I finally publish

Cosy in discomfort

2010-02-15T21:46:00.000-08:00

I lie
Nestled between the scars
Of yesterday and tomorrow.

These shoes are meant for shop windows

2009-11-08T21:57:00.000-08:00

So he bought new running shoes.

Out of shape he calls himself. Perfect is all I see when I look at him. But I get what he means. I'm the kind of wife who always understands- especially when I don't want to. He'll disagree on this. And I will agree with him.
See! No see? Look again.

He tells me, I'm gonna go running. Far and far and far. So far, I might not even come back.
He pretends not to see I am hurt. He's very good at that. Not seeing me.

I don't hear him go out in the morning. No sound of the lock falling in place that denotes sure exit.

So I wake up in total panic. My mind's been running to catch up with him already. And I lie awake waiting for him to come back.

What if he doesn't?

He does. He takes his time... as always. He loves to make me wait... as always.

Where do you get shoes that make someone run towards you?

When there is no call to wake up

2009-11-01T22:48:00.000-08:00

It was a Monday of sorts. Unformed completely. A little bit of the Sunday borrowed, reluctant to now part.

He wakes early everyday.

There was a time I used to rush to wake with him, my sleep trying to catch up with his. Then I gave up- I give up very easily. I wake to turn when he gets off the bed. I smile at his non seeing back. Its difficult even in hazy mornings to see how easy it is for him to walk away; no turns, no fond looks, no tender eyes.

I curl up the other way, the eternal companion of a pillow always on the other side; cold, pummeled hard and yet waiting.

I don't know why I do this. I might as well wake up.

But there are some days. After he walks around the frozen house, reads all the news that has already been made, puts the packet of milk on the kitchen counter and doesn't know what else to do while it thaws, that he comes back to me. Not exactly me. I have to work to not ruffle his ego and my sense of misplaced importance.

My mind is like an unfinished book; read and unread. By me even. Especially.

He walks over to the bed and tries climb into the blanket that is tightly wrapped around me. Its always a fight with me, even when I am pretending to sleep. I let him in or he lets himself in.

We both want to.

And then we both wake up.

Between nobody

2009-10-30T00:15:00.000-07:00

I plucked a silence from you
I plucked a silence from me
And entwined it into a conversation of sorts

Leaving myself behind

2009-10-28T00:10:00.001-07:00

For every step I take towards you
You take none
And so I take two back

For every step I take towards you
I walk further away from you.

Blue Melody

2009-02-11T01:05:00.000-08:00

It suddenly came upon me when we were in the auto. Like that. Some things happen like that you know.

I took a look at him and started to cry. Just like that.

He'd read somewhere that women were hysterical creatures. Men who write about women should be shot. And he was sure I fell in that classification firm. So he didn't seem too perturbed by it.

That just made me cry harder. What tears unseen worth anyway?

If he'd waited any longer, the auto driver would turned and offered me a sympathetic shoulder and that wouldn't just do. So he asks me, 'Why you crying?"

I never accept I cry and especially when I am.

"I'm not crying"
"Yes you are"
"I'm not"
"Yes you are"

What's the point of saying something we both know true anyway? So I go back to crying.

"So why you crying?"

It is with great reluctance I tell him my answer. Not that it matters much to him, but it sure does a lot to me. The weight of significance isn't uniform.

"I don't have any defences with you"

He doesn't say anything for a while. I look at him with tear filled eyes- he appears blurred. Am not sure exactly how far he is, but he appears blurred. I am sure exactly how far he is, a shoulder touching distance away, but he appears blurred.

"Why do you want them defences?"

That’s when I begin crying harder. Harder than the harder before.

His hand on my shoulder grips me firmer.

He reads the boards of the various shops we pass them by. One by one.

"Cell city"

"Juice wagon"

"Jolly tailors"

"Lovely snacks"

I stop crying and look at the names as he reads.

There is a blue cloth that flaps by the mirror in the auto. It makes a nice warm sound in the wind.

The next first time I meet you

2009-01-03T00:52:00.000-08:00

This is where I always wait for you. And I always wait.

