Under the dark shell

River Urubamba, Peru

Stop. Read no more. Go away! This is the river of hurt, swelling with pain and a passion that can kill. Don't take another step, for you are in Fear's proud kingdom. Beware! Nightmares masquerading as dreams will usher you in with angelic smiles and pleasantries. Only to trap you and devour you. Here is Reality, rearing its rational head. Behold from afar, Fate's boiling blood. Doesn't it make you shiver, Nature's relentless revenge?

A child once lived here, at a time when one could still see the crystal cascade and the meandering stream. On a fateful day she peeked out from under the layers protecting her. Enthralled by what she saw, she tiptoed out, getting braver with every moment. In an adventurous whim, she left the confines of her customary hiding place and extended her innocent hand to the wide wondrous world. They made a comely duo. They held hands and whirled around together in seemingly unending bliss.








On the Inca Trail, Peru

In all ingenuity she gave herself to her newfound world. She became every crystal droplet in the waterfall, tirelessly falling from the sky to anoint the barren earth. She turned into a cloud and kissed those yearning peaks. She was every flower bobbing in those fields. She was the slanting sun ray illuminating the universe. She flowed, she swayed, she submitted to every demand. All in hope of keeping forever the beatitude she cherished from that fateful day. For she naively believed in goodness, justice and some sort of permanence.

Saqsaywaman, Peru

But this sadistic world would not let the idealist be. Fate methodically destroyed belief after belief, precise and painful. The river of hurt ran red with spite and venom. The Halloween was over, the ugly nightmares stripped themselves bare. She was shrouded all around by a new nature, so cold and gray. Fear left an indelible scar on her unsuspecting trust. The child receded into its trusted shell. Not for this child, this merciless river, not its love, not its hate. The child will live on, but in deeper waters untouched by harsh turbulence, only in a safe world of words.

Machu Picchu, Peru

Charmed

Yesterday, for a moment, my life soared and flew away. Mundane pains vanished. My feet forgave the cold hard floor, my squinting eyes welcomed the intrusive sun. Hunger pangs gnawed lesser. Even morning birds sang sweeter. My insomnia was rewarded. All in a blur of white and blue.

He gently strode in and brightened my room. There he was, mischievous grin and cocked head, searching my eyes for surprise. His hair was neatly parted and flew lightly in the soft breeze. His smile announced triumph and a trace of fondness I cannot forget. I memorized the shape of his lips as he talked, his rounded o's and pursed pause. I almost touched the questions lurking in his furrowed brow. And I built my castles with his waving hands. He often looked upwards, maybe at an instant bubble of memory from which he sought for me tales of yore. Many a time, the gleam in his eye was a precursor to his forthcoming wit. Most other times, his eyes, they spoke a language of their own, esoteric and disarming.

He took me on a tour. Around a city in five minutes, incomplete but inviting, much like everything else about him. He pointed to a distant sea and I painted a lone ship. I carefully gleaned the city's sounds. I folded and put them away to fill later the silences in my head. I etched the skyline in my mind, also his silhouetted form against the magical light. I saved them all, his home, his lawns, his favorite swing. Now I have pictures I will beckon to make perfect backdrops for future conversations.

Yesterday was better than my first fantasy, my speechless thoughts more lyrical than my best poem, my heart fluttering in frolic. Such a day, I simply want to befriend and cajole to stay.

PS: 100th post! Fortunately it is something I want to remember.

Today's Quest

A vain search
for unearthly strength
to wipe you
off this dear space.

To no avail,
my absurd search
for deeper recesses
to hide you from me.

Welcome tyranny

He ruled over her. And the time and space between them. He ruled with routine, with a hierarchy of priorities she had learned to defer to. There was not much room for negotiation, or even pleas for that matter. His was the hand of logic and an extreme rationality that belied his claims of sentiment and affection. His affection itself was like the summer rain, intermittent and harsh. His will condemned, even stymied, her impulse. His spontaneity was prisoner to his practiced principles, she could not recognize it even in its rare moments of nakedness. His decision often hung like a veil between them, delicate yet perceptibly forceful in its permanence. His joy wrapped her in a new beauty each time; but naturally this cloak was not hers to keep, it heartlessly melted at her accidental touch. His anger silenced her, a muted wait for a kinder word and a softer countenance. His presence was the morning sun blinding her eye. His absence was the brutal chill of the December wind. His rule is here to stay, real and final.

