death at a wedding

limp

wormhole

This is just another day. Not a special day. Not a significant day. Just a day, like all other days and this day, just like all other days, will turn dark, darker, and shall keeping doing that, till it reaches its darkest hour and then, lie down, breathe its last and die. 

Days are like people in that sense.

Days are like people, also in the way, that they don't always make sense.

And some days, are like some people that never do.

The comforting factor, even in a setting as hopeless as this, is, that days are like people, in the sense, that they will turn dark, darker, and shall keeping doing that till they reach their darkest hour and then, lie down, breathe their last and die. 

But how does any of this matter? 

It does not.

This is just another day, like all other days.

The only difference, this day; today, grows from nothing else matters and ends up as nothing else matters with a vestigial crudely attached, like a last minute thought; you. You don't matter. 

In your case, you and in my case, me.

A realization so sad, so deplorable, so debilitating that it is almost relieving. 
A sense of freedom, the feel of fresh air in deflated lungs.

The truth. The only truth. The only residue that remains, at the end of this rainbow,  which is time - nothing matters.

And with this unburdening knowledge come opportunities, second chance, a second life.

You can stop being a hamster in the wheel, the mouse in a place of worship, the worm under a bully's foot, the cockroach in the dumps, the red rose in a pathetic ornate flower vase.

You can stop being murderous rage and overbearing patience and undying love, you can stop being a fissure, an ugly mouldy tumour of need, want, desire, love, lust, indifference, jealousy, comfort, misery, decadence, obedience, light, dark, wisdom, ignorance.

You can stop being everything that you are, today, this day.

You can stop being everything that you could not be, till this day, today.

You can start afresh, at the point of origin, from the beginning, from the bite of the apple, from a non-existing god's bosom and a man's rib, a man I pray, never did exist.

You can start from a dot, the one from which all sentences originate. 
The dot that gets extended into a line, and that line into a circle.

You can start from the encouraging, motivating, 
soothing rhetorical question, soothing in a way only a rhetorical question can be 
(for you do not need to give, find, think of an answer)

"does anything matter? 

You can start with that today.

But today, is just another day. 

Not a special day. 

Not a significant day. 

Just a day, like all other days.

 In your case, you and in my case, me.

Whoever.

It does not matter.

sentience

the blur

of the catacombs 

we stand upon

a blur of all the skeletons

below

people we knew

people we wanted to know

people we chose to forget

there in the catacombs

lie hundreds and thousands

of them

still captured 

in the very last moment

of how we remember them

some with their hands outstretched

some cradling themselves

some with empty sockets for eyes

staring deep inside 

us

far deeper 

than anyone has

even with their eyes

but 

they are

dotted

pixelized

in a motion of blur

arrested

still

a blur

***

the blur

of the clouds

belonging to a sky

the blur 

of their shadows

falling on the desert carpet

the shadow of the clouds

carried forward

backward

sideways

by a million grains of sand

carried away

like a funeral procession

held high

the blurred carcass of the clouds

a blur of deception

for those who look up at the sky

and see a beautiful day

a clear sky

and holiday post-card clouds

and a blur of disappointment

for ones

who look down below 

on this

the desert carpet

and realize 

the clouds have already died

that the ones they see in the sky

are just putting up a tired show

you can only look at either one

at one point of time

you can look up

or look down

and the direction you look

decides the fate of the clouds

and yours

fate that stands out

in sharp contrasts

but still 

all

slurred

a blur

***

blur

i chase blurs

a haze

a smudge

a vague impression

distorted beyond recognition

for most parts

the rest

just enough left

to resemble

something

something that is enough

to grip me

to entice me

to keep looking

to find

the meaning

the meaning of blur

or where

meanings 

get blurred

like

fading away

way of the ink

in water

dissolving

like the 

blur of a countless 

life-crusades

caught

imprisoned 

in us

one caught in our veins

one caught in our head

one caught in our blood

the one caught in our breath

and the last to go

the one caught 

in the memory

of touch

scent

and

all

sentience

the ones caught in tears

as they roll down 

gently

like a silent avalanche

or 

the ones that cling on 

to the

edge

of the eyes

and hang 

with all they have 

so determined

so strong

but still a blur

a blur

birthing 

a moment of absolute clarity

the clarity of the ensuing 

moment of blur

***

traverse

It makes me want to kill myself, this want, this need. I should have stayed away. Especially since I knew I am prone to addiction. I should have stayed away. But I did not. That could be because, apart from being prone to addiction, I am also self-destructive. I run, not walk, on the path that leads to my own destruction. I always fall for the paths that lead me there faster. 

