Too busy

when "I am busy having fun
with mr. wrongs"
is not funny any more

Clinging for survival

It is meant to break you
Only the best will survive
- a little life
#inspiration

Elasticity, loss of

Such a whole lot of difference
Between getting your heart broken
At 15 and 30

The elasticity
The bounce
The hope
At the back of your mind

That you don't even know
Exists
When you are 15
Sail you through

And you realize how much
It had helped
Only when you
Don't have it anymore

#youthiswasted
#ontheyoung

(Will i look back and say the same
Of me today, when im 45?)

The forecast

The next four years,
He had said,
Will be of exploration

And it was as if
My whole life
Had been preparing
For this stint

Of hopping from
One preoccupation
To another
With barely time to breathe

As if preparing for
Old age when i
Don't have to tell myself
Oh shoot i never did that

How was i to know
That anything i started
At this time
Would never flower
Beyond the first stage

And that it would include
You

Still learning to deal with

On stage the two players
The two men
Smiled at each
Continuously
Conspiratorialy
Like lovers

I whipped around
To tell you
What i thought -

It's not a good sign when

All of your daydreams
And mental simulations
End with you shouting
"Leave me alone"

Where did i go wrong?

I conclude that i had done
Nothing wrong,
Despite your attempts
To convince me otherwise

I had always done my best

And my best, it appears,
Was not enough
And will never be

The split

Only something like this
Lets me truly understand
The nature of the lines

The split, then,
means not sorrow alone
Unlike the decline
It is a period of equal
joy and grief

While those lucky few
with islands
withstands the upheavals
to meet again

Those with the split

Drift further and further apart

Afraid of art

Being scared of
The most beloved works of art
Scared that re reading
Or re watching
Will rob it of its intensity
When tbe goosebumps go away
And the tears don't come
The second time around

Scared that
Constant repetition
Will rob it of meaning altogether

And yet
Unable to avoid its magnetic pull
Holding your breath
Feeling heart bounding
Until the song ends
In a blur

#सम्बन्ध हाम्रो धमिलो हुँदैछ
#परिभाषा तर त्यही हो भन न

Eczema

I wish my tears were content
To flow out through my words
Instead of pushing through my skin

Pursuing "something higher"

Working hard all your life
Waking up one fine day
To realize your life is almost over
And you don't know anymore
what you were chasing
in the first place

Or
Misplacing your energies
And giving up the fight
Forever believing
you missed out on your dream

Or
Achieving all you wanted
Believing that to be the
normal trajectory
And judging everyone who
Doesn't achieve the same

Admitting your mistake

Putting yourself on
Lower moral ground
For evermore

Giving the other person
The upper hand
Being obliged to accept
All their judgements
For evermore

Because you only lose credibility
Once

From then you have nothing
Left to lose

Crossroads

I am here at this crossroads
Empty and yet
Fuller than ever before

I have lost everything
And among them are 
The skeletons in my closet

And I stand at this crossroads,
Free,
With no luggage to take with me

Thank you for laying my ghosts

Personal is universal

I was going to be a great poet
Who would never write about
Petty, trivial, personal topics
 

Unlike all those famous poets
Inspired by eyes and lips
And hair and breasts

I was going to be a thinker
 

Who wrote about the world
Made grave and profound
Intellectual pronouncements

Until reality caught up on me
And all that poured out of my pen
Was the stuff of my heart
And all that moves me to write
Is your tender, tenderness

Marina Bychkova

admiring the deconstruction
of old stories
intrigued by the new light
in which you show women
show how their lives
were not the fairy tales
they were projected to be
and that if you dig under the surface
you will find much sorrow 
behind the smiling facade
imposed by patriarchal storytelling

appalled by how
you cast them in the same
frame of beauty
as did the men
slim, (mostly) fair,
big eyes, pouty lips
perfectly rounded breasts
plenty of beautiful but
heavy, restricting jewellery

can we not see
the beauty of these women
in other frames?

#feminism is all about choice,
i suppose

i love you nonetheless, marina,
for the astounding beauty
and the fresh perspectives
of your work

The self deluding need

To simulate love
When you want love
But dont know what it is

The going out of your way
To prove your feelings
To profess you care

The needless crying
The confusion
When you realize
That is not what you feel
But only what you are
Supposed to feel

(Reading milan kundera)

Choose

Flawless is not perfect
And
Perfect is not flawless

Only love counts

Not the things you buy for them
Or the time you spend with them
Or the kindness and consideration

But the wellspring of emotion
That will not be faked

Only that binds, nothing else counts

बाढी

दिनभरी बाँधेर राखेको
भावनाको भारले
राती त बाँध फुट्नु नै थियो

Tragicomedy

Don't know whether it's
sad or funny or annoying

When an extremely bigoted person
Tries to pass himself off
As a cool young dude

40 acting 14
simply makes me sorry,
I suppose,
That he doesn't realize
How silly he looks

Peeling off the layers

Peeling away the layers
Of my identity
Trying to reach the
"Real me"
And finding that
You have changed
The real me
And that i do not know
What i used to be

Forever nervous

Fidgety jittery
Flighty overreacty
Startly jumpy

Burning up
Bodily energy
Waiting for
Thunder to strike

And being burnt out
When it actually does

What are they afraid of?
What are they hiding?

