one silence too many

The kids I knew would always go to the weddings, while a child in me had always been attending the funerals.
One by one,
slowly and gradually they would all slip away,
empty chairs by the table
until the loudness of the silence took the central place in the house...

Shoelaces, ceiling fans, deep sea, hospital beds attached themselves to people to remove their faces from the album of memories.

I became immune to funerals,
until suddenly time caught me at the threshold,
somewhere between the past and future,
at midnight,
as the shadow of feet walking away fell into a shadow of feet coming back,
bringing in even louder words of silence.

I freeze for a moment,
as the cold hand of silences is touching me again,
not immune,
frightened of the silence of the words that need to be said before the time for farewells arrives too soon again...

Silence just one phone call away,
as I unpack the black dress and wear it in front of the mirror...
a wrinkle added itself to the face,
seamlessly bringing me one step closer to the day when my cup of tea will stand empty on the shelf...
undrunk, unsaid, untouched, untangled...

silent.

If Sita could

If Sita could...
Would she let herself out
into the brightness
of her own self?

Would she step out of the circle?
Whose circle was it anyway?

Did she hold Lakshman's hand
to stop him or to comply?

Great Freedom comes with great responsibility
for...
oneself
One Self
Self.

If Sita could, would she let her hair down and
allow them to
dance
freely
with passion for life?
Knowing,
that no Lakshman Rekha is there to protect her from decisions that she makes?

They are all hers,
the decisions,
to take a step, or not to take
and then
be free to chose
the safety of a well known confinement,
or the curvy path of...

single parenthood,
struggling to get that dream job,
cutting the hair short in the middle of hot summer,
loving the person fully in the colours of the rainbow...

If Sita could...
Would she get rid of the hypothetical clause
and turn it into affirmative,

Yes, I can and I will...

even though it might be scary and lonely at times
to walk down the path
of her own lines, words and choices,
breathing...
keeping her head high...

Own lines,
Own path,
Own Self,
Own Life...

If Sita will.


(For 'If Sita could' by Padmalatha Ravi)

Two is also a number

I don't know who that is,
but I know that he is
climbing,
as I am sitting on the rooftop watching bats above my head,
flying,
with a trey in his hands,
carrying a cup of tea,
sweet, milky, stirred a number of times with a smile...
not in hurry as if buying a gift from a duty free shop,
but slowly...
wanting to spoil me a bit,
today,
knowing that what I do is valuable...

Both of us are lazily soaking in the gravity of these words.

Knowing that what I do is valuable because of who I am,
numbers are not the only story tellers of this world...
Two is also a number,
It's the only sold painting of van Gogh ... plus one...
It's the evening of feverish pain... plus one...
It's the chemotherapy needle... plus one...
It's the kiss of the dog... plus one...
It's the hand engrossed in soil... plus one...

It's a strict inequality sign  in love with changing directions,
no roles have been fixed,
it's flow,
organic,
Point.

Drops of life

I can feel the essence of life trickling between my fingers.
Drop,
after drop,
Falling down from the cracked jar that I am holding near my chest.

Dripping in every drop are
the colours of the rainbow,
sunset with rainy clouds,
a wounded dog,
tomato,
bicycle ride,
sighting the parakeet,
smell of moist soil...

Dripping,
irreversibly...
The shapes of the trees
While I walk fast with eyes nailed to the letters jumping on a tiny screen...
Wiring my brain to recognise the magnificent simplicity of binary code.
The horizon used to be 'magnificent',
but when was the last time...?

Dripping...
The moments of life that I would want to live.

I am scared.

Let the horses run

Choices are hard
at times
they tear me apart
like horses galloping in different directions.
Stop! I scream.
They listen to the breath of a whip in my hand.
They pause.

The first victorious battle with choice.

I struggle with them,
the words whisper into my ear to choose the roads less travelled
and as I listen to them I fear the claws of pride gently touching my shoulder.
Individuality is the course of modern age.

