We used to fly.

I’d like to lift the veil off your face. But then there would be too many to be lifted for they cover too many faces, all belonging to the same person.
The gust of wind that barges inside the room brings questions to me along with hitting me like a pang on my bare neck. You’ve been like the cold wind, giving me pain and making me feel good at the same time. You taught me pain can be beautiful. Its amazing how long I survived and faced the pain, the sharp, intense pain. Pain can be bittersweet, it can be memorable. And we face it for those we love, and sometimes, the suffering is worth it. Mostly not.
Its astonishing how superficial people can be. Like the flytrap. Elusive. Get too close and snap, it gobbles up your insides. I had thought you were different. We’re best friends to the outside world, inside, why is it so hollow? Fair weather buddies, not. We’ve survived through the hardest times, been there, done that and come out alive, together. Now? We haven’t bid goodbye but where are we standing now? I am on a cliff which has nothingness beyond the edge. One more stab and I will probably fall deep, very deep, into an abyss of drudgery, monotony, a state of absolute nothingness.
The words dipped in sarcasm do not appear comical now, and the humour is so sharp and savage now that I feel someone is pointing a finger right at me. Only issue is I don’t know who the finger belongs to, blame the darkness that has been created around me.

You reside inside me,
Where else will I find thee?

But you are lost, somewhere. We are communicating and yet we are not. We are laughing and yet we are not. It is a light, fake laughter, not heavy and deep like before.

Change is constant. Its perhaps the only constant things in our monotonous lives. And I hate changes. Especially ones like these, which leave a vacuum inside your mind.
I am not a saint, I have my past, but if I watch my words, shall you not? Is expression of love an equivalent of posing for pictures, sitting pretty, attending blah bah parties that have no meaning?

If I scream, I am wrong, if I accuse, I am wrong again, and if I be honest, I could not have been more wrong. Its amazing how we drift farther away. Still are.

We're just two lost souls
Swimming in a fish bowl,
Year after year,
Running over the same old ground.
What have we found?
The same old fears.

The Nothing.

As I perched myself on the couch with the regular latte, I knew today wouldn’t be similar to all other days. Sometimes you have those instincts, don’t you? Anyway, I sat down and drank to the slow Sufi playing in the background.
My mind was all over the place. Like always. Trisha would say, ‘Feet on Mars and mind in Venus’ if she’d see me now, like she always does. Sometimes, a pattern in every day things can be a beauty. You almost crib when they’re missing, those dialogues that are rather expected, even if they’re sarcastic.

The coffee tastes usual. You know what? Weed or

alcohol or even coffee, none work on me anymore. Yes, its almost unnatural. I call it getting accustomed. I overfed by body, I played with it, ruined it and now it is numb to all the three.

Weed doesn’t produce colors ahead of me, alcohol doesn’t give me the same high and coffee, I think I start blinking to sleep the very moment it enters my mouth. It is astonishing that as humans we can get used to almost anything. We get used to living a meaningless existence, we get used to pointlessly quarrelling, we get used to anything under the sky. With time, of course.
Randomly my eyes drift to the scene before me. Its Fall. My favorite time of the year. It amuses me, probably because nature holds out a message, Viva la Vida. (long live life) The leaves fall, and new ones bloom again.

When these dead leaves were green, love,
November's skies were blue,
And to us, wandering hand in hand,
Life was a fairy scene,
That golden morning in the woods
When these dead leaves were green!

But .. ever noticed that a dead leaf serves no purpose? It lies there. Solitary. It perhaps implies a crude reality. You bloom, you fall too bad, and its hard to get back.
I am still deflecting between thoughts. There’s no stillness, there is nothing that has grasped my attention so bad that I’d never lose it, no, not yet. I move, like the drop into the ocean. Philosophically, I joined the greater force, realistically, I lost my essence.
Who had I followed? Why had I lost my real identity? No one knew. No one ever would. Nah, not even me. I had friends, and yet I didn't connect. I had an identity, and I didn't use it.

I forgave, moved on. Did I really want to? I only thought it was easier to forgive and move on. Have you ever thought that perhaps forgiving half-heartedly and holding onto it is worse than holding onto a grudge?

Marley says, everyone is going to make you suffer, just choose the ones worth suffering for.

I chose a lot of people. Why doesn't the suffering seem worth while? Is sensitivity subjective? Do you have to shed copious tears to be called sensitive? I beg to differ.

The song has changed to Backstreet. They say, 'and then my heart did time in Siberia .. waiting for the lie to come true'

I have learnt things. Lies do come true. Your words play on you. Your sins come back to you. Your lost identity, it comes back to you too. Karma, or whatever. I call it life. And as I said, my thoughts were all over the place. Still are.

And I am still staring at the dead leaf. Thinking, philosophical or realistic?

What I'd wish for.

Woke up around 5 to feed myself the otherworldly echo of the namaaz at the Mosque nearby. Religious or not, I loved how my room was momentarily flooded with energy and serenity as the faith perhaps peeped through the rugged old white windows. It all happened today, after I had been lectured about faith, belief, religion since ages by you. It took effect when you left. Intriguing, no?

Again, like all other mornings, I washed my face and looked up the mirror to find you staring back at me. One part of the other always continues to live on in the other. Always.

