Keys

I feel forgotten 
Lost 
Misplaced
Like keys in a bowl 
You kept too high,
Out of reach
Like keys that lead to 
Locks that open doors 
You've closed for good
Like keys, with crooked teeth gone
Brittle with time

Regard

I have little regard
For sharp things
And 
Hidden objects

One stings
The other laughs.

I want nothing

I want nothing to do
With my hands,my feet
And my eyes
I'd rather lose
My sight, my scent
My sum, my sound
Than my words

I've forgotten how it feels
When someone touches the back of 
Your neck, the front of your chest
The end of your palm
Or what you see when you close your 
Eyes and kiss
I imagine only darkness
This storm is calm 
And the waves are still

And that perhaps, is
The worst death of all
The being alone
In happiness

With the night

All day
I keep waiting 
To be with the night
To forget the parties 
Of the day
To kiss and hold her tight

All the while
I'm killing time 
The light will never
know my name
I hide what I should seek 
I let go of these reins

All these moments
Photographs of colours
Washed and turned inside out
Hung to dry while she hums
"Music is made of cowards
and silence is a crowd."

Tongue

I bit my tongue
while I was sleeping
Woke with one hand behind my head
Like I left my pillow back home
Another on my face
For the sun was in my eyes
And I, in the shade 
Where time lay still
And the birds were quiet
In all this silence, I
couldn't hear you speak 
Even though your teeth were shining
And you hands were dancing 
As the paper waves receded
Into the fold
But it stings a little, as I wake
I bit my tongue while I was sleeping
I was dreaming of you

#99

Wrong out your rights
Wound all your heals
Drown out the noise
Erase how to feel
This second skin
We've settled in
Is better than
Anything

The Better Half

Crawl through mud and ash
Empires long forgotten
To reach
The better half of me
I prefer the tall grass 
And the wind whistling through
But I'm not divided in two
There are open fields,
Mountains of green
Where my mind wanders, and you
And maybe I prefer doors that 
Say welcome 
Even though you never open
Or bat an eyelid
When I sing and dance
Perhaps
The better half of me
Is me

I would like to meet you
But meet you from a distance 
We don't have to embrace or kiss
Like you say lovers did
Off of a postcard from New York stuck 
At the back of your bedroom door
The sailor's hat in the wind
Your hair dances 
Your feet, too small 
Like your hands 
But I don't see the lines 
Or the spilt mascara and overturned 
Eyelashes, the eyes are out of business,
the doors are still and closed 
Even if from a distance 
They seem open and inviting 
So you invite me for a walk
Then say you haven't got
the time to walk this line
And slip like shifting sands from dunes
Of the night, you blow smoke rings
And wouldn't like to sing
Or even gallop to a place
Far away, a city eroding by the sea
to see two walls going by
Across, parallel
Never to touch

One with the fading

When it rains
But the drops don't touch you
you can't seem to see
Your reflection in the mirror
Or in a puddle, the children splash about
Or even in the spoon, in your tea
You stir a storm
But nothing twists and turns
You can't recall when you
Erased yourself from your own page
In the diary of life
From the footnotes of others
The ink has dried
You're one with the fading

Frame

She moves in frames
The photo stays the same
As time goes by
It's hard to recall her name

Waiting in the shadows 
Aching for the pour to stop
In the eyes there's only rain
The heart shelters a drought

She said she'd rather not see
The other side of me
So I locked the doors
And threw away the key

She said one's a lonely sum
If only that were untrue
I need you like breadcrumbs, she said
Once the bread is through 

Flowers

Picture by Shreya Arya. Words by me.

#100

If there were three things I could do today,
They would be to burn
To burn and to burn.

Burn like the sun of a new day that sets the sky alight
Burn like the fires that keep burning even when it's raining

Many things in your life are as cold and stale as a limp dick
And the winter of your youth will never return
So keep burning

Burn like narendra modi just started eating beef
Burn like its watermelon season
Burn like the chillies are fresh
Burn like you were on fire like that one Vietnamese priest on the cover of rage against the machine's first album
Burn like Tom Morello's guitar chords on a pair of fresh strings

Burn like the cities inside of you are burning
And people are having sex on top of cars left behind on the road
And even though there are cops everywhere you aren't following the fucking curfew hours to go home because you'd rather burn

Burn down those who say you weren't man enough
Burn away those that say you're too much of a woman
Burn because you don't need to bow
Burn because you don't need permission

Burn, for you can withstand it
Burn, because your canvas is candid
And though I haven't planned it
When you burn
I won't leave you stranded.

