grace

you read their disappointment
in words that betray distance.
years of love come undone
in a moment that demanded more
but customarily missed its due.
who will take it upon them now
to believe in myths of redemption?
Did the phoenix leave a message,
somewhere in the universe for you to find?
Can a faith lost recover in absence?

Where do you even begin.

With an apology, some say.
You start growing an apology tree.
The deepest of injustices,
the sorest of pains, the clenched fist
that is the heart will all be poured
into this tree that is but a seed
not of discontent, nor regret,
not yet hope, but is borne of fire,
of tears, of guilt that ransacks
sleep, of an ache that wrings
consciousness, of silence that
accuses itself over and over.
in time, perhaps,
there will be a peace offering.
Until then, take your place.
at the millstone, and see
what comes of this churning.

To those who have been hurt
by your inertia, may they find peace
in the path they tread.

To you, may you never reach that road.
Let the world root for the millstone.

textures

Driving across indecorously cold lakes
blue as the walls of your pulverised heart,
the silvery green and maroon draping trees
reminds you of raided wooden almirahs of
mother and grandmother, rich in sharp hues
of history and emotion. Your eyes are bound
to lead you back to your own bleak sartorialism,
divorced from seasonal or other affinities. And
comfort will latch on to ABBA lyrics hoping for
anchor in the soft tissues of simple rhyme,
distant friendly neighbours in lieu of family,
and mosaics of ever-shifting narratives that
slip in and out of slimy hands and memories,
never quite sure where they belong, or to whom.

The other day, when your neighbour came by
with fish bought from the foul-mouthed fisherwoman
who speaks well only of the limp dead she sells
for cryptic conversation, on a day that your
fridge and stomach had yelped in emptiness,
on that day, how did you thank him? Did you ask
about the fisherwoman who never sold you
the trout because she found you weak. Not fragile,
just flaccid. Did you tell him of an autumnal dawn
you had stood by the quay, still crisp in memory
like the season’s leaves? You had wanted to know
her story (as if lives are meant to be “peddled in the
thoroughfares”). And if her grandmother had told her
that she needn’t fight all the battles she was invited to,
like yours had, many moons ago. (Or yesterday?)
She had laughed at you. Called you undeserving,
And spitting out her contempt laced in betel juice,
she had told you of her homosexual son being hit
by his father, on a winter morning when the rain
fell like mist and washed the blood off his face in
trickling rivulets. He had mustered his ‘manhood’,
and hit back, and walked out. On both of them.
On his last day, as she sat by him, chewing betel,
he had recalled that morning, in its event-ness, but
death could not wait, for reconciliation, or realisation.
Questions had rushed to your face. She could see that.
But leaving you swimming in them, she went back to
washing the fish that would never be yours to take,
singing to the unearthly salmon with vacant eyes,
“Tell me, What dreams are yours alone. Like hungry
wounds, unsutured by tired television, untreated by
warm milk and turmeric ‘nanny’ made on winter nights,
as if weaving the course of your golden fantasies.
How did you know when to separate yourself
From what others wanted of you, or did you...”

On some nights, you hear the song, in her voice,
that becomes mother’s, then grandmother’s, and
then a choral whisper of enmeshed timbre that cannot
be distinguished. It rings in your ears until you flop on
the bed, and find the fisherwoman closing your eye lids
and all three women washing you gently by the quay.

introductions

What does your city say to you?

This city is silent.for now.
we share the awkwardness
of new roommates in a house
lined with maple leaves and
inhabited by nosy spiders.
we mind our own business, but
with ears to the door, hope the other
would make the first move.
we are in transit. co-travellers
for 'a wrinkle in time'.

this city is not my city, yet.

This city is a wallflower.
though its oily luminescence
reflects me in the same light.
we wait to unravel.melt.meld,
into ourselves,or in each other.

We don’t talk much, yet.
but my feet will find their way
around the luscious curves of
this city, and its rains will learn
to kiss my skin with tenderness.
my eyes will find wonder in its skyline,
and its sunrise will wake me out of
borrowed dreams and blankets.

This city and i will be friends yet.
for as i walk out, locking the door
behind me, on whose other side
secrets of battered souls lie folded,
stacked neatly in weakly framed closets,
and my feet crush autumnal maple
in the violence of raw novelty
(that some call excitement),
my heart finds solace to see
this city weep with me.

4am

the days i wake up at 4am, i find myself unsure of the dreams i came from.
hesitant to let them take me back, prisoner or victor,
somewhere in the middle.

4am's famed silences are hard to absorb.
Like cheap sunscreen. Or death.
4am sleep is the rain pounding on tin sheets
edgily slapped together with rusted bolts.
4am wakefulness is the air pressing against your face
in your fall from grace, or the 27th floor.
4am is a thirst too parched to quench itself.
laboured breath that should soldier on, but wonders if it must.

the nights i sleep at 4am, i find myself unsure of the dreams i go toward.
hesitant to let go of conscious certainties, or certain consciousness,
somewhere in the middle.

at 4am, the view outside the window is dark as my heart.
and the first chirp of the mynah nesting atop the air conditioner
is the restless stirring of my soul rattling in its emptiness.

