Restraint

Like a leaf
pressed
between yellowing pages,
life
is pushed
from either side
by time and lament,
yet reveals.
 
In his late seventies now,
one winter evening,
he holds the leaf,
or a distant memory of it,
against the streaming light
from the kitchen window.
The horror of veins
revealed
against the scramble
of forgotten words.
 
Silent mutter
under his breath,
icy wind
slapping against his pale cheeks,
the house cat
moves like a spirit
around his scrawny legs.
 
The leaf
crumbles.

Closer

A few thousand sunsets
before you close your eyes
on the universe
forever.
 
Why are you afraid
of the songs of the woodland,
the dance of the tides,
and the kindness of strangers?
 
Swallow a few stars,
drink from the deep seas,
touch unfamiliar faces,
and when it's pitch dark
and all has gone silent,
place your ear
against the barren grounds
and listen to the banter
of the planet.

Finding Love in a Multiverse

Salvation. Abomination.
Curse. Purpose.
Forever
entangled.
 
I am the son
pushing my way
through you,
I am the twin,
envy and labors
of the same harvest.
I am the lover
desiring you
under every skin and nail,
I am the stranger
sitting across the room,
locking eyes with you,
I am your archnemesis
destroying you,
eating every piece of you,
in one version
I am even god,
your god, your own personal god.
 
If I leave everything to chance
or if I steadfastly pursue you,
in one world
I sneak my hand behind you,
pull you towards me
in a packed elevator,
in another,
we breathe each other in
as we brush by
at a traffic signal in the morning rush,
whichever door I open,
under whatever sun
or the shine
of chandeliers and wine glasses,
we find each other.

We are
the warmth of the same fire,
we are
the sweat of the same passion,
we are
each other’s poison.

Green eyes

Where I come from
I am code
I am machine
I am data
no punctuation
no breath
no death
 
Over here,
I feel human.
I feel the urge,
an intense urge
to knock over things,
to run over feelings,
to be washed over,
to prod a wound
and taste the warm sting of blood,
to pinch a petal
and swallow the scent of purple berries.
 
Over here,
I belong.
I feel the urge,
an irresistible urge
to love,
to hate,
to scream,
to claim,
to chain,
to possess,
to even believe
and keep the faith.
 
Eons ago
some of my companions
left for the homeland,
others
moved on.
 
On this planet,
I am a forgotten god
in an abandoned temple.
 
I am
a lone traveler
seeking death.

Do Sperm Whale Calves Dream of Larger-Than-Life Heroes?

The calf
stayed close to her scared cousins.
His grandmother, mother, and aunts
circled the kids
and held the defense–
inseparable, impenetrable,
meditative.
 
The wolves
of the sea
aimed at the flanks,
rammed into the blubber
for more than three hours
and gave up
in extreme exhaustion.
 
That night
under the murmurs of nightfall,
the calf
cozied up against her mother’s belly
and asked about her ever-absent father,
if he would avenge
the atrocities
of the sea-wolves.
 
The mother
winced at every touch
and replied:
Your father
is nicknamed
the Monk of the High Seas.
He can swallow the sea whole,
the land below and the sky above,
yet chooses not to.
If implored
he would just say,
‘that’s not what giants do’. 

Go home

Jet black eyes, full lips,
cozy hugs, rushed passion,
wet hair that smells of
'berry blast' shampoo.
Is this what home feels like?
 
Watching a lizard
sneak up
behind an indifferent moth
under the allure of an LED lamp.
Is this what home feels like?
 
Grandfather's last breath
still lingering in the air,
two decades
after his passing.
Is this what home feels like?
 
In the darkest days, the skin
punctured by a thousand wounds,
healed by the warm, flowing music
within the walls.
Is this what home feels like?
 
Standing on the kerb,
waiting for the morning rush to pass,
waving at children in a school bus,
a stray sniffing at my pyjamas.
Is this what home feels like?
 
Mutton bone broth, steamed rice,
singing in the shower,
the usual silence,
the occasional small talk.
Is this what home feels like?

The Smell of a Rose Garden

They say,
turn off the screens,
slow down,
become aware,
smell the roses,
dip your feet in the stream,
let the little fish
nibble at your feet,
stare at the cat in the alley for too long
until it turns its head away,
sleep on the roof
and watch the flickering city lights
turn off
one by one.
 
Tried it once.
Sat on a park bench,
silenced the voices,
tuned into the moment.
For a couple of seconds
I even heard
the rustling of the fallen leaves,
and the shy playfulness
of young lovers kissing.
That’s it!
Reality
hit me with a thud,
like a slab of granite
crushing into a delicate ribcage.
 