Tell-tale

The slouch on the chair
The drooping eyelids
May give the impression
Of ennui

But look at the fingers
Constantly drumming
On the nearest surface
The toes scrunched up
The "droopy" eyelids
Blinking too fast

And you see
The nervous people
Who never rest

People with a core of
Air and fire
Wings and wind

Solace

When only a man
with tbe weight of the world upon him
Gives solace

easy to be amicable

during the fertile period
the love flows

wait until you see me
in my PMS

Useless

Connoisseurs of art

Fucking useless

Why i didn't know

What i should have known

That turning down of intensity
I figured (subconsciously )
Was a normalizing

Since i wasn't used to
So much intimacy
Anyway

I figured
This is how it was
Supposed to be anyway

And that is sad
On so many differnt levels

Did my subconscious

Always know everything?

Or am I really that foolish?

That spell some people cast

Where you don't need any company

Face of my happiness

I forgot
What happiness used to look like
Before you came along

Strange to think that

I traverse so many
alternate universes
But always wake up
Back in the same one

Warmth

Sleeping well
In the warmth of
human proximity

Makes me realize what i
Take for granted

And how much it means
As opposed to loneliness

Dealing with grief (or trying to)

You think ahead
Realize exactly how
The stages are going to go
Fortify yourself
And skip the four steps
Going directly to acceptance

Tell yourself there is no use raging
No use complaining and boring people
No use drowning yourself in tears
Coz in the end you have to accept it
There is no way around it

So why don't you do it right away
Bottle the four steps
Sweep them under the carpet
And get on with your life

Act nonchalant
Impress with your maturity
Tell yourself it is
The sensible thing to do

Then act surprised when
They pop up in your dreams

I used to

Go to sleep with a smile

husk

I gave you
My heart and soul
And now I have nothing
Left for myself

Let alone
Any chances for you

I should have known

it used to be that
I did not feel lonely
even when we were
seven seas apart
because I felt
your presence
with me

and when I started
feeling lonely
with you

I should have known

तिमी बिनाको

जिन्दगानी त
कसरी नै पो काटुँ है

- बिपुल छेत्री

Clean conscience, they said

You will sleep well,
They said.
If you have done no wrong,
They said.

How wrong they were.

The ability to be vulnerable, you said

It is your strength, you said

Maybe it is, and maybe it is not

When that's what causes

People to know, understand, 

And realize they can manipulate you

Again and again

It certainly doesn't seem like strength

All i know is that

The next time too

This is how i will be

Despite the number of times

It has broken my heart 

Because it is the only true way to be

Because you gain nothing if

You don't put yourself at stake

Because it is a brave, brave thing to do

To bare your heart and bear the consequences 

Never mind

I'll find
Someone like you

-Adele

(How could I settle
for anything lesser
now?)

I am so glad

This shit is not mine
To take care of
Any more

ego boost

when will you stop
looking for validation
in little green bubbles
and pinging noises

and how long after that
will you stop expecting
and waiting at all

Hypocrisy

I may bite my nails
And stroke my hair
And fondle my face
But
Whatever little confidence
I manage to produce
In spite of my
awkward body language
Is real

While you
Are all bluster
And no matter

My number is 1

How soon the heart warms
To the possibility of
creation
adventure
joy

I must be a phoenix

Distractions

Company
Entertainment
Friends
Movies
Books

They all work for me
Eventually help me heal

Does that make me callous?

