Don't be in doubt about being lucky if you're not in doubt about being unlucky.

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You will be free
From the shackles of what ifs,
Those which have prevented
You from stepping ahead,
Those which have snatched away
Your sleep,
Those which have suffocated you
Days and nights.
One fine day
You will have faith in time.

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The Humours

(Caption)

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Words smell like Arabian jasmine flowers
Which bloomed every spring
In my grandparents' house.
When I try to give them shape,
They stink like the leftover cauliflower curry
Which my mother made three days ago.
I crumple the paper to mask their odour.
But when the spring breeze makes its way
Through the windows,
It brings along the aroma of home cooked food
From the creases of the paper.

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When the lights had gone off
And the violent thunderstorm had fallen
Upon the face of the world,
I ran from houses to buildings only
To crash headlong into closed doors.
Drenched, my clothes submerged in my body,
My hands resembled a labyrinth.
As exhaustion paralysed me,
I was ushered to your threshold.
You took me in and nursed me.
I smelled ecstasy in the food you served,
Affection in your touch.
I was complacent to have found a shelter.

(caption)

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Anxiety knocks on my door.
I try and escape through the window
And start running.
The ragged road does not welcome me.
I fall again and again
Until I fall apart.
My skin unfolds, my organs disperse.
I lie down while the hues of red
In my body dissipate.
I ache to bleed words but in vain.
Dark. Despair. Dejection.
I suffocate as I run out of time.
I struggle to tear through it.
I end up piercing through
What was left of me.

(caption)

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As you had strummed the guitar to play the last note,
I started walking in your direction.
You put the guitar aside
And pulled me in an embrace.
You delved into my neck and
My chin reached your head.
I had sensed another warmth that day;
The warmth of your tears,
The tears that seeped through my shirt
And rested on my breasts.
Those two drops seemed to hit me like
A crashing wave.
I couldn't move but I was thrust upon
The shore where my head hit the rocks.
You breathed heavily,
Each of which seemed to drag
My soul out of my body.
That was the day you touched me.

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Aggrieved I stand,
At each meander of this course
And ask, "How many are left?"
I never get a response.

I start walking again,
A straight path gets besmirched by my sweat and blood.
All of a sudden, a little girl comes up to me
And hands me a rosebud.
Before I can ask "what is this for?"
She fades away,
Her giggles echoing in thin air.


(Caption)

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I see me in every face I glance at.
So alone that
I can hear my hair strands fraying gradually.
So alone that
I hear just my pant in every word that touches my ears.
So alone that
My tongue seems to be lacking taste buds.
So alone that
Each cell of my body shivers at the sense of warmth so as to shed every memory of it.

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