tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-69404348978678140042024-03-19T06:08:46.983-07:00Chronicles of a time-traveller.pooja elangbamhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09882342851399175216noreply@blogger.comBlogger181125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6940434897867814004.post-78914396394728972332017-07-24T11:19:00.000-07:002017-07-24T11:19:57.546-07:00Look how you are breaking my heart<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
Look how you are<br />
breaking my heart,<br />
Look how you have got me<br />
all muddled up inside.<br />
And what coincidence to have<br />
"Lovers in Paris" start<br />
playing from my playlist;<br />
a sign from the universe<br />
to let you go or to keep you?<br />
I have to give it to you<br />
for doing it in the most<br />
delicious way.</div>
pooja elangbamhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09882342851399175216noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6940434897867814004.post-62080982821313770502017-07-18T10:47:00.001-07:002017-07-19T03:07:51.689-07:00What is a girl to do?<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
A sickness pervades my being,<br />
I can feel your absence spreading<br />
through my blood, slowly, pain-<br />
stakingly meandering its way<br />
to my heart, even the air that I<br />
breathe hangs heavy and contorted,<br />
suspended in its wake because<br />
you are not around, this sickness<br />
wounds its way to my wrist which<br />
you last held, your touch is<br />
imprinted in my bones.<br />
I can trace the onset of this illness<br />
from my lips which you last kissed,<br />
its aftertaste still strong in my mouth.<br />
My heart is full of you,<br />
what is a girl to do?<br />
<br /></div>
pooja elangbamhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09882342851399175216noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6940434897867814004.post-86150041074165216002017-07-18T10:34:00.000-07:002017-07-18T10:34:09.586-07:00Look how we have disassembled each other<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
I don't want to love you<br />
if I can't be with you.<br />
It's as simple and complicated<br />
as that, because I don't want to<br />
carry this ache around with me;<br />
this irrational illogical desire<br />
for you, I don't want you<br />
just as forbidden fruit,<br />
I want you accessible, real.<br />
You say you love me,<br />
and I am in love with you<br />
but is that the same thing?<br />
But to say it would be<br />
sending it out to the universe,<br />
to say it would be making<br />
a promise and I don't want to<br />
make promises I can't keep.<br />
How did we get here, you and I,<br />
so soon so fast, would it last?<br />
Look how we have utterly<br />
disassembled each other.<br />
<br /></div>
pooja elangbamhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09882342851399175216noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6940434897867814004.post-79149817411531309852017-07-17T10:18:00.002-07:002017-07-17T10:18:36.062-07:00Look what you have done.<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
How did we get here,<br />
you and I?<br />
You, with your infectious laughter,<br />
carrying an air of being at home<br />
anywhere in the world.<br />
And I, who smiled for the first<br />
time when we met after<br />
a year of sulking around.<br />
You, with your terrible jokes<br />
that make my stomach ache,<br />
the easiness with which you<br />
hold my attention, my hand, my mouth<br />
And I, with my acute awkwardness<br />
at anything to do with feelings,<br />
and my obsessive desire to kiss you,<br />
as persistant as a toothache.<br />
So there I was<br />
being perfectly miserable but now<br />
you have changed everything.<br />
Because here I am,<br />
missing you and longing for you;<br />
not even a bearable once-in-a-while<br />
thing, but this awful reminder<br />
of your absence, like a sickness.<br />
Look what you have done.</div>
pooja elangbamhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09882342851399175216noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6940434897867814004.post-37653995741996549302017-07-16T08:31:00.001-07:002017-07-16T08:31:17.935-07:00A thing of wonder<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
It feels strange to be so utterly<br />
happy and contended when I am<br />
with you, as though the world has<br />
been set right somehow, stranger still<br />
because we both know it isn't so, not<br />
in this place we call home shimmering<br />
with discontent and misgivings.<br />
But I forget that when I am with you,<br />
I can only think of your hands<br />
holding mine and how it falls<br />
perfectly into place, and that I want<br />
to kiss you everytime I look at you,<br />
sometimes I don't even care if<br />
people are looking or judging.<br />
