Because you could love and you did

We all love in a way we don't understand
 can't comprehend
This was before the act lost its novelty
 and intensity with over-usage
After a point of time
you stop counting it
 you stop wondering if it's special
because its lost the newness of it
 the shine of newly struck gold
 when it was still shining
and the world seemed glorious
because you could love
 and you did.

Feeling cold on a summer day

Because it is slightly cold on a summer day
and I am aching for things that are far beyond
 my reach- you, for example, and cigarettes,
 the ingredients of my youth which is frowned
 upon here, at home, I am trying to make sense
 of the world that I find myself in once again,
 over the years I have learnt to recognize
 the subtleties and the grace in many things
 but I am yet to reconcile with moral duplicity,
 when a woman was  found murdered by
a married man, the women's character
 is questioned, and made her love her crime,
not the murder by the man. I don't know
 many things, I don't know how minds work,
 I see so many signs which I can't describe
 but which troubles me nonetheless.
I am left feeling cold on a summer day.

Anxieties and possibilities

Lying beside you, shuddering
under the weight of possibilities,
the limitations of the present,
I can only plan till tomorrow's
breakfast of strawberries and milk,
even stretch it to next week
when I mentally decide to run to your place
first thing in the morning. There are things
that I look forward to and yet despair
that the future might bring too many changes,
too many demands on our lives,
that these ordinary days will fade away.

Because you always thought you were young
And it would take time sometime to catch up with you
That it would stop by and watch as you laugh
with the carelessness that only stays for so long,
the length of one a piano sonata you might have heard
when you were easing into sleep one May afternoon
And that time would understand that you are preoccupied
With struggles that you have not yet found proper solutions to,
That there are no permanent solutions, only the waiting
for it to disrupt again, for the wounds to reopen again and bleed
If only time would wait for you as you go about folding your clothes
scattered over the room after a frantic search for the perfect clothes
to wear on a Saturday evening-out, if time would wait as you take your
 leisurely walk down the tree-lined road to nowhere, lost in
thoughts of what-ifs and what-it-would-bes
If only it would sit with you while you read your book,
 you would even offer time tea and biscuits,
But it is almost two years now and you can't always be young
and irresponsible, there are things taking shape beyond your control
 and immediacy of other lives are telling you that you
have to somehow collect the best that is left of you
Because that is what you have always done.

So what have you learnt so far

So what have you learnt so far,

Apart from what everyone keeps telling you- 

that you should learn algebra, sit like a lady-

 straightbacked, hands folded,  crossed legged,

 to close your mouth when you chew your food

 and definitely definitely not talk while chewing,

 write in such a way to please the examiner

 and better your handwriting, keep your room clean

 and to organise your wardrobe so that a mountain

 of clothes and miscellaneous objects(probably love

 letters received and hate/apology letters never sent) 

don’t descend on you like an avalanche when you

 open your cupboard, to lock up everything you

 can possible lock(but you can’t conceive why

 anyone would waste their energy stealing

 worthless things that you own),

You have learnt to not kick rocks when  Madgirl

 drives you crazy(with rage ofcourse), to hold on to J

 even when things get difficult and he talks in the way

 that reminds you of departures and makes you cry

 but it still makes sense to hold on because you both 

are worth holding on to, to preserve letters even if

 they are absurd and illegible and never sent because

 you were what you wrote and you are what

 you are writing, to walk as much as possible 

as long as there is no risk of heatstroke or being robbed

 and other horrid things because it makes you feel  healthy

 and less fat and the most engaging conversations can take place, 

you miss home but you dread it and it is something you

 will take a lifetime to figure out but then again these might

 be one of those things which are never fully understood 

and that’s why you obsess over it so much.

You know how you are at nineteen

You know how you are at nineteen,

halfway through despair and hope,

 trying to quit some things, trying to

pick up a few fallen dreams, stepping on

 crunchy brown leaves, talking a wrong

turn on the way to the dentist, feeling as

scared as you were at six when you suffered

 your first toothache, and finding a florist,

your eyes feasting on riot of colours

each bunch more lovelier than the other

 yellow daffodils just the way Wordsworth

 described them, violet gladiolus, pristine white lilies,

 though you trampled on your mother’s flower beds

as a child and delighted in plucking them, intending it

 for prayer services to a deity of toy- blonde blue-eyed

teen on a her red convertible, the envy of

 the neighbouring kids, and then you think

of how you would be a twenty-something, with a house

of your own-furnished with white curtains with delicate

 prints of carnations daintily flying to welcome you

as you open your door, a warm red rug

 at the centre of your living room, yellow chairs

in the kitchen, shelves of books in every room,

 a clock from a street in St. Moritz, the wall hanging

 from Rangoon and other things, because by then

you would have been to a few places, covered 1/110^th of the world,

 so  you imagine how at twenty-something,

you would pick up a bunch of flowers and head home?

MadGirl's Birthday

You look absurd

With that frown on your face

Strange objects perched on your head

Exhibiting terrible grins,

(Only you know what I am talking about)

Old pictures.Your birthday.

Another one has you twirling your hair.

Staring into space.

White and blue tadpoles.Books piled up.

My back turned against the camera.

My hands blurred as I reached out

To snatch the book from your hands.