THAT WHICH GOES UNSAID...

 My want for affection comes at inconvenient times and i hover around you like afternoon October shadows, lingering, ignored-- I disappear into the evenings.

  It is the rain. The rain. The rain that is unbearably cold and unbearably reminds me of blue days. unbearable blue days, of exhaustion that comes with being happy. Happiness is an exhaustion. Sadness on the other hand is a slow intoxication. It is the rain. The cold rain that finally unburdens the exhaustion of happiness and trickles into the world, sadness, one drop at a time.one sadness at a time. sadness is accommodating. Come sit with me, tell me your sorrow. it is the rain, The rain. The rain that has this buzzing that calls forth the sadnesses it is the rain, the rain the slippery glasses that opens the inward gaze. in a dark room.

I  was dealing with depression and family responsibilities, yet trying to heal from trauma but you chose to leave me right then. Right when, I was gathering up courage , courage to finally owe up to a 7 year slow burn for you, waiting for you to finish your career goals when you left me. And not even a word before the final hour. Not even a warning , but a blow. I have loved you since the first day I met you.. since the first trip I took with you. Since the time we stared at a moonlit mountain together. You were a rock, my anchor. The day it all ended, I told my friend... I feel like a rudderless anchorless boat.. As I suffer through my personal troubles now, my failing health, I wish .. and I rage.. and I scream internally... YOU SHOULD HAVE BEEN HERE. And although you never promised anything, it seems weird now that it was all me and zero of you in there.

Years have passed. We both stand reflecting our respective choices. Choices that shaped both of us now. Stand in the silences of those choices made. Come down to the silences of the reflection of your choices in me and mine in you. Let those mountains that once held our hearts together absorb our pain. Let the moon that once bound our clasped bodies shine on us separately now.  Let the rains that made us weave poetry together fall on our eyes and bodies washing away the pain that comes with a missing part of heart. Someone who cares about me now tells me to forget you. I will perhaps never forget you. There is always a place for that one person who you believed to share your life with. We both wanted to take the road less travelled. But the paths in the wood that we each took moved us away.  Will our paths ever merge? Maybe. Will we ever share a sunset or a moonrise again? Maybe, but not in each other's glow. I free you today. from the shackles of me. And I free myself from yo...

I visited a forest and stood motionless under a canopy, An early spring's heap of dried leaves crumbling under my feet.. The only sound their breaking bones.. I looked up to see a leaf falling.. Almost like a sole movement .. Like a meteor rushing across a motionless sky.. My skin crawled with a memory Whether from my mind or my gut, I cannot tell. There were instances like this before With or without you. That whenever I had done this before, I had an assurance of the meaning of The motionlessness being you.. The meaning that a leaf twilled through  An universe like a shooting star.. That both will return to dust.. But that all of this was for you.. Yet today the leaf seemed to fall infinitely And the star never completely burned.. Like there is motionless story that seeks no end. I have tried to set you free often. And myself from you. N You could. I still can't. Because in the depths of what caused things to come to a meaningful end, Despite no seeming reason.. Was you.

What is common with the numerous stories  and fables and mythology  and history and NOW, and ever, of a tribe of strong women? Why is history and NOW so spineless that they bring down crime   and war, rights and wrong to the doing of this tribe that they cannot handle? That they cannot handle  a woman with herbs, a woman behind a telescope, a woman with an axe, with a head full of snakes, a woman with beauty or without, and hair, a woman with a voice, in their heads or in their body, a woman with the ballot, with a sceptre,  or women with the pen or swag. The narratives that should move around the morals of right and wrong, are inevitably reduced to darkness, you cannot explain that is beyond your comprehension. BEYOND YOU. And then you chop down the head of Medussas, burn them tied to the poles, and make them examples to many women- to get it in their bones  that strong women are "audacious". That "audacity" is a crime. and then her herbs are the crim...

At the end of the disaster that swept Our streets with the twilight And seeped into our hearts  Like the moonbeams, What remained was a patch of purple On my dress. It was not your purple... It was of a mindful kid who drew blossoms of lavender on everything On my copies, my walls My dress. Yet why does a purple patch  Like the twilight And the disasters  Remind me of  times  That never were.

In smoky alley a knife of sunlight pierced the colourful tarpaulins. Falling slant .. For a few minutes, till The sun is eclipsed or Goes marauding across latitudes. For that brief moment, It lighted his hair And her eyes.

In nights like this, when heavy rain lashes this city from a depression in Bay of Bengal which was earlier a cyclone... I am busy trying to work my life out. But the sounds of rain at night only get me back to that one late summer night. Intoxicated by the spirit of our eyes, We had just returned to your room. Cosied into your never done bed We clasped our hands and tangled up. Something inside me stopped me. I was scared. My pre-conceived ideas swarmed in my sleepy head with the spirit. We fell asleep. We tried to behave normal morning after. But nothing was ever normal after. We were slowly falling in love. Was it only me? You thought I don't remember after the spirit moved out of me. I remember, I still remember. The affection of your eyes-- and your innocent laughter. .that is the best memory I have of you. The day I left, I had fallen asleep to your laughter at some mindless TV comedy. That for me was the idea of home. And of waking up to a dog ...

All of my cells wanted to love you With all the strength l have... Like I did never before. Some of my cells were scared That you would love me Like none before you .. And then would leave ... So you did.