When I am with you, I could<br />
sit for hours and we don't even have<br />
to be talking and I would still<br />
be smiling to myself counting the<br />
black dots on your hands, and suddenly<br />
the most mundane matters of existence<br />
would become a thing of wonder.<br />
<br />
<br /></div>
pooja elangbamhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09882342851399175216noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6940434897867814004.post-48333557939416534522017-07-07T09:49:00.002-07:002017-07-07T09:49:47.229-07:00Is this the life you wanted?<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
Always this reticent heart<div>
trying to retreat into itself,</div>
<div>
Always this doubt when it comes</div>
<div>
to loving, being loved.</div>
<div>
Life is happening too fast,</div>
<div>
too soon, how do you get a</div>
<div>
grip on it? You are accustomed</div>
<div>
to life moving slowly, all you</div>
<div>
wanted was to write and have</div>
<div>
a house by the sea; but what </div>
<div>
I have now holding in the palm</div>
<div>
of my hands, this terrible beauty</div>
<div>
you and I, this bewildering</div>
<div>
transition in my life and </div>
<div>
here I am asking myself-</div>
<div>
Is this the life you wanted?</div>
</div>
pooja elangbamhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09882342851399175216noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6940434897867814004.post-63525859171007862452017-07-06T10:24:00.002-07:002017-07-06T10:24:46.548-07:00Light- headedness<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
You are getting to me, I can tell<div>
because I can barely stop thinking <div>
about kissing you, barely contain</div>
<div>
this light-headedness I feel around </div>
<div>
you, and I am thinking when</div>
<div>
will I get to see you next, </div>
<div>
and I am thinking even though</div>
<div>
I burnt my tongue drinking coffee</div>
<div>
due to sheer giddiness the last time</div>
<div>
I was with you, it is as though </div>
<div>
I am back to being a sixteen </div>
<div>
year old and this is happening</div>
<div>
for the first time.</div>
</div>
</div>
pooja elangbamhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09882342851399175216noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6940434897867814004.post-8276018293512100652017-07-02T03:46:00.001-07:002017-07-02T10:43:12.747-07:00Semiotics<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
<div>
Our goodbyes aren't punctuated</div>
<div>
by hugs, but with an awkward </div>
<div>
detachment hanging midair;</div>
<div>
You, with caution,</div>
<div>
I, with propriety in mind.</div>
<div>
because the air between us feels</div>
<div>
so tense that I am conscious</div>
<div>
of even the slightest of movements.</div>
<div>
I laughed so much last night</div>
<div>
when you mentioned that</div>
<div>
I might be averse to hugs</div>
<div>
because you don't know the half of it</div>
<div>
and I am not sure I am willing </div>
<div>
to tell you; and if I sent you a poem</div>
<div>
would it confuse you further?</div>
</div>
pooja elangbamhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09882342851399175216noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6940434897867814004.post-17142185807289317372017-06-24T09:34:00.000-07:002017-06-26T09:01:34.417-07:00Poems as prayers<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
Halfway through the year<br />
<div>
and how you have changed since,</div>
<div>
here you are now<br />
offering poems as prayers.</div>
</div>
pooja elangbamhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09882342851399175216noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6940434897867814004.post-76983566572891714672017-06-22T10:07:00.001-07:002017-06-22T10:18:28.860-07:00All I want<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
All I want is to make it<br />
till the end of this year<br />
without breaking down.<br />
A year in this place is getting to me<br />
it's turning my blood toxic and<br />
my heart all twisted up.<br />
How awful it would be to die<br />
not having lived much,<br />
it makes me sick just thinking of it<br />
I long so much for freedom,<br />
after all these years still struggling<br />
for it, after all these years dreaming<br />
the same dream.<br />
What a dread life is without<br />
the freedom to love, to feel,<br />
to make mistakes.<br />
What a relief it would be<br />
to be holding a cup of coffee<br />
while sitting across from you.</div>
pooja elangbamhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09882342851399175216noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6940434897867814004.post-45743408709490870172017-06-09T11:03:00.002-07:002017-06-09T11:03:45.472-07:00Meeting at the coffeeshop<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
Our laughter lingers in the coffeeshop;<br />
