It Is All FruitCake

When you think that it is better to leave me alone to find myself, that is when continents begin to drift apart.

I am my own island now.

Present Past

One needs to get out more often to see how the world is set in motion.
Discovering relics of the past is a wonderful moment indeed, but so is being part of the present. A blend of both, here.

The kid grew up.

The cows were sold, the barn empty and barred.

The sun gets stubborn. The afternoon nap.

I think of You

I wonder about this woman from centuries ago, hidden in my unknown lineage. This woman, bound to wait in silence with a roaring sea inside her heart. Life was different then, but the spirit of the soul was the same.
I wonder about how she might have gazed furiously yet hopefully, out into the future - the world lit only by her eyes.
Would she have known that years hence, in this time frame, in this tiny instant, on a warm summer night, in the shadows of the lights shining from the street, I shall think about her, crystal clear?

I wonder about her, and our fate that is the same and one. Her atoms in me, mine in her. I wonder if she would agree that I am like her - grey shades of black and white.

Crumbling Castle

The rain pants and dies
Leaving behind only a hissing wind.
Coldness creeps into corners of cells,
Settles down in dark spaces.
You will hear it
If you have listened to dying embers.

Sailor

I dream of speaking in nautical miles, of holding the sun hostage with an anchor, of finding mermaids, of chests of pearls and rubies, emeralds and sapphires.

Ah, the sheer silliness of it all.

Work

If I can feel the pulse of the systems I work on, am I machine, or are they human?

A Long Journey

There are only a few places in my heart where my journeys can take me. I wonder how it is that we limit our souls - even when it is not our doing; how we open our eyes to the sunshine and yet feel so empty.

The road to oneself is the greatest distance one needs to traverse.
An unbearable distance of time when one is stuck with oneself.

Your Things

I think of things
A faltering step on a sheet of ice,
Bending down to pick up a feather
Sunlight on a young boy's hair..

Turning around to see who called your name
Laughing with an old friend, for an old joke,
Bear-hug from a loved one..

A juicy bite of orange-green mango
The music from a little girl's anklet
Whispers with no end..

I think of things..
Create a dough, shape into pages,
Blur the drawings with misty eyes
And dream for your dream to come true..

Frozen Me

I look back and I look ahead.
I will always be where I have been.

The infinitesimal moments
The cheer and the laughter
The rains and walks and holding hands
The You in me and the Me not in you

The dust and the days and the dark
The distance between your city and me
The crowds separating us and joining us
The your heart and your smile

The unsaid words and heard silence
The your joy and your sorrow
The things you do not want to own
The others you have rejected.

I empty my eyes forever
The way you emptied your heart..
I take with me what you do not want
And that is pretty much all of it.

Din

Kahaan hein sooraj ki thapthi dhoop..?
Kahaan parchaayiyon ki thanhaayi...?

Tum nahin tho
Din bhi mere andhere mein hein.
Tum nahin tho.

The Scream

It is inside my heart
Like a stinging tear, suspended
Delicate, yet gripping the walls.
Going on and on, in pain,
Rising, stretching, hurting -
The scream

I wonder if you remember
That was not how
I used to call your name.

My Doing.

The alley is damp and dark
My favourite place
Neglected and owned.
Silent like a starless night.

What have I done
To that, which was
Never meant to be taken?

What have I done?

They and me. Connected.

I have seen people pass me by,
Whirlwind in their worlds.
I have seen how they make
How they break
Maybe how they take
This breeze around me.
A coldness is stirred to go on.
A feeling I had never known.
It was in the wind
It is in my ways
Swirling through my nights,
It is in my days.

I wonder if people feel
How it is before it is not.
How the touch and the glimpse
Fell before they were lost.
A rare shade of blue
Lost in another stroke.
With the snowflakes long gone
Oh! How this coldness goes on and on.
It was in the wind
It is in my sighs.
Clinging to the lashes,
Now it is in my eyes.