The trick is to mourn his absence 
as a salvation and 
believe that your prayers 
are answered, finally.
And to see love 
more as a metaphor 
than something you will find.
The trick is to realize that 
the city is a dirty animal, 
which eats its own-
it eats us whole.
And you are just a flower 
trying to grow in the outskirts 
after nuclear explosion.
The trick is to put 
your words in laundry, 
so that it can erase 
the crayon ink of 
your lover's mouth.
And to clean dust 
out of your shoes, 
because it may be 
spit of ghosts of past.
The trick is to silence 
your hunger with leftovers 
and pretend you are full, 
so that you dont have to 
dine with your father.
And to remove your layers 
in the light of a fake satellite, 
while the memory of 
your first kiss fall through 
the gaps of your fingers, 
like a shooting star. 
The trick is to ignore 
the bitterness,
lingering like a shadow, 
while eating a ripened pomegranate,
because there is always 
a tragedy bigger than you.
And to avoid the roads where 
there are trees wearing garlands, 
looking at the mirrors of potholes, 
where once cotton candies 
smiled pink in your palms. 
The trick is to take care of 
that damaged wait 
for his last letter,
in all its glory , 
while hope smells 
like borrowed sweat.
The trick is to see world 
as the belly of a whale, 
and you a failed prophet, 
waiting to be saved, 
while a cup of sugared tea 
hides a storm.
And you whine in poems, 
trying to make a map 
where you can find your lover, 
so that you can give him 
the warmth of the summer sun 
of the city 
where 
he abandoned you.

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

 I am longing for death.  Forever longing for it.When people around me crave to live, do everything to have a life, I could never understand it. I could never understand the meaning of their desire. I always wanted to die… slowly, painlessly, and alone. Over time, my death instinct  became an inexorable habitual thought. The yearning to merge into an infinite darkness is there, always. The swelling torment I can't put into words. There was nothing, until him, that could dilute my urge to die. I used to think I can hold on a little, until he disappeared. I was obsessed to wither completely.  Look at me now. I think I have died, when he left. What a metaphor, the old cliché, you may think. I can declare this without embarrassment, but I can't express it. It is really so heavy to be afforded by my vocabulary, thoughts, and consciousness... Many moons ago, I listened passively to Nee Mattume by T.M. Krishna. And yesterday night, like a little miracle, it came back to me...
Read more

THE BOOK OF SETHI

PROLOGUE: THE FIRST TIME GRIEF SANG I don’t remember the first time I heard Ali Sethi. I remember what I lost when I did. Something inside me— the part that kept sorrow folded beneath my tongue— opened its eyes. It wasn’t music. It was recognition. A voice that didn’t arrive like thunder, but like memory—slow, precise, mercifully cruel. It sang in the key of ache I inherited but never named. This is not about songs. It’s about the ruins they left glowing. It begins, always, with silence. And then: Ali. 1 TO THE VOICE THAT ARRIVED BEFORE STORM Some nights, I don’t know if it’s rain, or your voice pressing its forehead against my window. Ali, you don’t sing— you stitch. Each word, a needle pulling centuries through my skin. I keep your ragas in my wrists— they flutter when grief walks in, asking for tea and permission to stay. Who gave you the right to know what longing sounds like before I could name it? Who taught your throat to echo the ache I buried beneath my mother tongue? Sometime...
Read more
If love is peeling oranges, then  God is the transcultural smell  residing inside crescent of fingernails. Consuming prayers,  a bead of fragility in hands,  he tells you that : In love we are blind,  In love we are far sighted. His delicate crockeries inside  a filthy broken sink is  his metaphor for us. The way he scrub them is his synonym for violent love  and antonym for soft grief. Once in a while, the shards of his anger  turns me into a silent film  suffocating under city lights. Then you change into a morning  with mourning , Into a ship torn under monsoons, Into a broken concave mirror, Into a prime number in solitude, Into a black hole singing opera. Still we exchange kisses with words  inside  the holes on our throat.  God chain smoking in his evening gown interrupt us with a question,  What is your religion? This is when a love letter switch into  a propaganda poem  written by plum faced ang...
Read more