MAN ON THE SIDE

"The King", she said.

I said "I'm right here. But I can't do the moonwalk."

Is this sadness, though? I mean, every word said appears to be heftily laden with doubt and that's doubt beyond overrule, because while to overrule is completely up to oneself, at a personal level, this doubt had nothing to do with me, and everything to do with her, or it had everything to do with me and she had nothing in it whatsoever, and since there is a nothingness and an accompanying completeness in existence, there can never be a part-clarification. And to clarify in entirety would still remain at the place where it's always been: forever a foot from me.

"Poetic romance", I said. "Heard he's so very giving that he overshoots it."

"To each, his own", she said.

This is not an email conversation. And that means I can see her, face to back, for she's always faced away from me whenever we've spoken and maybe that's because that's the part of her I admire most, not out of my fetish but her exceptionality. Particularly those moments in front of the mirror, doing something I dislike but not of her, for she is someone who could possibly turn me, making me like it, for I would somehow detach the glossiness from it, sizing it up to be purely an act of necessity, not of beautification of outer self, but as a stronghold on inner confidence that only merely shows on the surface. Or maybe I would like it only because she does it, and that would be reason enough for me.

"If that's the case", I lazed, "then you have just cracked the judicial system."

I sniffed, not letting go of the half-smile that so supposedly reinforces me and I reinforced it with this twitchy stiffening of my left jaw that had strangely become habitual. And I had just said something that made me earn a look from her, from under the very same eyebrows that help cool her burning eyes (I know, I know!).

"What of Gandhi?" she questioned. "What about Lewis Carroll?"

"What about you?"

She paused, open-mouthed, fighting with all her feminine brute to snub the smile that tried to show, as the obvious eventually came out.

"Do you do this as a profession?"

"You know I don't", I smiled.

"Well", she turned back to the mirror, still stubborn, "how much do I know then, right?"

"Well", I mimicked her. "You know about the King, you know about Gandhi, you know about Lewis Carroll, and oh, you know I'm a half-geek who thinks he's just a tenth of what you are."

I bit my lip in the same "Let's see you pull this one off" kind of way traditionalized by Ethan Hawke in 'Before Sunrise', and I was struck by this thought that told me I was pushing this whole 'Being a bundle of everyone else but myself' thing. She remained quiet, the room was dark but I could feel the heat of her breath and the rush of her blood and that made me feel so like a mosquito all of a sudden, pointlessly buzzing about her.

"Excuse me Miss Busybody", I almost sang. "Could you pencil me in?"

She laughed and laughed and laughed, and I realized that I could actually regret what I say.

"I know", I sighed, as she proved wrong an assumption of mine, being incessant with her laughter.

"Hey.." she said as she subsided. "Study beckons. I'd see you then?"

"Yeah well", I paused. "Sure."

"Ta Ta."

And she hung up.

I fell on my bed, rolled on it, punched a pillow and thought that if the best I could currently do was to quote an obvious John Mayer, then I clearly needed a life.

But then again, wouldn't she always have said the first goodbye?

THE SECRET GARDEN.

“I can’t be with you.”

“No.”

“I can’t.”

I breathed deep. “I want you to reconsider that.”

“What?”

“I want you to think about what you said, and not say it again.”

I don’t know if she complied, but she didn’t speak beyond, at least for the while that could be called ‘subsequent’. We weren’t eating, it wasn’t a dinner date that went wrong, because I don’t even know if it was going wrong or if it was heading exactly where I wanted it to head. But then again, I couldn’t afford a ‘tongue-in-cheek’; I couldn’t resist one either. I was reminded that it was turning out to be one of those times when my hand ceases to be part of me, a part my mind could will. I went for her forehead, got to her cheek, but a few strands of the hair that fell on her face were all I managed to grasp between my fingers: The spaces that were hers, that are.

“I don’t know how to explain…”

“I never asked you to.”

I couldn’t bring myself to loathe her tears, it’s something I had learnt out of trial and error, and I’ve always erred when it came anywhere close to hating anything that was hers. The tip of my index finger was all that acted and a dew of her teardrop was all it caught, a speck and its rainbow to some lucky fly. She wasn’t guilty, she never looked down, she never used to. Always the cause, never the act: she ghost-wrote me. She still does, and I guess she would as long as I exist, for her lifetime is too much to ask for. Too long a time in the clouds, too much of summer, too much of shine; too much of ‘ever-last’.

“This guy…” she began. I swore I could have cried, but a half a smile is the closest I got to it. “He…”

I looked down at the grass. Not that I wished I were as fleeting, so that I could boast of a whole life with her, but because I couldn’t stop a prospective laugh that threatened to show if I looked at her shuttling eyes. Speaking would be an even worse give-away, while the silence could hurt her. But I was helpless to be otherwise, pretending I was only listening to ‘Idiot Wind’ and not seeing it live.

