grey

grey the color of an august dawn

grey his unbending scorn

grey the mind that does not matter

grey another silky morn.

grey your hands untie quietly

grey ribbons that tear easily

grey the gashes healing unseen

grey the love that grew hastily.

grey every moment waited

grey every thought doubted

grey your very soul that's haunted

grey your brown eyes are painted.

Puppets.

You scare me with your silence. I could shake you, slap you, put you out of your misery, carry your tune in my step or hold you till my breath dies . But you wouldn't feel a thing and I'd die if you said something after I've given up for this one last time.

A Hundred Times

It happened so quickly. Pressed against the wall, your hands locking me down, all I saw was a blur. I could hear you take short, sharp intakes of breath while I dared not even blink. Your eyes burned into my bowed head and I fidgeted till you quietened me the only way you knew how. You leaned in until every inch of me acknowledged your presence. When I finally looked up to meet your gaze, you slipped your hands into my hair, softly stroking them and I died for the hundredth time. You didn't stop there though, oh and how I hoped and wished you wouldn't, and you didn't. Your lips nudged and teased my earlobe, traveled down to my neck, licked the entire length of it with a slow and deliberate trawl and you stopped right then letting your lips rest on my nape, while you let me catch my breath for a moment. Your eyes shut tight, you had your lips pressed hard against my skin, waiting as I made up my mind for the hundreth time but only this time this wasn't a dream. And it was with that realization that I sank to the floor, but you stayed there, watching me bite my lips in confusion. What happened next, I won't ever understand, but there I was on the stone, cold floor with the man I had hopelessly given my heart to a hundred times over, disappearing into the glowing dust that danced in the faint afternoon light.

And there I was waking up from a dream I've just about escaped from a hundred times and more.

Words

they come crumbling off the pages

spilling more than what I can hold

forming puddles of reflected light

that splash out into the receding memory

of your flight.

leave no trace in the wind, nor in the

breath of the lover left to revel in his

all too heart wrenching, solitary existence

bereft of encircling arms and comforting hollows

of warm flesh, that could speak to him in even

the deepest sleep of the darkest nights.

come unasked for, like you. A pulse that quickens

with every premeditated typographic flourish of

your everyday babble, can only take me so far as the edge.

And then there's a slight push, that comes gently

from a gaze that flickers with the afterglow of electric

backlight, that I can't see but imagine, till it awakens

a response.

possess moments with startling vengeance, hiding

them from us in layers of glorious, seductive, infinitely

murky possibilities and we succumb like the

house of cards we are, destined to grovel

at their feet until we may utter them no more.

Muse

Between your conscience and mine

lies bare the deluge of soiled clothes and karma.

Sunbathing in the light

of coldblooded sin, pleading

guilty of love and nothing less,

truculence as addictive as soap operas,

I spread my legs and you, your bashful acceptance.

She comes and goes. Chapter 4

18.11.2010 Thursday

She could be dead for all I know. Where oh where can my baby be? I have spent days at my window, patient as a rock getting battered by the sea, but she comes forth not. She must have dissolved into the sunlight like a singular golden beam that looks to stick itself to others of its kind. Where are you, my Lo? I long to put my pen down and go back to the window but I must not. Documentation is important, they say. The medicines they give me keep me from doing something stupid, they say. But there is only so much you can say before it stops making sense. I might have taken a little too many of those little, dull blue pills. But that was only to make HER come back. Why won't she come back? I might have freaked her out. She might have seen me. In fact, I think I saw her look right into my telescope one evening. Her white dress was swishing against the pale white floor and she was dancing slowly to a song I could only conjure in the darkest of my midnight dreams, but there she was ambling, shuffling, floating, gliding and then just like that, she stopped and turned to look me right in the eye. I almost fell out of my chair but she looked away then and continued to dance. Maybe she wanted to get away from my omnipresent eye and she's gone - gone sailing into a sunset haze that I can't follow. These meds better start working now. She's not going to come back now. I know. She's not coming ba

Weekend Trip to Mysore

Travel Frames

She comes and goes - Chapter 3

031.10.2010 Sunday

I haven't slept in three nights. R.E.M.'s been playing in the background and there's a constant whirring of the fan, that just keeps going round and round, till I feel like it's going to crash onto my head because of all the effort it's been putting in to go round and round. I've done all the reading I can for the rest of the month. There's just no space in my mind, there's absolutely no space. Instead, there are little holes in my memory that don't seem to return like they usually do. I'm losing bits of my mind and and I don't know where I've left them. I have to leave myself little time capsules so I know I'm not actually losing time. And I'm not, I know. I found twenty five post it notes on the legs of my dining table with little Kafka quotes scribbled on them, dated to last evening. I don't remember writing them and it looks like I've hurriedly scribbled them with my left hand but I wrote them, so I know I wasn't passed out on the cold floor of the Colony bar. I don't even drink. So I'm not sure why I gave that particular anecdote. But I did write those notes. So I know I was home safe with Freud slinking around the house in his general absentee presence.

