kashmir

k is a recurring dream
that i can never fully recall.
it stays with me in snapshots.
sometimes it is
the image of a bleeding eye.
corroded silver jewellery.
sometimes it is
the fear of forgetting my name.
an abandoned poem.
they fight over it
on national television.
k faithfully visits me those nights
and pulls me into
a tug of war at the end
of which both of us lie
fallen in swathes of blood.
(I don't wake up then
bathed in sweat and fear
like in the movies.
nor run to wash my hands -
"out, damned spot".
I usually hope to sanitise
it all, us, with local disinfectants -
an old song, a childhood picture
with the right sepia tones,
a faiz couplet, the whiff of saffron -
if i can help it.)
I have also come to predict it.
book nights, autumn evenings,
sunset skies
days of lingering solitude
have a dedicated space for it.

But never in so many years
has the dream been
of that picture postcard
on whose one side is
a dewy valley lush green
from days of love
and on the other
in your handwriting
slanting like the sunshine
the words -
'paradise is a dream.'

you took away the paradise
(though it wasn't only you)
and i burnt the postcard
(though it wasn't only me)
now the dream remains
an ashen legacy of crimson.