I don't exactly know what it is I wait for. That first glimpse? That overwhelming feeling oh so inexplicable when I first lay my eyes on you? Or is it I wait for you to disappoint me by not coming? You buy that quiet certainty which is a recomposed emotion that I put out for you pretty effortlessly. I've become an expert at hiding my emotions. I'm becoming more of a woman everyday.

Every vehicle that pulls closer to the curb of my house, the eyes shine a lil more. So many vehicles pull closer to that curb... The eyes dim a lil with disappointment every time its not you. In those moments between anticipation and disappointment, I live. Life is a process of slow disenchantment. You don't think Sleeping Beauty ever regretted being kissed awake? She found comfort in the story that was her. Somewhere in it she held close the purpose of her existence.

I don't know the exact direction you will come from. The head turns restlessly this side and the other. I don't want to know anything for sure. So I pretend to be unbiased and look on either side of the road at not so equal intervals. I gave you all my love. It didn't matter to you that much.

In that first moment where I see you before you see me, I crease out the folds of the silliest smile you ever saw. You never saw rather.

And then I see you. The feelings that rush up... one of these days I'll learn to not hurt so much.

I hang up my face and pick up my collected mask. You know it better. I'm learning to know it better too.

I don't rush into your arms. You don't open them for me.

We meet a zillion first times.

Hi.
Hi.

Say a lil prayer for me

2008-11-22T07:26:00.000-08:00

I took the bus to school everyday. Clusters of friends. At the bus stop. In the bus. And back in school. Different people in different worlds. My worlds never mixed. And there was embarrassment when it did try. Leaving me confused, a little bit of oil in water, or a little bit of water in oil.

I envied S's world. She had but one world. Sane. Clean. Uncluttered. All her friends- branded and marked. I was the only one in borderland. And I guess I stayed there for her to constantly remind herself other worlds existed and she was infinitely happy in her own. My mistakes and confusions stopped her from exploring. My dissatisfaction helped her find and keep close, her contentment.

So there was this once when she asked me- I saw you come of the chapel.

She never paid too much attention to the interrogatives we learnt in English I guess. I got the question though. 'Why?'

I don't know. Maybe I just trailed behind all the girls who stepped out of the bus and went in to offer a prayer. Maybe I liked the cold quiet of the cozy dark chapel. I checked the flowers everyday. My favorites were the tiger lilies. Maybe it was to see the white clad nuns half asleep feigning prayer. And there was this statue of Mary with a serpent coiled around her feet. Its mottled body and forked tongue which I looked away as soon as I looked at…The candles that burnt themselves out staying alive…

We sat silent a while.

You didn't pray.

Yes. I never prayed.

And relief lifted off the air, light and carefree once again.

Posting secrets

2008-09-28T04:41:00.000-07:00

Of course I am scared. Just how much, is my secret.

Will you come? Somewhere I think I stopped waiting.

You see my smile. And you think there's so much hurt below. I like what you think more than what I really am. Makes me feel so much deeper.

All my time is spent with you. And I like it so. Just that I like complaining too. 'I hardly have the time to do anything else'. But really, there is nothing else.

I don’t tell you how beautiful I think you really are. Sounds very overrated. But it really isn't. You are more.

Every thing you don’t tell me, scares me more than all things you have told me. My assumptions are worse than reality. Wonder what life I’m living.

The tip of the horizon

2008-09-02T01:54:00.000-07:00

An abandonment like a washed shore. Frothy remnants of something gone. A few shells left back like scars on otherwise uniform skin.

Missing someone forms a dull ache that you learn to live with.

This year I missed you a little less than the year before. And gradually I'll stop remembering to miss you. The heart is a traitor, a sellout for reasons of expedience.

I must've loved the rain. But it was you who made me realize it. When the first unexpected summer rain fell, mother and I ran out to pick the clothes from the line. Mother even in that moment of urgency, sanity always her being, insisted on flinging a cloth over our bare heads. You tugged mine off and asked me to enjoy the rain. You told it was beautiful and it was a shame to watch it through soggy layers. It was. It still is.