And yet,
perhaps,
hopefully,
though still with doubts
the choice to turn my back at the road grows more from the desire for collective sharing than an individual race.

I detest speed,
in words,
in the touch of your hands,
in crowds.
And so I choose,
not to...

Slowly,
calmly,
firmly...
(with too many adjectives all at once)
I choose to bury my feet in the soil
and smell the new words that fill me up,
with the silence one phone call away
I watch the horses pass me by
when I let go of the whip,
victorious, yet somewhere broken
I turn my face the other side...

a cat,
brown leaf,
a butterfly,
your eyes,
my pocket...

Let the horses run,
I let go

Inspired by 'Romantics are a Dying Breed' by Eureka Alphonso

Recognition

comes

with those three seconds that last more than politeness requires

for looking into the eyes after opening of the doors.

U

n

t

i

m

e

l

y

.

Familiar strangers...

The silence is also familiar.

Surrounding,

Soothing,

Stretching...

My hands towards your face.

Familiar maps of patterns of insecurity,

Until the cameras appear to spread the news of not-so-great importance, while I realise I am just dreaming,

And the noises shoo me away into the space of silence within.

I walk silently

and every step I take places a brick into the wall I build with my own hands.

Inspiration credited on a note.

Romantics are a dying breed,

Indeed...

In the agony of broken dreams,

In the drops of non-existing future,

In the screams of silences...

Romantics...

Still flying the kite against the grey skyline of the city,

with a hole in their pocket, not asking for more,

In a torn sweater, refusing to buy...

Romantics...

Walk...

away...

Slowly,

quietly,

far from the joyfully marching crowd.

Even the tree is loosing its breath watching them slowly disappear.

(Inspired by 'Romantics are a Dying Breed' by Eureka Alphonso)

An old story that has never been told

It's an old story that has never been told, of a man who did not exist and a girl who was able to touch every wrinkle on his face. They lived separately through time but together through space of their dreams, beliefs and ambitions.
Each day they would stand outside looking at the trees and falling closer into each other, while the distance between them grew apart day by day and mile after mile.
She was falling into his independance, knowledge and strength, while he was falling into her doubts, fears and frustrations. She was holding him because he has given her so much. He was holding her because suddenly his feet began to feel cold and he wanted to find the warmth in the smell of her torn sweater.
She would stop to tell him about the light falling through the branches.
He would suddenly turn sensing her laughter as she played with the animals.
And then both would fasten the pace of their walk realising that they were not even there, until one day somewhere in the city crowd a thread of wool of her torn sleeve and that one of his torn sweater got caught in the branches of a tree and a sweater began to unknit itself and as the time stopped they also stood still for a moment looking at the nakedness that covered them.
He would suddenly turn sensing her laughter as she played with the animals.
She would stop to tell him about the light falling through the branches.
And they looked, and they saw.
She gave him his independance, knowledge and strength, while his presence would make her doubts, fears and frustrations fade away. She was holding him because he has given her so much. He was holding her because suddenly his feet began to feel cold and he wanted to find the warmth in the smell of her torn sweater.
Each day they would stand outside looking at the trees and falling closer into each other, while the distance between them was same day after day and mile after mile.
It's a new story that has been told a thousand times before, of a girl who did not exist and a man who was able to touch the contours of her face. They lived together in time of their dreams, beliefs and ambitions but separated by space of a buzzing city life.

Behind

My feet always remain 2 steps behind,
behind,
behind, behind...

Wearing same blouse for the past 20 years.
Torn, mended, re-torn, re-mended a number of times,
like the dreams that never really changed -
they stood still watching other feet moving way ahead of them.
Frustrated,
torn, stitched, re-torn, re-stitched from broken pieces but still in the same stubborn place that prevents me from running ahead to follow the crowd entering the stadium for the last victorious round. Fullstop. Final. Victory. Podium. Gold.