6.11.2010 Saturday

She knows she's being watched. I can feel the prickling on her subconscious from way out here. She twitches about suddenly, peers from behind her curtain at odd intervals, and even walks around fully clothed. She didn't have as many articles of clothing on when I laid my eyes on her for the very first time. It had been raining heavily for days on end and I was enjoying a cup of black, sugary tea at Yellow's. She had barged in with a friend of hers, both drenched to their freshly painted toes, looking upset with the weather like they hadn't known it had been raining for a whole week by then. I could have kissed those toes. Too young for me, she had looked. And even if she wasn't, what would I have done. I quietly observed. She lit up a cigarette with an enthusiasm I find missing in smokers. She was positively beaming after that first, succulent drag. I can't shift moods that easy, but the sight of her long hair flowing over her white shoulders like a turbulent river had taken me on a raft ride I wasn't going to forget easily. That was almost a month ago. Now she's ingrained into the pores of my skin, so every moment I breathe, I can feel her live across my street.

12.11.2010 Friday

Night sounds. They're not always bad - like the constant, low whirring of the fan or the crickets wheezing outside the window - they keep the silence out because silence within these four walls can be deafening enough to make me go Van Gogh on short notice. And I'd like to keep my ears on for now. Last night, the sounds were different. Silent swishes in the dark, darting noises, movements made out in deft manipulations of sound waves, amplified in a small room - they terrified both me and my cat. Freud was on his alert best last night, not even blinking for a moment. I knew he was scared because he kept flicking his tail and made hissing noises once in a while. Ah the poor little furball was in knots alright. I played some music to push the noise out of the room. But that only aggravated it even more.The swishing noises soon turned into bellows and rumbles and I'm not sure what exactly happened then because I woke up with my cheek kissing the cold floor this morning. Freud was staring at me with an odd, questioning look, his head cocked to one side, like he's confused. I've never seen that much emotion in his face before but last night must have moved even a gargoyle, leave alone the cat. I will go take a look at my Lolita now, so I can calm my nerves.

She comes and goes. Chapter 2

25/10/10 Monday

The winter drizzle made the day a lot cooler. The past few days have been such a bust. I ventured out for a bit, bought supplies, indulged my photography needs, visited the bookstore I had spied a couple of blocks away from mine and even went to the fish market. I don't like fish. I cannot stand the smell. Reminds me of my mother and that dank, dark kitchen and my mother in that dank, dark kitchen, weeping to herself. Her tears must have flavored many a Sunday brunch, or that late Friday supper. She never did speak much. Always watching and waiting or waiting and watching from corners, quick to jump to orders, even mine. I loathed her self-deprecating manner and her quite bustling. It grated on my nerves like some loud, obnoxious music. How I hated her. And then she died, in that same dank, dark kitchen and that was the only day I remember crying. I didn't realize it until I saw that her face was tear stained and for a moment I thought she was crying at her deathbed as well. But I digress. Fishes. That's where I was. I had gone to the fish market to get fish for my pet cat. He's quiet for the most part, to the point that I sometimes forget he's even there until I notice a lump moving about on my couch under my black parka. A black cat under my black parka, he hates being photographed. I found him nibbling on one of my lens caps the other day.

After so much activity, I had been waiting to get back to my little, white window, with the chesterfield bare stool next to it. The telescope was a gift from an annoying ex girlfriend. She wanted to take it with her when she left but I managed to haggle it back from her. She took my television instead. At about 11 a.m. today, I finally spotted my lovely, walking into her living room. Her long legs dragged across the room in a lazy conversation with the floor, her white negligee stopping right above her thighs. Her black hair was mangled and fell in heavenly curls around her bare shoulders. From here, it looked like she was glowing like a lone street light on a deserted road. It looked like she was waiting for someone, because she kept looking at the door and she wouldn't sit down or stay still. And it had to be the boyfriend, yes? Because a woman like her could not be single. He walked right in, he must have the spare key. And she fell into his arms like a pack of cards. I'm not sure what I was supposed to feel but all I felt was a strange sense of euphoria at seeing her feel this happy and loved. They proceeded into the bedroom then and there my viewing pleasures ended because my scene was blocked by these huge red curtains. It was infuriating ,to say the least, but I doubt they were going in to the bedroom for a heart to heart conversation. I wonder if they'll ever fuck in the living room. I'm not sure I could watch. I'm not sure I want her to fuck at all. She needs to be kept in a long glass case, safe from the filth of this world, and nothing should touch her ageless beauty except the touch of my lips against hers.

I don't want to write anymore. I'd like to wait for them to come back out now.