This is the last time

I lose my senses over you
(Purple haze, 3 long island ice teas)

The day before

My world came crashing down

I dreamt of myself underground
With faint light shining above me
Above a closed ceiling
And i climbed and climbed
Struggling to get to the light
And the distance never seemed
To reduce
I was suffocating
Trying to reach that illusive
Light

How apt
To figure out
That it was the light
Of understanding

And now that i cannot
sleep any more
There are no dreams
To point out the signs

Puffed eyes, cracked lips

Noted with satisfaction

Arjun Says,

Taking up my bow
I found myself unequal to even string it.
The might that had existed in my arms seemed to have
disappeared on that occasion.
O great ascetic, my weapons of diverse kinds
failed to make their appearance.
Soon, again, my shafts became exhausted.
That person of immeasurable soul, of four arms,
wielding the conch, the discus, and the mace,
clad in yellow robes, dark of complexion, and possessing
eyes resembling lotus-petals, is no longer seen by me.
Alas, reft of Govinda, what have I to live for,
dragging my life in sorrow?
He who used to stalk in advance of my car,
that divine form endued with
great splendour and unfading puissance,
consuming as he proceeded all hostile warriors,
can no longer be seen by me.
No longer beholding him who
by his energy first burnt all hostile troops
whom I afterwards despatched
with shafts sped from Gandiva,
I am filled with grief and my head swims,
O best of men.
Penetrated with cheerlessness and despair,
I fail to obtain peace of mind.
I dare not live, reft of the heroic Janardana.
As soon as I heard that Vishnu had left the Earth,
my eyes became dim
and all things disappeared from my vision.

for I am now a wanderer with an empty heart

- Ved Vyas

Deflate

That moment when
all the dreams come crashing down
My hands simply lost the energy
To hold them up

Because it was you
Who held them up
Buoyed them up
Made them fly
Made me belive
I could get there

Till a moment ago
I had a thousand dreams
And nothing could stop me

And now suddenly,
There is nothing

Not a single dream
To light up my night
To wake me up in the morn

Each of us

In our own bubbles of loneliness

Thank you for giving me

The last thing i wanted from life

Ultimatum

When you threaten to
Walk out on me
Or kill, or die
Or something as drastic

I will tell you not to

But i will also
Wait and see if you will
Pause before taking
The final step out the door
if you will
Tremble before you leap
Come back
And tell me you cannot
(Not will not)
Invent a truckload of excuses

I will let you negotiate
Your own way out of it

I will wait and see
If you will confront yourself
And admit you were bluffing
And had not the courage
Or maybe got carried away
And then came to your senses

Or if you will puff yourself up
and tell me of your lofty intentions
Lying to yourself and in the process,
End up lying to me

I will see if you find
Dignity in your lows
Or if you decide to
Create a hollow persona
That you will spend
The rest of the time
Justifying

And when i threaten you my dear
Or the universe, which is more likely
I want to be very sure
That i take that final step
That i make that leap

You won't catch me trying to
Get you to bargain and plead

I will have done my soul searching,
Rest assured

Take that!

I cooked for you when I was bleeding

I cooked  for you when I was bleeding

I cooked for you when I was bleeding

I cooked for you when I was bleeding

One of those days when

You just want to fall asleep
And not wake up

#onemore scar added
To the litany of injuries
Called my body

Arty

What kind of artist do i want to be?
The one with natural talent
Who improves at leaps and bounds
Or the one with just perseverance who makes great efforts to be competent?

Naivete

You might say
I must not have seen
A lot of sorrow in this world
To be so sunny all the time

And yet i would say
What do you know of what i have seen
And that it is an effort
To find the strength everyday
To look for things bright and beautiful
To reflect and disperse

The world is a sad place you might say
Unfair, Cruel

True that.
But still there is much good
Amd if you haven't found it
I would say you haven't
Worked hard enough

The hero's journey - II

Face the demon
Slay it
Come to realization

You would think that once is enough

But that journey
Supposedly from
Innocence to experience

Deamnds to be taken
Again and again

For the plateau of experience
Is not enough

And they have no stories
About ennui
And its constant demand of
The next high

That repartee

That comes to your mind too late
And stays there for hours
Torturing with its possibility

The hero's journey

If the woman represents
All things that
Can be known
And are to be known
For the boy
To attain manhood,

What then, does she mean
To the girl to attain womanhood?

Does it mean that women
Are already wise
And have known
What can can be
And is to be known?

If so, then why is the real woman
Not treated with as much reverence
As this symbol of a figure?

A room of one's own

The awareness
Of you
Or of others
Nearby
Keeps my thoughts
From clotting
Into poetry

It doesn't have to be
Conversation
Interaction
Or even sight

But simple awareness
Of someone beside me
Who may need my attention
At some point

Mother nature

the more you try to own her
the more she rages

for a woman
cannot be tamed

the researcher

i won't distort what you say
or misqoute or even exaggerate

but i will put words in your mouth
that you never intended

i will ask you to
remember, remember, remember,
to  define, define, define,
what you did not even know existed

a pity when

at the moment of need
you have only inwards
to turn to

deflated

Half of the men
Who walk about arrogantly
Like they are gods
To their wives
Wearing their ego
On their sleeves

