too much...life

an oscillating pendulum.

a running tap.

too much noise.

a drooping bottled leaf.

an open-mouthed stuffed dinosaur.

too much silence.

gaping at the holes

that life is lived in.

nostalgia

can i be the child i have long outgrown?

will you let me be her?

it is too late - you say.

but i don't recall anything of her.

its like it never happened.

i need 'her' to explain 'me'.

my protests fall on deaf ears.

the heart must learn

to live without memories,

the self, to coast without anchor.

life, to go on, unconsoled.

no man's land

"where do we go from here?", he wonders aloud.
standing in no man's land his feet stay rooted
while his mind draws lines of belonging
and his eyes look on the fences on either side.
but how is he to decide? 
and to decide, mustn't he know who he is?
"the side you choose will determine that", says someone.
a pre-decided identity awaits him whichever fence he crosses.
"but shouldn't it be the other way around?", a tiny voice chimes. 
"how do you mean?"
the man, the mute spectator, wants to know where this is going.
"i must choose knowing where i belong. 
so i need to know myself  before i make a choice."
"or you choose where you want to belong
and that gives you a ready made "you"."
"in that case too, i must know myself first
so i can understand what i want."
Silence.
He knows the conversation is over.
Checkmate.
There is only one voice that stays, and says to the man - "Know thyself."
and so he sits down in that unknown stretch.
perhaps this vast empty space is just the place
to fill the glaring blanks of his existence.