“All you…” she said, shaking her head. “All you…”

I couldn’t even nod.

“What are you doing?” I wished I could stop her sobs. “What are you even doing?” She shook her head again. “Cynical. So, so cynical.”

“So are you.” I bit my lip.

She shook her head again: I was challenging her. Big deal, she always exhausted me.

“A second’s plunge in fire, dead,

a breath of heaven, letter-sent;

an apple of mine, in moonlit eyes,

the only times that I’m alive…”

She shrugged her shoulders and looked away, as I tried to find the smile I framed. I’ve never wanted to say a lot of things to her, she never fancied dessert, this dinner-woman with a meal of a mind that she hogged all by herself. Still I did say this because it needed to be said and she was too close to miss it, even if whispered.

“Mere minutes, you know…” I said as I hugged her. “And you shouldn’t demand from the dead, that’s like a violation, I could sue you for that.”

She shook her head again before she burned my eyes: I should have settled for the top of her head.

“I’ll see if you can pull these threads apart.”

And I won't tell you how long I kissed her, in this losing game that I played.

HAND-IN-HAND

I burned. I had seven different reasons to not wear a shirt that night, all from distinct parts on my upper body, but I did wear one eventually. Indigo, with dark-blue patterns not keenly observed because I wore it. And I wore it not for the design, or at least not just for the design, although wearing something good only makes me feel more reassured of myself; neither for the occasion, for I hardly connected with the festivity and nor did I attempt to. I wore it for you because you’ve always liked being flattered, as much as I’ve believed the act to be completely non-negative on my part; because I knew that you’d wear better, for although this summer could prove to be seasonally indelible with its effects, I knew nothing can ever touch the way you present yourself. And I wore it to avoid anomaly.

“Everyone is unfortunate.”

“Why?”

“Because everyone doesn’t have you for tonight.”

You laughed the same limited laugh you laugh all the time. Like you’d never let go of the whole of it, never philanthropic, always selfish. I wonder why you differ in your silence and your fury.

“Why are you with me?”

“Because you mind me drinking, and I don’t want to.”

“And I wouldn’t tempt you?”

“I would drink it then.”

The smile. You reminded me that you’ve never really needed your lips to smile. Your eyebrows: Those were all you needed, the shapes they would take only to be adorned, reinforced by the shine from beneath them. I’ve scoffed at the moon because of you. She can never burn by sight.

“But it’s pointless, though. You’d always be the addict.”

“Even in full control?”

“Especially in full control. Because there’s nothing more absurd than that that can be said.”

“Can you say it in a better way?”

“Should I?”

The tray just passed us, and I remembered that you didn’t need etiquette at places like these, that you could always get away with what you wanted, as long as you took it from someone who can never afford it, because he would never be able to afford the consequences of denying either. A glass for you and a glass for me as the ambient went numb, its music morphing to our own, what we rejoice, rather than the drawls of contemporary gangster Hip-Hop. 'Things behind the sun'. Nick Drake.

“Toast to us.”

“Cheers.”

Elbows intertwined, we raised the glasses to our lips and downed it all in one shot. I felt the liquid trickle down my chin and flow, making its way along the patterns on my shirt, drenching it as it passed, not making its way to the welcome ground, eventually halting at my belt-strap. My glass then slipped from my hand, for I was never known for the strength of my grip but rather for the weakness of it. A chest that could never assist to stop the fall and a pair of knees that only worked late made shards out of it. The handle sank cozily to the earth, a flag-post of sorts, and the pieces minced found their places at notches on the bottom of my shoe. And I felt thankful that I wore them.

I didn’t wake up, even then.

You being here, who was I kidding? I was never the one you looked out for, and that’s because you never looked out for anyone anyway. Neither was I a ‘nobody’ enough to fill a void with the void staying a void even after I’m done filling it. You’re a world on your own, and I guess I’m not ‘him’ to fail to see that. Because that was what I found in you, in the first place. But it still burned, you know, there’s no return to bliss, there’s no return to the ignorance that constituted it: An indelible marker-stain on whiteboard mind. And it still burned, because that was my first time.

I tried to not look into your tear-stained eyes, those rainclouds, as you tried to not look anywhere else but into mine. I took your hand, I filled the rightful slots where my fingers should have been and we made some warmth, and that made me snort my smile. Someone had told me the Sun would die sometime, that we would cease to exist some day, that doom needn’t be ‘spelt’ because it ‘is’ and that it only needed time to mature: Time that’s probably ‘beyond’ you and me. Ironical.

I could burn some suns, with you. And you would save the world, just as you’ve been doing all the while. Who needs ‘us’, when there’s you and me and the harmony that’s required?