I choose to remove the running shoes and my oversized feet walk slowly trying to feel the grass.
My thoughts breathe lazily watching the sky and clouds passing by,
I still gasp at 6pm each evening as the green parrots pass me by and I swear I can almost feel the wings growing out of my shoulder blades that time...
I smile to the blow of the wind on my back and the warmth of the sun on my face.

My stubborn feet refuse to move and I am still standing at the same place though my thoughts run faster than your words that you throw at me each day as I fail to tell you that I do not understand the meaning.
But I don't.
They sound so lofty and wise.
Cold, straight, cerebral architecture projected outside of the linear brain.

I want to respond but the words run away and they refuse to come out... and they are right, the words, because how am I to describe the touch of a fish before I scream out loud like a wounded animal knowing that I can also hurt and hunt down my prey?
A creeper growing up my scapula and up my neck as the rest of the body morphs into a cat climbing up the lap and asking for more... purring.
Leafs jailed behind the bars of clear cut communication that demands precise structures which I fail to adapt.

The arm stretches out and refuses to bend under the force applied by a renowned martial artist.
Streams flowing up my legs and waterfall falling down my fingers...

And tears flowing down my cheeks as the arm refuses to bend and the words of the outside world fly past me with a flashing speed of a train...
Wrong station. Again.

And then I curse my feet that refuse to run, the arm that refuses to bend, the clothes that refuse to wear out and dreams...

No...

I don't curse the dreams.
I just slowly turn away from the shining lights of the stadium and walk through the fields towards that tiny light of a brass lamp that is calling me through the darkness as I rest at the threshold and my feet turn into the roots growing deep into the soil, while the rest of the world is still running in the opposite direction.
I stay behind.
Free.
And then the wings suddenly grow.

Power games

We play with power,
It's a match.
You hit the shuttlecock and it flies above the net.
It fell on my playground while I thought I was not even playing.

The woosh of air distracted me and then
I bent to pick it up feeling hurt that I am loosing in this game
of seeing and wanting to be seen,

A thought run across the stadium and entered my head
it whispered that as much as I would want to feel neutral I am also a player here,
even though I know I had stood on the loosing ground from the very first whistle of the coach.

And so we both stood for a while across the net screaming at each other,
raising our voices louder day after day,
until the ears bled and throats became dry.

And tears came out from our eyes,
because as much as the match was between us we had also put all the force into the blows,
all those moments of helplessness that we gathered over time, we had put them nicely into the boxing gloves and began to hit each other in the name of the past that had nothing to do with your eyes and my smile.
It just happened to be there and we both picked it up to finally take revenge on someone, even though we had never been enemies.
........

I wish you well, my friend,

even though my arms are covered with bruises
I do wish you well,
deep inside in those places that I hide from everyone else,
because it feels easier to lie and say that I am enjoying the game;
...
but I am not.

I wish you well, my friend,
even though I feel defeated because you hold all the power and I walk away in shame as the audiences watch on both the sides,
I still wish you well.

From the depth of my heart,
I wish you victories in your battles
as I walk away towards mine,
I wish you climbing up towards the podium
as I walk away with the memory of your voice in my pocket,
when my branches slid through the tiny cracks in the walls that you built around yourself
and I watched you sleep trapped inside.

How many times, Mother?

It hurt Mother,
why didn't you come when I cried your name?
It hurt, Mother,
those men, they all were your sons,
they came from your womb.

I cried, Mother,
did you hear my voice?
A number of  times
I said
in the street,
in the field,
on the bus,
in a dark room,
in the back seat of a moving car.

I said no,
I don't want,
this is not right,
not in my name,
me too.

How many times, Mother
do I need to hurt,
do I need to bleed,
do I need to cry for you to listen?

How many times, Mother?
How many times, Mother,
before your sons...
(                          )

I left the spaces blank because
how does one explain the most fundamental truths to the deaf ears and blind eyes?
That you don't rape,
that you don't hate,
that you don't kill...
HOW MANY TIMES, mother?

Don't they know that I was you?