Your grace, amazes.

Here I thought of a picture, quite perfect.

There, you hid behind doors, a little embarrassed.

We are both hurled against a wall.

I am tired of putting a bell around your neck.

Today I failed. The ink stopped flowing. Brain cells stopped answering. Felt slightly cold. 

July jam

your tragedy is hardly a tragedy, whereas mine leaps ahead to welcome you. Your clothes are ragged and mine shines.

When the walls turn around to talk, leer and drink a cuppa, you are polite. I am distressed. Our clothes don't match like our minds, unlike our teeth.

It's a collaboration, she says, enunciating each letter. She says wow and whoa and oh dear god. I lisp. She believes that monsters hide under the flowery tablecloth, and she can pet them.

I see her poltergeist cartwheeling. She carries my cat and steals the backpack I used to love. Old is gold, she sneers.

Okay, so you drink whiskey? Okay, so you hate Indian style toilets?

You sneak inside loos and stay rooted for fifteen minutes, shutting out the constant buzz. Washing your hands, scraping the filth from underneath your nails.

Your life is a random illustration. Detailed intricate lines, beautiful colours, but when you look at it closely, a little hollow.

Agree and buy me a sandwich.

Treble it. Try harder. Snapping his fingers, he waited. Well, I asked, what about setting it free? Setting it free like the round perfection of the moon tonight. Strange land of mine, another day tonight turns to. Tonight I can scream the loudest. In another time, quite a different place, however, tears quietly died inside. All the songs that I thought were ours always seemed to belong to some other era. When you don't hear, will you never listen? 

I am going to make myself a nice, fat sandwich. Put lightly fried sausages in between slices of bread already dripping with cheese. Then I am going to devour it. I think I'll have some black coffee with it and stay up the night watching mindblowingly great short films.

I did exactly that.

And listened to a fabulous album. (Thanks, Srin.)

So can I stay here with you till the nighttime
I've fallen sad inside and I need a place to hide
So can I stay, here with you, through the nighttime
I've fallen so sad it's true, now won't you take me to your room

Constant state of conflict. Unnecessary, often.

I was packing yesterday. Started putting things higgledy piggledy into the new, bright red suitcase. Then flattened them out, neatly folding cushion covers into perfect triangles. It's not sinking in that I'll be leaving home in two weeks. I used to be really really excited about the prospect, but I know I'm going to miss Ma, Baba, Didu, Radhe terribly. My days of pampering are over.
I'll miss a best friend from school because she has been there through thick and thin. I knew I could always always fall back on her. She has never ever given up on me, she has never judged me. She has loved me, bickered with me, but been with me. I can never thank you enough Gapuch, I hope you know how special you are.
You know what, if this starts sinking in now,and if I start over thinking, I'm going to end up miserably depressed.
Let's be positive: I have so many things to look forward to, so many things to learn, so many places to explore, so many new things to do! Plus loved people will be around! I just  hope they love me all the same.

Scar

You are a good man, an excellent one to be honest. Warm, generous, doffing your hat. But you made a ginormous mistake. You took her in. You took her in and she warmed your gentle heart.
She didn't mean to change you, or hurt you, or twist things around, or make babies with you. She was still licking her wounds. She didn't know what she wanted. The world was frightening and a big mess. She was petrified, but she made you her own. She gave you a name, she smiled for you. You made her smile. You made her happy.
Then one day, she turned around and bit your cheek. Bit your cheek so hard, it started bleeding. She fed you a bit of her acrid self. And then she built a big wall around herself, so that nothing could ever touch her warm skin again.
She didn't want to believe in the voices, but she looked around and saw shadows on your walls. It scared her even more. But she let you in, she wanted to heal for you, wanted to break down the wall.
And you almost succeeded. You almost made her special. And then you stopped, because she had scarred your cheek and it still hurt.

Hatter wore a hat and turned completely insane. In the middle of nowhere, swaggering like the evil rat in the alley,  he aimed to conquer. Turned around, lit a doobie. Saw the trees in the distance, outlined against the sky, still and rooted. Turtle came over, put her hands on her hips and stood behind him, observing the same, thinking about other things: yesterday's game, hysteria and kitchen antics. She sat down in a huff, mouthing abuses. The night gave them both fever. They knew that. They illuminated their room with a thousand lamps.
This was different, however.
Their eyes lit up the wilderness.
Hatter sat down next to her, and smiled wanly.
"What do you reckon?"
"They won't get us this time."
"You sure?"
"When you think egg I think of a poach, perfect, yolk in the middle, just the right amount of wobbly."
"Wow."
"So you won't fuck me over?"
"How can I?"

This, crazy desire to measure night and day

With, your smiling face not far away

Why, I may ask you

Can, that be true?

You, with a frog-like leap

Me, crumpled in a heap

Fill jam jars with memories.

I remember scribbling in class, sleepily, furiously. Stringing words together, discarding them, turning them into doodles. Now it's morning, everyone's fast asleep, mouths slightly open, mouths tightly closed. I can only sink a little further inside this protective cling wrap of music. Curious, like a perfectly broken egg shell, but opaque inside. If I could put my brain up in sunlight, or on paper, I would, for close examination, for some sort of comprehension.
I sometimes wonder about human behaviour and nature, and it completely destroys me.

New songs will be sung I suppose.
Self has to be extricated and re-defined. Determination has to be achieved. Memories have to be erased.
Wish I could have some of that special comforting baked chicken and recreate new visions.

Wish I could splurge futilely, wear a red beret in the rain, write eccentric, run away somewhere, alone.

I don't deserve goodness, maybe I am utterly incapable of understanding these things, they are intangible.

I am 23. I could choose bland, I can have bland. Or I could mix up everything, create more brain clutter, behave like a child, do crazy impulsive things like I do and end up unhappy. Well, happiness is illusory anyway, like everything else. I feel euphoric one moment and furious the next. And unfortunately, I cannot even blame the hormones.

Say what, shabby yet flamboyant, reciting Aiken, travelling, creating useless and pretty lampshades?