no white rectangle.

How long would this go on anyway? How long… I mean, not that I didn’t want it to go on forever, but could I have trusted my near-hypnotized self? And I really thought she could hear my mind, I sort of highlighted that voice with whispers through my lips, forming phrases like, “Oh my…” and “this is so… odd, so… awkward!” and then I looked at her and she smiled and I smiled, and I swear I hadn’t smiled as broad before.

I was past it, pretty much and this self-assuredness gave me some weight, really. I was able to fully appreciate in a way that I could end up not seeing her again, but that didn’t have to stop me from trying, you know. Two things filled my mind, predominantly. One was that if I was past where she got down, then that would explain her absence in the autos that went past me, and the second was that if I was at a place before where she got down, then I simply had to be extra cautious, or I don’t know… Man, it’s a sick thing to be doing all the same.

Ten minutes? Of all the warmth that we had felt, and she could spare just ten minutes? What’s that, some super-miser, or just pure ‘femme fatale’? No, no way, this can’t be a test, this surely can’t be… and there’s this other girl sitting right in front, chic with a pair of lips glossing out from the oddest place for them to be, and… No, I was moving again and she was moving away. I couldn’t find voice enough to ask him to stop, to tell him that was where I should be getting down. She smiled at me, a distant smile from twenty metres away. The one next to me looked dumbstruck. And I was speechless, blank and misty.

Well before she got down, and all I had to do was wait. I thought I’d kip at a signal and peer into everything that went past, and that could uncomplicated things, an irony in itself. 19:28. I thought I had lost her already, you know. Recollections of how I wished to ask the girl in front of me if she liked what she was listening to and tell her what I thought of it, and... that didn’t make it out of my throat either.

“Are you looking at anything in particular, or are you just trying to not look at me?”. Of course I didn’t ask that! I didn’t ask her anything, I didn’t make the rhetoric I wanted to make, I didn’t progress on this front where I imagined me having a girlfriend like her, high-maintenance, lot of expectations, too much of promises that I couldn’t linger on for even a moment. Everyone else found a reason to get down before, and it was just me and her by the time we reached where I had to get down. She spoke in Tamil, much to my surprise, and she had successfully avoided looking at me for the whole of it. I tried to keep an eye out for her as I picked up a call on my phone. I answered it.

She was gone. I couldn’t explain this little tear that made its way out of my left eye. And I didn’t bother to look out for her either.

Umm nope, not answering. And I tried again, same result. 19:35. I thought of the things I said yesterday, things I wrote, things I wanted to write, encounters that never were and how chasing something that never was could only be a way into delusion; into believing what I want to believe as opposed to what needs belief. I thought of the only time when I had actually broken the ice, and how I had waited for dawn in my hostel-days so I could read what she had to say. A week, and they’d be back again, I thought. And that could be a level of happiness that could swallow this angst against myself, against this life that so denies itself in actuality, and cloud nine would be too low a place for me to be in then.

I thought of her, I thought of ‘seeking against living’, fidelity, trust, a stable mind and… my mother finally picked up, told me she’d be waiting where I usually get down, and I felt like something peppy to mark this change of direction. ‘Smooth’ by Carlos Santana featuring Rob Thomas.

I headed home.

ENOUGH SAID

It’s a question mark, you know. Every time I sit to write something that’s not relevant and yet is strong, or I don’t know… I’m not able to sit this time, and I don’t know what this is about. I mean, I do know and I do understand, or maybe I don’t understand but I know all the same. I wouldn’t call this a poem, aesthetic or not, it’s just… completely irrelevant.

Fired up to spark a smile,

what I found in hers,

she found in mine;

a window to the outside world,

silent treatment to what I heard

…ten minutes of blankness past,

I’m sorry I can’t spit a word;

never have I felt so choked,

teller of the stories told,

and what would happen to me in mine?

Where’s the niche, where’s the sign?

Or should I refrain to “How many times?”

in angst against the angst provoked?

‘Inconsequence’ be my teasing find,

the edge into a depressed rhyme;

and if I turned to words, to sell,

the virtual pair of hands we held,

for all at once she took them all,

my hands, my head, my mind, my heart,

and I doubt if I can make some sense,

stringing this with what she left;

so I guess I should stop for now,

and ask my wind to open out…

I saw this girl, I saw her smile, I didn’t have a reason to not see the same, but I don’t think that’s why I looked in the first place. And there was this huge surge of feeling secure, an at-home kind of thing, and I don’t know, I thought she was giving that, I really had no part to play. And then ten minutes later, I won’t ever see her again? I don’t know, man, it’s… there’s just been too much of compliance, too much of standing still, watching things go by.