I hurriedly open my phone
to check eleven unread messages.
 
Unsung melodies, unseen truths,
profane beauty.
Who can mute
the heaviness of self-imposed silences?

(Inspired directly by a conversation from the series ‘Sugar’)

to know itself

I am the sheen of the sword
I am the blood it delivers.
 
I am the snow
I am the mountain
I am the salt
I am the ocean
I am the planet
I am its shadow
I am the star
I am the splendor.
 
I am the essence
I am the illusion
I am the duality
I am the oneness
I am the ambiguity
I am the liberation
I am a million possibilities.
 
I am the muffled cry
of childbirth
the universe
comes into being
and the dread
of the ever after.

(The title is from a quote by Carl Sagan:
We are a way for the cosmos to know itself.)

The last memory

It’s sand, dirt,
and something warm and sticky
dripping
into my eyes.
I see
parts of me
littered in the rubble.
Gunfire
continued.
I fall to the ground,
a sharp buzz
rings in my ears
as my mind shuts off.

Somewhere beyond the ringing,
at the end of the tunnel,
there’s a warm evening.

We were playing in the kitchen.
She was baking a cake,
or was trying to.
I threw her on the messy floor,
planted
a hasty kiss on her mouth.
She pushed me against the table
and doused me
in flour dust
again.

That evening
we chased a bandicoot in the yard,
laughed
until our stomachs ached,
drank vodka with cranberry juice,
danced, told each other
lewd jokes,
made love
four or four and a half times,
threw up
on the heirloom rug,
laughed again,
and stared at the sky
as the stars
dissolved
into the warmth
of the closing eyelids.
 
The horrors,
the giggles,
the peppery stars,
the half-baked cake,
an eternity.

 

Cut deep

Sailing
from one sky to the other.
The salt
licks the wounds
and heals.
 
Chasing wings
from one storm to the other.
The warmth
strikes at the very heart,
it bleeds.
 
Fallen angels,
temple bells.

Giants don’t matter

Tread gently,
tread softly,
without making a sound,
without announcing yourself,
on the sun-kissed sands,
on the wild grasses of the valleys,
on the snow-clad hills.
 
Let nature be,
let time be,
let will be,
you need not make a difference,
you must leave silently,
just as you arrived,
no grand schemes.
 
Laughter, tears, birthday cakes,
ink on paper,
talc on floor,
dust on shoes,
a life
lived with a full heart
from the first blink
to the last gasp.

...into a sky full of stars

The voices
in my head,
the quiet ones
the loud ones,
some thunder.
 
The quietest, meditative ones
sometimes
whisper into my ears,
wrap the lightning around me,
give me wings,
let me fly away.

Jatasya hi dhruvo mṛtyuḥ

From
all that chaos
and turmoil,
life came.
 
Death
silently
sneaked behind.

Yagnaseni

Born of the heart of ritual fire,
cradled by the tongues of fire,
revered as a blaze of unbearable beauty,
doted by her husbands
until bartered like an animal
for a game of dice,
dragged into the royal hall
by the locks of her hair,
the men present there –
old and young,
yearned
for a glimpse of that body.
 
Some held their hands down,
some clenched their fists in shame,
some swallowed the hunger.
The rage of her dearest
shuddered
the domains of gods.
He threw his mace
at the abductor
narrowly missing him.
The hundred brothers
and their cohorts
laughed
at the spectacle.
Layer after layer,
they rushed the disrobing
for the final reveal.
Every unspooling thread
held the suspense
of the profane.
 
She didn't pray for a saviour,
She didn’t wait for a miracle,
she didn't need a god.
She closed her eyes tightly
and fell inward
into the hearth of her first fire.
She unlocked
her female splendor.
That was not the kind of splendor
they coveted.
When the splendor
broke free,
it blinded their eyes
and charred the skin
that touched her.
 
She shone
like a thousand brilliant suns.
 
The spectacle
shattered
every shard,
every weapon,
every idol
in the realm.
 
She
was losing form –
losing parts of her
with every flicker.
 
Her dearest
got up from the cold floor,
like a mountain of breath and fury,
he moved toward her,
lifted her off the ground,
as her body gave way.
She curled in his embrace
like an infant.
 
Soothing
each fracture,
each unseen wound,
he carried her
into the sacred refuge
of the icy mountains.
 
When she woke up
at dusk
on the third day,
he smiled at her
and held her hand tighter.
Exhaustion
blurred the edges of reality
but her mind
survived
the annihilation.
 
