Poem

Dear Anyone,

I have run out of metaphors to put into writing what I am going through.

The truth is, what I am going through is really nothing. And yet,

I am tormented, scathed, and alone and suffocated.

Dear Anyone,

Will you come to me when I try to sleep? Come to me when I try to sleep.

Stroke my arm, kiss my shoulder, and put me to sleep.

Drink in my naked body; stare at me in the mirror,

Touch my belly without repulsion, lift my breasts

With curiosity- Teach me to love myself.

Wrench out my fear and loathe for my own soul and body

And teach me to love myself.

Dear Anyone,

I am broken in places. I am the cigarette that doesn’t burn through and through.

I want to burn through and through. My nerves tingle under my skin,

Snaking along the course of my body, threatening to crawl out into the open.

Dear Anyone,

I despair, oh how I despair. How I need. Take it away, wont you?

Take away the need and the yearning and don’t ever leave me:

There’s a conundrum for you. The bile in my stomach rises up in my mouth.

Take away that ugly ache in my stomach, love, wont you.

Kiss me sweetly,

Crush my bones to white dust. Set me free, love. Set me free. 

My Dog.

Yesterday
I came to know
My dog died.

My dog was __ yrs old.
He wasn't really my dog.
He was a stray. The last
Of the two left
From a littler of five

For the last couple of days
I couldnt see him.
I'd whistle
But he wouldnt come bounding up.
I suspected
He had died.

Yesterday
I came to know
My dog died.

He liked meat bones.
He wouldn't eat anything else.
Maybe a little milk.
But nothing else.

Yesterday
I came to know
My dog died

and

The garbage truck carried him away. 

what is there to be happy about ?
you ask.
i dont have a list
but,         i suppose
you.  and your fingers inside
me.  
mother, father         and
she, who is far away.
happiness is not everywhere
but it is
there. 

sometimes love may look like this

i had seen you after a long time

you in your dirty, unwashed jeans
and kurti,
you with your satchel like bag,
you with your hair let lose
that hung like black clouds
at your waist,
you and your doe like eyes.

every intake of breath was
like an icicle crashing
on its tip from a frozen ceiling-
breathless beauty.

we walked to the curb and sat
on the broken graveyard stones.
playing with your toe-ring, you said,
"mora saiyaan gaan ta te, all that
i want to do is the tatkaar to its beats."
i didn't know what a tatkaar is and that
did not bother me.  but funny, that you
should say to me "mora saiyaan
moh se bolena." it rarely that i hear
your voice.
i didnt know what i tatkar is and so
i stared at my feet.

times we never have anything to do with each other.

i will listen to songs by unknown people singing songs

about unknown places, in love with unknown people
while you'd be making movies in studios, and

watching art films, and talking about existentialist cinema.

my poetry will have words that are mono, bi syllabic--

four maybe, if gets too deep.

your poetry will about breaking tea cups, and

sunlit hungover mornings after; and anger. 

my poetry will have words that are mono, bi syllabic--

four maybe, if gets too deep.

on most sundays, i will wake up in my bed hungover
bruised from hitting against the various pieces 

of furniture in the room-- which is an awful feeling actually.

you will turn to your beautiful wife, lying next to you

kiss her ever so nicely, look out the french window
and sigh at the beauty you there.
i will sit in a room in some godforsaken town, 
where the phone lines betray me all the time,

and think of all the places i haven't been.

you, will be on your way to the airport

to board a flight to that country, 

where i should have been born.
you will call me when you are drunk and

say that you miss me, and that you wish

oh! if only i'd been there, with you, the rum

the moon-less night screaming with drunken joy.

easy come and easy go, next evening i call you

you will say that you will call me back

disconnect the line and forget about that phone call

because the music's really good in the pub.

i could say more and point out the ways in which

our lives have become so different. but i wont

because i am tired. in ways you dont know.

but mostly, mostly because now we no longer

have anything to do with each other.

times we never have anything to do with each other.

i will listen to songs by unknown people singing songs

about unknown places, in love with unknown people
while you'd be making movies in studios, and

watching art films, and talking about existentialist cinema.

my poetry will have words that are mono, bi syllabic--

four maybe, if gets too deep.

your poetry will about breaking tea cups, and

sunlit hungover mornings after; and anger. 

my poetry will have words that are mono, bi syllabic--

four maybe, if gets too deep.

on most sundays, i will wake up in my bed hungover
bruised from hitting against the various pieces 

of furniture in the room-- which is an awful feeling actually.

you will turn to your beautiful wife, lying next to you

kiss her ever so nicely, look out the french window
and sigh at the beauty you there.
i will sit in a room in some godforsaken town, 
where the phone lines betray me all the time,

and think of all the places i haven't been.

you, will be on your way to the airport

to board a flight to that country, 

where i should have been born.
you will call me when you are drunk and

say that you miss me, and that you wish

oh! if only i'd been there, with you, the rum

the moon-less night screaming with drunken joy.

easy come and easy go, next evening i call you

you will say that you will call me back

disconnect the line and forget about that phone call

because the music's really good in the pub.

i could say more and point out the ways in which

our lives have become so different. but i wont

because i am tired. in ways you dont know.

but mostly, mostly because now we no longer

have anything to do with each other.