It was you who pointed out the stars in the sky and told me their names. Sleepy eyes hardly got it registered. But I always knew you would be there the next night to tell me their names all over again. How foolish was I. Never again will I see a tomorrow except when I see it.

I've actually forgotten you. Most of you. You stay however in stories I tell people. In smells and nostalgia. You stay in the empty space that you left behind.

A girl I know...

2008-07-29T00:00:00.000-07:00

There's this girl I know. Nothing really swell about her. But... she's the kind of girl who's got the sun in her eye when she laughs. Even on a rainy day.
Especially on a rainy day. Those kinds, they're hard to come by.

She knew all my friends, not that there were too many too. And she'd listen to them all, even when they didn't have anything to say. Those kind of girls, I tell you, they're hard to come by.

She had a mole in the shape of a butterfly. Now, it never looked like a butterfly to me. But she said it was, the wingless kind. She knew most things and I agreed. I agree to most things she says. The part where I disagreed, we never stumbled on anything like that until later. Later than too late.

Those kinds, they're hard to come by. The ones you fall in love with and don’t realize until lost.

And fools like us, everyone is.

She fell in love.
And I died.
And we refused to die again.

One way ticket to heaven

2008-07-18T00:00:00.000-07:00

That was the year you died. So you aren't expected to know what happened after that. I stopped living. For a while. That was but expected.

I gave away your shirts, the worn ones and the not worn ones. Your watch stopped. Again. You'd forgotten to change the battery. Your sandals were in really bad shape. I kept them. For a while.

Your books... they took some time deciding what to be done with. I still am deciding what to do with them. For now, they stay amidst my books. They must've been confused, parting from known neighbors. We all had to live different, now that you'd died.

I gave clear instructions that I not be let know what was done with your armchair, writing desk and typewriter. Now I wish I'd kept them. But then I also wish you'd lived longer.

You'd given away your bike. Not that you knew you were going to die. You'd have told me, we never had secrets between the two of us. And once, when the young boy who got your bike rode past home, I ran to the balcony, forgetting you'd died. I think I cried that day. For a while.

Singing spaces

2008-07-15T00:00:00.000-07:00

We sleep like two open brackets lying on the same side. My hair is forever in your face. I push it away exasperatedly. You are gentler with it. And when it finally comes in the way of a kiss, in reckless abandon I ask you, shall I shave it all away?

Your eyes are the most unreadable things I have ever turned to. I'll learn their language one of these days and know all your secrets.

There is a conversation. Airborne alphabets caught by half listening ears.

Your hands cup my breasts. They feel small. You assure me yet again they're perfect. The many ways we make lie a truth.

Give me a love bite, I ask you.
You try. And again. You tell me you really don't know how and you'll only end up biting me hurt.

It turns me on and I curl a little tighter. I haven't reached that stage when I can easily let you know what happens with me. You haven't reached the stage where you assume you know what I want.

There's you, me and some silence in between…tightly packed, not much room between us.

Economical not

2008-07-08T00:00:00.000-07:00

Born businesswoman that I am, I sold my body to you.

And you paid in love.

And that now my dear, is a currency with the highest rate of depreciation.

Liff

2008-06-30T01:05:00.001-07:00

I heard
his heart
beat my name
but
with
a
wrong spelling.

Lonely shores

2008-06-24T00:00:00.000-07:00

I don't know how many of you have had a poem written to you. Or for you. Or even about you.

Frankly, I never thought I'd be at the receiving end of one. Its just way too big a gift and I'm the one usually doing the giving. Acceptance has always been difficult.

So when he sent me one... the emotions weren’t exactly in this order, but still...

There was amazement, shock, bewilderment, overwhelm and then...Hmmm... an infinite sense of loss followed by a finite sense of gain.

Do you remember the times

Lonely, we spent there?

The rocks cushioning

Our wearsome frames

The waves kissing our feet, bare

Yours, ankleted;

Listening to stories and songs

The waves whispered

Into ears strained.

We listened, we laughed

We made the sea a comrade

Spilling our secrets into

The departing waves

Stories to be carried away

To other awaiting shores

And a little guilt washed away.