I hardly went to one before you,<br />
Our voices mingling with so many others;<br />
Strangers who are now<br />
serving slices of themselves<br />
to the human warmth of living<br />
before death gets us all.<br />
How absurd, how insignificant<br />
this day might seem in retrospect<br />
that you would drive down all<br />
the way just to see me for the few minutes<br />
that I could give you.<br />
And how our lives have been rearranging<br />
themselves this whole time<br />
based on random chances;<br />
a word, a message, a smile.</div>
pooja elangbamhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09882342851399175216noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6940434897867814004.post-23736913534668057382017-06-01T10:43:00.000-07:002017-06-01T10:43:08.873-07:00Hoping that writing would hold me<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
My swollen heart is aching again,<div>
it loves too easily, it sinks all too often</div>
<div>
Sometimes life feels like a minefield</div>
<div>
of anxieties and I think I stepped on one day.</div>
<div>
I am always waiting for my life to start </div>
<div>
Today it felt like its a long time coming</div>
<div>
And anxiety, my old friend, came back again</div>
<div>
to sit beside me, shaking me out of</div>
<div>
the lull of everyday life. </div>
<div>
Old fears came to haunt me again,</div>
<div>
what if life is but endless hours</div>
<div>
of dreadful mediocre conversations,</div>
<div>
and fullfillment of duties,</div>
<div>
mechanical loving and working?<br />Whatever happened to great passion?</div>
<div>
And am I truly living life on my own terms?</div>
<div>
Weaknesses stepped out,</div>
<div>
looking to hold me hostage,</div>
<div>
So here I am,</div>
<div>
asking for small miracles,</div>
<div>
Hoping that writing would hold me</div>
<div>
so that I won't break into</div>
<div>
tiny little pieces I can't glue back.</div>
<div>
So here I am,</div>
<div>
hoping for the strength to return</div>
<div>
and keep me company</div>
<div>
while I wait for the despair to subside.</div>
</div>
pooja elangbamhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09882342851399175216noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6940434897867814004.post-16575262028447256382017-05-31T08:39:00.001-07:002017-06-01T10:43:39.305-07:00Time doesn't stop for us<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
Time doesn't stop for us,<br />
it accelerates and swirls<br />
We maintain an unbearable distance<br />
between us, for propriety's sake.<br />
We still catch each other's glances<br />
and smile from across the room,<br />
always heavily aware of each other's presence<br />
even when we aren't in each other's<br />
line of sight; the secrets that lovers keep<br />
And whenever evening draws to a close<br />
my heart sinks like that time in school<br />
when Sunday outings used to end<br />
and there was the unmistakable<br />
dread of the drudgery of Monday.<br />
Our hearts sink in perfect congruity.<br />
And you ask me if I am alright,<br />
like you always do.<br />
I leave with a whispered goodbye,<br />
my heart breaking as I turn away from you;<br />
no goodbye hugs and kisses<br />
for lovers like you and I.</div>
pooja elangbamhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09882342851399175216noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6940434897867814004.post-27754660615692213612017-05-23T03:40:00.000-07:002017-06-01T10:44:00.936-07:00Toothache<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
The first flush of desire<br />
<div>
is akin to a toothache,</div>
<div>
you are constantly running</div>
<div>
your tongue over it,</div>
<div>
fixated on the acute pain.</div>
</div>
pooja elangbamhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09882342851399175216noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6940434897867814004.post-18826016357175047392017-05-22T12:10:00.002-07:002017-06-01T10:44:29.138-07:00Humming of your heart<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
What we want from lovers<br />
is their stories, all the details<br />
that make up the person we yearn for<br />
We want to know the first time<br />
you scalded your knee, the first<br />
girl you fell in love with,<br />
even that distance you keep with<br />
your father, and were you loved?<br />
We want to know<br />
how you appeared in my life<br />
and changed everything even by<br />
the most mundane of encounters.<br />
<br />
We want to know the feel of your skin,<br />
already our hands lying in proximity on the table<br />
before us seem to shoot electric currents,<br />
we want to know how it feels like<br />
to sink into your world and then swim up again,<br />
we want so much all at once,<br />
it's as though we set ourselves<br />
up for disappointment,<br />
Sometimes we think the whole damn world<br />
is contained in a person,<br />
