That Grandpa Might Die

Death brushed across his cheek and only then he realized that age was no not cruelty to skin but preparation for eternity or how would the next leg of the life of his soul begin if Death couldn't latch on to the sides of his face and pull him whole into that new world where years were metadata and had no direct relevance to existence.

Death brushed across his cheek and it was the texture of reality. 

Sometimes when I hear you speak, I cannot make out if you're laughing or you're crying.
Perhaps that is the blindness of being in love, that does not differentiate the pleasure from pain.
That is why I tell you- Don't feel your sorrow in vain. 

star works

lying down in bed
sweat beaded and tired
sleep elusive however
he
thirty eight
and a heart broken faster than it can mend
he had had enough

ten years ago family was panicking
it is about time they said get him married
now they have given up
but once a year like an undead thing
someone says
there is a divorcee
there is a widow
nice girl

no longer irked by constant pestering
get married
but turmoiled by uncomfortable silence
you are not married
but he did not mind
they did not understand
only thatha had but now he was gone
he knew
a man is not his marriage

but thatha
straight faced except when recounting childhood
had married for what
had loved how
he still did not know

heart is one thing he never understood
preferred understanding brain
but when reflected
realized love came from feet of thatha
two too big big feet
that marched him to a sink in the morning
brush your teeth young man
about time
sun is out and perpendicular to scalp

he was six
and on days he refused to wake up
thatha put his small feet
on his two too big big feet
and marched him to the sink
nonetheless

but loving little boy
simpler than loving woman
any day
my god it is true he thought

left side of bed there was movement just then
she
tossing in sleep turned away
so young that body
and far too bouncy hair
now spilling all over pillow

first time in four years they met
old rules still applied
no boygirlfriend business he said
no boygirlfriend business she echoed
and not one thing had changed
except she now had more than one gray hair
mid twenties still but unwilling to hair colour
had finally stopped naming individual gray hair snow

autopilot arm of his reached out
to her never receding waist
biggest indifference to calorie consumption he has seen
performed by this girl

her hair usually smelled like
various goodie bag things
but finally now
it smelled of him
and his cigarette

her feet brushed against his shins
she lowered toes to toe lock with his
settled her heels on his two too big big feet
grabbed his arm
and pulled it towards her
two too big big
and said
mmm you be so nice to hold

he chuckled
he joked
he hoped
he denied
and he finally said
ಜಾತಕ ಬೇಕಾ?
you want horoscope?

Trying NOT to fall asleep in class and Other Woes

(Note: *- indicates names of shy people/people who don't want their names here)

It's an incredibly difficult morning when you haven't had coffee. You're woozy and barely awake. You can hear but you can't listen. My God, this is absurd. This is like a waking dream state. I may as well be lucid dreaming.

Dr. R may watch The Maze Runner. I wonder if he'll remember to tell me how good/bad it is. Do I want to watch it? I don't know. I have other movies to watch. Though I'm toying with the idea of doing Vishal Bharadwaj's trilogy of Shakesperean adaptations with *. But where is the time?

Maqbool.

Omkara.

Haider.

Jo says the earlier films were even better in terms of cinematography. Good cinematography is what I'm a sucker for. Everything else can be sorted with subtitles. 

I think I'm beginning to remember last night's dream, though it slipped away by the time I finished writing the former clause of this sentence. 

Dr. R's having "breakfast". My God, I wish I'd had coffee!

I need to get a hold of myself. And my project. And my writing. 

It's crazy how many page hits I'm getting on The Lost Virgin. Imagine if it was a full-fledged blog on its own.  I suppose people are sharing secretly. Or it's just constantly on the feed for more people to see. StumbleUpon is doing some to contribute. Should I migrate blog to Tumblr? Or share further on Reddit? But the problem with that is how I'll have to block people all over again. 

Jeez. Even mom wouldn't accept what I write. This is the situation I would dub as "Shite". 

So, Comic Con this weekend? Should I ask *? Should I go on my own? So many problems in life. Maybe if K* pays me by then, I can buy something for Ammu. I'd like to do that. Poor kid deserves a break. 

I honestly wish I was more technologically enterprising. I should be, instead of obsessing about every other irrelevant detail in the universe. I can't keep thinking about cultivating myself into being a better person without doing a shred of work towards it. It's okay that I write. Time spent in writing cannot be wasted. But look at the way I'm penning things down. It's anti- Sylvia Plath. Have you heard the sound of it? I don't think anything as bland as this exists, even!

So it goes and rains yesterday and now the fan and air-conditioning is on in this blessed class and I'm so cold that I have goosebumps on my arms every now and then. And they look angry. I'm mixing up my waking time with times I've been sleeping off. I need sleep. I neeeeed sleeeep before I end up believing that I lit candles in a Goan church after a dip in the ocean, before making it to class this morning. 

Obscure Coldplay lyrics are stuck in my head. Perhaps it would do me good to sing out loud, anyway. * says I should train or I'll regret it. I mean, I'd like to, but not because yet another guy has a vision for me. Earlier, I thought that I had told Jo about Jan 20th when I was drunk. Looks like I didn't. It is just as well, I don't want to talk about it any more. You know, even saying that I don't want to talk about it irritates me right now. 

Maybe I should just go ahead and see how to train my voice. And this seems like a start:

http://www.wikihow.com/Train-Your-Voice

Penzu doesn't hyperlink that^. Ohkay! That's a refreshing aberration!

