Deflated, Depleted, 'Simon & Garfunkel'ed...

I am just a poor boy, though my story's seldom told

I have squandered my resistance

For a pocketful of mumbles, such are promises

All lies and jest

Still a man hears what he wants to hear and disregards the rest. hmmm...

Who are you fooling my dear? You are but trivial, immaterial to the roving world and the churning seas. But go on, delude yourself some more. Self importance and daydreams are but your only crutches that remain. What will you do my poor dear? When your recursive reassurances sound hollow even to yourself... What else will you do?

When I left my home and my family I was no more than a boy

In the company of strangers

In the quiet of the railway station, runnin' scared

Laying low, seeking out the poorer quarters

Where the ragged people go

Lookin' for the places only they would know

No my dear! Don't you look back. For you will know in a flash that this is not where you want to be. This strange place that holds even your whims prisoner, is this where you want to die? Those days when you shared a kinship with Roark and Galt, those wonderful days are gone. Believe me dear, all that is left is a mirage, a fading sheen. A dying light is all that is left. Oh my dear...

Asking only workman's wages, I come lookin' for a job, but I get no offers

Just a come-on from the whores on 7th avenue

I do declare, there were times when I was so lonesome

I took some comfort there

Apologies my dear. I laugh not at you, but at your endearing naiveté and your hopeful face. Clamber all you want, claw at nature, if you may. But a place for everything and everything in its place. You in yours, they in theirs. Sigh! I told you my dear. Of the obsolescence of effort, and the chimera that is hope. I warned you.

Now the years are rolling by me, they are rockin' even me

I am older than I once was, and younger than I'll be, that's not unusual

No it isn't strange, after changes upon changes,

we are more or less the same

After changes we are more or less the same

Run my dear. Run! Melt away those layers of age. Race to the setting sun. Beat the rushing wind. But even rainbows, resplendent as they are, have to vanish and die in time. Some truths don't change my dear. They just take a while to catch up. But run you must. Away from it all. Make like a bird and fly my dear.

And I’m laying out my winter clothes, and wishing I was gone, goin’ home

Where the New York City winters aren’t bleedin’ me, leadin’ me goin' home

You walk with your head in the clouds. You really do my dear. Don't you remember you don't have a home? You squandered it away on a bet. A bet against yourself. You have long been a drifter, don't you see? My little destructive dear...

In the clearing stands a boxer and a fighter by his trade

And he carries the reminders of every glove that laid him down

or cut him till he cried out in his anger and his shame

"I am leaving, I am leaving."

But the fighter still remains

Nurse those scars my dear. Nurse them, for they are not going away. Rest tonight and leave tomorrow dear. But then again, who are we fooling really? For you and I have always known. You are but a fighter my dear...

PS: Written while listening to Simon & Garfunkel's "The Boxer" on repeat. Easily their best song!

Wishful

I saw an elderly couple on the street. They strolled leisurely, gazing at store windows and stopping for snow cones. He waited patiently as she surveyed shoes. She smiled to herself as he stopped to stare at toy cars. Maybe some things never change, I thought. Maybe the boy or the girl in us lives on forever.

They stopped at a traffic light, cars zipping past in a hurried world that was once theirs. He peered right and she to the left. An unsaid protocol, a tiny idiosyncrasy ingrained in them and habituated over the years. They locked hands with each other and off they went across the road. Did she always walk on his left? Did he take her hand or did she take his? Was it practice or was it chance? No one could say. I’m sure.

They spoke softly, about this and that. He leaned close to her and said something. She let out a low delighted laugh. He chuckled, his eyes twinkling mischievously at his own joke. Did they not argue when they were younger, I wondered. Maybe differences fade away gently. Maybe over time, they had become a little more like each other. But today there was a lovely harmony as they walked along. They were perfectly in step with each other, their pace, fluid and gentle like the breathing of a sleeping child.

It began to rain, a slight drizzle, all but lost in a gusty breeze. He flipped open his umbrella. He didn’t wait, she didn’t hesitate. He wrapped his arm around her shoulder and she took a step closer to him. They walked on, her own umbrella still dangling from her arm. They slowly walked homeward, this profound moment probably just one of the countless others they took for granted.

To me, it was a magical reality dazzling in front of my eyes. I stood there, even as the drizzle became a pattering rain, and looked on at a love that had stood the test of time. I stood there and promised myself our own autumn evening. In that crystallized moment I knew that all I want to do is grow old with you.

