Infinite boulevard

Edge of the horizon

You can sleep uninterrupted,
If you don’t mind the crying.
It is one of those terrible Thursday nights.
Only this time, I haven’t any strength to get back up,
To fight right back.

I speak of my pains,
The ones that I could never tell to your face,
The ones that I considered unimportant,
And the ones that you thought were lies.

But did you know that it was just my heart reaching out?
My heart, O’ my feeble heart.
It knows not to swim, or stroke through the foamy waters.

It’s striving harder and faster and with every passing moment,
It tires a little too much.
After all, it’s no more than flesh and blood.

It’s filled with salt from the oceans,
So much so that it needs wedging to aerate it all out.
Throbbing and pounding still,
It whispers a spell of shedding tears.

I feel like a detached house at the end of a street,
With no neighbors who invite me home,
Or a garden of flowers where one could mourn.

Just like a string that connects you to the world outside,
I am still holding on, but my grasp keeps getting weaker,
My fingers, giving up on each other,
And my mind tossing around a bit.

If you were here with me tonight,
I would have asked from you a favour or maybe two-

Hear me out.
Let my heart weep.
Take my hands and fill them with warmth.
Take me in your arms.

But I am drowning in my flaws,
Keeping my eyes on the edge of the horizon,
That touches both you and I.

I can tell

You kissed me at 2:27 am,
As the raindrops clashed like cymbals against the window pane.
A laugh in the sea of sadness;
You took my heart and thawed the growing anguish.

Our lips met in an odd old-fashioned manner,
Filling the chasm of air that floats in between our pinched noses.
Our heads tilted at angles that fit imperfectly,
Touching at the vertex and lining our eyes in a line that could be pulled straight-

I fight my dilemma and end up opening them,
Only to dive straight into yours.
They aren’t blue or hazel,
Nor they are dark and deep.

I’m surprised at how your iris is a mixture of harbor grey and charcoal,
With stretched lines that look like a separate universe altogether.

I am brought back with the touch of your hands on my neck,
They feel a little dry and fray with the freshly trimmed nails,
Yet warm and flushed with blood.

We fell into momentary pause together with agony and rapture.
You told me about your tattoo while I let you wrap yourself around me.

There are a couple of retreating laughs as we lie next to each other naked.
And in the midst of all that,
There is also a drop of tear that flows down the side of my eyes and ends up wetting your chest-

You startle,
Thinking it might be the leaking roof
And find another drop following the last one as your hands reach for my face.
Wiping it off, your fingers nudge my forehead and you plant on it another kiss-
That’s sweet and gentle and tells me that I am cared for,

I can tell.

How your heart starts to smile

There is something very endearing about old times,
Just like how your heart starts to smile-
At the smell of a diary that has been shelved for years;
Those tiny fragments of dust and dirt that sits on its cover,
That brown tinge that envelopes the pages,
Rides a straight path from your head to heart.

Wiping off the dust, as you flip across the pages,
There are letters that speak to you,
As if they were little creatures,
That twirled and danced,
Along the stages of youth and mirth.
You notice the monochrome flowers drawn
At the right and left corners.
It reminds you of the times your boredom forced an artist out of you.
There are countless scribbles of your favourite quotes,
And lyrics of Here Comes The Sun with a sun drawn alongside in black ink.

Then comes a little insight into your life,
That is written in the form of a letter to a pen friend; Voicing your feelings that very moment you wrote it-
Be it joy, anger, love or solitude;
The sullen tones of blue take over your face,
As you miss being capable of writing letters to a friend you never had.
Feeling emotions with such passion,
You mull over what happened that Sunday afternoon.

You run your fingers over the densely scratched doodles in an attempt to hide the spelling errors,
And yet again the tender strings of your heart are pulled in unison.
There is an instant change of moods,
And you flip faster to the ends of the diary.
Where you find FLAMES trials with all your high school crushes,
One of whom even liked you back and walked you home.

Your gaze is caught by meaningless calculations and unsolved math problems.
What a failure you were when it came to integrations even when you ruled over algebra;
Infinite times you find ‘x’ written and struck off,
Within houses of roots, squares and brackets.

You are reminded of an old memoir,
As you find the bookmark peeking from within the pages.
The cliché red rose that has now turned into a hue darker than black,
Yet your eyes can’t stop searching for a mesmerizing red that’s hidden inside.