"sharp edges"

heavy.
does pain work like pickle,
wrapping its rawness in
salt on wound preservative,
waiting for years to be palatable?

numb.
does it fade like aging memory,
uncertain of its own moorings,
waiting for validation impossible
except in rankling deja vu?

iridescent.
perhaps it stays. the scent of mother
on her clothes, enduring in generosity,
despite tumbles of life and wash cycles,
soft and comforting. home.

a feather's touch that cracks a glass.
papercut.

assurances

There is time, they say,
to dig deep and live shallow,
pecking at stumps of memories,
for new aches and old pains,
and insipid loves hanging by
dusty curtains to keep the sun out.

There is time yet, they predict,
for the downpour when all will be
washed away, left behind, exchanged
for sparkling newness, (as if it is indeed
that easy,) and you will sail triumphant
on puddles, like the ship of theseus.

There is time, they remind you,
to walk the path you had plotted
all these years, in (vain)glorious detail
with nobody watching, even if the key
is lost and you wonder if the map
in your hands is upside down.

There is time, they promise you,
to look at yourself in the mirror,
find old familiar lines, and the
new grey that sprawls the thinning
landscape of your scalp, and label
each by unremarkable experience.

There is time still, they are sure,
for eliot's wisdom and a selfie
with godot. To fiddle with ill-fitting
boots and shop for coffee spoons,
in second-hand books carrying
strangers’ names, and missing pages.

There is time, they console you,
to reclaim instinct and waddle
in the bath tub weightlessly waiting
for epiphanies of all you could be,
unshaken by newspapers overflowing
with stories of “accidental” drownings.

There is time, they lament,
that you have strapped across
your wrist in wistful hope, until late
into a moonless night, by yourself,
all at once, that comforting ticking
goes silent. And so do they.

yestalgia

its blurry now, that afternoon
which we swore was unforgettable.
i cannot recall the song we wrote.
what did we laugh about in the midst
of chaotic nothings.the mustiness
makes me think of you.but how did
you become this air.not everything
is moored to certainties now.

on nights like these, we tried to
relive things we used to love.that
we cannot bear anymore.we stayed up
watching reruns of all that we were
with an abandon that deserts us
in the slanting gaze of the sun.
when we see it all too clearly
for what it is.or perhaps stand
blinded by what it is not.

you make me listen to birds,
their songs that wake you up
each morning,and throw you
into this life that you own, but
which owns you more than you'd
like, and that free spirit of ours
that lived out of suitcases and
dreamt of beach houses, breathes,
in flashes, of concurrent
memories still bound to hope.

This must be the future where
we time travel in an endless loop
of meeting our other selves over
and over in attempts to find how
our edges chipped, and who held
the chisel and the mallet.
(in every version, howsoever
we played it, it was always us.)

damned

what does it take to be a saviour?

a moment of anger borne of
self pity,a cruel disregard of
the cry for love.a language
of compassion lost in abuses
muttered under cowardly breath,
the fear of gaping holes left from
necessary letting go,ingratitude
smirking from its misplaced pedestal,
as gentleness falls by autumnal grass,
crackling under feet that must climb,
higher,to ever rising pinnacles of
vainglorious ambition. an ominous sense
of ending lies in wait,ready for ambush.
redemption demanded, hardly deserved,
will come by nightfall, and drift away
in dreams of futile successess that hollow
mornings promise. gashes of self absorption
will run down eyes blinded by oncoming
traffic, wiped away to see what lies ahead,
without the foresight to see exactly what
lies ahead, thoughtlessly drowned out
in the music of soulless repetition.


What does it take to be a saviour?
The answer is simple.
Simpler than you would acknowledge,
And more urgent than you realise.

karma

the room rang with laughter,
full bellied, visceral,
side splitting, aching laughter
that snorted and guffawed,
roared like an old engine
gushing with renewed life,
the prodigal return from
years of banishment whose cause
even history had forgotten.

somewhere in the middle
of this fearless fit of freedom
the spine shivered, this time,
with the thought of he who
keeps count, and the night
will lie awake in anticipation
of the tears that must fall tomorrow.
For that is the law of the land.

The inevitability of certain exiles
will hit as warmly as the first rays
of the autumn sun,and the butterfly
that flitted with charming uncertainty
over the windscreen this morning in
the unsuspectingly routine drive to work
will be the memory of the day,
worth remembering but lost
in the traffic of expected misery.

windows

Silences pervade conversations
invade the intimacy of loss
the flesh bloats with fear and
expected questions have learnt
not to wait for answers
to define themselves,
and feel complete.
Slipping between the last word
and its utterance
the tedium of breath watches
time fall off its hinges,
stretching itself to go back
to less modest beginnings.

some say it is time to look ahead,
that a kind of positive future awaits.
outside the broken window,
a flock of pigeons flies
(in a seamless order that
can but be borne of chaos)
over a field of dying grass
bloodied by red cotton silk flowers.