in lovers who aren't yet lovers,<br />
What we want is as incoherent as this<br />
poem, full of fits and starts,<br />
of restless waiting and longing,<br />
the whole world suspended in the wake of<br />
the whirlwind of whatever-this-insanity-is.<br />
And what I wouldn't give to be beside you again,<br />
on the road to somewhere, nowhere,<br />
leaning against you, listening to<br />
the humming of your heart.<br />
<br />
<br />
<br />
<br />
<br /></div>
pooja elangbamhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09882342851399175216noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6940434897867814004.post-68223967181272125852017-05-17T03:33:00.000-07:002017-05-17T03:33:24.244-07:00Grief is intimate<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
Grief is intimate in a way<br />
joy can never be,<br />
It chokes you out of breath,<br />
It carves rivulets of hollow-nothings<br />
in the cavity of your chest<br />
By now you know one can<br />
grieve for oneself, selfishly, childishly.<br />
Grief lurks in waits for you<br />
when you are hanging onto\a mugful<br />
of tea one uneventful afternoon<br />
to take possession of you,<br />
to make you realise the gravity<br />
of your loss.<br />
Even that rage you carried<br />
with you all of last year,<br />
it dissipated like everything else,<br />
lost, irretrievably lost,<br />
shedding parts of you<br />
that you thought you couldn't<br />
possibly live without.<br />
It's as though the world has finally<br />
opened its gates for you<br />
and you are hurtling<br />
in a pace and direction<br />
you can't quite control.<br />
And those mental images that<br />
you still hold on to somehow,<br />
Childhood relics that haunt you,<br />
asking you if you really found<br />
the great adventure you were looking for?<br />
<br />
<br />
<br />
<br />
<br />
<br />
<br />
<br />
<br />
<br />
<br />
<br />
<br />
you </div>
pooja elangbamhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09882342851399175216noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6940434897867814004.post-70778085841431378112017-05-13T12:01:00.001-07:002017-05-17T03:34:33.085-07:00Stay<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
We started with awkward smiles<br />
<div>
now we are asking about dream houses,</div>
<div>
City or countryside?</div>
<div>
Collecting intimate details</div>
<div>
as lovers do(but we aren't lovers,</div>
<div>
not yet)</div>
<div>
In this little town, admidst rumblings</div>
<div>
of history and misfortunes,</div>
<div>
we have somehow found </div>
<div>
in each other</div>
<div>
a reason to stay.</div>
<div>
I could love you</div>
<div>
But you are settled in your ways,</div>
<div>
I am still forming myself</div>
<div>
And haven't really decided on</div>
<div>
the life I want.</div>
<div>
So I tell myself</div>
<div>
not to be swept away</div>
<div>
by the storm of your arrival.</div>
<div>
I could love you</div>
<div>
but these are years of my life</div>
<div>
when I will always put myself first.</div>
<div>
You tell me that you haven't felt such</div>
<div>
desperation to come home as you do now,</div>
<div>
But home is not where</div>
<div>
I imagined I would be in my twenties.</div>
<div>
I still let myself have an alternate </div>
<div>
storyline though,</div>
<div>
one in which we could have ended up </div>
<div>
together and I wouldn't be so worried</div>
<div>
about rushing into a storm</div>
<div>
I can't control.</div>
<div>
the one in which</div>
<div>
you asked me to stay<br />
and I did.<br />
<br />
<br />
<br />
<br />
<br />
<br />
<br />
<br />
<br />
<br />
<br />
<br />
<br />
<br />
<br />
<br />
<br />
<br />
<br />
<br />
<br />
<br />
<br />
<br />
<br /></div>
<div>
and I did.</div>
</div>
pooja elangbamhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09882342851399175216noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6940434897867814004.post-88062467446125233602017-05-10T10:50:00.003-07:002017-05-10T10:50:22.888-07:00Oh it does<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
<div style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin: 0cm;">
<span style="font-size: 13.5pt;">Maybe that is how life chooses you,</span></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin: 0cm;">
<span style="font-size: 13.5pt;">when you are reading a book<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin: 0cm;">
<span style="font-size: 13.5pt;">wondering how to turn your life around<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin: 0cm;">
<span style="font-size: 13.5pt;">And it does,<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin: 0cm;">
<span style="font-size: 13.5pt;">Oh it does. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin: 0cm;">
<br /></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin: 0cm;">
<br /></div>
</div>