You find an old photograph of your family
That fell from somewhere between those pages.
Nothing has changed in all these bygone years.
Somehow it still proves to be the only constant
Of a life that has unraveled with such speed.
There is something very endearing about old times,
It’s in the way they fill those empty spaces with momentary lapses.

Cicatrix

On this side of my skin,
The dots turn into houses,
The sores turn into hills,
The scars tune into a song of their own-
Song that reminds me of those battles fought, and lost.

Just like the girl next door, my scars are usual and customary-
But if taken the time to look at, they have legends to narrate,
Legends in their own breach.

This infringement of white and dark patches,
These freckles that scatter over my vanilla skin,
The wrinkles that shine in the moonlit nigh’.
In places, my skin is embarked with blue-black blotches,
Elsewhere, it is clad in pale white stitches.

On this side of my skin,
There are also burns that have resulted in ridges;
These ridges that run endlessly till the edges of my skin-
Lately, had a cicatricial effect on me.

They whispered silent chants into my ears,
And made me conscious-
Not all scars are meant to be tagged as ugly and hideous,
Not all scars have a great deal a struggle hidden inside them;

Some of these scars we gather as we straddle the world,
Through the wide and narrow lanes,
Some of these scars have been passed onto us,
From the generation we might have never witnessed,
While the rest are just signs that tell us of the things we musn’t indulge ourselves later.

Scars are dull, dark and void,
And subtle reminders of what’s left in the past.
They are darkened honey and stale jello,
That fill my mind with unfathomable thoughts.

It’s a glorious facade, a dying smile,
With all the hatred and those blissful lies.
It’s a riddle that remains unanswered,
A flaw that is kept incorrect-
On this side of my skin,
There is story that is remains unheard
Which one day, I shall set free.

The Winds

The lawn seems greener today.

As I step on the grass, my feet recall what it was like to spend hours laying still,

Watching the sky turn from blue into a blushed hue.

I sit here today and watch the leaves swaying,

And mellow rays of sunshine peek from the rear end.

Strangely, the wind has a sense of my moods-

It gears to velocities fast and slow,

Brings in a new something that resonates with my soul.

Like how a month ago, it brought me the rains,

The darkest clouds and the rumbling thunder.

If my body was the earth, and my heart, the sea currents,

I would term my tears rain, and my thoughts dark and sullen.

Why do the winds scroll up and down my moods?

Perhaps, it’s something that winds are capable of and people aren’t.

That month went by in drizzles and disturbances,

And the next one came in with ochre roads and spiny breezes.

I take a stroll down a lane, gathering a bunch of maple and oak leaves.

It’s mesmerizing to have a look at their changing colours,

And remain awestruck at the wonders of the universe.

Now as I head homewards, a queer feeling wraps itself around me-

Taking me back to times when I ran errands all day,

Exploring the corners of our sleepy little town,

And as dusk takes over the sky, I lay over the grasses in my lawn,

That never seems to lose colour from the lushest of greens.

It is softer than sheen to touch, and moist as a desert with dew.

The warmth that it surrounds me with could never be traded for the costliest of quilts.

I could lay here all day and night,

And wonder at how the winds have grown to know me well.

Macrocosm

Ever so often we are mesmerized by the beauty this universe unfolds.
We are drifted away into the walls of an infinite rope-
That connects us with things that are colossal,
Made of half parts helium and half parts fire.
The rope, on the edges of which hangs the belittled human race,
With divine touch of our gods and goddesses.
I say, Let’s take the path that would lead us nowhere!
And at the end of it all, we might as well learn the language of the Universe,
And find in ourselves the Soul of The World.
Who knows where it might lead us to?
I’ve always wondered if things like these would ever be worth risking it all,
Or is it just another pipe dream that comes and goes?
But isn’t life a collection of all the tiny risks that we end up taking,
And a heap of regrets that shall forever bury us in the sands of time?
From the dew that resembles cut diamonds,
To the stars that twinkle like gemstones,
This road will not lead to Rome;
I am hungry for more.
Even though I’m undernourished,
I will forever be hungry for what this universe has to offer.
There is nothing so real and alive than the cosmos with us in it.
It is a world that is never to reach the end of that path-
The one that leads me to nowhere.
And if my fear is what concerns you,
For all those who are listening,
I am not afraid anymore.
I want to let this macrocosm consume me,
And allow me to be a part of it forevermore.
Fear, is only a momentary lapse,
For those that can’t see the truth,
Truth which hides in every creature born of this world.
So take chances, take risks and let those uncertainties take control of you,
Because victory would be no delicious,
If our destinations were already known.

