and all we have here are shadows.
lengthening every minute to become
the night. the flowering trees, windblown. their blossoms one with dirt. the clinking of glassware from the milkshake kiosk. and employees on smoke breaks: fatigued, frustrated flanking the pavements like boats grounded in low tide - waiting for
night to fall, for the water to rise,
and take them away.

(contd. in caption)

-

it’s the night that gets
the poets drunk on touches
of lost people and time,
and have their scars
bent into literature.

(contd. in caption)

-

this looks made up to me,
and chances are that you still
don’t know what’s easter.
in fact, you don’t need to know.
for this is just about your love
for chocolate-making and nothing more.
this doesn’t work with me:
your shitty show of merrymaking.
for i see you through filters and fast-forwards,
from a place deep within,
that at some point of time
had known you for who you were,
before you started to fake:
feelings first, festivities now.

(contd. in caption)

-

absar: to eyes lost in revolution

(read in caption)

-

the coffee shop you
invariably frequent,
taking to the farthest corner
that looks out to a bustling
road, the chair’s foam there
irreversibly sunk, and table top
warm with sun-tamed shadows of
vehicles crawling down its limbs; it’s
where the high school doers escape
with their infatuations: hold hands under the table,
and clandestinely pass phone numbers on folded napkins.

(contd. in caption)

-

// give it up //

know that it’s no addiction,
but your weakness of will.
what’s daring about alighting
dead leaves rolled in a paper?
if you can, live a life breathing
just air. one that has no stimulant,
and yet you cannot resist inhaling.
again and again.

(contd. in caption)

-

// ode to chipko movement //

green isn't just a color.
it's the tender smile of plants,
and the cool breeze of trees.
it makes for our breath,
with the clear light of day,
and if our blood wasn't red enough,
it would've been green for sure.
for what else represents life
as close?

it's in the jungles of concrete,
that green is a vanishing hue.
come, let's pledge to paint -
one for you, one for us,
and one more because it's
so beautiful. here's to
loving the world one
sapling at a time.

-

// on being a writer //

you'd cut your vein to laugh
at the throbbing blood,
and weep hard at being loved.
where you'd shun laughter
and friendship to close yourself
in burning silence and let it kill you; slowly.

(contd. in caption)

-

colorless,
too is a color.
you just have
to be empty
enough for it
to reflect in
your eyes.

water, they say
is colorless. it's
only the parched
who knows that
it's the color of life.

-

i loathe adolescence for
the soft bristles of hair
that made my face patchy,
and bore my voice an impolite
androgenous lilt that made
me sound confident, but
never convincing. i loathe
it for i how i discovered
myself in the dark: feeling
places that i never knew
was part of me. of blood
pumping into my groins,
and blissful contractions lived
over and over again in secret sanctity.

(full text in caption)

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