Ritual

To you, paper roses,
night after night.
Painted birds and doodled love,
Cut, copy and paste,
when sleep comes in haste.
But for you, a little trinket,
night after night.

To you, scribbled poems,
night after night.
Neruda and Dickinson,
when my thoughts get lost
in the midnight frost.
But for you, a special poem,
night after night.

An Unwarranted Mirth

Today I sat on a swing in the park and swung away to my heart's content. And I suspect I enjoyed it way more than my two year old cousin. For those brief moments I had not the smallest worry. The burdens of life gave way to a lightness I have not felt in years. I stopped. I breathed. I turned my face up to the breeze. Back and forth, back and forth. Life is full of similar oscillations. Secure to stranded, elated to morose, confident to terrified. There is never enough time to categorize life as good or bad amidst this constant interplay of ravaging extremes. But today, in these rare moments of stillness I wondered what is it that makes one brave the downs and seek the ups of life.

What makes one pray to an unknown God? What makes one read astrology? What makes one search for the elusive silver lining to every cloud? It could be need. It could be discontent. Or even greed. I like to think it is faith.

It's funny how faith works. Oftentimes it is difficult for the rational mind to grasp faith as a concept. For it can seem rather blind, baseless and unscientific. The rational mind understands effort and result and expects them to be proportional to each other. It cannot settle for an aggregate but non-chronological reciprocity between effort and result. Neither can it understand belief without proof, or patience without progress. Rational as I claim to be, I believe effort and faith feed into each other. Faith induces effort even when the fruit is not in sight or within reach. Unrelenting hard work in turn serves to augment the very faith that one is constantly inching towards the fruit.

In principle, one could have faith in anything- in oneself, in instinct, in justice, in the ultimate reign of goodness, in the immutable laws of nature, in Time, in God. I think it is something, maybe the only thing, that protects our irrevocable right to dream, our sometimes irrational optimism, and our unjustifiable claim to lofty goals and ideals. It is what keeps the innocence in us from escaping.

Back and forth, back and forth, life will go on. I know. But right now, there is a breeze in my hair. The grass is young and green. The moon is high and blue. The world is picturesque. The idealist lives on...

Where are you?

Time tempts and torments. Yes, the same Time that raced past us that day when I lay wrapped in your arms. The same Time that, miles away from you, ticks laboriously. Second after excruciating second. 

I miss you... All the time indeed. So much, that sometimes it unleashes the devil in me. Sometimes I want to grab you and admonish you for not doing so yourself. But No, I will not strangle you for no fault of yours. For it is Time that made false promises of eternity. You never did, I know. No need to remind me. The truth is stark naked. As always.

Most nights I tire myself to sleep, grinded teeth and clenched fists. Some nights I cry myself to sleep. I later laugh at how you struggle to understand the tears and my bitten lips. Pray don't chastise yourself. You are just a boy.

Oh yes, there are ways to fill time. None that I've not tried. I discover that you've taken away with you the romance of the movies I so love. Heroes in my books speak your language and take your silhouette. The iPod plays but one song on repeat. I can write about nothing but you. Time has become unbearable.

Memories sear the heart. The mind sweats with unchaste thoughts. Dreams stand indefinitely deferred. Fear abounds of the terrible unknown. 

Adrift

The older we grow, the more of our mind's spaces we shut down. We shut them forever, allowing not a glimpse of the pristine faith that once resided in them. We shut them, leaving not a trace of the child's undemanding love, of the teenager's insatiable thirst, of the lover's boundless passion. Sometimes we paint over the artist's dream. Sometimes we burst the dreamer's bubble. These spaces, we shut them to the world, we shut them to ourselves.

Oftentimes wisdom from experience serves to mar the mind. This is not to say experiences do not leave us richer. But oftentimes wisdom brings with it reckless scars of memory. Unknowingly we change, unwillingly even. The metamorphosis however is thorough and clinical.

So I stand at the helm of my life, looking back instead of forward. I wish I could go back in time. Not to change anything. Just to be in that time instead of this. Just because my anchors are still planted there. Just to be childish, ignorant and cocky one more time. I stand at the helm of my life, knowing not where to go.

