Old, Borrowed, and Blue

My grief is borrowed

Just as my joy, my love, my life

I live through an extension of my mother

An umbilical cord never cut

A parallel life that waits for doom

That remembers the all too familiar milestones

The celebrations, the successes, the great fall

And so I count my time

Constantly ticking, I look over my shoulder

I hear the laughter like an echo in a chamber

Trapped, forever observing a scene from another life

Looming over what is, and would surely come to be

As 35 approached, I clawed at the calendar

I braced myself to stand alone, be everything

Be my mother

But the boy I saw looked at himself grey in the mirror

Relief surely now, surely finally

Replaced quickly with another 

Unexpected grief

Of moving on without my daughter

And then I look in the mirror,

And suddenly see my mother

Still there, still laughing

And I pause to wonder

If my something old, something borrowed, something blue

Is not grief, not fear,

But the present

Still here, still beating.

The Cycle of Being

She used to be one to detest things or love them with incomparable wrath or passion. She was the whirlwind that didn't just catch your breath but swept you off your feet. She was the very air you breathed, the beating of your heart. Tut tut tut tut tut, not the unnoticeable one of peace, but of the heady rush after you have spun yourself into a delirious moment of pleasure. 

She was all that and so much more... 

But time.. Time has a way of rubbing at your edges until the sharpness is rounded, the bite is lost, the carvings are smoothened out, until what once cut and made you bleed, now let you slip by, unnoticed, without a passing thought to its name. 

And so, she lay down, and let others step over her, some lightly, some quite determined to make her wince, but the worst, unknowingly, with no notice to the immeasurable vastness that lay at their feet. 

Then one day, came a little curious finger that traced all over her smooth once-edges. A little nose that pressed against her cool surface until it made quite sure she was there. And then the persistent questioning began, where are you? Until she was forced to raise a tired head and show herself. Here she was. But the little voice would have none of it. It commanded full attention, complete presence, absolute commitment to be present. To be there. 

And so she became, once more, everything. 

Formaldehyde

How does my heart beat outside my chest? 

Why do the thick membranes of my room thump so loud? 

Why does the numbness float tangible, stiff like fog around me? 

Why does frivolous banter penetrate my glass-encased mind? 

Am I drowning in the formaldehyde labs of senile gods? 

Too proud to see if I can survive without their injected luck? 

Did I get the dose or am I on placebo? 

And am I better off either way? 

Do I live another day at their mercy or have I never actually been? 

Am I helpless or do I choose to float aimless? 

Do I have a voice? And are ears of any use? 

Ears are overestimated. 

Apparently they do no shut, but that's a lie. 

They never open. 

The black holes they hide are visible through the eye and so, we shut them too. 

But light, what of light? 

How do we shut out light? 

And how do we unsee the thickening of the fog and the resounding thump thump thump of the enclosing membranes? 

We can. 

Until the glass shatters around us. 

And formaldehyde washes away the last of our sins. 

The girl who forgot

She didn't remember the man with six cats four doors down from her house. She didn't remember the game of twister the first time she introduced her husband to her friends. She didn't remember the lovely red lantern she got for Christmas last year. She didn't remember what she wore on her last birthday. She didn't remember the boy with the moon glasses who lived down the street. But she remembered things the others forgot. She remembers the night her friend hushed her to sleep. She remembers the girl who drew her a leaf. She remembers the sound of her father's tummy gurgling. She remembers the wetness of her first kiss. She remembers her friend's wet cheeks. She remembers how a pair of long slender hands fit hers. She remembers the morning she knew how she never wanted to be touched again. She remembers the winding roads lit by a million stars on the way to the hills. She remembers breathing in deep as she drove through a cloud. It's the freshest air you will ever breathe, her grandmother said. And as she held her scaly hands for the last time, she remembered. 

Phosphates

Phosphates glowing in the sea

Do you know how you came to be? 

When the stars revolted

At the growing darkness

Then the moon asked them to leave. 

So the sea erupted

And lit the falling ashes

The embers are what you see. 

Paralysis

Endless is the night

Wings wrapped snug around tired bones

Lips quaking in half dreams

Letters forming and drifting away into gentle slumber

I lie awake

Terrified

Incapacitated

Paralyzed

By the consequences of thoughts

And the bliss of thoughtlessness

Does it ever end? 

Blessings

Why is there no God? 

Are we abandoned? 

Is there no one to calm our fears? 

Stroke our heads and tell us it will be ok? 

It will all be ok? 

Must we do it all? 

Live through everything. Believe. Stay positive. 

Where do they get the strength to believe? 

I must be weak, begging for someone to hear me. To bless me. To look after me. Unable to believe.

Unable to lower my head in front of stone deities.

Unable to pray for my daughter.

And Lord am I terrified.

Music

You cannot hear the music, they said

And the stage was taken away from her

The shining faces of approval dimmed

A deafening silence pounded against her ears

And yet she sensed the murmurs of disapproval/sighs of disappointment around her

He placed her hand on his heart

But that's your music, she said

We can share until you find yours, he said

And as the music pulsed through her, she began to sing. 

After many moons and several nights of sleepless singing into the dawn

She heard the soft hum of her heart awakening

While another muffled drum slowly ceased. 

Just in case

Crumpled in the corner, defeated

Listening to the sounds of the night

Watching the clouds as they faded

Waiting till they're out of sight

Rain drops still damp on my face

Forming thoughts and words just in case

You're thinking of me...

