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?

When invisible becomes visible

The words deserted him one more time. Neither the first nor the last time in his life, I guess.  The girl child was playing with the keys of an old piano while he was pouring two cups of sweet hot tea. The red and blue cups looked pretty on the top of the piano where he had placed them... or at least so I had thought.
He looked outside the window. It was a cloudy day.
'Where have you been?' he asked.
'Here and there' the girl replied 'more there than here. I got lost in the invisible forest and it did take me a while before I became myself again. I had to pick up the pieces that tore off my skirt and stitch them together again. It feels different now. Same skirt but different feeling. It feels odd to be seen  again and to know that I am looking and being looked at as well.
I once dreamt of the eyes looking at me as I was dreaming of that house among the thousand trees by the lake. I had even thought that I found that house, but it flew away with the first blow of the wind. I was invisible then so even those eyes could only look past through me.  I was a word, a sound but not a person. I was an image of someone I had wanted to become. A painting and a word in a book that would remain unfinished.
But I am here now. With eyes that see and are seen, with words that speak and are heard and with hands that give life to all those broken things that others throw away.
And you? How have you...' she said lifting her chin up to look him in the eyes... but he was not there and suddenly she was not a child but a strong woman sitting by the table with a cat in her lap and a cup of tea next to her. She was a writer now putting last punctuation marks into a book that she had written years back about a boy who had nothing, about the magic house of a piano player and about a girl who fell in love with an image of a boy whom she met at the oasis in the middle of a desert.

And as she was putting the last full stop there I got up. And then I began to live

To that English teacher I once had...

I bought a mirror today.
A second hand mirror,
so when it arrived it had a reflection of a face pre-engraved on it.
I tried to look but  I was not there.
Just the shadow of a reflection...
squashed in the corner of the room behind me.

That image was so remote
that my eyes began to water as I looked at a tiny caricature of a person I might have once been.
Have I been that?
But I have.
squashed in the corner of the room behind me
was the image of the reflection of my past.

Squashed in the corner of the room
was the reflection of my self
distorted by the cracks and uneven surface of the glass.
Tiny dwarf under a giant shoe.

I had already bought the mirror and since no returns were allowed I was forced to watch
as the image began to morph itself.

It stood up from the floor and it began to walk.
An old voice sang a song
'you are wasting yourself here,
your place is above not below'

I was wasting myself there,
my place is above not below.

I stretched my hands and as they pierced the glass
I smiled to my memories of you,

The image in front is clean and bright
It left the floor,
it left the room,
it even wore the shoes that fit its oversized feet.

I bought a mirror today.
A second hand mirror...
It came with a crack full of sunlight and breeze...
I hung it on the wall,
but it tilted a bit
to reflect the light and send it to that tiny spot in the corner on the floor below.

As I touched death for a moment...

I touched death today,
for a moment,
it had the smell of people's voices
someone screaming,
a woman cried.
A taste of blood rolling down the cheeks,

'Is it ok to wipe out the blood of the stranger without plastic gloves that would provide atmosphere sterile enough to prevent the transmission of a deadly disease?'

Cerebral thinking took over,
Ice, bring ice.
bring ice and keep it on the neck.
Bring ice and keep in on the forehead.
Ice stops bleeding,
Ice stops pain,
Ice stops my fear,
Ice stops me from breathing in the helplessness of the situation.
Ice stops my feelings and allows me to think clearly for a moment in the crowd of people.
Ice, someone bring ice, please.

Can you look at my finger? can you look at my finger? can you look at my finger?
Blink if you hear me.

Can you look at me? Can you finally look at me? Can you see me and who I am?
Can you give me a sign that you hear?

Now that the ambulance came
and the crowd dispersed
I am sitting on my bed
as a tiny finger of death pokes my arm.
And I get scared of people screaming,
of not having space to breathe,
of the pain in my head,
of the grotesque of the singular experience in the crowd...

And I ask death
that when she comes back again
she could please choose the time when a cat curls at my feet
and you hold my hand in a quiet space of the house
and the ice melts quietly and drips down your cheek
but your eyes are still looking into mine long after I seize to see the last ray of the falling sun.
Good night.

To that 16 year old boy who whispered 'I want to fuck you' at 8pm at the traffic lights

To that 16 year old boy who whispered 'I want to fuck you' at 8pm at the traffic lights....

It hurt for a moment,
I was walking down the street engrossed in my thoughts...
I was loving my work at that moment,
and then your words pierced the balloon.

I looked back but I was unable to see you, there were too many people crossing the street and the traffic began to move.

So I walked.
I walked ahead and my thoughts have changed,
for a moment...

For a moment I felt hurt, dirty, sleazy, helpless...

And I walked.
I was walking ahead and with each step the pierced balloon began to fill itself up again.
it was not magic.
it was real...
and I began loving myself, my body and my work even more...

