की इस जीवन में सराबोर, मैं पहले भी हो चुकी हूँ
जो प्रेम मैंने तुमसे किया, वैसी ही प्रीत मैं पहले भी लूटा चुकी हूँ

की इन अधरों को छूने वाले अधर, तुम्हारे पहले नहीं हैं
यह आत्मा से आत्मा का मिलन मैं पहले भी सह चुकी हूँ

तुम्हें कई कल्पों पूर्व यह बताना था
की तुम मेरे सुहृद हो, पर कोई और भी है
जो ना होते हुए भी, किसी मिथ्या इष्ट के समान
मेरे ह्रदय से अभिन्न है
( कैप्शन)

-

Loving you was never easy
And I never tried
But this bare, tireless, soulful
Desire for your mere presence
that I feel
when the day is closing on me
Bears the weight of that love
That I have forever denied
You
And myself.

Like a cancer,
My regret leaden heart
has started to comsume me.

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Lost

I have heard it whispered
in the excruciating
Enunciated lisp of my three year old self
“Thief!”
And again on a tape recorded in my
arrogant youth. “Stealthy Bastards!”

I have
lost track of my thought,
I may like the dated writers of antiquity
Blame this half-thought on the opium
but this has no magnificence
no profoundness
no finesse
meaningless strings of words.

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An Introduction: Masks and restrictions

Men must have realised now,
how it feels to have your voice muffled.
How stifling veils can be?
What social isolation is?
They have finally tasted the bitterness
they have been feeding women all along.

Shall I call this an act of God?–
late as it is,
Nonetheless
a welcoming sight.

-

Reading Keats

Is it love
if I feel hypnotized?
May be someone spiked my soul
with the potion of love.
May be a Puck tripped again in this quest.
Are you sure
I am not the wandering knight,
Held in thrall by a “faery’s child”?
She has spun the magic
and woven me in
Inescapable strings of cruel silk,
they cut into my soul.
Is it love
if I only stare in her eyes, and
Wish to listen to only her
murmuring sweet strange delights?

-

Translation from Hindi.
Plea

O, dear vultures
feed, relish in my body’s meat,
Eat to your hearts content.
Heed, but my only request,
spare my open eyes
for they reflect my wait,
for they still await.

-

STOP!

What is your fascination with the clocks?!
That the wait seems longer,
that the stretch seems wider?
The milk on the stove? The foreplay too long?
Or like Larkin
you feel death
more near.
That they move insistently,
ticking away your life
chipping away your youth,
curbing the revolution in you?

Why my dear, this fascination?
I think I will take out the batteries!
Smash it into the wall!
Purge them into the Great Fire of Rome
and like notorious Nero, I too will play the fiddle.

-

कुरूप प्रेम और मैं

मेरे प्रेम का तुमने अच्छा पारितोषिक दिया
वार किया शब्दों से, और आघात जिस्म पर हुआ
अब यह शरीर सूज गया है इन वारों से
विस्फोटक क्षमता क्रूर से
सबको बचाने को
इसको घर में छुपाए रहती हूँ।

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आलस

तेरी प्रेम भरी आँखों
में छुपे राज़
मुझसे नहीं सुलझ पाएँगे
तू मुँह से कह दे
तो ठीक
नहीं तो सोते सोते
और बरस भी गुज़र जाएँगे।

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BIG

Over-eating has made me emotional
desperate
and full.
I am the couch
Garpe’s mother.
This is my coffin
I will be burned on this white and green monstrosity.

The dream has turned into a nightmare!

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