Making Memories

I walk a hundred steps a second. And only some left steps feel right. How you live knowing where each breath goes is beyond me. You know I was never good with words.

I look for you in the pauses, in the crevices of my dreams but I find only gaping holes, some insect bites, some already filled.

The bitten leaves I stared at for hours were not ours. Our hearts are whole and full of fresh blood. And beat thickly no matter what the day was like. But I was never good with words. And I cannot say. It wasn't us. Neither you nor I. Our hearts were not to fathom why.

And I wondered why I smiled or cried and I looked at leaves and wondered why. The knowing smiles were lost on me. It was you I knew then and know it now. I cannot love as you do. I cannot hold on tighter than you. In front of yours my love feels small. And she sits by the window and pouts. 

I have stamped my foot, I have laughed, I have smiled and I have wished and wished and wished I was another, almost anyone else would do. 

Tomorrow is tomorrow and tomorrow is some other day I have no need to concern myself with. Mine may cloud over or shine in the blinding light of bikes on nights like these. But it is yours I wish was ours  for I can see the fireworks that'll dazzle onlookers and foolish strangers who have wasted lives wondering what love is.

Do not waste yourself on me. I am a bunch of lies that made itself up in your head. That is all I am and all I can ever be.

Maybe one day you will believe me. Maybe one day I will really be the dream you think I am. I was real. But I became illusory in your fingers. Dont ask me how or when or why. I do not know. I do not hope to understand. I am less than illusory now. I am the lines I traced on your palm. I am the wish I blew off your cheek. But I am there. I am more real to you than I am to myself right now.

And that's all, I cannot continue. The words I frame are too vague and blurred just as mine always were. Maybe that would make for a memory.

Those Unseen Sounds of the Night

A yellow leaf falls quietly to the ground
Nothing stirs, nothing frowns
Black holes yawn at drowsy cats
Another battle, another night
For hearts have stopped before
Muffled like drums on weeping nights
A thud somewhere, a low groan
Passed off as one of those unseen sounds of the night.

Trees have fallen before
Roots trenched firmly underground
Come gravedigger
Pull me out.

Here lies a bundle tightly curled
The softest wind will wake him, tread light
Black holes yawn at drowsy cats
Morning cowers from the blinding night
For hearts have stopped before
Muffled like drums on weeping nights
A thud somewhere, a low groan
Passed off as one of those unseen sounds of the night.

I watched as the minute hand moved
And then the hour
I watched as our faces glowed in the dark.

Let the sleeping lie
At least they breathe
At least they sigh
Petals form roses
I cannot get them right
My fingers slip off buttery window panes
The world condenses on our hour glass
I wake him with a whisper
And still he lies
Standing by a leaning wall
Eyes close all thought of him
For  hearts have stopped before
Muffled like drums on weeping nights
A thud somewhere, a low groan
Passed off as one of those unseen sounds of the night.

We whizzed past dreams
And lowly sights
Wiping sleep from cloudy eyes
I cannot lose what I cannot hold
I cannot have a falling star
But  hearts have stopped before
Muffled like drums on weeping nights
A thud somewhere, a low groan
Passed off as one of those unseen sounds of the night.

Growing Up

The sky always fascinated me. When an airplane cut across the sky, all the children would run after it, shouting and waving. But that had never been what interested me. I always looked beyond those airplanes, deep into the sky, at the stars that never failed to twinkle back at me, reciprocating the same unconditional love that I had for them.
Every evening I went to the market with my parents on either side of me. I never looked at the houses towering over me or the people who exchanged pleasant greetings with my parents nor did I ever see where I was going. I simply held my parents' hands and trusted them to take me with them wherever they were going. And all the while I had my eyes fixed heavenwards, watching the moon teasing me from behind little puffs of clouds.
At night, I would lie next to my father on the little cot out on the terrace. He would tell me to count the stars and obediently I would start to count until his breath came gently and his lips twitched along with his moustache and I would put my head on his stomache and listen to the slight rumbling noises in there and all the while I would keep counting. I was afraid I would have to go back indoors once I finished counting. I was afraid I would run out of stars to count. So I would count the same stars again and again until I fell asleep right there, cuddled next to my father.
Today, when I walk down the road, there is no hand for me to hold. I can no longer trust somebody else to take me along, and so I stumble along by myself. But even now, sometimes when I stand by myself at night, I count the stars. I continue to count the same stars again and again and again just so I don't have to go back inside.

Big Loves and Small

My love sits in a corner of a brightly lit room. Hugging her knees she rocks herself to sleep. Her frame is small and frail and she cowers from the light. There are bigger, greater loves than hers they tell her and she shrinks further into the background merging with the soft cream and peach of the ideal lover's den. If it be small, is it not love? How can she lift her chin and face your love if you tell her she doesn't exist, if you tell her she is not enough? It has been a while since she stopped believing in herself. It's been a while since she could speak or stand. Take her in your arms when you have time. She grows weak and flutters helplessly with every harsh wind that blows. Hold her and gently press your lips on hers. For even love needs loving sometimes.

New Love and Light Rain

The lights that glittered were far away
Raindrops clinging to the railing shone pearly white
Trailed softly down my throat
Blurring the empty space around me
Cornering me in the centrality of my vacuum
Illusory fingers slipping away in the dark
Promising comfort
As the fading echoes bounce back upon themselves
And dissolve.

I want to feel skin when I reach out
I want to see the air cloud under warm breath
I want yellow lights
And a place of our own
Where blankets stay in closets
And summer dresses fly in the breeze
I want the new sun to bless us
Not under gulmohared shadows or stony crags
But on sandy beaches and open seas
I want freshly mown grass to run barefoot on
And curtains that're only drawn with the setting sun
I want new life wrapped around my little finger
And a mischievous twinkle unseen over its head.

New love is for children and I feel old
My daydreams rustle restlessly to unfold
The unspelt impatient to draw ink
To run dry or forever flow.

Lil Ol' Boy

My old boy
Retired into decision
Of dreaming in the head
Precisely

My old boy
Swimming in a distant thought
Swung back and forth
From me

My old boy
He likes to fight
When no one's around
His left fights right

My old boy
My very own boy
After my heart
And how

My old boy
My very own boy
Warring with himself
In love

My old boy
My very own boy
Drowning everyday
Inside

My old boy
He says to me
I love the sounds you make
And sleeps

My old boy
My very own boy
Keeps running away
From what we could be

Love less, my dear
Dream less
Don't try to hide
And fail miserably

Love is what you'll let it be.

Wait Until Dark

Our dreams float dimly illumined like stars, like folded fireflies, like lighthouse beams. Step after blind step we trail after the light at the end of the tunnel following the whiff of warm trains wafting along on wintry nights. Our soft ambitions lull us into these twilight dreams that lie with us through haze and drifting sleep. Do we want to reach the end of the tunnel, or catch that train, or touch that shore? Would we not rather lose ourselves in embers than play with fire? The light on that other dreamy end would blind us. The candles we light are neither for burning nor for heat. The torches we light are for others to find the way. Our own light would blind us, so we look away. Dreams should remain dreams that flit in and out of drifting sleep. So dream away, sons and daughters of my own homespun cloth. Let not the sun wake you, it is but noon yet.