You see, dear boy...

you are a coward.
You whispered those words behind my back and didn't even wait for my response.
I feel angry with you, dear boy, for having deprived me of a chance of telling you this into your face.
Real men do not behave this way.
Real men have courage to face the consequences of their actions.

you are illiterate.
You see, dear boy, real men don't fuck.
They give pleasure and they are given pleasure, they look deep in the eyes and words get stuck in their throat when they see their women's beauty.
And if your father had failed to teach you that, dear boy, then I feel sorry for you. Your life must have been really Fucked till now that it turned you into such a weakling.

Thank you, dear boy, for having found my body attractive.
I am more than double your age... I am that maths teacher who failed you last year for you did not study hard enough, I am that woman whose driving skills are better than yours, I am that woman who went to the engineering college while you failed in your exams, I am that woman who runs a company where your father works, I am that policewoman who protects cowards like you from being robbed....
And we love our bodies... For we are beautiful... tall, short, skinny, overweight, long hair, short hair, curly hair, thighs, hips, ankles, calfs, shoulderblades, neck... We are all beautiful.
At 38 my body is capable of much more than yours ever will, for I value myself... For my body has been subjected to the gaze of unmanly cowards like you and it hated itself for a moment until one day both I and my body have decided: stop. enough. restructure the values.

My balloon is bright, dear boy, I hold it with pride as I walk down the street. And I love my work and body even more at the moment...
You see, dear boy, my work has the power of words and thoughts that are slightly more sophisticated than the 5 word sentence structure of your reptilian brain.
And I am going to use the words I have. I am going to use them to let 16 year old girls know that they are beautiful, that they are worthy, that they do not need anyone to protect them from cowards like you because they are stronger than you anyways... And those 16 year old girls shall grow to become real women, who will know who real men are, and those men will love them and they would feel loved by them.

And you , dear boy, will turn into bitter, unloved coward who will never learn who a woman is.

Three unrelated encounters

1.

For

even if I try to paint you in black

I fail 

and the broken glass of unfinished wine spills colours all over.

I am falling.

D

o

w

n.

                                            p.

The direction is down not u

She held me tight last night.

It hurt as a tiny piece of a broken glass rubbed against my skin.

Wine spilled on the floor.

I watched the colours as they held me softly with someone else's arms.

I enjoyed the touch.

It puts me to sleep and I curl like a cat.

it found the glass and put the band-aid on.

A tear rolled down my cheek.

I felt lost for words,

I jumbled them like feelings.

Confused, attached, hurt, angry, lost, longing, peaceful.

Sleep came in the morning. 

A cup of coffee on the table at 6am.

Good night.

2.

We walked as the time went by,

Step by step with us...

Through the times that remain only in the memories of green pastures that we once had.

I saw them in a dream last night.

Green, wide, singing of freedom and equality.

They went past my window.

I saw the reflection of his face inside the cab. 

A leash on his neck,

as I waited for the wind to take me away from the choking noise of evening chaos.

The wind has not come as yet,

So I waited patiently for a bus.

They marched silently with a string through their necks and nostrils.

 I looked at them and they knew.

3.

Awake,

yet half dreaming,

Today

I shall, I shall, I shall,

I shall try not to spread the wings but,

but keep them hidden,

Keep them safe,

safe,

safe 

from the wind that could bring the storm.

Sometimes.

For a moment,

I allow you to catch a glimpse of the feathers.

Grey.

And then you fail to notice that it was time to catch my hand.

We get up and split the bill.

We both fly away with the memories of grey colour of the sky before the rain.

You are so beautiful,

And so are you.

It was not a windy day

It was not a windy day,
and still somehow
My hair entangled in a kiss...

It was not a windy day, and so
there was no question whether the end of my sari would fly away...

It was not a windy day, and so
His hands were still,
and there was no need to take out the safety pin and keep it open and pointed and say 'no, I don't want to'.

It was not a windy day,
and still somehow
 my hair entangled in a kiss
 my hair entangled in a kiss
my hair entangled in a kiss
my hair entangled in a kiss
my
          hair
    entangled
                                 in
a
                        kiss...

I shut the weather forecast off.

That other world out there

They came uninvited.
         The sounds of civilization staring at me from outside the kitchen window.
They pumped the words into my body
         drilling an always-polite-response to the questions of my food habits:
'What-did-you-eat-for-breakfast-today?'

Pressure cooker whistled for the fifth time that moment and I began to scream out loud the elements of my diet in a reversed alphabetical order.
(Munch would have been so proud of me that day)

But...

(And this 'but' is vivid and precise in the curves of its lines)  But...

But...

But there was that other world out there...
But there was that other world out there that we spoke about so often over a glass of cheap wine
(Rs 130 a bottle if I am not mistaken)

It had the blue colour of the sky
and redness of the mother below my bare feet.
It had a tree outside the window
and a cat chasing the squirrel that was climbing up the branches.
It had a long evening walk by the river
and a night with stars engrossed in the music of the piano.
It had vast spaces to walk through
and a clay pot filled with words drunk lazily and without haste.
It had breath.