Are you with me?

In times of a social evil or a massacre,

When the news channels are flashing the same-

Somewhere in the midst of all that,

I feel the need of a physical presence;

Presence of another warm blooded soul,

Who would place their hands on my shoulder,

And touch me with a feeling of assurance

That things after all, cannot get worse than they already are.

With every passing day, I yearn for that presence,

And today, it is more than ever.

As I watch the fire turn her bones to dust,

There is a certain kind of anger that I feel building inside my heart.

Are you with me?

Do you feel the same fire simmering within your bones?

Only this time, we’ve run out of water to put it out.

I have dreams that include muffled screams and cracked knuckles;

Screams that are shut deep inside my head.

I can feel my arms and legs wincing and twitching,

As if to escape the grasps of an alien,

The one that my body doesn’t remember brushing against.

My breaths turn deeper,

And my heart keeps pounding right in the centre of my chest;

I strive harder with every breath exhaled

And there lay my heart, seeking some rest.

Just when I retreat from the numbness,

I felt a knife plunged into my breast-

And if I were to tell you how excruciating the pain was,

There surely would be buckets of salt water running down your eyes.

Are you still with me?

Is it too hard to hear my words echoing in your ear ossicles?

Are you already disgusted with me?

Oh, don’t be-

For women are abominably facing cruelty for every ounce of air they inhale.

Yet, here your mind is busy fighting daily dilemmas-

Whether we must voice our anger or just let the river flow,

Till the dam is shattered into fragments of perplexed conceit,

And the bed is dripping in blood and rage.

This sleep that overlaps the whole world,

This sleep that humanity is never to wake from-

Will only break when shuddered violently.

Are you with me?

We will resort to ways that have no ties with pacifism,

And these muffled screams, like waves will devastate everything that comes its way

This anger that has that fuming will come right through.

If the goddesses are hearing,

I say this with utter conviction-

Those that sin shall be punished.

What does blue taste like?

What does blue taste like?
Is it close to the salty water of the seas and the oceans?
Or the cradles of the the clouds in the sky?
I wish it tasted like how my tears do,
As they flow down my eyes
Travel through my cheeks and reach my mouth;
They are half parts salty and half parts sour,
With sprinkles of bitter scattered on top.
There is flickering moonlight that seeps into my room,
And fills it with a tingling sensation of ache and hurt.
As it creeps under my bed, I turn blue-
With the thought of things that never seem to leave the warmth of the blanket.
Why is blue a colour intermediate to the highs and lows of my moods on a rainy afternoon?
It’s a wave that touches your feet,
Washes you off of your past sins,
Cleanses your soul, and breaths into you a new life.
Am I too hard to be understood?
Or too difficult to love?
I grow sullen as these thoughts cross my mind
And my heart mourns quietly.
To you, I am just a passing breeze,
A flowing current, a fleeting moment.
If only you’d known, that you were the lifetime I dreamt of,
A timeless constant, a permanent climate.
Perhaps life, is all about uncontrollable changes.
Woe wears a cloak that is coloured in blue,
It reeks of melancholy and sorrow.
There is a deliquescent piece of flesh-
That lies right in the midst of my chest.
It thrusts hard and loud,
And makes vessels beat,
Until one day, it falls tired,
And melts away into a sleep that it would never wake from.
The curtains in my room have forget-me-nots painted on them.
They smell of dust and debris,
Vaguely familiar to the flame of a candle-
The part that’s blue is what I am no more afraid to touch.
There is a garden of my dreams,
That houses countless hydrangeas.
From among the whites, the blue ones glare.
If the sky were to merge with them,
I could never tell them apart.
Correct me if blueberries aren’t a delicacy,
Or blue jays that flutter across the country sides aren’t a treat to watch
Or morpho isn’t the most beautiful creature.
Blue isn’t only a colour,
It’s a delicious feeling,
A distressed thought,
A sorrowful existence
Yet the crux of our life.

