Blues for you, aged 8

Decked up December came too early

Skipped breakfast in a hurry

Trailed across the street

Filled with stars

In baggy denims

And a heavy heart

Little did you know

What filled your head

A mess of letters

You could never read

I see you traipsing

Dragging your feet

Music in your head

Stories within reach

We deserve the world we made

We arrived at a moment of consensus.

I wanted to go to the rooftop and stare at the evening sky.

Maybe talk to myself and create cloud-characters with a

Long storyline.

You wanted me to stay in and watch TV with you, because you were

Asked to keep an eye on me.

We settled on neither.

When there was chaos inside my tiny brain, because the bedroom door stayed

Shut.

You sat me down and oiled my hair, and tied them into tight plaits.

You asked me – “What do you think they are doing?”

I didn’t reply because there was no way I could.

Mornings melted into doubtful nights.

Questions, and riyaaz, and gruesome make-up on a bland face

Told me nothing I needed to hear.

Everything slowly fell into place,

As I saw them cry and make up,

But no one asked me anything at all.

Undeserved fingers explored what they could,

Asked me to tell no one, no one at all.

I wondered at the strangeness of it all,

As I stared at the painting on the wall,

I wondered at my body’s gall.

Weddings came and went,

I sparkled in my first well-draped saree.

Befitting my age.

He came up to me and spoke

And I responded like anyone else would.

Everything was ok till he landed up at my door

And my mom asked me what else was in store –

She scrubbed me hard, as I raged.

And rubbed the tears off my face.

It was a dream like feeling

But I know it happened

I know so well

JERK

hello hey hey of course I’m a bitch because I didn’t want to spread my legs at will when you did away with our days like you had done away with your mind - all respect lost I couldn’t help but wonder how you could body shame your older lover for her beautiful child-bearing hips and your glib confession took me by surprise, though I guess I shouldn’t have been 

 // oh, please remember your choice is yours but mine is mine to embrace - I won’t kiss as asked because I cannot kiss lips I am not utterly in love with - yeah you-  shamelessly stubborn in your need and apparently your right - you forget you are lost, I am not yours to mould and I don’t need help with directions - a no is a no and it always will be - consent is everything and you are a self-proclaimed asshole 

Now and then, in the middle of everything

My heart aches so hard,

I have to get up and go

To the bathroom – sit down, and breathe.

If you are my habit, I love it and I don’t really

Know how to embark on this ship alone

Without you to come back to –

Without you to hold close to me, and sleep the sweet sleep

I have been trying to avoid these thoughts

I have been staying up nights to not hold you too close

Because I don’t know if I can manage without you

Everyone says, and you do too

That it’s going to be good for us

But I didn’t want adventures without your hands clasping mine

Your breath on my skin

Your sky above mine.

One single, juicy fruit often mistaken to be a vegetable.

Good to eat sliced, with a dash of lime.

Good to slather on face, if you aren't squeamish.

Good to cook to a pulp and add that magic paanchphoran spice mix to it.

You'll have chutney. You'll have jelly. Your slice of bread will have company.

You say to-maa-to, I say to-mey-to.

denied daydream

...For the want of a sun in a backyard lined with herbs and blossoms and a son named Kahlil, covered in bits of leaves.

We all run inside as it starts raining and the woods beyond turn several shades darker. The cat scurries inside, licking its grey fur in distaste. It's warm inside. I hold your hand as Kahlil with his chubby legs potter around. You read from a book of poems you found terribly exciting and I listen. The rain gets heavier. We huddle together and listen to the constant drip drip and music on our old record player.

After a while you start drawing and I roll over, sighing.

Kahlil is drowsy and the cat snuggles upto him. I am too lazy to finish what I was writing. The weather calms down a bit. I peek out and see that everything is mellow.

It's another day filled with love.

  

Four lines

Surprise, it's a blue sky today. Not a scrap of cloud to mar your spirits.
Surprise, I am on the edge of acceptance - lover, friend, family - pay heed to my needs.
Surprise, words are stilted. Hesitant to flow, float & make sense. 
Surprise, that merry-go-round you ascended crashed into a bottomless hole. 

Love of my life - a plea for patience.

I remember our mornings as clear as the sparkle on the window pane after the neighbour had cleaned it to absolute perfection.
Pardon my similes, because you have pardoned my thoughts so far.

I am praying for our yesterdays. I am praying for a moment where things fall into place like they always do.

Tell me, did you memorise the lights, my toes, our mingled thoughts?

Do you feel like I am tightening the noose around your slender throat?

Know that my insides are permanently ravaged, and I beg to come to you with all those broken pieces - because nothing else
gives me that semblance of being a part of a whole.

If wishes could scatter like leaves in autumn in a place far away, I would give you a million happy ones. If my thoughts could be a part of the
drill - I would beg them to traverse the conveyor belt in a straight line.

I see that you look sad. I see that you are slowly giving up, but trying to still fasten the belt, because, hell,
you love me. But they say, love is a verb, and you think I hardly try. You tell me "It's all in your head." and I know that
you are speaking the truth. But what do I do with my head, I ask you. It's a barren, empty battlefield, pitted with
dead bullet shells. Some days are worse than the others, and it's physically painful to drag my body out of bed, and somehow numb
the numb head and go about trying hard to follow a routine.

How long will you keep planting flowers?


How long?

Lucy in the sky with diamonds.

There's nothing more to do really. 
Lucy left, with her particular quips, her giggles and her baton. It seems to me that the parting has mellowed the memories of her, with her. 
I'll miss Lucy. 
She told me how important it was to be independent & self-sufficient. 
She had been my mother when I needed a mother more than ever. Mine was distant, in more ways than one at that juncture. 
Lucy had a really bright laugh. And, she could take problems on head-on, and always find a solution. 
She always wanted to do things. She wanted to create, she wanted to store, she wanted everything to look gorgeous. She was young, childish yet really mature.
She told me that there is nothing to be/feel helpless about.  She made me believe that happiness is not illusory, not really. She made me chocolate milk at 2 AM, and helped me pick up my broken pieces. 
She loved me in her own special way, and I know that. 
Lucy was brave, she was braver than most of us put together.

It was a deep affection that ran between you and me, despite the undercurrent of foolish irritability. 
You told me I could write even when I was absolutely certain I couldn't. 
I'm sorry if I have been stupidly stubborn and snapped at you. You knew. 

Big hug. 

Stay//

Full-blown adult

I still look at the sky with naive wonder.

As the week wraps its grimy fingers around me, I don't have much else to do.
I think I am running out of things to say, running out of that weird, adolescent rage, running out of laughter.
It frightens me.
I don't want to calm down that much.
I react less, and it feels like there's a fevicol-strength bubble wrap around my head, protecting me from myself.

Yesterday for once, for a couple of hours, I felt like I would explode.
The bubble wrap came off, and my thinking disintegrated.

Seemed like I stepped out of a noiseless place.
It hit me like a tornado.
I thought my ears would bleed.

But nothing happened.

I held on to my sanity, slept and prepared for one more meaningless day.