Fits and Starts

Engulfed!
Rankling doubt- gray seas, churning
9pm sun- novelty and charm
Fogged heart- still in wintry solitude

Deceived!
Trusted promise- fading ripple, so sly
Glass cage- cruel big city
Favorite fantasies- just wispy cotton candy

PS: No will to string the words together. So make your own story.

Allow me my fear

What did you do with my callousness? Did you claim it to recycle it?

My conviction in the disutility of emotional attachment, it is broken and battered and sneering at me from my dusty attic.

Unfulfilled ambitions have sprung back to life, newly whetted and whipped. Now they know not their way back home.

My perfected mechanism of loose knots, measured distance and algebraic control suddenly stopped functioning. I have no tools to mend it, no oil will grease it back to motion.

Anger is snoozing in the stands, patience is keeping goal.

My sharp tongue is losing its acridity. Words have lost their sting. Ego has gone into indefinite hibernation.

In many little ways, in arguably good ways, I don't recognize myself. Pray, tell me now, how should I feel anything but fear of this unsettling unknown?

Yours truly

Take my patience,
lose it or hide it irretrievably.
And thus be absolved indefinitely
from my prolific demands.

Is my absence imperceptible enough?
It is my gift to you,
of freedom from my invasiveness,
in gratitude for your indulgence.

Tell me my silence is dulcet.
For I deliberately lost my voice
and laboriously buried my words
to create for you this strange silence.

My insignificance should suffice,
to restore the familiarity
that I selfishly snatched from you
when I crashed into your merry life.

Accept my offerings.
And grant me my hope,
of atonement for my follies,
of a guiltless slumber.

Defences, so futile

This deluge of tears refuses to stop or dry in time. And life today is an inconsistent film of oil stagnant on its surface, the painful patches- a tattered map of a coherent past. I squint at the sun through this curtain of tears. Colors shine and shimmer, but no memories arise of previous rainbows. The refracted world holds but watery promises.

No one knows my tears better than this corner of my house. These walls meet only to gently hold me as I sink to newer nadirs. This far corner, my invisible cradle for impossible sorrows. Literary excess and musical heavens are unreal worlds offering a temporary mirth. Beloved words and strains of melody- rivulets of joy that weave around me a faithful armor for such days of war.

Litany

Every day,
I write to you,
if only to rehearse
those wordless, voiceless
circular thoughts.

Oh! They are still real-
those forbidden thoughts.
For every day
I rehearse them,
sans words, sans voice.

All I can do

You can have my fairy,
glistening wand and all.
I will blow your way
any luck I find today.

You must take my prayer,
take my eellike God.
Drenched in a venal shower,
He will saunter over.

You shall have my smile,
and those I borrow for you.
This wave will wash away,
not a ripple will stay.

Genuflection

She was just another passerby, she almost remained one. But she was scooped up by an epiphany, ravaged by a singular instinct and tossed about in a vortex of improbable dreams. That moment lingered. Transfixed by its enormity, she stayed on.

"Life is just a series of choices. It's all very binary", had been her unequivocal stance for years. This time, there was no choice. Fate had gripped her by the gut and categorically handed her the red pill. Her feigned black and white life was drenched in a sudden spurt of color. Even beauty, as she reluctantly admitted when no one was listening. Red, purple and blue. Almost too true.

She unwittingly had something to hold, to crush and try to break if she wanted to; everything she could never do to her mercurial theories. Alas! This choice was but a mirage, vicarious and tantalizing. She rightly lacked the courage to destroy or even deny what threatened to be her only claim to truth. Such serendipity will not repeat itself, will it?

An unseasonal rain may claim her beautiful colors. Serendipity may not be eternal, after all. She could be reduced to a passerby again. But for now, the moment stays frozen, she stays brazen.

PS: Cryptic as ever, a rather vain attempt at capturing an indescribably awe-inspiring moment of submission. Brickbats appreciated...

Truth

Gladly, will I show you
newer ways to hate me.
Gladly, every day!
Who better than me, any day?

Tongue-tied

The ink in my pen has dried up. I have no words to describe this strange reality. I cannot wrap my secrets in esoteric verse anymore. Where can I hide in a room of mirrors?

I'm living my choices, of honesty and innocence. I'm living my philosophies, some hypotheses I hurl out the window, others, I set in stone.

I willingly handed over the reins I hitherto held on so dearly to. I readily became a powerless blade of grass, swaying to the whims of the wind, bending to the might of the rain, blending with the miscellany of the world.