Ridden out the storms and settled

Back in bed before first light

You've never known where I've headed

But some day I'll have taken flight

You'll be in a dull dreamy daze

Every time you don't see my face

And you'll think of me...

Falling

On my lips

Are someone else's words

On my tongue

The taste of someone else

Darling please,

What I mean is something else

I have been

Leading a split life

Now I'm afraid

Of falling between the cracks

And when the dark

Comes to get me, let me be

On my own

Yellow Butterflies

Yellow butterflies
Yellow butterflies
Strewn on the road
Were yellow butterflies

Yellow butterflies
Yellow butterflies
Swept by the water
Yellow butterflies

Yellow butterflies
Yellow butterflies
Could've been blood
If only you'd opened your eyes

Moving On

The same songs are playing again
The same colour in our glasses
Our cheeks
Our lips
And yet, the air has changed
Skin rubs skin still
Memory stirs in fond remembrance
But she says,
We're not 20 anymore
Life has moved on
Love has passed us by
And I submit to her
And her indifference
Like her every other command

Words

My mother said.

I remember you hiding Baba's chappals every single morning when you were hardly 3 years old. So we had to wake you to find them. I remember you dragging Patti inside the bedroom at 6. So nobody else would speak to her but you. I remember you standing with your arms outstretched guarding the door so Dada would not escape. And now you are going away. And I can't close any doors. Stay happy. Stay blessed. Enjoy every moment. And don't sulk.

Me Too

Sometimes I wonder if I imagined it
If I made it up in my head
If I actually spoke up about it
For what happened after
Is as clear as last night's dream
Patches of clear blue,
Blurring round the edges
But it definitely stopped.

And I wonder
If it happened at all.

Then there are days
When I do believe it happened
And I wonder if he remembers
And how he manages to look me in the eye
Muster speech without hesitation
Bring up the courage to smile
And laugh through his shame
If at all he ever felt it.

And I wonder
If I am what he made me.

Anger came easier at the stranger
At whom I desperately searched
For a stone to throw
Alone on that endless road home
Long after he had cycled away
A tune on his lips
And that smirk
That everything was going to be alright.

And I wonder
Why the tears wouldn't stop.

The first time, I didn't know better
By the second, I knew too much
Perhaps that's why I cried
The first time I felt love on my lips,
My hips
And something broken in me gave way,
Useless,
Submerged now with the old.

And I wonder
No, now I know.

Rememory

Flimsy, stuttering, and clumsy
My love shuffles shiftily along
Pausing uncomfortably at corners
She stares hesitantly at her feet
Heaving a great sigh she turns
One awkward corner after another
Dragging the clouds of uncertainty with her
Searching, stopping, continuing
Along the confined spectrum
Of time and space she occupies
Hopeful
Yet utterly lost

The dark sprigs of fancy
Shoot in and out of her heart
Painful with every moment remembered
Comforted by every moment forgot

Blush

The sudden silence
When your loudest thought escapes
Fumbles,
Bites her lip,
And tucks a stray lock away
Behind a reddening ear

And she's done it again.

Charmed

'Tis no book learned scholar I seek
One who puffs grey clouds by the window and dreams
Mine shall be the one who really lives
The life that others can only write about.

Rouge

Still carefully treading white lines on busy roads
Still catching crumbling pieces of the sky
Still pulling at dry skin, sacrificing meat for that unquenchable thirst
Still peering at faces passing by
Wondering who coloured the right ear red
Still running against the wind
Catching my breath in the rain
Still changing paper for other people's prints
Still smiling at pictures uploaded in an attempt to bandage relationships
And why not, if it works?
For what if it works!
How incredibly wonderful watching things as they fall into place
Painstakingly arranging themselves
Squeezing pieces together that were never meant to fit
But doing it anyway
So you have to cross your knee instead of spreading them in the comfort of unlimited space
So you have to match your undergarments every once in a while
So you have to explain the last donut that disappeared from the fridge
So what?
How wonderful it is to watch my rose arrange her petals
To have my fox see me in strawberry fields and await my return every evening
How extraordinarily wonderful
To have and to hold from this day onward
Well of course you may kiss the bride!

Stars

We lay awake nights now
Stars encased in tinted glass
In blinding fog lights
Shadowed under weary eyes

Darkness that brought with it restful sleep
Has permeated through the layers of our mind
Bringing instead a deep unrest
And settled down

Unleash the darkness
Give back the stars
I'd rather have them
In the sky

Edited for Mocaine

We lay awake nights now

Stars encased

in tinted glass

In blinding fog lights

Under my 

skin

Shadowed under 

weary eyes

Darkness come now

Permeate

Through the layers

of my mind

Bringing in

side the deep  

Settle down

Give me back the 

stars, I'd rather 

have them in the 

sky.

That One, the One Mad as Birds

I always think of her when I cross this stretch
A little lost girl with a nest on her head
A nest of wild flowers and humming birds
Playing havoc with her mind
Bursting into flight with her thoughts

On stilts she walks
Looking straight over the heads of crowds
That's the only way they're meant to be seen
Bobbing up and down to the rhythm of her personal background score

Last I heard she'd flown with that flock of hers
I imagine her chirping away
Somewhere on the branch of a gulmohar tree
Perhaps that's the only place to be
And till I see her again
I'll chirp from my verandah
Hoping she hears me.