Fantasia

Here I sit at my table, trying to write to you. It's incredible how difficult I find it to tell you my thoughts. Maybe because I don't even know you. If I did, I would write you a ream. I would write you my dream. About our book of yellowing pictures. Echoes of your favorite songs. Crumbling letters of love and loss. If I knew you I would describe to you, that wrinkle on your nose, that curve of your brow, that shining brilliance of your smile. If I knew you I would write you lengthy verse. Of shy favors and ticklish whispers. Of moonlit nights and sweet surprise. If only I knew you...

Here I am, wondering if I can have you. If I could, I would etch my footsteps next to yours. Our fingers locked tight. My time ticking with yours. If I had you I would hide you in the crevices of my thoughts. Weave you into the seams of my dreams. Wrap you in frills of poetry. If I had you I would reel and swoon. And drown and merrily die. If only I had you...

Lessons galore

Need is not immutable. It is simply desire fooling the brain. And desire, of course, is whimsical as ever. 

Distance tarnishes memory rather quickly. My misery shuns company and has become best friends with silence instead. 

God does not hear your questions.  And it is always too late when life chooses to answer them. 

Obsession is not as easy as it seems. It can get quite tediously mathmatical as you try to work out all the possibilities in your head. 

Desperation cannot accelerate life. Neither can today's effort make up for yesterday's misdeeds. 

I spend most of my life chasing concepts that belonged to a more innocent me. 

Time and again I struggle to make the impossible choice between idealism and cynicism. I unfailingly choose the wrong one. 

Hope can be delusional. Pitiful as this may sound, ego is the only steadfast armor against denied hope.

Well! Well! Doesn't reality love to snatch away those rose tinted glasses?

Disappearing Constants

Everything comes with an expiry date. Most things in life are like medicines that turn poisonous over time. Excitement turns into ennui. Ennui becomes indifference. Novelty turns into routine which morphs into boredom. Knowledge turns into memory. Memories are forgotten. Intensity turns into weariness that slowly degenrates into inertia. Ambition turns into achievement. Achievement becomes mundane. Love turns into pain. Pain is replaced by numbness.

All that remains is a ceaseless obsession with details, an incurable insecurity and a deep fear of the unknown.

Catharsis

My swimming coach pushed me underwater with one quick thrust. He is firmly pressing down my shoulder, not allowing me to surface. I'm supposed to practice holding my breath underwater until I simply cannot do so any longer. I open my mouth and the water rushes in. I'm choking, I'm flailing my arms and screaming in panic. I cause not a ripple in the world above me. They cannot hear a thing. The water around me sways in silence, threatening to swallow me.

It did not last one whole minute. Several years later, that memory is still raw. The fear of water is long gone. But my associations with the memory are dark and ominous. It promises to haunt me for a long time yet.

What does one do when life morphs into a cycle of anxiety, uncertainty, doubt and fear? I seek control and calm. I'm left staring at calamitous chaos instead. Gosh! My brakes gave way while going downhill on hairpin bends.

Quests can be tiring, especially when they renew themselves without notice. Even more so when they pawn me in their duels with each other. Is it even possible to deserve such extreme conflict?

The dots of life shine on, slowly drifting apart in some preordained continuum. No thread remains to go from one to the next. No shortcut. No lifeline.

Grapple

I put life behind a magnifying glass. The exaggerated details jumped out at me. Menacing. Chilling. My diary of dreams stands irreversibly altered, marked all over in a merciless red. The soft sepia glow is gone. The crystal chandelier has turned into ugly shards of glass strewn beneath my feet, checkered again with scrapes and bruises. Voices in my head scream, "I told you so." Ouch! Such sarcasm in the undertone.

Words capture but a passing moment, I always insist. I will this one to pass too, but in vain. For a pervasive hopelessness now prevails where innocent happiness once abounded. Eternity to me will remain a concept, a lost faith. Ether, simply ether.

Zip my mouth shut!

Nothing is a safe thing to say. Even frivolous comments have surprisingly disproportionate consequences. It is amazing how intent is enslaved and vanquished by semantics and poor timing. I need a crash course in wise choice of words, non-opinionated tone and holding a straight face. Can I get a touchiness sensor and also an omniscient disclaimer machine?

I think I'm learning to think before I talk, really learning it the hard way. The curve is steep and the metamorphosis is fascinating. I'm slowly resorting to drawing decision trees in my mind before uttering anything. Trust me, it is not a bad skill to have. I have found the elusive silver lining! It significantly slows down my speaking. Soon I might actually be heard and understood. I might even sound intelligent! Well, almost... I still wish I could blab away thoughtlessly now and then. Maybe I should talk more to my mother... Ha!