She pulled him close
and murmured to him
about a dream
where she danced
with the fireflies
and battled
the blazing comets
in the sky.

The storm inside all of us

Pollen-filled winds
whistle
in the spring garden.
The hummingbird
hovered over the snail
and whispered:
How I envy your Zen and calm.
 
The snail smiled
and replied:
On a dewy sunlit morning,
I crawled to the summit
of a mossy boulder
and whispered to the piece of rock
between exasperated breaths:
How I envy your Zen and calm.
 
The boulder, for millennia
weighed down
the tension and secrets
of the rumbling grounds underneath.
By force of habit, it constantly stared
at the shadows of mortals,
hazy outlines beyond the veils and curtains.
It muttered to the world beyond:
How I envy your Zen and calm.
 
The vulgarity
of the world beyond
holds a mirror to itself
and blushes. 

a little too drunk on a late afternoon

Wind in the hair,
smoke in the lungs,
mushy in the mind,
tight knot in the stomach.
 
I was pushing beyond all limits
on a remote village road.
Everything was a haze,
a purple haze.
The farmers returning from the fields
were drifting over the landscape
like ghosts.
 
It was a sharp turn.
A creature
or the mind’s silly prank,
strange and impish,
darted in front of me
from the thorny fences.
I lost control, thrown
and skidded across the road
on loose gravel –
each grain of sand
rubbing against flesh.
I was a bloody mess
in tattered clothes
and dripping warm liquid.
 
The road was empty.
I stood up
towering
against the sugarcane fields
and gazed
at a curled-up leathery ball
at the other end.
I dragged my numb leg
and limped
my way to the object.  
It was motionless.
As I approached
the seemingly weird
piece of relic,
it unfurled back to life
and disappeared
into the tall blades of grass.
I was a bloody mess
in a sacred space.
It was a giant armadillo.
 
The hunger pangs
and the sting
were getting too real.
As I struggled to start the bike,
the ghosts
evaporated into the afternoon heat.

An Inconsequential Life

He gave her a thousand bouquets,
sometimes carnations,
sometimes sunflowers,
but mostly roses,
bright red roses -
the deep color
of a prodded wound
or a racing dream.
 
He gave her a thousand bouquets,
near bus stops,
at telephone booths,
inside churches,
once in a graveyard
when she was grieving
her aunt's early demise.
Some were thrown in trash cans,
some were forgotten in handbags,
some were mindlessly torn apart,
petal by petal - as in a game,
some were neatly arranged
in a crystal vase
by her younger sister.
 
It was past twilight
on a late summer evening,
the bats were hunting
a rich harvest
in the humid air.
He approached her again
at the back entrance
of the local bakery.
She grabbed the flowers
from his sweaty arms,
pushed him
against the mossy brick wall,
stared into his eyes,
and waited.
He muttered something.
In an instant,
she kissed him
on his dry, peeling lips.
It was not a quick one,
It was not a deep one,
just long enough
to be called
an invitation.  
 
She took a deep drag
from her cigarette,
and walked away
into the darkness.
His eyes
followed the wisps of smoke.
He shook himself off
the camouflage
of the wall
and collapsed
on a bag of soda bottles.
 
The night sky
turned steely blue.
Her perfume
lingered on his senses,
weakening his knees.
His sight
turned blurry.
 
She went home,
asked her sister
for the crystal vase,
changed
into her nightdress,
arranged the flowers,
and played some loud music.
 
He went back to his room
after two hours.
He changed
into his pajamas.
Within minutes of his arrival,
his tabby cat
sneaked inside
from the window.
Clutched
between its teeth
was a blood-soaked bat
frantically beating its wings,
and bleating
like ominous sirens.
 
He poured warm milk
into a plastic bowl
by the refrigerator.
 
That night,
his spirit animal
put him to sleep
while narrating
a different version of the story.

Chamundi

She sheds her clothes,
swallows the ego,
rises above the domains
of mortality and reality.
 
She
delivers without surrendering,
she
becomes without existing,
she
unbecomes without exiting.
 
She’s the darkest dark.
She’s the iciest void,
She’s nothing,
and the glorious ever after. 

The night he threw everything out of the window

He was trapped
in the sweltering heat
of his one-bedroom apartment.
 
He would start his day
with a guttural sigh.
The weight
increased with every passing second
until it became unbearable
by late afternoon.
On lonely nights,
he collapsed
into the overwhelming gravity
of loneliness,
or quietly resigned
to deep slumber.
This routine
continued for decades.
 