She comes and goes. Chapter 1

12/10/10 Tuesday

Any onlooker would have thought she had been brutally kicked in the face by some member of the Russian Mafia, but I knew better. She's recently picked up painting, with an enthusiasm I find quite endearing to behold. I only say recent because of how her hand ever so lightly trembles when she's about to dab the brush along her canvas and the way she practices in front of her mirror to tie her hair elegantly around a pencil thin brush with paint smearing. Last night, she fell asleep while working on a self portrait and while usually she feels the need to wash her face at the basin when she wakes up in the morning, today my lovely decided to go out for a walk. She did not take notice of their eyes following her like ravenous wolves and she walked in an even pace, never slowing down, never picking up; her bosom rising and falling to meet the cold wind of the winter morning. She didn't venture further from her street. Our street. And then she stopped suddenly, her heels digging into the pavement, but the rest of her body wasn't paying attention, so she tumbled around a bit before she could manage to completely come to a halt. Not elegant, no. But she melts my heart, she does. And she had only stopped her unnatural morning walk because she had caught her reflection on the bakery window. Face marked in blacks, blues and triumphant purples, her favorite color palette if I discern correctly, she really did look badly bruised. And to my rapturous delight and to the street walking frails' surprise, she burst out in peals of laughter that just descended onto the street like runaway music. I had never heard her before, and while I captured every note of her mirth onto my memory, she walked back into her apartment still giggling to herself, clutching her dress with both hands, her sandals slapping the ground in merry tandem and I just had to sit down and catch my breath, or I would have fallen and broken my head for want of oxygen. Good things are to come this way, I know.

Getting back to the middle.

There's an attempt being made at storytelling. The telling would be a lot more easier if someone were listening. So we are to be ignored for now, and to that end we shall remain dignified in our own absence.

Once Upon a Time

The Dreaming Shows Good Things.

Love is the little dry leaf

Inside your desk

Where a folded tissue accompanies

Other motley assortments

That you possess.

You've creeped into my morning dreams. Is this a sign? I'll let that pass for now.

- I've decided to leave the door ajar. You could be entering or leaving, as long as we're moving onward, forward. Yes? Because only now do I see some faint distinction between love and relationships. Some misconstrued conversations and several nights later, I've decided to leave the door ajar, so you could do with me as you please. Because only now do I see that I'm in love, not for the first time, no, but there's something here I would like to watch transpire. Strange morning dreams indicate happiness if I'm reading them right. And you, you knowitall God of all things, you I shall worship from my own brittle pedestal of steel. Because only now do I see the truth in your words. The truth that I see falling from the evening skies outside our home. This is meant to be.

Why not, right?

You don't know how lovely You are.

I collect comfort memories. Pockets of warm happiness and gentle companionship - like cherished second hand paperbacks, these come around quite rarely. Last night, you handed me one. Just like that, just by being there. All I remember is how your skin tasted, half breathing, half dreaming. I shared your travels in that moment, miraculous and humble at the same time. I touched a dormant fire, knowing one day I'll burn in its natural wrath. But last night, all I felt was its feathertouch warmth, glowing yellow and red, carrying me gently onward to quiet slumber.

Never Too Late

Maybe this isn't real at all. Maybe my fears are what really fuel this reality of ours. Maybe that's why I can never see past an evening that whizzed by us last year. And maybe it wasn't just last year. Maybe this started years ago, in my windowless room that I shared with my sister, when I probably didn't know that 'maybes' existed. Maybe it's all in my head, weeded in, grown out of the psychobabble that I'm subjected to on a daily basis from people who don't give a dime about someone else's sanity. And just maybe you and I should have left it like it was. Subdued. Strangled. A secret.

Hungry days and Horny Nights

I see you

Perched precariously

On a little gargoyle

Seamlessly floating

Against the blue blue wind.

If you were a canvas, I'd paint you foreverblue and throw in some fevicol for effect.

I see you

Hourglass in hand

Eyes shut to the dreaming

Drowning

In the blackness that is your soul.

And a single flame burns, while I wait, night after crimson night, songs falling from a listless heart.

I see you

Flailing body, swaying

To a rainy beat

Pitter patter

Your feet tremble.

Aren't we lucky you have a magic wand that goes pop?

I see you

Peeping in from the other end

Of your skewed pair

Of looking glasses

Pensive and brown

And I pretend to not watch when you're dying in your box.

Keys and Stones.

I'm going to move into my own apartment in two weeks and there's no better feeling, really. Nevermind that it's far, far away where you can see the sky for as far as you'd like and there are bullock carts instead of cars. And nevermind that my friends will be on the other side of the city and I'll probably never get to see them. I'll have my own house with a kitchen and a bathroom with a shower and everything. And nothing will ever be borrowed again.

To new roads, cheers.

Dazed and Lonely.

I feel like I'm walking through doors all the time. In and out. Doors heavily ornate some, others plain and simple with a little doorbell that goes ding! All of them open and close to little pockets in my mind, where I find little peace and a lot of doubts. Flaring up to the slightest indication of loss, holding on to tattered pages of history that almost everyone's so happily forgotten, how dare they. I'm not supposed to pee on you and make you mine, no? Territorial rights can be sketchy sometimes and I haven't yet learnt to handle them with adequate grace and dignity. Sharing a bed helps. Memories of vague intercepted mail, don't.

And the weariness of my addled mind just adds to the aging cage that is the body, making it difficult to breathe in this thick, knotted atmosphere. There's nowhere to go but huddle in the corner of a borrowed room and let the dreams fill you up till you forget you're dreaming, and then some. Mottled ropes of twine I feel like, about to collapse without warning, straining against the mouldy wall for support, sighing dramatically, till I'm sufficiently depressed enough to be happy. Oh I'm a keeper, yessuh.