Vicarious

The shadow on my wall grows, I stretch impossibly to make it look as tall as you. Imagination is a heartbreaking substitute for proximity, and your voice, and your footsteps across the dark room. I've taught the talking parrot your name and mine. I make her recite it now and then, when I need to feel we are one. I've also taught her to complete my sentences just like you do.

Your words paint my wall. My eyes travel to them from time to time and rest on the beautiful red flower you've painted in the corner. I always drink two cups of coffee these days. One of them with sugar, exactly the way you like it. A man passed by me today. He was wearing your cologne. I forgot where I was going for a few minutes. Chocolates on drugstore shelves can kill. I don't enter that aisle anymore.

*Pop* That shadow is not yours. No! You would have smiled, I'm sure.

Pining

You live inside me these days. Or memory has befriended me in special ways. Your image in my mind is precision itself. I see your neatly parted hair, the corners of your boyish grin, the fine creases of thoughts on your forehead, a hint of a dimple teasing your face, the angle of your questioning head. I can see your fingers flying over the keyboard, the way you squint at an error, your eyes shining bright in the screen's light. I remember your measured pace, even the tiny skip in your shadow's gait.

I write to you a lot these days, oftentimes in my mind. Sometimes in class, punctuating the professor's wisdom with cryptic verses meant only for you. You make me very tongue-tied. Maybe that is why I write so much to you. Or maybe because I don't trust myself to say the right things. You've taught me, painstakingly, that anger and sadness, exhilaration and joy, misconception and doubt, everything diminishes with time. I've learned, on my own, that writing helps greatly at such times. Can I really fill silence with writing? I try. It is always more exciting to try the seemingly impossible.

I talk to you when you sleep. I whisper actually. I'm sure you hear me, every time. You smile, you even murmur back. I like it when you talk to me with your eyes closed, your voice husky and distant. I wish you would reveal your dreams now and then. Am I in them? I always wonder what it would feel like if you say a different name or if I do, for that matter. These fine lines of fire that we tread so carefully within never cease to amaze me. Nevertheless, talk to me in your sleep please...

I've etched each memory a hundred times in my mind. I have resolved to save every note I scribble to you. I guess I can talk to you when you sleep, no matter where you are. Sigh!

Confession

I sit in a train, familiar rails running alongside. I just had an epiphany of sorts. I discovered that I cannot write, I never could. I just think aloud with a pencil. I shamelessly pardon myself the stutter and the doodle, the incoherence even. For I simply have to speak my mind. To someone, something, even this crinkling white paper will do. I have to spell it all out, in excruciating detail.

Today the mind is a clamor of words. Trees, tall majestic trees. Stranded ambition stretching hard to touch the sky. Now I am full of hope, and a ludicrously innocent faith in happy endings. Then again, a tree will be a tree. Its shadow it can share. But can it ever lend color to the magnificent rainbow?

Wispy fresh snow. Little gleaming flakes of time, imperceptibly melting away. It is a finite life, every moment is finite, so is every emotion, even you and me. Eternity is merely a quest, ironically- one that promises to last forever. This probably explains the excess, the extremes- my abandonment of right and wrong. Believe me, it doesn't have to be hard. "Free Spirit" is a more convenient mask than admitting decadence, even to yourself.

Numbers everywhere, on billboards, on buses. My mind is crowded with them. I like them, particularly the second decimal and percentages. Many people claim that intelligence is a turn-on. Numbers are a long shot indeed. But what better illusion of knowledge and precision?

The President smiles from the Economist's cover. I flipped it open and read a single line. And I read it again and once more before I gave up. Maybe inattention worsens with age. Maybe it is inertia, or my passive rebellion against the information brigade. Maybe the thirst for knowledge found a younger desert to ravage.

I just heard myself! These excuses are my own failed motivation masquerading in party-wear. I just read my scrawled words. My discovery holds. I cannot write, I never could. I will go back to biting my lips, to my constant anticipation, to my abrupt musings.

An undesired low

To me, the written word has always signified infinite possibility. But it is also my worst enemy, just by virtue of being irreversible. So I tried to stop writing, as an armor against merciless censure, in the hope of a renewed reign of smiles. But of course, the experiment failed. Miserably, to put it mildly. I suffered the loss of my best friend, my sole trusted confidant. I had no place to rush to or to hide in those naked moments of fear. I'm back. I had to be.

