Lose

I thought I was supposed to be good or at least, okay at them but why must I always lose with words to learn something new?

Days

Its necessary to have friends that go, ''These are the days'' instead of those that always crib, ''Those were the days.''

End of the world

The world will end like a boring conversation.

Unannounced.

Undisturbed.

Flat on its face.

Melt

If today touched me with its paper hands

Wings of light, white walls

And shadow clocks

If it greets me like a familiar song

I used to hum

Lost pages of a notebook

Or words in a foreign language

I will come undone like a ball of wool

My grandmother used to fashion

Into sweaters.

And ache, like aged, cracking spines of books

Covered with dust and webs of memory

Creak in solemnity, like chairs of my family

Shy away like sparrows in their nests.

And wonder if today shades

Me like a bending tree

A vine to a wall

If it encloses its arms around me

Like a pomegranate shell.

Out on the streets, where

Every wound is open and

Every tale is old.

Where I trudge, with my

Bed of flames, my sea of lies

And stab the dark with my words

That do not touch you.

Frail words, bound by a shallow surface

As useless as a scar with no stories to tell.

So tell me you need my touch

As your candle burns slow

And your flame stands still

My embrace of bones draped in skin.

Mirror

Sometimes you're just another mirror for what I can't have.

Nowhere words

Maybe I write words without a home, with roads that go nowhere. My words are as faceless as me.

Winters gone

25 winters have passed since i was born and the 2 and a half i spent with her were the happiest i ever had.

Rewind, repeat

I huddle towards my bed at night like a thief, taking solace in the shadows, careful to never make a sound. Its 4am. The birds have started chirping restlessly, soon the day will be born again. Soon my tired eyes will wake to find everything looks old. Soon everything will be the same as yesterday.

Friends

Friends are sunshine,
Upon these cold, haggard bones
When love leaves like summer
Through the backdoor.

Numb

Its alright. Its ok. You'll be alright. Pretty soon, you won't feel anything.

The drought

Old sketch i made on 1/8/2004

Where the stream goes

In the vicissitudes of time,
I follow the river and
Watch it turn into a stream.
Overhead, the clouds break like glass
Scatter over the sky’s canvas
As I broke once, into your open arms
Like an old mirror
You grew weary of keeping
And looking into.

Now my collar hangs upon my neck
And tightens like a noose.

And the stream flows on,
Like a departed friend or,
An empty street at night.
It listens and forgives and
Starts to sing

My songs are an ocean before her empire
Where the sun of your memory
Rises everyday
Feeds the roots of my eyes
Wishes and overflows
Sleeps and sways.

But the stream rages on
With all its answers,
Grows thinner for the bird to rest her feet
Gets warm for the woman to wash her hair
Pale for the man to quench his thirst
And for those that he loves

It lingers on, smiles and dies.

Words

And words, they dissolve
Like sugar on your tongue
Like ice on pavements of summer
Like yellow leaves in spring.

Words, like days and strangers
Pass me by, faceless, on the road.

Old words are enemies,
Songs and friends you
Choose not to meet.

Sometimes, in black of the night
Words are mirages, maybe unknown birds
Words are places that howl at dawn
That murmur and scream.

Words are your own curse
When you become what you write.

And words of morning are born
Through the dark
When it’s easy to paint her
On the canvas of tomorrow
With shades that make a tale.

Know deceiving words
That follow and never rhyme,
If you go where your story goes,
To meet the horizon
Or into a crude moon
Don’t end where it begins.

Pages of the mind

Remember me as a day
When rain fell free on everyone
And washed in my shade
You roamed with a tale to tell.
Or remember me as the rain
That drenched no one.

Remember me as a cloud
That changed its shape when winds changed direction
Caught in the sun of your eye
Our reflection was beautiful.

Or remember me as a cloud that
Drifted and found only you
To give my shapes a name
Before words had a home.

Remember me as an open road
Moonlit at night, naked as a fish
Bereft of the sea, gasping for air
Going in circles around you.

Or remember me as the night
When I surrendered into your open arms
Between your glowing breasts
Like a vagabond moon
With a promise of healing.

Winter In Me

You who lies there
Silent and vacant as a tree
With your roots going nowhere
I speak to you now.

Winter comes undone in circles around you
And I
Break the only knot I know.

And as I unwind on orphaned roads
I speak but stay silent about tombstones
Watching my dark city sweep
Its filth under the pavements.

I know
I rage without a reason
I burn without a flame
My voices have no words
Anymore

Yet, the winter in me waits
As my voice awaits your presence
Like water shackled within a glass
Waiting the release of your lips.
Wishing to spill
Into your conversations
When I’m not there.

And I wish, as only a dreamer would
To hold the world in your eyes
To touch you with my words
With my silence
To hold you
To bite each day to its very core
To call each thing
By its right name.

To wake and find
The roads are washed and pure
The skies are clear and leaves are green
To find, suddenly, the sparks are flames.

Names

But everything must be filled with time,
Or at least, a reminder of the same.
That's why there is no silence
That's why we have names.

You

I find you in things that don’t make sense.
In cries of the spoon when I stir my tea
In traces of melting sugar on its steel.
In the eye of every glass
I find I don’t see myself at all.
I find you when I am faceless and I lose myself
In dark corners and paths I walk away from
And never stare back
In creases of my unironed clothes
In threads that come undone and unravel like the seasons
In dents and curves of my misshapen body
In the dust that rises from people in a hurry
And settles back, like time itself.
Sometimes I talk with insanity
At times I give my thoughts a name
And sometimes she comes to me with faces I knew
In silence that I break too soon
With my unkempt words
On empty pages that always win
In melting wax gathered next to a flame
In tears I shed over those I don’t know
In a yellow moon, half eaten by the sun
In words and gestures I don’t hear and overlook
In strands of hair sticking to my skin
Like an ill-treated memory
I’m afraid, my love,
I’m turning into you.

Ugly

What is age when your skin is a pearl
Unlike mine, love,
Stretched out
As a dry riverbed
Ghost flake puzzles.
Yet your mouth quivers like an arrow
Stretched upon a bow
Reaching out to catch me.
Your tongue lashing,
Like a bird in a cage
Violence, pain and love
In the tunnel of your eyes.

What good are my arms, my feet, my legs
Forever inching closer
Nudging your ribs
Colliding like ungentle waves
Like the only place I know.

What good is my hair
Thinning out, tied
In knots by the wind
A tangle of tension threads.

What good are my words
When they only pierce the past
Thin as paper with bullet holes
And the future dissolves
In promises of tomorrow.

And as age shines on you
Like a dawning sun
Dry leaf, I should know
I’m unworthy of a green stem.

Page

There are no tears or songs,
Shades of blue and violet from the sky
Locks of your dark hair caught in the sun,
The emptiness of smoke escaping your lips,
Filling the void in between
But words that make this poem.
Words and distance.
Words and promises.
Words and silence.
When i rise no more,
From your eye or your storm.
From a dusty cupboard.
From a torn page.

Naming the Void

The ropes are gone
Lost in a garden of wretched believers
And I, vigilante
Let my dreams soar
For a clear, white day.
Like a string less kite, departed leaf
Like a lonely wave
Washing your feet.

Only mere strings remain
And I, lost in a maze
Of vile beliefs
Pour labyrinth into my cup
Swallow it down the abyss.

And in the distance, as far
As the eye can see the grey
The box is undone
The walls are bare
The mirror is empty
For her reflection is gone.

And the threads, the threads, threads
The threads grow thinner still.

*awesome photo by Ipshita :)