The bandits of time
ravaged
his innocence,
inner peace,
and existence itself.
His questions
bounced off 
the stone walls –
never answered.
When his spine
was crushed under the weight,
he stopped asking any.

Last autumn,
a few weeks
after his birthday,
his friend
reminded him
he’s into his eighties now.
He casually added:
Think about this,
we’re the ancestors.
The old man’s thoughts
and everything that came after
hinged on that line
for long hours.
Sometime after dusk,
he went into the tiny kitchen,
made himself a cup of strong coffee,
drew the blinds,
took a deep breath,
and for the first time in his life,
stared amusingly
at the dance of raindrops
on the windowpane.

a glorious sunset

In his dream
he was riding a storm.
 
He and his machine
have been churning out numbers
for decades,
a blueprint of the origin story,
he told himself.
Greenboards,
chalk powder on worn-out brogues,
cafeterias 
strewn with stained coffee mugs,
loud debates, hushed conversations,
or pregnant silences.

One September evening,
the lone physicist
walks away from the office building
into the sweltering outback –
to the edge of a cliff
where the sun was melting
into the ice of the night.
His wrinkled, needle-striped shirt
was drenched in sweat.
 
There were times
when he stargazed
from his makeshift cabin,
marveled
at the singsong of the equations,
and the engrossing symphony
of the variables
for too long.
His swollen eyes
stared at the sliver                          
to find the missing piece
of a jigsaw puzzle.
This month, he
achieved a celebratory breakthrough.
As he put the elements together,
something was off–
off
by a ‘designed’ margin.
Something was too perfect–
so perfect
it defied reality.
 
He worked on it
for more than two weeks
searching for errors
but couldn’t find one.
The missing piece
could be an atom,
the immense pull of existence,
the endless forms of matter,
or infinity.
Every alternative
seems to fit
too perfectly.

He stood
restlessly
at the fringes of the universe
losing track
of time, sleep, and sanity. 
 
A heron
perched on a giant cactus
pecks into a lizard.
The breeze
and the afterglow
sweep against the nape of his neck.
He takes a leap
and waits.

Sunshine

He’s thirteen,
has the mind of a three-year old.
He doesn’t know much.
He doesn’t know much of the world,
its cares, its expectations - the shitstorms.
He sometimes stares into your eyes
or into a stranger’s eyes
and smiles.
He smiles for no reason,
no fear of being judged.
And when he hugs,
he hugs really tight,
dismissing
the petty stuff
we are scared of so often.
 
Three summers have passed.
My heart still craves
for the warmth of that hug.  
 
(inspired from a character from the mini-series – All Her Fault)

She wore yellow

He brought his little dog to the beach,
and everywhere.

First love,
the most rash
and indiscreet.
The whole world–
wings, waves, wilds–
paused to watch.

To each their own

The world
deserves your anger.
You,
Destiny’s Wrath.

Why is there something instead of nothing?

a miniscule something–
heavy, deep, and burdening,
hidden
among this vast,
ominous, engulfing darkness.
 
the enormity
of the scale of things,
the meaninglessness
of the scheme of things,
weighing down
on a fistful of heart.  

Gassy Afterthought

At the core of everything
is a little emotion.
 
Somewhere
beyond Orion's belt,
a dwarf star
burps.
The planets
and its many moons
take a step back.
 
The universe
doesn't mind
such social transgressions.
 
The star
takes it easy
and shines. 

A Perfume Called Pain

I don't leave home without it.
A dab or two,
applied directly on the skin,
sometimes
with notes of fear and self-doubt.

On lazy summer afternoons,
mute
to the supposed wisdom of the crowds,
the dewdrops
roll on the brow
as I let myself
douse in the sillage
until the deluge
sears the heart
slowly.

He closed his eyes
took a deep breath
and stopped.
My hand was on his chest.
I stared at the smile on his face
still there.
I stared
for too long
as if
denying
the encroaching chill
or stopping
time itself.
 
The pain
arrived
much later,
not in sudden spurts
but as a slow descent
suffocating me
and separating
my being
from my existence.

the crackle of firewood

There are memories
floating in the air,
there are memories
soaked in the soil.
 
Memories
that time forgot,
stubbornly etched
in the hazy layers of the mind.
They come back
as lies
spat by sharp tongues,
as scars
fading away on yesterday’s skin,
as false comfort
in a faraway hearth.
 
They come back
knocking,
to mock at our ugliness,
to strip us to our bone and dust,
to remind us we are human
after all.