Yes, you guessed it right. This space is a chronicle. A memoir written in blood, of endless moments of gut-wrenching pain, of unshed tears and muffled cries, of unanswered prayers and punishing blows. Today I will tell you about rejection.

Rejection, no matter how well deserved, is hard to swallow. It eats away at self-esteem like termites devour wood, almost imperceptibly but with the single goal to destroy. "Why me?" you cry. Everything seems impossibly hinged to the unforthcoming answer. You sink in your own eyes. And in the eyes of everyone else, it seems. Your flailing hands cause not a tiny flutter. The ether remains undisturbed. Your pleading eyes invite no sympathy. The world goes merrily on its way, its wheels well-oiled, its course unaltered.

In good times the cynic comes to the rescue. You laugh at the world and skip on. At other times you decide you were pursuing sour grapes after all. You haughtily turn and walk away. You know it is the worst time when all you want to do is curl up and die. No skip left in your step. No pride left in your heart. All you have left is your deflated self, crushed and discarded.

Unyielding

Every day I walk a tightrope. I walk gingerly, for there is no room for mistakes. A mistake is impossible to recover from. The next day I pretend like it never happened. But Alas! The cracks and scars are permanent. They've even spawned their own crutch- an ever-growing list of dos and don'ts. Of what real use is a crutch to a tightrope walker? You would think practice is the answer. Believe me I do. I learn every time I fall and etch the lessons in my mind and repeat them to myself until they are rote. Of what use is my memory when I walk a new rope each day?

I am indeed the only imperfection in this perfect world I live in. This is a world where everything has already been carefully considered and a single right way has already been defined for every little thing. Transgressions are unacceptable and should not be attempted. Excuses are unheard of. Doors once closed remain closed. Others open at the right time, when they should. Everything happens for a reason and with clockwork precision. Of course you have a choice. You either do it the right way or you are left stranded, cold and shivering, the world around you a silent dark desert.

I breach boundaries, sometimes unknowingly, sometimes in an effort to push them a little- a tiny leap of faith if you will. The punishment is instant. The curtain falls for the day. Show is over folks! No second chance to cover up when I forget my lines, no witty comebacks, not even a stammered apology. Well, I guess that's life, decisive and unforgiving.

Obituary

The idealist who lived here died, at least in part.

The clocks struck twelve. The fairy tale is over. Don't waste any more time here, there is no beauty to be had.

Dogs don't smile anymore. The coffee has turned cold and bitter. Trees stand still, no dance in their sway. That gentle breeze has blown itself out, taking with it the candlelight and the scent of the rose. The sea is still inviting, but consumptively so. The shiny young leaf has long become a relic, drained and dry.

Flap Flap! Hope flees at lightning speed. Ouch! Memories have razor edges. Swoon! Patience takes the plunge over the brink.

Well, I told you so. The idealist who lived here died. Come, join this dirge... Come, help gather these pitiful remains...

Love in absentia

Oftentimes life is like a movie trailer, scenes from the future handpicked and perfectly orchestrated that leave us wanting more. We have in us a certain innocence that makes us want to believe that the promises will be kept. For if we don't, we will be left with pitifully few things worthy of fervent pursuit. Relationships can be tempting trailers followed by hard tests of endurance. At times we learn more about ourselves through relationships than even meticulous introspection.

Sometimes a relationship begs for silence. It ceases to be about sharing the small things that make you smile or about narrating every interesting thought. It takes standing aside and quietly watching life go on without intrusion. It takes waiting and hoping that it will be as fantastic as the trailer promised it will be. This silence would be easy, if only it was not indefinite.

There is a nebulous region in every relationship where it becomes less about getting every little thing you want and more about gratefully accepting the little you receive. Interestingly, this is the region where we grow. We stand deserted by time and energy that once seemed infinite. We recognize new boundaries. We learn how to trivialize ourselves. We learn how to recall the beautiful beginnings and continue to feel fortunate in an altered world.

And when the shiny newness wears away we muster the imagination, sometimes even delusion, to paint a silver lining. We realize that the colorful cocoon we lived in has broken, or maybe was imaginary all along. We give in to reality smiling its dazzling smile and shaking its proud head, saying "I told you so."

