Someone sleeps
curled up in
my musical reveries
tonight,
She waits till 1 am,
counting headlights
in the distance,
An empty bed,
assurance muted
in between blankets,
She retires
when the windchimes stop,
Places hope and a locket
on the bedside table,
she knows,
we will never slow dance
in the kitchen
ever again,
If I could talk to her
just this once
I would tell her
someone calls to me,
and that's all to me,
Tonight.

-

From the temple of the cedar trees,
Dryads sing and dryads dance,
And in a flutter of the butterfly wings, the mist is gone.

Through the shadows, an apparition is all that remains
It looks just like the Father,
after a prophet's trip to Medina.

I know overcorrection is an art conquered by
victims of defection,
the daughter writes songs with cigarette ashes too
And yet every once a full moon,
she seeks the appirition of the dying Nymphalidae
under which lies the four clover
of a rotten fate,
Every once a while, it's easier to sing songs to the dead.

-

Into the wild, a clover field calls for help
it hasn't seen daylight for six months straight

dew drops are on metronome duty again
and stalagmites play xylophone to spirits
of solitude

I walk right through souls with sangria breath
The hunt for four clovers is as natural to me
As lying down facedown in damp seagrass
How does fate work when fate designates
who picks up the four clover of good fate.

My breath forms mist that lies low:
And through white shadows, a father an a daughter
Crouch low over a Nymphalidae-
one on the ground and a hundred and eight million
in the wind inspiring tornadoes to incarnate.
The daughter learned to write songs in those trips
to the wild.

-

I will never be mad enough to wear a little of myself today,
Or tomorrow.
I sighed inside the rack of the burgundy skirt,
eyes shut with the pressure intensity of a piston,
they sting from the tears
that grieve the death of my desires.
But the manequins disagree:
I was mad enough to play hide and seek in a shopping mall, they say
I am mad, they say
Like Gretel, stuck inside a glass house
When all i need fearing
is me not fearing.
I open my eyes,
and the pupils dilate in the purple hue,
And still with tears
And still with madness
I draw the burgundy curtain,
for once and for all.
It's not night anymore,
It never will be
Ever again.

-

Like a broadway show,
people pay all kinds of prices to see
And critique these characters
that change with differing agilities each night:
Pink is for my promiscuousness,
Red for my lack of integrity,
Black for arousal,of anyone's but mine
And the white dress,
it has blood stains. White cries,
it screams in bed each night,
it is the prisoner of despoil
reeking of a cologne that poison her veins,
Once again, white is for mourning.
The manequins whisper stories to the ones who pass,
The manequins know everything
that happened in the Tinseltown
Outside their glass house
Last night.

-

I played hide and seek in a
shopping mall once,
Plight of brightness drawing curtains
Upon eyes that loved shadows more than light,
i hid behind a burgundy sheer skirt,
And everything was purple
like the sky right before dawn,
I stole glances at the anti-light mirroring off of
White manequin heads
And wondered if they heard
white sounds of mothers
scolding their daughters for choosing
noodle straps or crop tops
that were too revealing,
or husbands telling their wives to cut the cut sleeves crap
There had been too many fights today,
But interfering for it's sake
Would be hearsay, so the manequins
don't utter a word.
I liked to imagine they kept still
to count
upto ten, or twenty
or hundred emotions that run
wild inside my heart,
a hundred racks of fake redressal,
of costumes needing to play characters
in my own life's play

-

Serendipity visited me for the first time,
On the kitchen counter when I was seven.
Running between gold chains and topaz rings
That my mother left on the counter for cleaning,
I plotted all morning to steal the anklet
Which looped twice to fit perfectly on my fragile wrists.
The whiff of freshly baked chocolate
Made me pick up the cookie jar instead.
So serendipity is an old friend
And unlike the new ones,
It brings me chocolates rather than jewelery,
Whenever it visits.

-

Hurt feels like a finger spilling red wine,
Which blames not the thorn that cut it
But herself, for picking up a severed rose
And thinking she could mend it.

-

The knocking of these drops reminds me that I can't fill lyrics in the rhythm of every rain that falls| Could someone just tell me, sometimes it's okay to feel nothing at all?

-

I like to think of my books as stamps, capturing moments of me. And my bookshelf, as a stamp collection. Which needs my attention from time to time as a favour to myself. To remind me of my favourite words, favourite lines, favourite characters. But mostly, to remind me, of me.

-