I breathed with my eyes closed
while a part of me stood up and closed the doors from the other side leaving the walls to shut down on themselves and collapse.

A seed sprouted in my hand.

About special needs

Living in the world where we all need to constantly move faster and faster in order to be able to cope with the demands of society and economy leaves a toll on each one of us. We tend to feel stressed with the long working hours, with being underpaid, with not being appreciated for our efforts, with not being seen as individuals but as parts of a larger system.

People with special needs may not be working in a corporate sector, they may not be lawyers appearing in court fighting for extremely important causes, or may not be striving to get funds for their own start-up, however the pressure they live under and the stress and frustrations that they experience can be equally difficult for them to deal with.

I recently felt frustrated after having been rejected one more time by the artist residency program, I questioned the sense of applying for something again and began to wonder whether there is any point in trying at all. Someone else might feel frustrated with not being able to recall the spelling of one's own name. Two different situations, two different people, yet perhaps the amount of effort we both put into our writing a good project and writing the name is the same? And perhaps both of us want to finally make it good this time and not to have to face the disappointment and frustration again.

We all have the same needs that need to be met for each of us to be able to live a thriving and healthy emotional life.

Few years back I was standing at the school corridor just after the lunch break. The bell rang and I was watching adults standing around a class 3 student who was diagnosed with a genetic disorder. She was walking slowly towards her classroom, too slowly and so the adults began telling her that she needs to walk faster. It was my first active experience of empathy as I was trying to imagine what this situation might have looked like from the perspective of the child. It must have been scary I felt. It must have felt scary and powerless to be standing among people twice her size and be rushed to walk with the speed that was too fast for her to handle.

It must feel equally scary and frustrating to be an elderly person being rushed to eat faster and spill less soup onto the table when the hand is shivering.

We all have the same basic human needs and one of them is ability to be seen for who we are as beings and not for the actions that we are able to perform with sometimes better, sometimes worse results. We all want to be loved and appreciated, we all need warmth, friends, sense of belonging.

I do not want my friends to judge me on the basis of how successful I am as a professional. A child with special needs wants to have friends to play with irrespective of whether he/she is able to score the goal during the football match. As a child I was never good at sport – I would always be the last person to be chosen by any team. It felt embarrassing and frustrating to be the last one taken into the team...every week of my primary school.

I live in a place where many people believe I do not understand the language they speak. It happened to me a couple of times that people would talk about me in a rude way thinking that I would not be able to understand their words. But I did... and it hurt. It made me feel like an object. People with special needs may look different sometimes or behave in a different way, however, it does not mean that they are completely unable to understand the tone of voice or words that are being used while talking about them. They do understand...

Life is often stressful for many of us. As humans we are very often programmed to experience negative emotions in a stronger way than the positive ones in our lives, even though the latter once may be actually be larger in number. Positive emotions are often experienced in a milder, more subdued way and so we need them more frequently. Perhaps while dealing with individuals with special needs we could try to concentrate on strengths more than on the weaknesses?

That class 3 student I mentioned a few sentences above... she managed to stand in the vrkshaasana (tree pose) in a yoga class one day... And that day the whole class clapped for her... She performed great! 30 seconds of balance! And I think she felt like a great achiever that day, the way you or I do after a performance, good session, promotion at work.

Kintsugi

As we sat down
in the state of
in
   be
       tween
                 ness
                         (Nescafe)

we raised
               our doubts
about the current state of affairs

(Donald Trump won the elections that night)

It is raining offers
of better future, or past
depending on one's point of view.


And still, we sat down
                looking forward
                or backward,
or perhaps sometimes not even looking at all
hidden
     behind the mask of
                unbrokenness
of our desires and ambitions...

We sat down
by the broken pot
mending its cracks with pieces of gold
not to hide them
but to find meaning
behind every mistake we have ever made.

We were learning each other for the first time

I do not know what it was,
maybe the soundless words that asked me not to be afraid,

we were learning each other
for the first time,
and even though I was impatient

still
we were allowing the time to stretch
allowing the time to stretch
the time to stretch
to stretch

between words
between sentences
between smiles
between yesterday and the promise of tomorrow.

I was impatient
again
chased by uncovered memories
again
fearful of loosing
again
unsure of what it all means
again

until again-ness of the in-between-ness was almost unbearable
however,
we have been learning each other for some time now and so
unexpectedly
instead of falling
I began to shyly feel the ground beneath my feet.

Perhaps his feet were hanging above the ground for a very long time as well
?

?


?

?




and they
needed time to stretch stiffened muscles
slowly
and without rushing
so that
the fear of again-ness
would fly away.

We were learning each other
for the first time.
Slowly.