Rhetoric

Is it real,
your love for a spontaneity
you refuse to intercept
when it passes you by?

Should it be,
this intrusive impulse
that wedges itself opaque
between you and me?

Ceding to change

Today the mind dwells on change. The mechanics of change is admittedly fascinating, no matter how hard we try to resist it. It is much like salt dissolving in water. The water makes the vainest of attempts to allow the grains to sink to the bottom intact. But they diminish, melt and vanish without a trace. Appearances may defy the truth. But the water stands changed for good, its pristine form so starkly violated. Change really is the only true permanence. For when the change is complete and you look back, the past seems so unlikely and almost wrong.

Solitude was something I thought I understood, although I vacillated between love and hate for it. Now I face a new solitude I never sought. It is the kind I cannot mourn with cryptic elegies or immortalize with heartbreaking verse. Books cannot banish it, the sea cannot snatch it, there is no distraction from it. It is still solitude, albeit a changed one.

"Detachment is a virtue," I always philosophized. The day has come when it seems like a necessity and I find I'm one virtue short. Maybe I lost it in a euphoric journey, maybe it is hiding, maybe it is masquerading. The detachment I feel today is a mere impostor that cannot numb me to the reproach I feel or eclipse the devious deceptions of the world.

I look back and rightly see a past so ludicrous. I wonder if I am beginning to love this solitude criss-crossed with dear memories. I wonder if I ever want to find that cold detachment again.

Prisoner to perfection

There are times when you feel adrift, much like a sailboat bound nowhere. You feel the last strand of cognizance slipping away. In one such stupor, a voice called out to me. A soft voice with little to say, but cradling me in its intonations full of care, and washing me in its resonant melody. I held on to it, I played it in my head like I do my favorite songs, on repeat. Ever so slowly, I learned to read it. It shivered in rage and faltered with emotion. I learned that the voice could smile...

Soon came the banter- countless intellectual journeys into the world of sports, critiques of the silver screen, a beatific flirtation with the written word, poetic trysts with Neruda, magical odysseys with Floyd. Hours flew by, the exploration stretched on, oblivious to night and day. Music flowed, songs sung for a sole listener. Bards of yore and great maestros took turns to visit. The river of life danced in mirth...

An indulgent breeze floated in, bringing with it the aroma of orchids and roses, a delightful midnight surprise! Surging waves, seaside promenades and moonlit silences reigned unresisted. The breeze, unannounced, turned into a velvet caress, a lover's warm embrace, a melting first kiss. So imperceptibly did it turn into a promise of eternity...

This promise renders me speechless. This dream restores innocence. This hope breathes new life. This perfection, it holds me prisoner...

A million imagined sorrows

The radiant sun sears my soul. The rain, much awaited, feels like a thousand needles. The leathery ocean swirls about me, its inertia, sluggish and contagious. The flowers have faded away unnoticed, a few await their turn, languid and sighing. There is refusal in the sway of the trees, heartless deception in every passing cloud. The maiden night is blue and starry. She stops short at my window, for sobs and shivers diligently stand guard.

My mind swells with questions. I pretend not to know the answers, for they will seek and stab every buried hope. Every minute brings a different conclusion, linchpin after excruciating linchpin, keepsakes from life's countless lessons. Everywhere I turn, a limitless blank wall looms up. Anger bounces back. Sadness echoes its sonorous silence. Darkness seeps down as the menacing walls close in.

This agony I've invented, it imposes on me the weight of a million years. I have to stop. I can say no more.

An escapist route

Just for a day, I became a child again. Mickey and Donald, Aladdin and Alice, Simba and Mogli, all pranced around me. I danced with them, in an innocent attempt to bring back those fairy tale days.

I was walking on the road, my palm safely locked in my father's. We were going to the bookstore to buy my book for the month. There was so much anticipation, long moments of deliberation, as I struggled to make the difficult choice between Rapunzel and Peter Pan. But I asked only for one book every month, no more.

I walked alone for miles on end, playing the wide eyed traveler, giving in to truant whims and wayward thoughts. I reveled in the cat calls that came my way. I pleasured in those envious glances as I slurped my ice cream as if it was the only thing I lived for. Words, in tongues both familiar and novel, hung around in an unintelligible buzz. Smiles from strangers flashed on and off in my head.

I've always lived in a fantasy land, my own dear creation. I mostly lurk in folds of an improbable imagination. For the world outside is really gray in comparison.