pooja elangbamhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09882342851399175216noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6940434897867814004.post-33173828462880646482017-05-07T11:14:00.001-07:002017-05-09T12:54:17.453-07:00Desire<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
<div style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin: 0cm;">
<span style="font-size: 14pt;">You are always going away</span></div>
<div style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0.0001pt;">
<span style="font-size: 14pt;">Somewhere, inhabiting a life<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0.0001pt;">
<span style="font-size: 14pt;">I know so little of,<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0.0001pt;">
<span style="font-size: 14pt;">And I am always retreating a little </span></div>
<div style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0.0001pt;">
<span style="font-size: 14pt;">into myself.</span></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin: 0cm;">
<span style="font-size: 14.0pt;">I
could say a number of things<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin: 0cm;">
<span style="font-size: 18.6667px;">For instance, I have often wondered </span></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin: 0cm;">
<span style="font-size: 18.6667px;">how it would be like to kiss you,</span></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin: 0cm;">
<span style="font-size: 18.6667px;">but there is so much at stake.</span></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin: 0cm;">
<span style="font-size: 18.6667px;">We are always surrounded by friends,</span></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin: 0cm;">
<span style="font-size: 18.6667px;">a precaution you have made a point to take</span></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin: 0cm;">
<span style="font-size: 18.6667px;">at a place like ours;</span></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin: 0cm;">
<span style="font-size: 18.6667px;">small-town stifling atmosphere</span></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin: 0cm;">
<span style="font-size: 18.6667px;">where people talk</span></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin: 0cm;">
<span style="font-size: 18.6667px;">and anything can be a fodder for scandals.</span></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin: 0cm;">
<span style="font-size: 18.6667px;">I long for you even as I sit next </span></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin: 0cm;">
<span style="font-size: 18.6667px;">to you in the car,</span></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin: 0cm;">
<span style="font-size: 18.6667px;">the air tense with our mutual desire;</span></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin: 0cm;">
<span style="font-size: 18.6667px;">I wonder if other people can sense it too.</span></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin: 0cm;">
<span style="font-size: 14pt;">Some
days you give me hints,</span></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin: 0cm;">
<span style="font-size: 14.0pt;">But
for all your years, you seem<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin: 0cm;">
<span style="font-size: 14.0pt;">As
bewildered and confused<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin: 0cm;">
<span style="font-size: 14.0pt;">On
where we stand.</span></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin: 0cm;">
<span style="font-size: 18.6667px;">By now it has grown into a fever,</span></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin: 0cm;">
<span style="font-size: 18.6667px;">consuming me like cancer,</span></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin: 0cm;">
<span style="font-size: 18.6667px;">By now you send me notes,</span></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin: 0cm;">
<span style="font-size: 18.6667px;">all along your travels,</span></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin: 0cm;">
<span style="font-size: 18.6667px;">probably missing me a little.</span></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin: 0cm;">
<br /></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin: 0cm;">
<br /></div>
</div>
pooja elangbamhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09882342851399175216noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6940434897867814004.post-5084393631571596262017-05-05T11:34:00.001-07:002017-05-09T12:53:58.286-07:00What remains of us<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
What remains of us?<br />
Not the unaccounted-for-love,<br />
Not the devastating fights<br />
Just plain wonder<br />
at how it had overwhelmed us,<br />
Struck us like a disease in the beginning<br />
and left us so drained in the end.<br />
I am no longer searching for you<br />
in other people<br />
and that is something.<br />
What remains of us;<br />
