The one that stitches scattered pieces together.

She always envied him his precision while juggling with words. His ability to sum up all the thoughts in just a few letters. Like a sharp tip of a pin.
Her words always seemed to be running on the curved paths of her perception and she could swear that sometimes she was even able to hear their laughter inside her head. The words would mock her in various ways - sometimes they would refuse to fly out of her mouth and she would stand there among the people feeling smaller to any of them. At other times they would pair themselves inside her mind in some strangely shaped clusters that she wasn't able to comprehend or they would hide themselves inside a box and push some unwanted word out for her to ponder upon.

She sighed. It took her 600 seconds to be able to come up with the last few sentences. She also had to open a dictionary 5 times.

She sat quietly on the threshold. The caterpillar made a bed for itself inside a leaf, however, this time she was sure that it was just a pest. A grasshopper sat on her hand few nights back, a man sitting next to her told her that it must be a sign of good luck. She smiled. It made her feel warm, yet at the same time she knew that he was not the one she wanted to curl next to on a cold winter night.

She sat on the floor by the wall and quietly observed his fingers moving on the piano keys. They both looked similar to her- the keys that lost its sparkling white colour and the roughness of his hands. He loved a woman once, she knew that. He would play the piano for her and watch her as she would dance for him in the room. He would then stand up and join her in the dance. He would hide his face in her hair and kiss her neck. His fingers would gently play with the white skin of her breasts. She flew outside the room one day, just like the vapour drifting above a blue and red cup of hot tea. He turned himself into a magician then, yet sometimes the smell of strawberries is stronger than that of magic runes, so he hid his belief in magic inside a box and turned himself into a jester instead. He still played the piano, yet the courage to dance had left him years back.

She sat on the floor by the wall and quietly observed his fingers moving on the piano keys. She felt drawn to that rough skin, newly acquired strands of grey hair. She loved the music that he played and often wished of becoming a book that he would read before sleep. Maybe then he could put pins and nails into the walls in the living room and hang some paintings with not-so-straight lines there.
She did not feel lost this time, she did not need to cry in the rain, she did not need to bang at the doors and to shout to him to pull her out of that invisible mist that she had become. She grew up a bit. And she did not need him to dance, she needed him to read.

And as he read he took off his shirt and she could see his faceless body. She came closer and as she touched him they both dissolved into one drop of red and blue. The red ball that a spoilt rich child threw out of the window of a moving car and the blue ball that another child saw in her dream as she lay her head on a pillow made out of her mother's sari.

I took a sip of tea. My fingers were tired of dancing on the black and white keys of the piano. As I turned I saw a girl sitting at the threshold. She was smiling. She stood up and began to dance... 

Us and them

Homo homini lupus est.
attack - retaliation,
retaliation - attack,
front page in big fat font in the morning newspaper,
Syria, Paris, Lebanon, Dadri...
(a child just died in Africa, yet the lack of oil in the region makes this death less honoured)
them - us,
us - them...
black and white colours of right and wrong - the former one always stand on the side of us.

Will there be a day when us and them could turn into 'we'?

It takes 5 minutes to fall 9000 meters down before you hit silence.

Did they? or Did they not?
.
.
.
.
The facts and speculations  are being thrown at us each day.
.
.
.
.
Did they? or Did they not?



5 minutes.

Did someone smoke a cigarette?
Did a child hold his mother?
Did she scream?
Did they not regret having gone there?
Did the wine spill over her white dress?
Did he try to open emergency exit and jump?
Did she think it is just a bad dream?
Did he feel hungry?
Did he regret not having called her last night?
Did she cry?
Did he hold the hand of that stranger sitting next to him?
Did he pray?
Did she close her eyes?

Did they? or Did they not?

5 minutes.


It takes 5 minutes to fall 9000 meters down before you hit silence.

An average verse.

The quality of averageness entangled me today
It pushed me to a bottle, like a djinn.
I painted the glass with vibrant colours to hide its content, yet
the bottle proved to be too small for the greateness of my averagness,
it spilled outside the brim:
average intelligence that fails to deconstruct itself in the light of Derrida's theory,
average face that has never been immortalised on the canvas at NGMA,
(even ambition is average as it fails to strive for the walls of Louvre)
average muscular strength that makes me stay on the floor longer than those not-so-average bodies around,
average poem, no average comment on that shall be offered.
Average, average, average to the point of nausea.
only the spelling mistakes and mispronounced words shall proudly announce my individuality,

I

The 'I' in me wears a thick coat on a hot summer's day.
It closes the eyes in the middle of things:
intro-I-duction, po-I-em, walk-I-ing.
It stops with the eyes closed and hands extended
feeling the structure of the wall near by.
It will be late for work today,
although,
the sense of responsibility
will push it towards the doors.
I inter-I-rupted poem.
It will come back to it in the evening.