Burn like the streets are empty
Burn like there's no music but
You're dancing anyway
Burn like you're dancing naked
Burn like everyone's watching you like a comet that comes by only once every 75 years

Burn like your parents are away
Burn like your plate is full
Burn like your grandparents used to get high
Burn and carve your name on this world
Forget about who offended you
Write an open letter to yourself
Stop being faceless on Facebook
Trendy on Twitter or tumbling over tumbler
Burn, as only you know how

If there were four things I could do today
They would be to burn, to burn, to burn
And to heal.

I would like to kiss you in
Places no one knows
In secrets nothing has
Touched in a while
The way you know you like
But no one knows

I would like to kiss you
In corners of the places
Where you grew up
Changed shape and
Shed your skin

I would like to kiss you
In your sleep
So you may dream of me
I wish that were true
Like your hands that manage
To defy gravity and curve
When you put your fingers
To your lips

I would like to kiss you
When you are looking away
So you may turn to me
And smile

Fluff

Mountains of the evening
Hills of the night
White cushions with
No ill intent
Break in the morning
To deliver and drench
You with their message
While we, the plebeians
The crawlers
Seedy shifters and
Cheque chasers
Full of words
Drained of cash
Leave home

Undress

I see her undress
Under the moon
And for a second
The things become
Clear
The ink spilled over her
Skin in youth
Marks long forgotten
The golden hoops
For silver ears
And freckles like stars
Illuminate the night
Love is a smile
She wears

It's A Slow Death

I'm flesh and bone
Blood and guts 
Root and hair
Alphabets are leaves I shed
The autumn draft
During winter spells
The everyday seasons 
The sun never sets
And you'd agree
I'm not made of letters
But my darling
Its a slow death
When they want only your words
And your body lies forgotten
It's a dull pain
That time reminds and hangs like 
Clothespins from your skin
It's an ungentle ache
When the only curves and shapes
They yearn for
Are the ones they can hear
Coming out of your mouth
The only thing they'd like to undress
Is a page left blank

Irony

The universe abounds in irony
I lost my key chain
And found the key

Golden

Those who rest
In golden spires
Cannot see rivers of blood
Or eyes of fire

Those who dine
With mouths open wide
Live to be devoured 
By a ravenous tide

Pumping your fist, beating your chest
Wearing your crown of power
Shouting your forsaken sermon
From a broken tower

If your body's a vessel
Your heart's but a cage
Bring down your armies
Have you come to plunder?
Or have you come to save?

And they keep marching on and on
With red, the only paint for my town
Your beauty parlours are full of politicians
Our Parliament is full of clowns

Causality is just a statistic 
War makes humans rhetoric
This is elected disease is already passé
But when I get to scratching 
I'll savour every itch

So mothers, don't count your martyrs
Your hands are open wide
Fathers shed no tears
Pray to an empty sky

The usual tale of travesty
The jury looks from left to right
Our fifteen decades of tragedy
Assured through media bytes

And what of the solitary pawn
Left alone with jigsaw rubble and rags
The earth is a wound, calm as a bomb
Clutch the dust that doesn't hold you back.

But can you forget that face you once held,
When there are no birds left to sing her summer song
Remorse is a product they try to sell when
The kings and queens and all the horses are gone

Because the guilty won't fall
From their high throne
Because they couldn't find
The hands that slit her throat
Today in the evening, city square
A man is going to explode.

Live

I want to live where the road runs out
Where the grass is wild and no one's about
Where voices are vices and silence's a cloud
To build an abode in nature's shroud.

I want to live where the river flows free
Where dreams are whispers and the world is a sea.
Between the lost and found
From the corner of down and out
I want to run to every mountain and climb every tree.

I want to be where freedom is not a decree
Where there are no cages and the bird is singing with glee
A song for the forsaken, the fallen and me
To know my muse has awoken
And my muse is free.

From the ocean of deceit to the valley of truth
I want to travel to a place with every shade of green and blue
Where we come to for the stories but stay for the view
I want to give everything away and be something new.

I will not wait for you

I will not wait for you
or your eyes that never turn
for the world is a wheel
And you only gather hate like dust
sweeping forgotten toys under your bed.

I don't mind
If your hands are not reaching out
For me
If your arms don't graze
The grass on this field
My feet tramples with joy
If your palms aren't waves
That take me in
And little by little,
We all must forget

For the sky to open
to see walls crumble and broken
to feel the heat of the wave
before the cold hits.

For I decline
The things that shine
For a thousand names they recall
For stretching sleeves of my hand
For uncertain shelters

Once I know
I'm nothing new
I will not wait for you
but if your eyes do wander
towards the roads I made

Know I am but an empty sky
Bereft of pregnant clouds
a string-less kite
your fingers point nowhere.
But
In your resolve
my chains are broken
in your gaze
my solace grows weak.