Walk bare foot In a park. Have tea. Try different types. Green, Red And of course white. Morning paper, watered plants. Sticky notes. Neatly arranged. One crooked. Hum Songs. Long showers. Movies. That make you cry. Memories. That make you smile. And be sad.. a little. Piano lessons. Someday. Own Studio. Colour all over. Diaries… some pain. Write letters. Books, Wednesday evenings. Pastry, Sunday afternoons. Solo breakfast.. Saturday morning. Rains and window stares. Transparent cups and tea leaves Floating. Slow pop. Dance alone. Love. Kiss. Love till the other loves. Love when they leave. But don’t hold on. Believe. Call over friends. Read them stories. And serve them tea. Some cookies. Write. Pack your bags, travel. Near. Far. Within. Without. Solo. With people. Love. Hate. But never show. Cigarettes when you write. Write. Write. Write.

to exist             without acknowledging what existed                           love without being loved back                                  to behave that there is no wound

our lives are but recurrences of our memories and our memories are the future of thoughts and events and touches that we refuse to let go. that we refuse to bury under a heap of dirt. And even if we do, we plant a sapling. We say we know it's not gonna live.. but we water it every day.. and we are wary of the birds that pluck at it. We are wary of strangers that might trample it... And when on a sunny morning, a yellow flower blooms we relive the pain of what was buried.

In those days when we were in the process of breaking everything that we had built together: of deconstructing each line we had carefully woven into poems, of whitewashing the walls where pictures of roads had been painted, you had given me a diary, along with your whims. What made you choose that diary I wonder. Was it that I wrote profusely and I could write anything that I wanted? Or Was it that you knew that the end was near And you wanted me to drain myself of you into those pages? I never would know what could have been, Had I held on to you as you did... Maybe our tortured souls wouldn't have made into these pages...maybe the blood of our souls that stains our hands, would have throbbed our hearts, as we grasped each other tight.

The wars have been waged. A bomb fell the other day on my rooftop. Nothing much was destroyed, except the flower pot that bore the last rose of the season, and of course the room beneath it. Why did I say nothing was destroyed?? A room, a big room was grounded to dust. As I stood in front of that half shell of a room, I saw how little I had sufficed myself with. There was a bed, few clothes, a water jar and a series of empty shelfs. Except one. Where I kept all the love letters given to me by all my past lovers. and all the letters that I could have posted to one of them. And I value both. They didn't let me take the letters."You better forget those letters and them. Run for your life." I turned to go back. Some rose petals lay scattered. The last of the season. The last you planted for me. Amidst the dust.

Let me for the first time,lay in your absence in an empty bed, trying to fully process your loss.Let me for the first time accept that i had fallen in love with you.That said,a silence falls upon my heart.'Cause i have never quite owed up to loving someone as easily as   i did about you. And never quite have been misjudged for it. i couldn't bring myself to hate you. i lay sometimes in between the areas of love and not so love.Maybe you can call it hate. And i am in a proces of deleting the hate to see how much i had loved you. i am surprised by it. Kindering an emotion so strong in my broken soul must have taken some magic. Unravelling, for me was never an easy task.   Surrendering, could have been an option but i have been hurt too many times & in too many places, hating too many people in the process. and when i remove those hatred, i see you in a different light. Naive and as keen as me to receive love. But then what ...

You know what is the saddest thing in the world?? The saddest thing in the world is to die alone. To not being able to say the last goodbye before you leave this world. Forever. To Someone. To not being able to say, it was such a good life. I had a broken heart once or twice... broke one or two. I had my share of winnings and mostly losses. I had my best sunny days and gloomy rainy days. It had been such a lively life. It has happened so may times that you went away from a person-- In anger, in rage. And never turned back to look into their eyes. You never know when it is the last goodbye. Always hoping- I should have gone back.. Never going back. You never know when it is the last meeting. I had this friend of mine in school--who knew all I was. I knew all she was. We shared our secrets and benches and crushes and clothes. She was a Ricky Ponting fan, and I was  Brett Lee fan And together we cheered for Australia in cricket matches. She liked pink, I like...

Please pull a chair and face me. In this empty room of shadowy , dusty light, there are but four souls. you. me. and these two chairs, which belonged to a living , throbbing body once. Yes, now that you are seated facing my faint outline Tell me what do you see? Do you hear  my breath.. slow..anticipating? Do you notice the curve of my waist? My short hair glistening in the faint light? Or do you feel my soul? do you understand the look of my eyes in the darkness?? I hope you hear my breath, see the outline and catch the shine of the hair. And not my soul or my eyes. It took a long time to manoeuvre the emptiness in them. OH .. am I deviating??? Lets get back to it.Where were we? You seated in the chair facing me, I seated in the chair facing you. The idea is that we will disrobe. Our thoughts and our selves. I start. I liked you from day first.I never told you that. I threw my scarf to ground. You say . I lusted you from day one. Friendship was never there. ...

Today we sat in a pub With a beer glass each And a pitcher kept at our side Which miraculously never emptied. We were drawing our lines Each with a chalk They blurred... We crossed.. And came back to our lives Tipsy. fudgy . Mud headed. You said .. we are two lost souls Drowning in a beer mug I corrected you... Nah... Drowned in beer pitcher You said with a long face... Do not look at the outside... And then the universe started to expand Or so my other drunk friend said.. (Rang me up) So the tiny bubbles oozed up to the surface And burst Like stars in the sky... And spread like dusts Across our universe Settled on our eyes... As we walked past slumber. We did not count how many fell In my side of the line And how many on your court...

Does a room full of sound Of rain drops falling somewhere need a heavy shower outside? Can imaginations not paint for us the pictures That it has been raining quiet sometime And we are but weak quivering drenched souls?