I sat to it with a cup of tea in my hands,
while the 'I' in me kept pondering over the sense of it all.
I watched the child, the adult and the I conspire against me.
The child was laughing
The I was missing
The adult was annoyed.
I sat in the corner looking at the I.

We were trying to measure each other.
I wore a thick coat and I went away.

The Cow.

'She's a fat cow...' These were the exact words that would creep into his mind each night as he mounted her on the squeaky cot standing in the corner of the room.
'You stupid cow...' he would tell her as he slapped her for having gone out with her girlfriends to buy the glass bangles without telling him.
He milked her parents well on their wedding day - new motorbike and a smartphone with unlimited access to those pretty scantly clad kittens that would make up to him for having to bear with that cow of his.

He heard in the evening that a man kept cow's meat in his fridge. He was outraged. How could one have even thought of eating a cow. He run to the man's house with a stone in his hand.

I run out of words. They turned into sharp  blades of grass that the cows graze on...

Pretty cup.

I liked the cup. It was blue at the bottom and had red and white design at the top. The tea drank from it had this peculiar taste of tea that is being drank from a blue and red cup with white designs. If you don't know what am I talking about then the loss is absolutely yours...

I was sitting by a wooden table with a blue and red cup of tea in my hand and my eyes were examining the surroundings. Tall chair with a red colour pillow, a poster of a film star from the sixties, a guy who dropped in for a moment to enjoy his office coffee break, cups arranged neatly on the shelf.

They were sitting two tables away from mine. Early twenties I guess, he might have been slightly elder to her. They were both busy smiling at each other and I think he might have even wanted to hold her hand but was too scared of doing so in front of strangers.
She lowered her eyes to study the menu card.  She wanted to enjoy some of the exotic tastes that the place was offering. She zered on a strawberry flavoured green tea, which was being advertised as one of those rarities that one is supposed to try in order to become a true connoisseur of tea. It was also one of the most expensive items in the card and I could see for a moment a glimpse of panic in his eyes as he tried calculate in his mind whether he would have enough money in his wallet to be able to pay the bill. He was still smiling.

She was pretty. Big dove like eyes smeared with kajal. Long hair. Glowing skin. Straight teeth.

'You know... I could only marry a man who would gift me a diamond in an 18kt golden ring' she said.

She was pretty. She was pretty indeed. Eyebrow threading. Golden facial. Legs and hands waxing. Hairdresser. French manicure. Pedicure. Hand cream. Under-eye cream. Moisturising cream. Lipstick. Perfume.

He was still smiling. With a smile on his face he would drop out of college and study correspondence to join the call center to earn those few thousands that he would put into his bank account. He would eat once a day to save those few hundreds so that she could have her strawberry tea once a week. He would walk everywhere to save those few coins so that he could pay for her auto back home in the evening. He would do this stupid job once in his life that would make him feel ashamed of himself but would allow him to put those few thousands more into the bank. He would cut his foot and not go to the doctor to save a few hundreds and his foot would become swollen and hurt for six weeks. He would not go to see the sea with his friends to save few hundreds that he would otherwise have to spend on a ticket. He would not get himself a dog to save money that he would have to spend on dog's food, instead he would put few hundreds more into his account every month.

She enjoyed her tea. It had a flavour of sophistication mixed with a pinch of aestheticism. She had always been inclined towards beauty - the walls of her house were full of paintings that she bought at auctions or during her visits to art galleries. She would finish law at one of the ivy league universities and work in a foreign bank. One day the son of her parents' friends would gift her a platinum ring with 2 diamonds. One day at work she would catch a glimpse of a bit familiar face of a man applying for a loan. Unable to recollect the face she would just think to herself how silly those little people are - they do not know how to succeed in life and constantly beg big companies to give them money to survive.