Why, why am I not paying attention to Dr. R. In fact, tell me why I haven't paid attention to him in at least a month, now? This is a really bad scenario. I should feel guilty. However, I should feel less guilty today because of my lack of coffee and the fact that NP*'s face is popping in my head. She may have gotten knocked up. Bless her. 

Ghosh switched off the fan. But I'm still cold. Now I can feel it in my pants- the gooseflesh, I mean. 

FOR GOD's SAKE! I need to keep my eyes open at least. 

I'm so bloody happy that I didn't tie my hair up in the morning, I'm going to go back after Reading Disorders, eat nothing, and go the fuck to sleep. And I'm going to have to study for the NLP mid-term tomorrow. 

Dr. R just said "Ready for Coffee". I love him. <3 

(Note: He let us go 15 minutes early.)

The Lost Virgin

A face hot with an orgasm, I barely sit still as I write. I am naked. In the light of whatever is unholy dim in this grey night, I look bronze like sunshine. My hair spills over my breasts for nobody to witness but me. No lips caress the hollow of my collar-bone and no arms encircle my waist. 

This is freedom. 

I have loved myself like no other can, touched myself in places others have not dared to explore. A heart to give, I no longer have; but the body organic brims with forbidden desires of other virgins. Desires that saturate beneath my skin until gooseflesh blazes across like countless stars. Hair rises, their silken shadows fall. A quivering lip, a throat run dry- parched for more, more, oh more. Litmus fingers run red at the touch of acid core, all vitriol released. 

Tonight the world will hear the bitches moan free, run the streets unbound, unclothed, hunting. The night is ours and none shall see. Demure veils blind the cultured upbringing of better girls, chaste with fear and silence. 

But I, I shall embark upon a journey towards my chosen land, 

Run with highwaymen in unilluminated paths where footfall does not return-

To find the burning hell of taboos and unleash it into my mother's kitchen. 

Vanilla

It wasn't much to ask for or to give. When the day ended, her arms sought him. He obliged her for half a minute and held her. He kissed her forehead that just about reached his lips.

It was then she was certain that the flavour of her marriage would never die.

I wish I could tell you how much I really love you. I wish I could tell you from the other side of your veil of blindness that I am here and I understand. I hear you. I want to love you the way you want to be loved, the way you deserve to be loved. I want to place my fingers on your pale cheek and empty the emptiness in your eyes.

Instead, I watch you as you sleep. I watch you as you draw your pillow closer, as if it anchors you to safety in your dreams. And all I can tell you is this-

Learn how to hold yourself and I hope you'll find your peace. 

Ages and Ages Hence

No matter where it is that we go, it is that little walk we take in the end that counts. The moon is out, the stars are hidden in the haze of neon light. You and I walk down that empty road in silence that is as natural as breathing. The trees arch high over us like a loosely interwoven secret.

Your fingers brush against the back of my hand and my heart soars through the gap in the foliage above. Neither of us speak a word. But when we reach home, you place a hand on my waist as you open the door for me. Then I know these words mean nothing, and are redundant in the face of contentment. 

A November Hangover.

So I refused to live my life like a tear-jerker box office spin-off after you left me. But I miss the mountain of a man in my bed, holding me in his arms of steel. And what a black-hole of a thought that is, only I know. I try to bury myself in words in the effort to fend off the hopelessness, but I fail to make love to paper like I made love to you. I try, but my words sit like a twist of lemon in a glass of martini, estranged from the fruit.

During those manic nights when I cannot sleep, I sing to myself that I am free. I seek solace in the little warmth I get from my many people. Everything you were to me is now manifested in different people. I'm well taken care of. There is an abundance of lateral limbic limb-twining luck, and serendipity generated by a computer algorithm A computer algorithm generates them for me- just like it generated you for the very first time. And in my starry-eyed excitement, I sold my innocence to you for a Shawarma and ten lines of poetry.

The truth of all that love haunts me to this day, and the bitterness of its downfall makes me stronger. Though sometimes I'm unsure whether I mistake apathy for strength.

But have no doubt. Be it whatever, I am unlike you. And therein lies my salvation.

Forever,
Fawkes.

Paratopia

His eyes shrunk further behind the now progressive lenses as the clock paced steadily ahead towards day-break. It was that state between sleeplessness, complete awakening and coffee. The glaring white screen was black with type. He paused to rub his face. Fingers bristled his binary beard and he thought to himself that he must shave.

"Leave it be," I said to him "Let us go out"
"Where?" asked he.
"Wherever you want," I assured.

He followed my gaze to the balcony door and opened it, thus unsettling the immobile curtain, dust mites, and the like.

*

Shielding his eyes from the unaccustomed sun, he finds himself a boulder to sit on. Unsure at first, he slowly lowers his feet into the stream below. The current is gentle. He is surprised that he is surprised that his toes didn't touch the pebbles below. Then the law of refraction comes back to him. The water tickles him between his toes, the little toe hairs unfurl in their sub-aquatic freedom. He lets the water take him over and begins to remember nothing. Even the stray leaf that the breeze rests in his hair does not unsettle him. He is free. The water is blue, the peripheries are green and the light is yellow.

*

Somewhere in a hostel room miles away, I wake up with a start. His name begins to form upon my tongue. I rhoticise, and stop. I close my eyes and try to breathe easy. I wish him happiness in his solitary moment of freedom. 

The water continues to ripple over his feet. He looks tranquil. I quietly sit down next to him and let my toes drop to the stream. In a different place and a different time, we share one moment together.