Like a fool, I remember standing at the bus stop twice, waiting for you to pick me up. Too late the realization dawned upon me that no one is going to pick and drop me for a while. Darn the bills I will have to pay. Ha.
Just before moving out, I was picking up a scarf for myself. (Deep purple, maybe) My eyes met a red and black tie at that very moment. The one you wore for your graduation. Ouch. Even materialism can give give us pain- Imagine. Was going to clean my cupboard before leaving, no more. Can't bear to put off the collage you gave me. The neon-bordered beauty is still hung on its side. Guess its too late.Picture perfect memories scattered all around the floor.

Sometimes from "you" and "I" a "we" is not destined. Six months post the split with you, I still cannot acknowledge the aforesaid for us. Of course you believe we were never destined to be.

And I wonder if I ever cross your mind,

For me, it happens all the time

I'd want to mend the glass and put the pieces together. Maybe with a glue of togetherness, understanding. We had time, ample of it. What went wrong? No one will know. Ever.

On the bus, I thought of the dinner I'd cook. Alone, as usual. It has started to pain. Severely. Please don't bother. No one cares. Anyway, maybe after dinner, I'll sit in the balcony for a while. Read the J.D Robb I'm halfway through or maybe write some more. About just about anything. Maybe, even us.

And if I see a shooting star, the world will know what I wished for.

Masquerade

She walks with pomp.

Dances with grace. With finesse.

She has glimmer in her eyes.

Fuchsia on her lips.

Rose blush on her cheeks.

Sweet as sugar.

She is poetry in motion.

Inside, she is broken.

Weeps in silent sobs. In convulsive sobs.

She has thorns in her heart.

Gray on her mind.

Deep blue woes in her eyes.

Dark as midnight.

She is a forgotten dream.

She is the same person, and yet she is not.

Lost and found. Or maybe never found.

The gazes towards you turn even more deep. The meagre smiles offered amidst a myriad of sulks and straight faces never looked more false.
You want to hold on, but there comes a point when what you were clinging onto is lost. Who you were holding onto is also lost.
The face that once comforted you in a crowd turns hostile and in a matter of hours, it becomes a part of that crowd which makes you feel all the more uncomfortable.
You will walk into an empty room, and expect someone there, waiting for you with a look in their eyes. A look that sets a bad day right, a look that reassures you that everything is understood even when a word is not shared or spoken. Or wait, maybe the room is just not empty, its just void of people you would want to converse with. Its only a room full of people you only ‘watch’ but never communicate with. They weren’t one of those people you’d call to have the concluding-to-nothing talks, share the headless, tailless, senseless laughter. ‘Cos them with you could stir a conversation on anything, are not there.


The crushes, the dreams, the thoughts, the failures, the aspirations, the sentiments- that one person you poured everything into- is not there.
One day, you held hands, clung onto each other for support and the other day, things turned haywire. And you lost her. Her touch, her smile, her comfort, and most importantly her presence and essence.
Maybe she’s still there, but her way of looking at you is totally altered. Now you ‘just talk’ never ‘communicate’. This, is even worse than her going away. Perhaps, forever.
.
That really good friend of yours and how you lost him/her. How it pains!
Sometimes the walk-out is for bad, mostly not. But her empty place ..
How you wish her back.
Maybe life turns around, and you get her back. But .. you both know, once a knot in the thread, and things are never the same.

--

Update : This is off the blog post entirely but I got a friend who writes awesomely and deserves tonnes of readers, Priyanka. Visit Gossamer diaries NOW. Its an order. And yes, we're similar. (Which means, awesome ;) )

I have only ..

I am not a liar, I have only hidden many truths.
I am not scared from my past, it only bears too many scars.
I don't hate the rain, I only cannot control my tears then.
I haven't been in love, I have only lost him.

I haven't been a ditcher, I have only left a friend's hand.

I am not scared of screaming, I have only lost my voice.

I have not a committed a sin, only seen too many and kept mum.

I have never felt for him again, I have only missed his presence in my life.

I haven't abandoned vibrant colors, I have only taken up the ones that are unassuming.

I haven't separated from the crowd, I have only started being scared of addressing it.

I haven't given anyone hatred, I have only received abhorrence time and again.

I still stop to smell the flowers, I have only stopped devouring their beauty now.

I haven't been two faced, I have only deserted the ugly.

I didn't want to be a complicated, I have only lost the simplicity.

I don't believe in paradoxes, I have only fallen in love with them, again!

55 fiction : Let the smoke stay ..

How long could she hide the tears? This or that? She'd been thinking for long.

She could see just one solution.
She took out one more cigarette and lit it.

Let the smoke stay, its more clear than my life.

I'm. . . . . .

I am the consistently burning flame of the candle
I am the calmness and tranquility of the sea
I am the power of Dusk and Dawn
I am the beauty in the feathers of a fawn.

I am not the farewell I bid to thee.
I am not the Angel in yesterday's reverie
I am not the cold and sour laugh you heard
I am not the dullness in a discouraging word

I am what you often hide from yourself
I am the road which leads you to your goal
I am the will which makes you stable
I am the strength both abled and disabled

There is more to me than what the eyes can see
There is less in me than what can be
You don't know me well; but still you do
Because I'm the power residing in you.



I'm your conscience.

55 fiction : Remember the roses ?

Desperately trying to mend the glass of the golden frame containing our picture, I sit by the window looking out into the world. The world which seemed beautiful when your hand's touch comforted me at ugly times.

You always said that its insanity to hate all roses, if you got pierced by one thorn. But. . . when the thorn cuts you deep, and the roses disappear.. do you have a choice?