This is my story. 
The one in which I run, and not the one I can run away from.

People.
People like horizontal beams and vertical beams, criss-crossing my path.
Some I jump over, some I stamp, some I tread around, some; I trip over.
A very few, I hang onto.
One, I hang myself upon.
Perhaps that, that would stop the unstoppable twitch in my face, the restlessness that corrodes me, from the inside out, kill the bug in my brain and the ache in the heart of the marrow of my bones.
Perhaps it would make obscure, the stinging throb in my temples, by making me obsolete.

The stinging throb somewhere inside my head that makes me sick, that carves up and fills the pith of my stomach with pit.

It makes me want to throw up, to puke my guts out.

Like a ball of cat’s hair stuck in my throat scarping every tissue that it comes in contact with

making me bleed and when I open my mouth, it feeds the cycle, fuels it further by a sickly mix of my blood

and saliva and the roaring moan of my intestines.

But I digress.

Be the one, that ends this for me. Be the one, that makes me end this. Be the one who redeems me by destroying every breathing cell in my body. Burn them all down. Burn them down till the last one and when you are at the last one, hold it in your palms, and crush it, slowly, taking your time, crush it in a way that it never multiplies. 

Be the bridge, the ladder, the path that helps me traverse.

The path that leads me there faster than any other.

And such deep is the want, the need, the addiction, that even after I am spent, scraped beyond my skin and my flesh and my soul, scraped to the point that my skeleton becomes thin and transparent, I shall say these as my parting words,

"see you on the other side" 

- from the Book of Traverse

bellyacher

Medusa

drib

rue

the arsonist and the environmentalist

the year 
was nineteen
eighty four

i was a child
that year
a child of 
nine
or maybe a year
more

there was a day
that year
that year 
a long time ago

a kind of day
when the afternoons
seem to go on 
till evenings
and the nights
are spent on porches

that was the day
when i had decided
who i wanted to 
be
and what i wanted to do


childhood
puberty
adolescence
were kept on hold

that was the day
i achieved 
clarity 
my thoughtful 
duality

an arsonist
and an environmentalist
i had decided
to be

ever since 

i burn 
i burn
and protect
all that is sacred
and all that is loved
sometimes with words
and sometimes 
with smothering acts of kindness
the one next to me
and the one miles away
equally

i tear down things
í build with my own hands
tear them down with my teeth
and then gather the torn
ripped off pieces
and keep them in a jar
of organic formalin
to preserve for later

if there is a later

my backyard
a repository
for your viewing pleasure
ample footprints
of the arsonist 
and the environmentalist
marked all around

around those burnt remains 
of a relationship with those 
two 
who sired me

and under that seared
old heavy metal gate
a potted flowering plant 
once a purple chrysanthemum
now white
one which 
i caringly nurse back
to the colour of its origin
and i do see some
familiar hues coming back
on its face

there is evidence
of both
all around

the places
i left
a little greener
and the places
that i left
after burning them down

the places with
charred walls
and places
with 
warm
blossoming hearts

and every once in a while
both have a quiet casual
private 
conversation
the arsonist
a drunk sentimental
and the environmentalist 
who doesn't care

i guess it is fair
i guess it is fair
that the two exist together
together
with shades 
that overlap
with no clear cut
marked off territories
no boundaries
setting the two apart

i celebrate that day
in the year
nineteen
eighty four
when i was nine
or maybe a year more
the day
i learnt about the
chaotic coexistence 
of opposites 
in one being
and that it could 
very well have been 
a predestined necessity

i celebrate this 
tearingly soothing day
the day
i achieved dichotomy

the fiddlers