Now, I sit here alone

And the waves,

They seem hesitant, wary;

A guilty messenger- almost.

Unfetched letters for an eager recipient.

Empty-handed, they approach

To listen, carry away, wash away

A little sorrow.

P.S: The anklets are now silent. The bells have fallen off.
And you aren't there anyway.

The heart is a lonely hunter

2008-06-18T00:00:00.000-07:00

It was the year of long skirts. When more cloth overrode comfort. Stiff white long petticoats under longer colorful skirts; petticoats that rubbed raw against your legs. Petticoats that saved you from your two sticky legs being seen as silhouettes. Marilyn Monroe disagreed. So did I. I don’t know what Monroe's mom had to say to her, but I sure heard a lot from mine.

And that’s how I was dressed to go for the concert. I loved music. But I loved disobedience and rebellion better. So I was seen protesting, sulking and agreeing- all for something even I wanted.

We had good seats. They became the best seats when I saw you. I guess it was my lucky day, when I was asked to sit beside you. You smiled me a smile. A smile that was all mine. I pretended to adjust the creases of my skirt.
All that it takes to transform a girl into a woman is a smile.

I always held it against my parents that they weren't better friends with yours. Our mothers talked in friendly politeness so characteristic of acquaintances who would never be friends.

When the curtain rose and the hush murmurs drowned themselves out, I stole a look at you. And then ever so often I'd look at you, casually so.

The music must've been good.

When the curtain fell again, you turned and looked at me. Complete attention that I didn't know where to tuck away.

You asked me about school. About friends. About what I was then reading. I never asked you anything back and that was only because there was so much I wanted to know.

Mother on coming back to her seat gave me a not very happy look, seeing how unabashedly happy I was. When my smile fell as her frown tugged it down, you noticed it.

Just as the curtain rose and the lights dimmed, you took my hand and whispered 'Lets go out'.

I knew for sure I had to go back home with mother. And maybe that we'll never meet again in the same romance. You might fade. I will fade.

We brush aside several looks of disproval and step on many polished and unpolished toes.

Those were the years of scooters. Bikes were a luxury. Stolid blue scooters parked in military fashion.

You sit on one and pat me the empty seat beside you. I take it.

We don’t talk. The music sounds better from where we now stand. I turn to look at you ever so lightly. You catch that one.

I go back to just the music.

And again when I look at you, you turn to me.
We both smile.

When the next time it happens, I am flustered. No woman who is woman enough lets her love be seen. I was but a girl. And you were but my first love and mistake.

You smile and point out to the shadow we make on the wall.
Of a boy who sits on a scooter.
Of a girl with her head slightly turned… looking at the boy beside her.

The shadows just don’t show me blush.

Coffee.com Series

2008-06-13T00:02:00.000-07:00

S and I met. Again.

Coffee.com is our attempt at writing, abstraction and honesty.

Disclaimers come usually in the end. But then we decided, we are but usually unusual.
I'm not a mother. But if I was one, I'd still read it. And I'd wish my daughter would too.

Residues

The smell of burnt out lamps.

Almost dry semen left unwiped complete.

Your sunscreen on my lips.

Your smile left incomplete.

An edited story.

Chai leaves on drunk glasses
Lipstick printed.

Cigarette butts in almost empty whiskey glasses.

Locked windows, bolts thrown in
Open doors...

"Thank you, last night was great"
I've had better.
And I want more.

After the end

2008-06-06T00:00:00.000-07:00

Quite frankly
I don't know how to love.
Not just you
Or maybe just you.

So
I take the oft repeated paths

I send you flowers
You don't understand them.

I cook your favorite meal
You never tell me how bad it is.

I watch while you sleep
You don't look any very good.

I call you when I don't want to talk
You never pick the calls.

I hate it when I lie.
You love it when I do.

I tell you I love you.
You believe me.
I don’t.

So
Hmmm....

Love
is a blanket
too small
to share.

Love
is a dead end.
Any further
The journey is in circles.

Love
is two measures
Unrequited
And the longing.