I seek not to be special. I seek not the smallest of favors. All I want is a shield from the distant hopelessness that eyes me with threatening glee.

I was reborn today in youthful exuberance. But I relegated myself to a silent crucible to wait and watch life unfold. Stretching the tendons of my patience and will, an acid test of my hope.

Attack of the wee hours

And thus I relinquish
my jaded search for
tomorrow's foggy fortune,
to relish precious today.

And thus I recite
these garbled words with
ironically mimicked conviction,
to salvage deserting faith.

For how much longer
can they persist,
my borrowed smile,
and this stolen hope?

For the day is
not too far away
when truth decides
to rest its case.

PS: Travails of my sleep deprived mind

Enslaved

Smiles reign cyclical windows
of time, too fast and finite,
Nature curses me with
her precision clockwork.

PS: I'm probably enslaved by my four-liners too. I need to stop!

Escapism

Hiding in dark crevices
of cryptic verse,
belittling the power
of the truth, so naked.

Confession

Every faceless person-
a child of deception,
just a lowly pawn in
my checkered pursuits.

Craft

Clever camouflage
of feisty superlatives,
sprightliness that deceives
neither you nor me.

Lament

Can my words, hurriedly scrawled,
capture the pathos of
these trivial moments
I die to tell you about?

Can my thoughts, ardently willed,
travel long weary miles
without fear of wrath
for untimely transgression?

These days...

Lost in an ethereal
maze of words...
A treasure hunt
worth an eternity.

Unfettered by chains
of crippling want...
Freedom, akin to a
walk in the rain.

Sigh

Fervently, do I seek
long lost innocence,
albeit through designs
that defeat the end.

Estranged reality

So deceptively easy-
living a surreal life,
in the indistinguishable medley
of dying night and dawning day.

Irrational obstinacy-
the remnant reluctance,
to destroy the tangled web
of a misjudged past.

Such humongous effort-
turning a blind eye,
to the insidious enticements
of the wicked unknown.

My newest vice

I have long been resigned to the fact that I am not a contented person. I almost cherish and nurture discontent, for I believe it is a harbinger of ambition, and consequently, achievement. But for the first time in my life greed accosted me and now I know how different a beast it really is. Greed can seep up like the slow warmth of alcohol slipping down the throat. Warmth that rapidly becomes an unforgiving heat, a burning desire. What I naively imagined to be an ephemeral tryst with an unknown vice opened a Pandora's Box of realization.

I'm greedy for time. Time for pursuits close to my heart. Time for those special few. Such greed, only timelessness can sate. Even eternity is insufficient.

The times when I behave like there's no tomorrow. The uncontrollable urge to bare my entire self within moments. The involuntary rush to talk faster than my racing thoughts. The constant battle with nature to stretch time on the sly. All of this is greed indeed.

There is greed in the questions that haunt my mind. In my undying thirst for an instant answer to every question, every time. And in my need to dichotomize all of life into right and wrong. There is greed in my determination to wipe away every threatening hint of gray.

Greed rules the need for approval. The craving to be wanted, accepted and appreciated blurs the line between the normal and the irrational. Importance is an avaricious quest, the unfortunate weakness of our insecure race.

Restlessness is a form of greed. Impatience, its inevitable child. There is greed in the urge to second guess life, in the hunt for binoculars to get a sneak preview of the future.

Greed! My newest acquaintance. Greed! The mother of my insomnia.

PS: Musings during my flight down to Peru. Glories of wonderful Peru coming up soon!

Dearest Stranger

You trespass on territories of my mind I am yet to christen. Born in a moment of hopelessness, you could have well been the proverbial cul-de-sac. Instead, you brought with you a promise, an arcane wisdom I accept without question. You induce a magical silence... a reassuring calm that life will be recognizable again. You effortlessly paint a beauty you don't see yourself. You epitomize possibility. And a hitherto unknown desire for perfection. You lend me your ear and your voice. I know not your touch, or even your face, for that matter.

But thanks to you, I stop to listen to the spring bird's song. I hold my breath as I pass the river on my way home. I stand unaffected amidst milling masses, counting stars and searching the moon for your hiding face. I even smile as the chilly wind rushes through my hair. The coffee between my hands rouses thoughts of a lover's warmth. My snug coat feels like an embrace. The roaring airplane above makes me yearn to fly. The universe is enticing again!

Stranger who rules my mind! Who are you? How do you evoke such excess?

Delusional

I make half-hearted
promises to an
imagined god, a barter
against my dark demands