i have wanted you for ever. you have meant more to me than a lot of stuff. and i still want you. across times of celebration, alone-ness, anxiety, defiance, strength, stress, being cool, i find me seeking you. the pain and the dependence is par for the course: never have i thought less of you for it.
but in all my trade offs i hadn’t bargained being ostracized because of us. my need to belong was what drew me to you in the first place. with that gone, there is no point.
bye, bye love.
We walked into each others lives at a time of dire need, saved each other from pain and loneliness, flowered together, blossomed and outshone all other relationships. And then the situation changed, the reasons we had met over, moved on... we found ourselves stranded: actors in the wrong play, mouthing the wrong lines, bumping into props which weren’t supposed to be there. Till you figured out your way into the new play, leaving me adrift, unable to let go, afraid I might need your help in another time and space, when yet again you might be the only one who would understand. The memories have dried up, the hope has shriveled; I still wait, covered in dead skin, clinging on to our expired friendship…
I take the little known routes, I duck, I feint, I hide, I peep, I try to think of the myriad ways I can shake you off. I cant see you but I keep feeling your presence. Once in a while a dart comes and land itself just left of my head: it was meant to miss, meant to remind me that u are still around and quite good at what you do. Hope they say keeps even the weakest alive and I am only unfit. So I keep running. The sneakers give way, the socks tear, the skin blisters but I block out the pain: the effort will be worth it, if only I can outrun you.
I don't want what you offer: your lies, your ego plays, your manipulations, your smokescreens, I abhor them. The illusions you paint make me want to puke. But as fast as I might be, as hard as I might run, about the time I reach the end of my tether, the end of my physical and mental capacity, I feel your warm breathing on my nape, my nose recognizes your putrid odor.
I turn to see and before I can get an eyeful, I feel the thwack! of your hand on my face, a jolt of electricity goes through my scalp and a nanosecond later I hear the sound of my body tumbling onto the floor. The rest of my brain has gone into shock, not wanting to face up to the inevitable, my eyes want to remain unfocussed trying it best to not make sense. And then u kick and this time I hear the crunch before I feel the blood spurt somewhere inside me. I stop.
I give up. I try and hide my head in denial, you wont let me, you make me look into your eyes and accept you. You make me take you in. You make me re-adjust my head so that you aren't uncomfortable. This time it looks you are staying forever.
you n i
running through a green field, the image flickers, an illusion, a lie, the balloon bursts
i reach to touch you, you turn away, watching the passing sea, we chat of innocuous nothings
potential partner in disguise, wearing a past, too hard to let go off, i seek me in your eyes, and meet an empty eyebrow
we struggle to jive, through mismatched moves, bad choreography, little brings us together, more keeps us apart
the dream soured, someone took away the missing pieces, either you or i, gave up, went under
yet we keep looking, for the lost love, seeing only the differences, i remain unreal, you stay stuck in your mind
part of a wistful future, remembering broken wishes, and the never-ever, you and i
I looked on as I dropped her lifeless body into the water, the buoyancy stopped it from going under for a bit, and then the water soaked in, inch by inch into the placid empty vessel: a useless medium, an empty rest.
While my eyes captured the present sinking, my mind wandered around the past: of the times spent together, the many lives we had crunched into one, the pain we had inflicted on each other, the lies and the truths about each other we had accepted.
Ours wasn’t an ideal and romanticized relationship; it was quite full of conditionality, negotiation and barter, as love and life had to be.
And before the body (and it was A BODY, it was NOT her) submerged into the water, my mind had already started thinking of coping mechanisms for myself. She was gone; now I had to figure out my life, what I wanted to do with her parting gift: my freedom.
Yes, a part of it I wanted to abuse by living in the past and wallowing in ‘what if’ scenarios. The rest? I guess would be the opportunities that un-encumbrance brings with it. I had places to go, experiences to enjoy, lessons to learn, my life to live.
She was done with me and vice versa, all we had left was a new beginning.
Thank you mother.
close yet far
the more you do try the less shall be done. so what do i do? stop trying? not do? wait for the bolt of lightening, the manna from heaven, the gold platter to descend and bless me? it hasn't happened in the past, why should it happen now? when i wanted the job, house, friends, woman, i went and gave first, i took the initiative, i led from the front and then through good and evil, things moved, sometimes for the worse, sometimes otherwise, but things did move.
this time i hear voices, which mean well, asking, advising, extolling, requesting, ordering me to wait and watch. to see the roll of the dice, the flow of the river, to not go too fast, to not jump in.
why should i listen to them? coz i find my own voice not powerful enough? coz i am tired of being spontaneous and then being cut down? coz i am vary of walking down the garden path and turning around to find no one with me?
but then there is no one who can say for sure: me or the voices. this story has never been lived ever before. how will anyone know its outcome? this time has not happened, these people have never met, these emotions have never been felt.
the unfortunate part lies not in the being belted down, it lies in the subconscious fear of over stepping, of showing or saying or doing something that will be misconstrued as something else. the sadness is about meaning more and saying less. not interacting the way you would like to, but the way you should. true we all wear masks, so what is the great crime to humanity if i wear yet another. but then what if i don't want to wear a mask? what if i want to let go? what if i just want to lie back, stare at the ceiling and let my mind and my words come out without thinking them through? what if i challenge the fact that we are in the business of creating perceptions? what if i want to let go of the veils and be recognized for myself? what if i refute the fact that a projection would be closer to sanity than reality itself? what then?
