You can't help but laugh
At the absurdity of tears
The madness and the heat
The falling ill, the recovering
When you stayed up shivering all night
Wondering if you were dying
Like that time three years ago
The same time of the year.
Deja vu.

Fardeen made me take the inkblot test.

One of the statement said - someone you loved has decided to let you go and move on.

So I guess I knew.

You didn't have to write so much of what you didn't feel like writing.

you could have just said goodbye.

I would have understood.

Goodbye, fare thee well 

Birthdays are strange days

Birthdays are strange days
It's stranger how
You will never be same person I knew
With each passing year.
You will grow up without me,          
You will experience the world sans me by your side
Which breaks my heart a little bit
I can't help it, it does
But whatever we had, I still have
The years, our shimmering youth
And maybe I will learn to let you go without always wanting to stake a claim in your heart , in your life,
Always wishing for a bit of you.
The usual- tears and cigarettes
It's almost hilarious in its tragedy. 

Out of nowhere

Sometimes while watching a movie
And out of nowhere
Out of the blue of the night
I miss you
I thought it wouldn't come back again
This tightening of the chest
The burning the plummeting the longing
The past coming back in waves
Some with more intensity than others
Was it in another lifetime I used to come walking to your place on early misty mornings,
So full of love I thought I would burst into flames.

Walking in CP
In search of a Marlboro advance
Many cities away from you
I am reminded of the city in which you lie enclosed
Even those days when I spent discovering it on my own
Initially overwhelmed by the newness of it, the strangeness, the surging never - ending crowd like waves after waves
And then stumbling upon the joy of travelling alone
I felt my fear and apprehension slipping away
And the gripping realisation that I would be alright
We manage we will survive
I wonder if this is how you felt in your first days

And that I can do anything, go anywhere , be on my own,
That I am stronger and smarter than I  thought myself capable
And then the delight of seeing you at the end of every day
Always a bit pensive
Sometimes so animated
Other times so wary and hurt
Over connections and disconnections
Over so much and so little
The audacity of our lives
Intertwining once again
Just for a little while
And disbelieving,
The intimacy of being enclosed in your  house
The familiarity of your old clothes
Of your old bones
A dream I remember with a little ache.

Hey you,
Bad internet, yes.
Liked your posts from Papa's phone.
Wrote so much but couldn't get myself to post them.
Too sentimental, I think later.
Too much everything.

I love it when you blab though.
I spent 20th a wreck, crying myself to sleep,
You still have that hold over me,
Even after all this time,
After so many sobbing goodbyes.

It's lovely to be back home though
I haven't seen everyone in so long
I spent the last 12 days reading.
I haven't read so much in so long.
I wish I knew how these people write so staggeringly well.
Makes me want to weep at the beauty of it.

I hope you get a chance to wear the jacket.
Even I am looking forward to a nice drink and a smoke
Once I get back to Delhi.
Climbed the same old hill I used to climb.
I feel so ancient somehow.

It's always always always lovely hearing from you.
Even if it means a torrent of feelings come  rushing back.
Not just feelings though, much more than that.
People go.
But people also stay back in those who loved them,
 Still love them. Always.
Have a great year ahead you. You deserve so so much.
 

We have always had our hearts
broken by cities
You and I
Places which hold our dreams
Our secrets our promises
It has a hold over us
I can see it in the gleam of your eyes        
 In your slow intake of breath
Always remembering you in cities
Cities which has memories of you
Because I whisper  your name
Trailing all that is left of you in me
We imprint our mortal names
On the edge of these towns        
Its sidewalks littered  with our drunkenness
Places we love at first sight          
Other places that grow on us        
Remembered cities forgotten towns
We map them all in our palms
To be read like a horoscope
We have always had our heart
 broken by cities
As though cities were lovers