Would divorce right away
When they hear
What their wives have to say
About them
To their girlfriends

and what would happen
to the inflated chests
Of the other half?

the hurt kind

I thought we were
Similar kind of people
The hurt kind
Who decided to conquer it

And now you are ditching me
When it comes to the conquering part

It's up to you though
If you want to give up
No one can help you

But if you want to keep trying
There are ways and ways

Dreams of strength

I dreamt that i had long hair
But i was unaware of it
And woke up to feel it
soft, glowing, and strong

i dreamt of strength

Strength that i knew not
That i had

But now i do

mean

you have so "emancipated" me
that i fear i am spoiled
for the rest of the world
and i will never
be able to deal with it again

With you

i am confident enough
To relax
Or

i am relaxed enough
To be confident

Ever been in

That situation where

Two people are saying the same thing
but because they don't want to
admit that the other is right
Try to out shout each other

the pond that fits

A long time ago,
a serious young man decided the leave the town he was in.
"I was a big fish in a small pond," says my father now.
And he was right, 
For the ambitious young man met his match in the big pond.

I, imagining myself to be my adventurous, ambitious father,
left for an even bigger pond.
And came back, because it was a strange pond.
I don't remember thinking, before going, that I was a big fish in a small pond.
Nor do I remember feeling sad, that I did not make it big in the big pond.
I just did not see the point, of struggling in a alien pond
When life was so much better, in the old one.

And I ask myself, if I had been in my father's place 30 years ago,
Would I have risked all for a plunge into the big pond?

I would not have gone anywhere.
I do not want to live forever like an alien,
like I did briefly, like he still does.

In this big pond he still feels like a visitor.
Like he is simply inhabiting this space for a while.
And that eventually he will go back "home," to the hills he grew up in,
As naturally as a schoolboy comes home from school.


If I had been in his place,
I would have gone to the next big town to study,
been awed by the brave new world, and come back.
To live among loved ones.
To a place where people know me and I matter
And my work is more than a drop in the ocean.

I would have been like the smart young women

That you see so often in small towns these days
The smartly dressed, neatly combed one
with great big inquisitive eyes, idealist heart, and ready speech.
the one that listens carefully to conversations
Reads newspapers, frequents the library,
Attends mother group meetings,
Teaches neighbors about hygiene,
Has the history and statistics of her village at fingertips
"Excuse me sir?" I would have said to the visitor
"Who are you? Where are you from?"

How easily I could have been her !
And perfectly happy I would have been, I am sure!
No matter what the size of the pond I was in, 
I would try to be the best in my pond,
But not try and go beyond.

I probably wouldn't miss anything in that life

And yet i would always be nagged by a desire to wander

Even though i would know in my heart of hearts

That those who wander

Only want to wander back home

(“I always wonder why birds choose to stay in the same place 

when they can fly anywhere on the earth,  
then I ask myself the same question.” 
― Harun Yahya.) 

Greedy, greedy

crave attention
crib of loneliness
when you are alone

complain of suffocation
when you are smothered with it


You don't just want love
but you want too much of it

enough and more
for you to take it
for granted

What you offer

Is your everything 
As opposed  to
Appendages and peripheries
And trophies
Anyone else would offer

coping with rudeness

what's better?

wearing your heart on your sleeve
and having it destroyed daily

or having defense mechanisms
humor, diversion, sarcasm,
and dying slowly inside
every minute

the accidental migrant

Seeing your parents
struggle, scrimp, save,
put aside their pleasures
for you,

You grow up thinking
this is the way to be

forgetting, all the while,
that your parents

were first generation
they did it because
they had no choice
because they
couldn't afford not to

And when it is you time
to make it in the world
You put off your pleasures
working too hard
taking the next opportunity available
without thinking
that it is taking you away
from what makes you happy
because it is the only way to be
that you know

and you are left with a dry life.
and unlike your parents,
with no narrative to explain
your dry life

colliding planes

It felt very real then,
But I am ready to discard
All that I felt before
As fake

 Though for you,
it still is real,
And will always be

What does that say about us?

The dark one

Brought down
From infinitely wise
To merely clever
From erudite and strategic
To luckily intuitive
From revered and esteemed
To vapidly worshipped
From loved and loving
To lewdly lusty

And yet you,
Do not fail to dazzle
In all your forms

What would the world do
With the real you

The fortune teller

When you dread to hear
Words you said years ago
When regrets
Accusations
Decisions taken
Roads chosen
Are all blamed on
Words you said
Long long ago

The real thing

How you make
Everything that came before
Seem like play acting

Introvert

It's such a relief
To be with someone who talks
And i can just listen and nod

Compared to the torture
Of small talk