a worn-out pair of shoes,<br />
a few drops of perfume,<br />
and something that could pass for kindness.</div>
pooja elangbamhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09882342851399175216noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6940434897867814004.post-30636486527925967902017-04-03T10:41:00.001-07:002017-04-03T10:41:10.191-07:00Claim on a story<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
You've been thinking of claims that people make<br />
The love for a land which is not even theirs<br />
You wonder how that came about<br />
this righteousness, this strong emotional<br />
rumbling you hear everyday,<br />
You claim nothing, not even your dreams<br />
You've been thinking of love<br />
and home, that after all these years<br />
of being scared out of your wits<br />
to come back, you are really back<br />
and it hasn't scared the hell out of you,<br />
not yet; a part of you wants to stay here,<br />
be a part of a story the way you would never<br />
truly be a part of anywhere else,<br />
<br /></div>
pooja elangbamhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09882342851399175216noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6940434897867814004.post-36463250047212254332017-04-02T08:35:00.002-07:002017-04-02T08:35:56.598-07:00What love is this that feels like breathing<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
Because I should have written on the day<br />
you left, now I am already used to your departure,<br />
a dull ache has settled by now, the rawness<br />
has lost its edge.<br />
I can see our lives stretched out till where<br />
the ends of the earth meet the sky.<br />
We are little more than children still,<br />
finding happiness in propinquity to each other.<br />
What love is this that feels like breathing?</div>
pooja elangbamhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09882342851399175216noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6940434897867814004.post-17839785602264219302017-03-12T07:30:00.001-07:002017-03-12T07:30:53.106-07:00The change of language<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
Somewhere between last month and now<div>
You are grappling with a change of language</div>
<div>
and with it the attendant feelings</div>
<div>
of how could you have ever loved</div>
<div>
in any other language, and how sweet</div>
<div>
and melancholic everything seems now,</div>
<div>
And how easily you love</div>
<div>
the old which is now new</div>
<div>
and how when he asked you</div>
<div>
to come for the <i>thabal</i>, you had</div>
<div>
smiled and said you would. </div>
</div>
pooja elangbamhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09882342851399175216noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6940434897867814004.post-38760095494789786722017-02-25T23:15:00.001-08:002017-04-03T10:42:46.665-07:00You need to get out of here<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
You need to get out of here<br />
before you get too comfortable,<br />
already you have reverted to your<br />
old tongue and it has embraced<br />
you with open arms,<br />
the prodigal daughter that you are.<br />
Already you are drowning in<br />
the sweet dullness of this<br />
place which keeps no time,<br />
It will engulf you whole<br />
if you stay too long, you will forget<br />
the days, the months and years,<br />
Do not give your heart to this<br />
place because it doesn't keep<br />
its promises, it will offer you<br />
so much and take it all away.<br />
Already you have begun to love<br />
the rhythm, already lulled into<br />
a love as ancient as the hills.</div>
pooja elangbamhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09882342851399175216noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6940434897867814004.post-68587133276499946222017-02-23T03:15:00.003-08:002017-02-23T04:40:48.802-08:00Not even a little<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
<i>Yabane Adum </i>you say,<br />
That's how you learn languages,<br />
I think, from lovers.<br />
Though you aren't mine<br />
but another's.<br />
<i>Hayengdi emannabagi luhogba ama lei</i><br />
Anything mundane inflected with your voice<br />
registers as though a poem<br />
over which I could weep.<br />
You are not mine to claim,<br />
I tell myself<br />
You do not see me<br />
the way I see you,<br />
<i>Manakta leiragasu henna thapchaba</i><br />
But we are singing songs over coffee and tea<br />
<i>Koina paiba chekla ni</i><br />
This is madness, I know,<br />
this soaring and sinking of the heart,<br />
this licking of wounds, this thwarted affection,<br />
this lingering sensation that I cannot get rid of<br />
and the unfairness of it<br />
that you don't think of me at all,<br />
not even a little.<br />
<br /></div>
pooja elangbamhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09882342851399175216noreply@blogger.com0