He would not be given a loan. With tears in his eyes he would raise the ax to cut down the olive tree that his grandfather planted  after returning from his only travel abroad. The tree was just about to give fruits... He sold the land to the multinational construction company - the land would be converted into a calling center of a foreign bank. They would install big computers and college drop outs would be calling people to offer them loans and credit cards.

I finished my cup of black tea and paid the bill. As I went out I spotted a child sleeping on the ground at the construction site across the street. She kept her head on a pillow made out of her mother's sari and was dreaming of  her village and the girls playing with a blue ball by the river. A squirrel run up the wall. I could spot a single line on its grey fur, as if somebody had touched it with a finger dipped in paint. 

I looked back. She was still pretty. He was still smiling.

The pianist.

He always loved the piano. It was its presence in the living room that would link the old worlds with  today. His fingers were long and bony and he would often catch himself observing the lumbricals of his hand as he played.
Black key... vibration. White key... vibration.
It made him feel as if the music was not coming out of the piano strings but from all the muscles and bones of his body as he stretched himself to fill the room with his presence.
There was a lot to fill up as the room was large and empty of furniture. Only the piano stood at the center. He would sit next to it, eat, drink and sometimes even fall asleep. He once even dreamt a strange dream of having become a magician who stood by the river with a torn blue cloth in his hand. What could that mean he had no idea.
Having no ideas was a rather general state for him. He had no idea about the world, no idea about people, no idea about wars. All he knew were the black and white sounds coming out from his piano. It would always make him think of magic - this simple fact that by pressing one key he could create most unbelievable sounds that would paint the white walls of his room with different designs.
He enjoyed having his own ways - he would cry where other people would laugh and smile while others would try to wag their fists. He could not understand their ways and they were equally unable to understand his. He got used to the fact that he and his piano grew into becoming each other's best friends, best men, old husband and wife who had lived together for so long that they had eradicated any form of communication as it was no longer needed. They knew each other too well.
He was sitting by the piano that day trying to master the most intricate choreographies for his fingers when his efforts were interrupted  by a sudden knock on the doors. That seemed strange to him as nobody ever came this side - his house was far away from everywhere, everything and everybody. He thought that the sound was just a game of his imagination. He was getting old after all. However, the knocking seemed to continue and irritated as he might have been he could not ignore it any longer. He stood up and walked slowly towards the doors. The knocking  was becoming louder and louder with every step he took. He got scared and paused for a moment. Somebody began to bang hard against the doors. He could not ignore the loud sound so he decided to press the handle.

As he opened the doors he could see a little girl standing outside. Her hair was drenched in the rain of her tears.

'Can you see me?... Can you see me?' she cried. 'Can you see me? Cause nobody else can!!! Can you?'

Of course he could see her. What kind of question was that? Of course he could see her, yet he did not know how to say that to her. He was not good with words. Music was his domain.

'Can you see me?' she was almost shouting.

Not knowing what to do he suddenly pulled the child closer to himself and kept his hand on her head. The girl looked at him with her big green eyes 'Do you know that squirrels have marks on their fur because they were once touched by the hand of a man?' she asked.
'Yes, I heard about that I guess' he said 'it's an old story'
'It's not so old' said the girl 'I made it up yesterday only. May I tell you a story?'
He was lost for words, his hand however, began to play with girls hair. It seemed as if nobody had brushed them for years.
'Yes' the words flew suddenly out of his mouth 'I would love to listen.'

The water cycle

She could feel the heavy blocks of ice melting under her skin,
They would climb out of her body to fly away like clouds that the wind would send towards his window.
She blew a petal out of her hand.
It turned into a kite.
The rain began at midnight.
The drops were heavy and each of them fell on the leaves of a creeper that was searching for its way through a tiny crack in the wall.
A green leaf found itself growing on a dry branch of a tree.
She kept her head on his knees.
It felt soft.
Her hands morphed into a creeper climbing up his body to fill up the crack in his chest.
She touched ice and it began to melt.
Drops fell down her hands and as each of them hit the ground she could feel leaves and branches growing out of her body.
His head was resting in her shadow.

The two butterflies found their way out of the white metro car.
I think I saw them sitting on a leaf as I drank tea on a cold morning after the rain.

Untied masks.

The circle spinned as each of them untied the masks of insecurity that the thoughtful family tied on their heads.
My children.
Emancipated woman.
Fuck the system.
You hear only one side of the story.

She was sitting by the wall and her fingers were searching for the grains of cement that she could use to build up a wall between here and there.