The City in the Seashells

The tide of my feelings was receding. The sand was still moist from the touch of your waves. The sea shells of your memories were scattered haphazardly and I had decided to let them be instead of picking and collecting them like I used to. There were nights when my dreams carried my soul to the shore of your waves where I sat lone on the big dark-grey bumped rock of your love while my whites were soaked in the green moss of my disappointment in you. The sky was dark but cloudless and clear. I knew now that you would never come by. The glacial winds played a mockery at me as they settled on my bare shoulders, teasing me with slow penetrating stabs of jibes. There were no wounds but there was pain and the scars that their dagger inflicted upon me ran deep into my soul.

The waves were calm at the surface but I could sense the wild under current that I knew would, one day, submerge the city of my existence. The moon was flat and pale yellow like the sullen pages of an old untouched book that had gathered layers of dust overnight. The air carried a familiar smell of melancholy and I breathed it in and out without any prejudices as I had come to recognize it way too well now. The winds blew my flower imprinted white dress hence and forth like a dog tethering at it's owner and my mirrored sling bag that hung loose from my bare shoulder jingled, playing a clunter in the glory of it's contents. I watched them toss my desires as I saw my hopes fall hither tither but this time, I didn't run to gather them.

I continued to stay while I gazed at the north star shining bright beside the dreamy moon as the moonlight swam in a backstroke on the waves with an obvious but lazy kind of ease. The shore was vast, abandoned and lifeless. The sand was bruised with the footprints of the many forlorn lovers whose verselets once wreathed the sea in inscriptions like an emerald diadem but now only resounded completely in the memory of generations of sea winds as love lores. I could hear the song of the sea girls as it chorused at a distance. It was the kind of song whose rhythm could plunder a heart and when the tune stopped, everything would be quiet. 

I walked seawards towards the voices until I was soaked waist deep into the stillness of the moment. My feet dug into the red and brown reeds and dissolved into the sand like quicksilver. I conceded to the ebb and flow of the tides to submerge my existence into yours for the one last time. One by one, I pulled out the ivory colored sea shells I had preserved overtime from my mirrored sling bag. I touched them delicately to feel the smooth ripples of your design and the jagged rough edges. Each one of them had your name carved on it and so each one of them was oh so close to my heart and precious beyond words or value. Ever so slightly, I let them slip into the pallid hoops of waters that would float them to where they truly belonged - into the abysmal sea bed of my heart; where I had parked the bottles of my unsent confessions; where the sea girls penned and weaved their songs; where the remains of the wrecked vessels lay.

Fading

You are fading. Fast evaporating like spirit. And while I know it's for the greater good, a part of me still doesn't want to let go. The part that hopes and believes that good things come to good people. The part that has faith. The part that never learns from the past. The part that waits impatiently in the corner and jumps up at every little noise hoping it's you. 

Not So Far Away

The moon is shining at my window tonight

And I know it's shining at yours too because you aren't that far away.

I gaze bedazzled at the celestial while it's fashion replaces your reflection;

Caught in my eyes, the last time I saw your face.

I see you walk out as the moonlight steps inside me to stroke my soul in comfort

I had only found in the love of a stranger astray.

And everytime I blink, a little bit of that comfort escapes me, pinch by pinch, drop by drop;

Slithering cautiously till it elopes out of the window, leaving me estranged.

Oh! Lover of the yesteryear! Behold your lovely self out of your window,

So the comfort in that silver moonlight that has touched my heart 

Shall find it's way to your heart too. 

If not tonight, nonetheless someday.

Disappointment and It's Second Cousin

And I saw it again, while it sneaked behind you with a kind of nervous trepidation as if it were afraid to offend those around it. Those stubbed hollows of eyes like it had seen too much in a time too less; weary composure on a pale cracked skin; haggled and shabby, dreary from living a life with no purpose or end. 

I caught it's undefined contours moving in stealth while it's cloak of disturbing shades of black exposed it's thread bare loose ends. They dragged in a lazy conversation with the grim around it. Boneless and frail, it's fingers looked as if they were ripped precariously by a dagger in frantic haste. With a lingering aura of sepulcher, it smelled of death. 

It introduced itself in a murky baritone with a reference from it's second cousin, Hope; the comforting juggernaut of a lady I had run into last night. Dressed in a floral dress of primary hues, she had sung me a lullaby and tucked me into the warm blanket of illusions while the snow glazed winter of Reality froze outside my window. I had felt like an abandoned child who had found the affection of her long lost mother. 

She had sent her condolences through the harbinger. It was a tattered note of anemic yellow with beautiful cursives dancing in tandem with each other. If only the message was that flattering, I wished. The ink was smeared from the sweat of humility of the dark man. I could but only leave the message to my imagination. But the last few words clearly read that she shall visit me again. 