RUMPUS DIARY

It is a desert. A beauty contest between the sand and the sun, and while Carol would have been a dismal jury given his centimetre thick fur-coat, Max found himself on a hopeless attempt to soothe the heat by sweating on it. He looked at the source of it all, the cause of the ‘crunch’, something he came to know of only very recently, and in a chill of fear that did nothing to comfort, he turned to his twelve-foot friend whom he supposedly should have been mentoring.

“Carol.”

“Mhm?”

“Did you know the sun was going to die?”

“What?” A mournful pause. “I never heard that.”

What’s sadness to a shattered state? Carol’s pause wasn’t a dwell on the statement, while Max simply couldn’t steer clear of it. But it was a twinge of pleasure in itself, watching someone as strong as Carol sink to where he stood, where he’s been standing for a while now.

“Oh come on…”, Carol said, as Max lifted his chin a little. “It’s not going to happen.” He paused again. “I mean, you’re the king, and look at me… I’m big!” He paused again. “How could guys like us worry about a tiny little thing like the sun, huh?”

And for someone who always had a runny nose and a lake in his eyes, Carol smiled and convincingly enough. Max smiled too, for he felt his anchor drop down, finding the smallest solid rock of hope than just simply hanging around. And sometimes we find that that’s the most that’s required.

'SPHERE' OF THOUGHT.

It's not the kindling of poetry, not the trigger of efflux, you know. I lay on my bed, gaze at my ceiling fan go about its chore, and I get up with four lines in mind that I didn't want to waste because of the same.

"White noise from my ceiling fan,
tranquil when I'm self-absorbed;
but when in bed, its chaos felt,
is this what clarity has brought?"

This isn't the first time, I've always seen right from when I knew to 'see', that the blades are deceptive. And no one can actually tell which way the fan's rotating unless they've seen it go from first shot, and face it: You wouldn't think it's worth the time. And that led to something like a 'Dreamers' extrapolation, like how you see the chaos only when you're absorbed in it, and that means an absorption out of yourself, which is like egesting yourself out of your inside, a self-hurl, you know, and without it it's poetry. And it surprises me how something can be two separate worlds, totally unconnected, but then again, your mind and 'everything else' are sort of contrasts too, so it would only explain and strengthen why there's a difference. But that also undoubtedly raises the question as to what is 'sane': Is it the chaos, or is it the poetry, or is it the very stout line in between that finds it could accommodate more than ninety nine on hundred, or exponents of the same? And that is not a scary thought, but certainly not answerable. Because it's just a frame of mind, an interstice between two phases of when I'd think I know what I'm doing, as opposed to when I'd admit that I don't have a clue.

I'm hungry. 'Certainly'.

'ORANGE'.

Came up because of a couple of things. A curious analogy and 'Cello Song'. The first has to do with the painful thought that the independent is best when left alone, although it's her company I'm bound to strive for. Something I tagged immediately to a girl with a basket of oranges, who wouldn't accept my help or the fallen orange offered, letting what she left to stay left behind. Second's the immense rush of orange patterns visualized as Nick Drake kisses his 'Cello Song' to life. But it's predominantly a contest on 'shade' that I made up in mind, myself. Something 'she' is oblivious about.

"A cloud of thought
its stalk to poke,
a pulp descent in mind, provoked;
enchanted hum of 'Cello Song',
in worldliness
of world beyond;
a slither down the air, amused,
its wither render gases bruised,
of flaming mistress -
her one-eyed stare,
and eye-patch time of sibling pairs;
atrocities of feudal kind,
in work of wonder, of art, defied;
and excrement
and the find of fall,
and treachery, and truth
but most of all
the auburn maiden, her basket full,
her weight in whole in dangle, would;
the poet's eyes
in eloquence, trace,
in frailty, her shirk of grace,
and of rescue aimed at fallen fruit,
in heart despair,
her mind intrudes;
his final flash of fondest smile,
for scarlet stained,
her eyes beguiled..."

I don't think I did justice, or at least that hasn't found its way to me yet: A sense of being engulfed by myself. If it does, I'd live with it. If it doesn't, I won't say it aloud. Fifth in line to 'Little Rhymes', a burp to spike the spark of mind.

THE 'WAITING ON THE WORLD TO CHANGE' TOUR

"I am not a nomad,
I am not a rocket man,
I was born a house-cat
by the slight of my mother's hand..."

- 'HOME LIFE', John Mayer. 'HEAVIER THINGS'.

I am not a nomad. I'm no photographer either. I don't know if my mobile phone thinks for itself, but really, what a time for 'Waiting on the world to change'! Of course, I picked it: Because I wanted to walk John Mayer's walk, I even tried a head-toe picture on see-through glass. I guess I don't need to say how I failed.

But at least I got to savour myself.