Love
is
overrated anyway.

But you are a song

2008-05-26T00:00:00.000-07:00

This time when you went away, you took a part of me that I didn't know existed.

Waking up together and in the same world was the best thing this summer. You were still a phone call away but the distance was shorter. And hearing your morning voice, the one-before-best thing.

I could only whisper into your ear that I loved you. And you held me a little away and looked into me and told me the same. And I believed you.

And the next secret I whispered to you, I kissed you. Both of us were shocked. Its just that I couldn't resist touching you with my lips when you were but a nose distance away.

And we went to your college. You showed me everywhere that mattered and that didn't. Everywhere mattered really.

We'd squeezed through the prickly hedge and sneaked into the football ground. That was the prettiest night I ever will remember. You'd held my hand and we'd walked a little. We heard the drone of a faraway plane. We listened to the intimate night sounds. And we kissed.

I had to stand on tiptoe to reach you. Aiming for greater heights.
You had to bend low to reach me. So you lifted me up.

People tilt their faces while kissing otherwise which the nose comes in the way. We didn't have to. I have a small nose you said.

And the first time we had almost sex. You'd flicked a condom from your unsuspecting friend. And you'd confessed to me with almost embarrassment that you'd thought about carrying one.

Do you remember how I'd always said that we move from first base to directly the third? There are no shortcuts I learnt that summer when your hand went under my blouse. And how it paused every inch, worried. And finally when we were done with removing the many layers which we insisted on wearing even in summer, I looked at you. And you at me. The sunlight dappled on our naked bodies leaving fragmented patterns of warmth.

Do you remember how the doorbell rang and we jumped out of our skins. We didn't have any clothes to jump out of them anyway. I discovered that day how soon I can get dressed. Before the second insistent peal could be heard, I was signing for the courier in my roommate's name.

I'd staggered back and pressed into you, relieved. We'd both burst out laughing and gone inside to wear our clothes properly all over again.

It was the summer of incompleteness. Of almost sex and never enough kisses. Of watermelon juices that got over before you drank them to fill. Of bike rides that were too short. Of insatiable hugs. Of damp beach sands that dried too soon.

How you left is another story.

Rough drafts

2008-05-19T00:30:00.000-07:00

Family
the cut cord
which refuses to remain uncut.

Love
like twisting pain
searing
asking for a choice.

Relationships
demand
a sacrifice
no less than
giving up
me.

I write
in broken words
so
people understand
less
or
more.

Son.
Daughter.
Mom.
Dad.
I hope you enjoyed the sex while you made us.

I never claimed to be
intelligent.
You assumed.
I pretended.

I heard
his
heart beat.
His
heartbeat.

When he wrapped his arms
around me
I wanted to be
a better gift
than I was.

No reason to love. Not even love.

2008-05-11T00:34:00.000-07:00

I always tend to misspell love as lone.

You love me coz you are tired of your loneliness.
Its worse that I know it.

I'm scared you'll stop.
That I'll be a habit you can discard as easy as you got it on.

I'm scared of the buttons you'll open
And discover a body not very lovable
And even more about how you'll pretend its ok.

Once again I make the same mistake.
I stop being myself.
And try be what you want.
And end up being what neither of us wants.

I wait for you to call me.
You never do.
And when I do
I wait for me to hang up.
And I promise myself I'll not call you.
That is
Until
You call me back
And so I break an already broken promise.

I search for you
In old mails
In past friends
In touched places
In stored SMSs
In movies.
And I find you
And everywhere.
So I never call out
As that will make both of us uncomfortable.
Found
and found.

From this moment, to this moment

2008-04-29T12:37:00.000-07:00

Right here right now
I want to have sex with you.
Love waits for us outside the almost closed door
To be picked up on our way out
And to be used on someone else.

Each time you come and go
I want to tell you
I don't run a brothel in my mind
Instead
I open my clothes for you
Noiselessly.

My tears
make interesting patterns
on your shirt.
They will dry again
when you leave
and she wont see the stains
that aren't there.