Twenty Five Seconds of Bliss

I opened my eyes to find myself in an uncomfortable wooden box locked from the inside. Panicked, I looked for the key frantically till all I found was disappointment. I had to find the key that fit the lock. And so I searched again. And again, while I kept staggering upon splinters of misfortune that kept me locked inside for what felt like days. 

I had begun to notice the aesthetics of the construct of the inside walls; the contours designed by the cracks and the art in the dark green blotches. While I struggled in the dark, the saw dust dancing in the pencil thin ray of stifled optimism found it's way to me through the keyhole. Ah! That sweet yet humid smell of hope. Once it stung my soul, it precipitated and drenched the collars of my anguish and replaced it with a million flickering crimson red candles that consumed me till I was left at the mercy of my belief in a power much higher than my own. I acknowledged it and accepted it. It didn't annihilate me but it grounded me immensely.

As the walls of the box began to crumble around me, I wondered whether I had found the right key or outgrown the constraints of my own box. I ambled onto the streets of my new found perspective with a calm too endearing to behold. There was a sense of quiet inside me that I had never stumbled upon before; the kind of silence that only the colors of a picturesque could contain; sublime and serene yet disturbing to the heart but only enough to bring tears of tenderness to the eyes. And so, while it lasted, I resigned to it in a blissful surrender.

The Eve of the Shooting Star

I saw a shooting star tonight and I held my hand to my heart, shut my eyes and wished for you. I don't believe in miracles but I believe in you and me. And there is absolutely no place else besides your arms, where I would rather be. So brace yourself because although right now there is no reason to at all. But when your heart is next to mine, the world will be magical.

To The Person You Used to Be

"The moment rewinds like a film in my mind. There always comes a time to an ending I despise. Someday, when it's not too late; Someday, when I stop myself from running your way. Will I see the good in good-bye, you say?"

The pain of letting go - why does one have to go through it? Is it not easier to not love at all and live as detached beings. Are the forgetful really that blessed? 

Had I wished to, I could choose to erase your presence from my life like death rips soul from a body; gracefully, not a trace left behind. But I chose the path of dealing with the pain; of memorizing it and accepting it as my very own. It's a slow gradual process but it is also the one that'll truly acknowledge your presence in my life; like the last rites are performed to redeem a soul from the worldly belongings. It is painful, true; but it is only after you have earned the redemption that your journey begins; that you can truly say that you have really loved. 

You never acknowledged my presence in your life. You may also wonder what about us stirred such strong emotions in me. It could have been a look, or a touch, or a few words exchanged out of sheer politeness. The truth is that even I am unaware. But what I do know with certainty is that when I discover it I would have discovered something I don't have a name for. 

Every strong relationship writes on art, I feel. But maybe, it was only I amongst both of us who gave this relationship the tangible form that it deserves. I couldn't voice it earlier because I was apprehensive about what you might think. But now it's time for me to leave and I guess I have nothing else to lose.  

With Love,

To the person you used to be. 

Thirty Seconds

“I’ve been trying today to bring back your face. Most clearly I remember your eyes, with a kind of teasing smile in them, and the feeling of that soft spot just northeast of the corner of your mouth against my lips.”

A month has passed but everyday, since the past three weeks I have been spending eight hours a day to catch a thirty seconds glimpse of you; wishing you would say something to someone and I would get to hear your voice; wondering if you had anything left unsaid to me and hoping that you would say it now.

You leave me with a little of you everytime you pass me by. Sometimes, you smile; sometimes you wink and sometimes you just make a funny face. It might last a moment for you but for me it stays. It stays for the next few hours; lasts while I am on my way back home and barely enough till I put myself to bed with a thought of a better tomorrow. But tomorrow never gets better and now I just do it so that I can take home enough of you along with me to last for the day. 

There are days when I don’t see you at all. On days like these I shut my eyes and though I am almost always unsure of my ability to recall faces, yours just brightens the screen of my retina bringing back tattered bits of memories that I have with you which I have gathered over time. It’s like a collage and I relive each picture, no matter how small or big; and I secretly wish I had danced with you that night while you held me close instead of breaking into fits of crazy laughter to veil my awkwardness. 

I don’t know what I feel for you. If I wouldn’t have known love, I would have thought that I love you. But I don’t. It’s an unfamiliar magnetic force that pulls me and my thoughts towards the farthest stretch of your memory. It’s a feeling of strong emotions mixed with pangs of guilty pleasures; bouts of longing for soft sensual caressing mixed with wild scent of desire and animal passion. And while I desperately crave for your warm breath against my racing heartbeats and for your sweat against mine, those thirty seconds still suffice.

I miss you. I really really do. And irrespective of what logic tells me, I still believe with my entire existence that    you’ll come by and reciprocate instead of merely responding to my feelings in affirmative or otherwise. I know   I told you that I need you. That night I was drunk. But I guess I was right.