I sat at the very top of the Ferris Wheel, Sun Wheel, they called this one. I sat drenched in the midday sun, the cool air, such a welcome soporific. The cage I sat in swung back and forth as it gently descended to the shimmering water a hundred feet below.

January! Carnival time again. I hopped from one colorful store to the next, my fingers sticky with cotton candy and lips chapped from salty popcorn. I rode the Ferris Wheel, Giant Wheel, we called it, three times in a row. I loved the slight tug in my stomach each time I zipped down to the ground. I savored the feeling of power when I paused at what seemed like the top of the world. When I get out I will stand in the line one more time.

I walked in that world of animals that sing and birds that talk. I cut across pictures being shot, soon to be hung up on familiar walls, souvenirs offering timelessness. I searched for a souvenir to record these memories. No wall can hold them. For these thoughts are too fluid, part of a continuum, heavy with drama. How do I frame such enormity, such flux?

It is my birthday, an uneventful listless day so far. I walk into my house to the collective cheer of every person I considered friend. A cake waited with glowing candles. They handed me a scrapbook. Every page was handmade by my friends, crafted with such care. They somehow magically framed the enormity. That moment of surprise and gratitude, I will remember forever. I swept the room with my eyes, all I could say was a silent thank you.

It was another day straight out of the fairy tales I still hold on to. They agreed with me, Lilo and Stitch, Belle and Beast, that perfect endings were true indeed. They even dazzled me with a promise of my own sweet ending -happily ever after.What must it feel like to be Cinderella, kissing her prince on her special night? What must it feel like, such hard earned freedom, such unexpected love! Such thrill is but imagined. It is the solitude that is real.

I tire myself, more often than I should. The fatigue can be unbearable. The grief can be morbid. I've always wondered about the reason behind this extreme turbulence. I always emerge confused whether it is the cause or the effect. I would wrap this life and gift it away. Alas! It takes a brave martyr to be my rudder...

Discoveries, this New York Summer

I walked up to the metal railing overlooking the water. The Hudson rolled on, sheer blue and mossy green as far as my eyes could stretch. The sun was setting at the far horizon, saying its leisurely adieu to a dimming world. James Joyce in hand, I leaned on the railing, lost in Stephen Dedalus' simple world. Today was a day of compliments. First for my carelessly hummed song, then for my unruly long hair. From passersby I might never cross paths with again. They evoked a smile, nevertheless. When will it cease, this abject need for acceptance, for appreciation and validation from the world? Will it ever come, a day of peace?

My eyes lazily traced a narrow rickety bridge. At the end of the bridge floated a barge. The barge was unchained. And every moment it spent trying to float away. So pitiful was its freedom. For the barge was prisoner to four tall pillars rising up from the riverbed, allowing it just a constant sway and an occasional bounce. Free! Only nearly. That barge is you. That barge is me. The river is our world. In its meandering whim and turbulent vagaries lie infinite possibility and enchanting vices. And there stand the imposing pillars of society, of rote conditioning and unbending rules. There stand the proud guardians of the right and the wrong.

I could hear music in the distance, from a crowded bar full of weekend revelers. Only the shriller notes and the clang of drums made the distance to me, leaving to my hungry imagination the melody and the mood. I watched a group of teenagers dancing. They took turns to show off their double flips and straight splits, their jealous eyes searching surreptitiously for the passing admirer. I absently looked on at the subtle rivalry as they vied with each other for little glories. It was all unfolding in front of my eyes, the birth of the adolescent ego, the slow demise of innocent pleasure.

I sighed at a couple as they casually fell into step and melted into easy conversation, thanks to their dogs playing cupid between them. I walked by a dog park and felt a rush of affection for my dead dog back home. I wondered what life was like for the senile gentleman leaning on his walking stick. Was it burdensome, his long memory? What did his solitude feel like, satisfied or lonely? I touched the edge of the page I was reading. Suddenly I swelled with gratitude for all the moments of pleasure my books had gifted me. Books obviate people. But much like humans, books make me smile, they make me cry, they please, they hurt, they tempt me only to later desert me.

In a strange coincidence, I had them all today. My book. The water. Music and happy thoughts. Even the rising white moon. But it was missing, the sound of a footstep by my side. It was missing, that warm arm around my shoulder. Can this solitude ever be perfect?