In one vulnerable moment
I lift the heavy curtain of hair
And show you the secret mole
What I don't tell you is to kiss me there
And when you don't hear my unmouthed words
The curtain descends again
And we both shrug off the uncomfortable moment
When I gave you more.
And you wanted less.

What's a young girl made of?

2008-04-22T23:28:00.000-07:00

That was the summer uncle returned from Bahrain. That now is a place full of crystal sands and blue beaches.

He tucked his overgrown son into the non existent curve of his hip and whispered loud of secrets and unseen wonders that would soon come out of his suitcase.

We all stood in a row waiting.

Once the best gifts were dispelled, then came us visitors.

We always did things in Army fashion in my family. By any order I was last.

I watched an airplane being given away.
A red and yellow train.
Many books.
A whistle.

And then there were none. This time I was forgotten.

My uncle looked around apologetically. He hit his head playfully. Everyone laughed. I didn't find it any funny.

Plucking a ball from the hands of his overgrown son on the hip, he gave it to me. Everyone hastily left the room pretending of work when he started howling.

My mother plucked the ball from my hands and gave it back to stop the howls. We are an Army family maybe, but not yet Animal farm.

I scowled with disgust, an emotion totally wasted on him.

I walked out, kicking a random stone now and then. Generally walking you know.

Dad was always smoking.

He blew me a few hollow rings.
That don't impress me much.

He looked sideways at me.
Dissatisfaction I wore well.

Go to Bahrain. Now. I told him. And get me toys. Lots of them.
He thought a while. "It’s very far you know"
I didn't really care.

"I'll be gone an awfully long time. You’ll stay and without me?"

Recklessly and selfishly, 'Yes'

I felt ashamed a little later. But the need for the toys was more important I guess. Or the fact that even I could have things. So much so that I refused to see his hurt.

We never talked much after that for many days. I pretended I didn't care. The distance between us was greater than far away Bahrain.

Days later I wandered into my parents room and found mom packing. Seeing the neatly pressed clothes I found something amiss. Only father's was being packed.

My voice shook. "Is dad going somewhere?"
Yes.

I ran out, tears blinding my eyes. Running into dad, holding him tight I sobbed fiercely "I don’t want toys. I hate them. I really do. And Bahrain is so far away"

Dad considered deeply. "So I need not go to Bahrain eh?"

No. Ever never.

Dad was going for a conference to Pune for 2 days. Humbug.

Build me no walls

2008-04-16T19:32:00.000-07:00

The April day was so humid and I know thats the only thing you actually remember about our first meeting.

I know you don't really remember the red off shoulder blouse I wore. I'd of course not pictured you'd look like this else I'd have worn something terribly sober.

My roommate and I stood by the dusty window overlooking the most crowded street waiting for your first glimpse. I did feel incredibly foolish and excited. I was old enough not to do such things as meeting an almost stranger and young enough to meet a complete stranger.

We went to the beach that summer night. We went to my favorite restaurant. Do you remember how we played 20 questions? You never answered any. I couldn't ask many.

Your pauses when you replied to my questions made me smile.

My roommate fell for you instantly. So did my sister. In their smiles, I began to love you. When my sister ate uncomplaining at a restaurant, I loved you for the peace you brought into that dinner. When my roommate bustled around making you the only thing she knew to cook, I loved you more for the small joy you brought into our overcrowded hall. There was always a little room for more love.

I spoke to you about all the men in my life. You never spoke to me about the no women in your life. Of course I knew I was special, you didn't have to tell me. Though it would have been nice to hear it in your quiet tones and a faint laugh that you'd use to dispel the bashfulness.

One night when I missed the ride home it was you I'd called. And when you came, I'd climbed down 9 floors wondering how I got so lucky with you.

You took me to the secret beach. I've never told anyone about it, I couldn't bring myself to share it with anyone else.

You took me shopping when I wanted a grey Tee with a collar. We never found it.

You gave me a bracelet when I first went away. I never wore it.

You called me when I first went away. I never returned any.

And then I went away nowhere.
And then you went away somewhere.

I'd forgotten to build walls with you. By the time I'd remembered, you were already inside.