Wo jo gehre sanaate tere
Jinmein aaj bhi dhoondti ho Khwab sunhare
Wo shor jo ban gaya hei shaam ki dhun
Aapne khauf se lipti akeli reh gayi ho tum
Khud se juda hokar kaise jazbat tere
Khuda se shikwe aur kagaz par alfaz bhare
Ye khud se khud ki narazgi tumhein raas nahi
Aaina v Ruth kar toot jata jab tum uske paas nahi
Tum wo patjhad ka mahina ban chuki ho
Safed libas pehne rangon se ruth chuki ho
Soye hue jazbat dafna kar
Hazaron sawal ke neeche dab kar
Tum jo apni ankhon ki chamak bhul gayi
Tumhare haathon ki lakeerein jaise kismat mein ghul gayi
Tum tootte taare jaise phisalna jarur
Lekin har haar mein mat dhoondna apna kasoor
Waqt badalta hei ye raaz parakhna
Tum apne noor par hamesha naaz rakhna.

-

Of all things tragic and morbid,
Leaving topped my list.
Intertwined fingers slipping away
tugged at my heart,
The universe swivelled and
Aligned to some non conformity,
As 'what ifs' knocked out 'meant-to-be's
Distance is one tricky muse,
You dont know if it makes the heart grow fonder,
Because your hope becomes as myopic as you.
Goodbyes are so real,
It makes sense when they say,
End a conversation as if it were your last one.
Because i still remember that summer evening,
When we bid farewell,
And i had plucked a flower with purple petals,
And we had argued over its name,
And just as you started your bike,
I had handed over that note,
Written on tissue paper,
And you didnt wait to read it.
Afraid it would make leaving difficult.
I have stopped waiting.
Waiting makes me restless,
Like a ticking clock that makes full circles,
But i dont have a number here,
To count how many complete circles will bring you home.
I am instead focussed on the name of the flower,
It most certainly, ain't lavender as you said.
I need more time to figure it out, perhaps till you return.

-

Do you hear the silence,
Thick as a wall,
Wearing out all the noises,
Inside my head.

Do you see me,
Wearing chaos as a shroud,
Stumbling across imaginary blocks,
To reach home.

Do you breathe the same air,
Carrying the scent of me,
Laden with dust,
From eons ago.

Do you open caskets,
That were once gifts,
From lovers betrothed,
Perhaps till afterlife.

Do you still sign parchments,
And pass verdicts on,
'to be or not to be',
As if the world were your oyster.

Dear death,
Is my world really your oyster?
Or are you covering up your fear,
To meet indifference in my eyes.

-

I have admired silver linings,
Even when they wern't vivid.
And dreamt about a million things,
Tucked in a faraway future.
I have imaginary itineraries,
Of places I will travel to,
And milestones checked in,
To this ticking clock inside my head.
I have camouflaged every event,
That has been a beautiful mistake,
With this territory of memories,
I hold dear- now and forever.
There are stories I wish to live,
And adventures fed on my wishlist,
So whimsical, so incredulous,
I doubt they are even mine.
And at the end, I wonder,
If that is what life is all about.
Growing roots and bridges,
To conquer the universe.
And slipping farther from old dreams,
Weaving new paradises,
And leaving behind tiny check lists,
Behind fridge magnets.
Realising what I once held dear,
Is now foreign to me,
And what I am intent on building today,
Will crumble, a few summers later.

-

Mirage- A beautiful exile

If happiness picked its own metaphors,
Mine wouldn't qualify as a cloud.
For it has lost its tenacity,
And turned too heavy to float away.
If words were a means of banter,
I would call happiness- a beautiful exile,
For it is seldom a bedrock,
Often a mirage- too shy to be found.
Desires unfold as I take small steps,
Towards the haze that doesn't exist,
In this battle of 'to be or not to be',
I believe my mirages are as real as my metaphors.
Like a treacherous sin I plead guilty for,
Yet, unwilling to let it slip by,
I keep building mirages to live in,
Yet refrain from calling them 'mine'.
You might name it an 'illusion',
That science has decadently surmised,
But the eccentric poetess in me,
Calls it her abyss, her only salvation.
At the end of that long desert,
I find my happiness in archaic soliloquy,
Repeating to itself,
"Am I the mirage or a part of it?"

-

There is this manuscript,
I never let you read.
I have taken bits and pieces,
And fed you its potions,
You almost know how the story ends,
How the protagonists baffle each other.
You pretty much predicted the epilogue as well,
But i don't let you get to the prologue.
Because, somehow you have always feared beginnings,
Struggled to catch the upheavals,
And accept that happiness seldom follows miseries.
I still smother you with all the happy pages,
Convincing myself that those dark chapters can wait,
Till the day truth loses its brutality,
And softens, slackens under persistance.
That day, i will let you keep the manuscript,
To realise it isn't just named after you,
It's always been about you - just like everything else.

-

The december sun reminds me,
Of happy endings that matter,
Unsure if the aftermath shall stay happy,
Or freeze into a felony.
December sun is like some lyrics,
From a song that barely makes sense,
But it rings in my ears, on loop,
Revealing how addicted I am, to things unreasonable.
December sun is almost a myth,
A sham by the frozen winds,
But it warms my heart,nevertheless,
Like all pretentiously beautiful things do.
I know this ain't summer.
But summer never felt this soothing either.
Maybe this december sun is a saviour,
One that breathes in all the dew,
Teaching the leaves a lesson that,
"The whole isn't always greater than the sum of its parts.
It can be lesser too."

-

People succumb to amnesia,
And some ask for it.
In a world that barely stops by,
To look for a definition,
I wonder, what words will an amnesiac use,
To describe herself every single day.
Will today's wrath find a place,
In tomorrow's passiveness?
Will an abstract painting demand
More questions than answers from its creator,
Some other day.
Will broken vases bear stains,
From flowers that were fresh,once.
Will returned letters know for sure,
The purpose and poise with which they were written,
In the first place.
Will amnesia wipe away definitions,
And be an antidote to reminders,
That creep and crawl through distant faces,
That have forgotten to carry sympathy,
But have certainly aced the art of posing it.
Will past give away its tragic roots,
And stand powerless,
Its battles forgotten,
Sins forgiven,
And feel threatened by a blank slate,
Every single day.

-

Winter reminds me of home.
The one I didn't stay for long,
But yearn to revisit.
The creamy white paint
might have been peeled off the walls,
And the bricks slackened from years of waiting.
Perhaps the windows will creak,
If I ever push them open.
And spiders would have made a world of their own,
over my possessions.
I might cross bridges of self doubt,
And turn back again,
Walking miles that lead to the front door,
Of a home I barely lived at.
Will the knob give way to my efforts?
Or will I return pretending I lost the key,
Just to harbor the illusion,
That spiders haven't taken over,
And my possessions shall always be mine.

-

Will the clouds sober up?
Their loom scares my poise away.
I wonder how I walked,
This trail of vulnerability,
that a downpour can rattle my insides.
If wishes were real,
Walking and climbing stairways,
Outside the bubble of fantasy,
I would choose to keep them.
I would tame the rain to wait,
Yet again.
Could I say, the lightning frightens me,
Or my clothes dissent muddy puddles,
Or weave a thousand excuses
From thin air.
Because it sounds eerie,
When I say,
The rain reminds me,
Of how it felt to be happy again.
Will there be another unhappy poet,
Beside a hazy thunderstruck window,
Wishing the same,
taming the rain to wait,
Yet again.

-