A Labour of Love...

Inspiration runs dry,
I yearn for poetic romance
And yet I believe in no fairy tale.
Some justice?
Innate sadness, no reason
Elation, no reason.
Fragmented.Disconnected.
Internal struggles for nothing,
The mundane eats into me
As I crave for comfort and affection.
I search, I hunt, I crave
No luck, no grace.
Deliverance not a choice.
I wonder why gloom overwhelms me
Lack of purpose.
I turn to my unfailing solace
With no respite.
Mundane has struck again.
Romance out of the door.
I can write no more.
Disappointment,annoyance.
I pull him back into me...
An extension of me
I refuse to give up
Dying flame.
Ennui, my arch enemy.
The flicker of hope remains
As I make this my premeditated effort
My conviction to retrieve an old flame
My perseverance.
A Labour of Love.

Feeling Faceless...

My happiness,my property
And yet so elusive!
Friendless in a crowd,
Anonymity's curse.
Existence defined by comparison,
Recognition and distinction.
A sudden disconnect
Within and without...
Pointlessness!
Loved but forgotten
In fast busy lives,
A love mystifying
Or imagined?
A sadness overwhelming and utterly painful
So painful its numbing...
And then the cynic raises his head,
Unabashed.
The soul within is solitary
And faceless.
And then one learns to walk alone.
Great minds and souls walked alone...
With just their shadow that walked with them.
They liked it that way
For their shadow was their only true friend...
Intellectuality a sham!
Anger and disregard brewing within
The system dualistic,
No breeding ground for friendship...
And here I stand amidst all this
Waiting for you,
Feeling faceless...

Not Just Yet...

You made me feel I could hope again
You made me feel that I could be whole again
You made me put the pieces of my broken heart together again
You became my closest friend again.
You strove past the barriers I had carefully built,
Barriers that effortlessly slipped away.
You willed me into giving in,
And became the friend I didn't know I had been yearning for-
That friend I saw myself being my truest self with...
The friend I aspire to be,
The friend I had always prayed for.
I wished to be your best friend,
The friend you quickly became to me,
The friend you said you yearned for too.

And somewhere deep inside,
Long gone, lost, forgotten and well-hidden
Was the memory of this little girl who had played silly games with you- partners in crime.
The girl who built sand castles by the sea,
The girl who played with dragon-flies.
That girl who grew up to dream of white horses and glass sandals,
Of fairy tale endings and princes.
The girl whose dreams got shattered by a fake prince.
That girl who turned into a woman stern,
Strong-willed, stubborn and unyielding like bitter cold.
Then you sauntered back in like a summer breeze,
Springtime, refreshing and inevitable,
Tapping memories of a past forgotten,
Did you notice how old we had gotten?
I was exhilirated and petrified...
What if I was chalk and you were cheese?
But we worked our way past through niceties
Without pretence or formalities!
It was like no time had passed
Between the children we were and when we met at last.
You were a stranger I knew so well,
A familiar strangeness, a charm of its own.

And dare I say I hoped again,
To look past barriers, so not there.
And as the hope arose
Of calling a friendship so cherished something more,
I ventured into unchartered territories
Blowing sometimes hot and sometimes cold...
As I questioned my intentions and yours
I was guilty of daring to hope
Of something I have refused to acknowledge- a distant forgotten emotion,
Was this it?
Could it be?

And so I confided in my new found friend,elated,
One who I hoped would understand, reciprocate and embrace...
Then watched the assurance slip away
As I watched the familiar yet strange back turn away
Something dimmed.
A closing door...
Something shifted, the familiarity slipping away.
As I watched the water slipping through my fingers,
I quietly hoped for it to be a returning tide...

I made you literature,unrequited...
Weaning myself away, building up my old guard again.
I withdrew, strong-willed and stern,
You would never know how much I yearn.
In all earnestness,
Pulling away
But not giving up,
Not Just Yet...

A Tryst with the City...

Out in a city, so familiar and yet so strange. Walking through streets unfamiliar,unknown to me in a city I claim to know so well. It was one of those long weekends, when you plan to run away into the hills ...what do I say so was I longing to run away from the hustle-bustle of the city. Claustrophobia. And then a sudden decision to walk out with a kindred spirit into the lanes of this city that has taken me in...Both of us in different places in our lives, caught up in our own preoccupations, stepped out to experience this city that had made us what we had become. She, cherishing every moment as she prepared to start over anew, me an unwilling tourist in my own city.

Something about the rooftop restaurant, Sam's Cafe, hidden in a corner of one of the streets of Paharganj, touched a chord in me, making me feel like I was in a new place, a side I had never seen before to a city so familiar.Something about seeing the city in a different light, from that rooftop, answered my wanderlust and made me find peace with myself, putting the restlessness stirring within me to rest for a while at least,if not for good. As we both sat there , lost in our own thoughts, no necessity of conversation, the ease silence settled in, oh so precious and rare and only possible with truly close friends.

Conversation interspersed with bites of food and sips of beverages of our choice. She, looking around disinterestedly, me scribbling away in my journal. Conversations surrounded us, some in foreign tongues, some familiar and some just static. But there we sat, preocccupied, satisfied for the moment, over a meal, as the lazy sunny Saturday afternoon gave way to a pleasant evening.

We sat there, lost in our own thoughts,watching the birds fly homewards...

Sometimes Me...

Sometimes I want to fly,
Sometimes to stand still...
Sometimes I am a fighter
Sometimes I struggle to survive.
And then there are times that I gush like a waterfall,
At others still am as still as a smooth flowing river.
Sometimes am a dreamer,
Sometimes a cynic...
Sometimes questioning
At others all knowing...
Sometimes the student
At others mentoring.
Sometimes game,
Sometimes unwilling...
Sometimes emancipated
Sometimes repressed
And now something stirs deep within me...
A divine discontent
Of what was
And of an innocence lost
An overwhelming of the self
With inner struggles and private conflicts,
With things said and others left unsaid,
With loud victories, unvoiced expectations and quiet disappointments.
Adulthood or self discovery?
No one knows
And no one can tell...