Why do you fear the stars?

What do you think of the stars?
What are they, really?
I am told that we’re made of star stuff,
The stuff that lie miles away from our eyes.
But, have they told you of the wars that they fight?

From down here, it’s hard to tell-
About the battles and their casting spell.
The vast eternal maze, which we used to call space,
With the stars binding it together like walls,
Clashing like feathers as they fall;

Why do you fear the stars?
-For they are fire, death and heat.
They growl, roar and scream;
Endlessly lie awake in the cradles of the universe,
With nothing but unfathomable yards of emptiness.

Singing their anguished screams,
Of burning brimstone and wreaths,
They brush up against rocks and the red giant,
With other stars and their cosmic circles-
Taking over their insufferable solitude,
And ripping apart a hole-

That masks the ends of the Earth,
Where you and I will be lost in eternal darkness,
Where time and tide are always at rest.
The universe is a cold-hearted monster,
That snatches the stars away for its own good.

They cry and turn the revolving masses to cinder.
They are warm and fierce, that burn down to ashes.
They emerge from the wilderness of the dead,
And disappear into the finite darkness that fades-
Yet here we lay, in our beds, warm and cozy,
Looking up to them like there’s no tomorrow left.

They are solitaires in a mine,
And pearls in desert sand.
What happens if one day they turn us to cinder?
How does one not fear the stars, I only wonder-
The blood that runs through my veins,
The dust that is scattered in my chest,
Is said to be made of stars;

And so I fear,
Fear, that what if I burn myself like those up there,
And settle in the abyss of the dark, dreadful land of thousand yarns.
The folds of the universe are deep,
That mask the fire and the smoke simmering within;
‘To the stars’ is only an hollow dream,
From where one is never to return.

The other side of a visible spectrum

Violet

Did you know that violet serves it best to both men and women?
Never too feminine or too masculine.
Always somewhere in between the hues
Of the ultraviolet and the blues.
In evening primroses that bloom in my garden,
There is a hint of violet that remind me of the times I used to tear them off and fling them in the air;
Petal by petal, piece by piece.
I found a place for them in those broken vases you kept.

Indigo

So close, yet so far
Still invisible in the dark.
Never to mistake indigo for blue,
For they are worlds apart,
Overlapping like them two.
Dominant and dark, it’s stains so firm and stark,
That no water or spark can undo.
It’s here to stay like these lovers buried at rest.

Blue

Comes your way the colour of glare and melancholy,
That you know when I say, ‘And then she turned blue’
The sky, your eyes, and the days that fly,
Turn me blue with every thought that comes to mind.
The ocean’s so deep, the sea’s so clear,
Only forward do I want to steer;
Leaving once and for all the things that have held me behind, I wish to grow,
And never look back at what made me mourn.

Green

Like mosses, mushrooms and growing weed,
The grass on the other side isn’t always green.
Maybe there is no other side, Where water gushes in and out like at the evening tide.
Of lush green leaves that reek of newness,
And wildflowers springing out of nowhere,
I paint them with my brush.
There is no landscape and pastures,
That sing so meek and free,
In breaths that I take in, they smell of rain and glee.

Yellow

The happiest colour that I have known,
In rays of the sun, so vividly it shone.
Tell me if there is a warmer blee,
Than the florets of sunflower seed;
So bright it catches my eye from the yonder hills,
That sets in me and make my lips seal.
It’s something that will never fade,
Like spoonfuls of gladness made.
I glow and gleam like sunshine captured in a bowl,
With shadows that have forever loved my soul.

Orange

Don’t we love melons that sprinkle sweet and savoury dew?
That make our noses crinkle and faces wrinkle;
Or the maple leaf that turns from green to yellow to orange?
Falling like there’s nothing left.
How there are not many things around us
That are clad in colours of mellow tangerine, I wonder
Perhaps, it’s a tint we turned our deaf ears to thither.

Red

Cherished by roses and the sun that’s setting,
Not to forget of the blood which is running.
Obscuring the other side of a visible spectrum,
It travels to lands of the sky that lay infinite.
Ardent and blazing saddles on the go,
Red is all that I have ever known.
To love is to bleed,
T kiss is to heal,
To thorns is to prick,
The other end is where we meet.