Words laid out under an April sun
Gurguri
One day When this is over, Gurguri
I hope to take a long look at you Find the bits that are Not me Nor your father
And Love you for them.
Unsolved
I left bits of what you said Unsolved
Hanging from the ceiling Like stars
That put me to sleep Every night
Eggshells
I treat life like spoiled milk Held under a tap of Running water Gurgling through a pipe to nowhere At my age, you stop walking On eggshells but Lay them out like a proud display Of victories and losses And step on them,
Full feet Bare
Noone asks you to be gentle
Hope
Serve hope on a platter And watch men Dance around it Like hungry Bees
Loss
The poached egg on my plate Sits without a toast, The electric posts without the crows The clotheslines without its cotton and Frills and colours and
I, without you Hang on to a string of words You left behind Several days ago.
Words like crumpled paper Stuck in my throat Taste like loss
Mystery
My body stares at me More flesh, More curves, More woman in places My fingers never traced before She tries to speak to me A silent movie A mystery Like milk waiting to boil You never know when it overflows
Lies
After years of being Religious What happens to the man Who discovers
It was nothing but a Box of lies?
Will he ask his gods To jump into the burning pyre, or
Do we only save that for Women?
Dutiful
She lived her life A dutiful wife, Mother Daughter Employee
But in her dreams She danced on the bar Kissed strangers Had orgasms on the streets and Instead of sanitary napkins She paraded in white canvas
She bled like a Thousand rainbows
Depression
1. The 24 hours of a day read like a long to-do list. 2. My body is fine but numb. I can’t relax my fists, toes, neck. I can’t. 3. My tongue tastes like chalk, my heart a cork stuck in my throat. 4. I can breathe… I cannot… I can. Why is it dark? 5. I avoid mirrors. I painted my porcelains black. 6. They say it’s a new day but the sun burns my skin. It doesn’t heal. Everything is a lie. 7. Some nights I die. I emerge from my bones, look at my body and then evaporate. 8. The doc says I have depression, but all I want to do is fly.
Embrace
I tried falling in love With the person in the mirror But every time I embraced her I realized she was Broken and Burning
Now, on most nights, She cries in my arms.
Quarantine
When all else fails, I go back to my roots Listen to what ammu said and avoid Everything that abbu did,
Branch out like sun rays or Shoot for the stars or
Simply hang over the edges of my balcony Like delicate beings that Decorate my quarantine days
Power
Don’t kid yourself
Things have changed There’s no going back to normal
But into an unknown Where air and kisses startle Touches don’t soothe and Relationships lived in the blink of red buttons
But you, You And the power within you Are invincible Growing one setback at a time
Like a flower Every spring
Life
My bullet-proof dreams Sleep among the stars Which I used to pluck as a child
I bound them into a book I go back to On bad days
I call it Life
Fish
Ma always told me to wait Till the oil was hot enough and Then, “Skin first.”
Years later, I still yearn For that fried fish, Steaming rice and a Dollop of ghee
You see, My list is simple Fish Sleep You
Wings
I want my words To be The air beneath Clipped wings
And every flight, A revolution
Letting go
I have boxes under my bed From yesterdays
Pencil shavings Candy wrappers Cassettes Handwritten letters Heartbreaks I saved them all
And with them Every part of me that I’m Not ready to let go
I am a fool The heart-in-my-mouth Clinging-to-my-past kind
Concoction
God is
As long as You are –
A concoction of your weaknesses A validation of your strengths
Appreciation
I am a mad girl Head hung from a swing Legs in the air Staring at an upside-down world Where clouds are made of grass And the roads are blue
And deep within me, somewhere, is you
I breathe muddy air Through pores in my mask and Whistle at ants, birds and sometimes a distant dog
My airplane tickets are yellow Rotting in the bin My sneakers are tied to leaves around my hips I find a new world and a new Appreciation for life
There’s just one thing I don’t know if I’ll survive
Apocalypse
The apocalypse began The day they realized they could Burn books
Since then The world has been crumbling One page at a time
But we walk on the ashes Pretending the world is Fine
Inspiration
As the camera zooms into a packed Wembley Freddie prepares to burn like an eternal fire
Somewhere, not far away A book ignites another
A rainbow strikes two strangers Helping each other cross a bridge
A father dies His pictures the only reason a girl Walks out of the door every day
Dilemma strikes a writer and he Recoils into the folds of his imagination
In a grey office, bent over Grey flies Are you still looking for inspiration?
Inure
On nights like this Somwhere behind a window A wife becomes Inured to violence,
Her heart, Like black clouds, Pours
Separation
The last time I kissed you I didn’t know was the last time
Had I, Then I would have held you longer Until our lips melted into a Never-ending letter on love
Now, separation stretches Between us Like a disease
Last time I checked There was no cure
Disease
Disease Is like a bra On the clothesline
Nobody wants it
Except maybe the crow
Butter
The concept of butter Changes with age And somehow More and more Gets reserved for Other people’s asses
Weel, I still like mine With bread.
Prayer
Every time I put my hands together A little prayer Forces it ways to my mouth
I hesitate because I am not the praying type
I am the mumbling type That wants everything but Doesn’t have the courage to say
Wonder
That my body can Grow life within her Bend her bones and Stretch her soul for Someone else Fills me with wonder
So much
That I will never be able to Look at her the Same way again
Underdog
Unfulfilled love Is always The underdog’s Only writers want to Write to Them
Meetings
On the other side of the moon Meetings happen Under floating teapots and streams
Where little caterpillars serve biscuits And butterflies shed dreams
Where stars sing on the sidelines And all the leaves are pink and
Sometimes old rabbits dance while Ducks perform in rings
Entry is invitation only but That is just for show
For you could jump to the other side If a book you’d pick, you know.
Letter (in memory of Irrfan Khan)
A letter in a lunchbox
Found the wrong man but All the right words and Had me defining love In simple ways. It is true that Only a few stay back as
Vivid stars, smirking at the world Through mirrors, Burning alone in a cold desert Of skinny stories and Overdone faces
A Khan, Like you
Magnificent, Yet so different.
Language you love in
The steaming gobindobhog rice Is a mound of childhood laced with butter Peeled potatoes, boiled Eggs, boiled Sprinkled with salt and green chillies and Filled with the warmth that rose in my heart
When Ma wrapped her arms around me When Baba explained why it was good to fail Tulo came running to me with bleeding knees, Tears rolling down her face When you cradled my bruises and
Every time the little one kicks Inside my belly I smell the plate that I started Loving with