Did I think she’d not get down, or did I think she’d ask me to get down with her, it’s just… Life’s no ‘Before Sunrise’, I guess. But she was still looking and still smiling and still connecting, and I guess I didn’t play Jesse well.

I think I'm counting my six months till tomorrow. Period.

A THOUSAND MILES

Not exactly a forced thought, for I found myself to be duty-bound. It’s something I’ve wanted to write for long, but postponed because it’s kind of inside my head anyway, but I wanted it out this time because you know, it’s been a while. I can’t be entirely honest about this, I’ve specifications.

A hundred feet on bumpy road,

walking through the doors I know;

a weary pair of shoes I tuned

to turn towards the world that’s you

I’ve been running all my life,

to one without my oldest find;

with scarcities and second thoughts,

in times without your rocket-launch

A thousand miles, my target set,

staring at the road ahead;

if only I could last the night,

I’d stumble through the whole divide

Dazed as the morning finds,

the outcome of a storm in gloom;

with yellow paint on winter white,

and blackness caught on shades of blue

It’s alright, I have half a heart

and half a hand in half this war;

but what with half the world alive,

biding time for half the strike?

And then you slice my night to two,

a complementary split of mood;

my sleet gets gagged by fire-power,

and smoke that fogs a perfect shot

A part of feet and taking wind,

needles of rain sent streaming in;

trembling on the picture-frame,

half-forsaken, half-afraid…

I walked, I ran, I sighed, I flew,

or at least I dreamt of what I’d do;

so rest a little, wait a while

and I’ll see you in a thousand miles

EPILOGUE

Freedom takes a walk out there,

returning without clothes to spare;

chasing fleas in running shoes,

apple-crazy, whole or bruised…

How much can this calf withstand,

inside the chest of half a man?

And a lesser sense that creeps inside

that a thousand miles isn’t worth my time

Taxi drives, her smile, her talk,

her nose, her hair, her crazy walk;

a thousand miles ahead, as said,

and the blanket finally found my head…

To ‘You’. And sorry about the hiatus, it implied nothing but the fact that there was a hiatus, like a hiatus for hiatus’ sake, nothing more to explain.

THE HEART OF LIFE

This had been coming on for a while, when I had thought of an uncle who had died sixteen years before and how I strangely hadn’t missed him at all and that’s only because I never knew him enough to miss him. And it’s like, every single time that a person I knew has died, I’ve never felt a pang of thought that lasted too long, I’m not specifying days here for I myself am not aware of when my thoughts had moved on. The mind had put this thought of mine to a self-evaluating module, and I figured that every single person who I knew had died had somehow left my life or had become sort of temporarily detached (for ‘left’ sounds too insensitive of me) from my day-to-day deal and had embarked on something without me that every time I had heard the news, I had to grieve over a memory and just a memory at that, and as vivid as I claim my memories to be, I don’t think they’re that powerful though. Or maybe I’m aware that they’re just memories and nothing more.

Constant chant of ‘Who am I?’

a cog that turns the wheel of time;

stalling trying to turn it back,

a sideward slide, then running fast

No time to spend on those who came,

weakened with the bright of day

and left before they caught my sight,

or those who made no mark inside

Of those who left some depth explored,

in photographs and things they wrote,

of family and closest kin,

of odours that once washed my wind

They left indeed with said goodbyes,

ensued deletions off my mind;

for finer weeks and Sunday stops,

with conscience finds in ration lost

In times but I do think of them,

and maybe wonder where they went;

and an inside view on outside passed,

a scorch of eyes and stroke of hair

And water finds no slight of salt,

in resolve to live ahead without;

my worry lines in ‘fine’, disguised,

and that, my friend, is the heart of life…

I don’t know if this is an apology note on my part or merely a self-directed justification to a skeptical being inside me, but yes, this is yet another addition to my ‘Little Rhymes’. And by the way, this is NOT my version of the Mayer song. It's just a poem that's named the same, and I wish for that clarity of thought in those who read it.