Sujāṭa

When you stirred

And waited
For the rice to soak in sweetness
Did you know?


Still when the cardamom
And cloves 
Wafted out in invisible smoke
Did you realize yet?


That an entire Kalpa had held its breath

And watched                         and waited

While your fistful of rice

Cooked and swelled in your hearth

That

Your cardamom and cloves

Still waft today

And the words

From the Mouth you fed

Are whispered even today...

a million pyres
embrace fire

as myriad members
declare sovereignty
and cement the fate
of my body

they build ramparts
around divided life

monuments of high taste
true symbols of strength

master pieces of Death.

Absent

You are present
in your absence. But
were you present
in your presence?

I stood behind a curtain
of anger.
Naked.

Anger? Anguish?

You were free to choose.

You were wanted.

Your presence required
your absence.
My presence required
my presence.

You are the wind
that makes my breath.

Impossible love
is but made of love.

Indifferent
Now the wind fans me
out of pity.

When did my breath
change into Wind?

When did you grow
your own lungs?

Scavenger of love

Proofs
Of all those drafts
Bearing an idea of "us"

Proofs
Of those accidental turns
That your imagination took

Ruins
Of all those roads leading to me

Foetuses
Of love that was aborted

Decay on your heart's floor

And I become the scavenger
Who is paid twice

Once
In your pain

Once
In all those possibilities
Where your heart muttered
My name.

During the day
Our works save us from each other.

Television blares me out of your mind.
I chop vegetables. I peel away your presence.

We sleep, far away
right next to each other
Recalling memories
of fog-filled unreal times
when my prince had your face.
Me, your princess
dressed in joy.

And we sang the song of love…

How did the the many instruments of our song
begin to fuse into a monotone?

And the words that spoke of love

learn to speak a different language?
And when did my fabulous white gown
shred into a fog so dense?

Questions like these
paint our walls now.
Where a very present white
uncolours itself.

a river flows…

now a river flows like it always did. seen. dipped in. quenched from. nourished by. cleaned by. grown out of.

now a river flows by, like it did always - what is left of it. and what became of it. waged upon by unfriendly waters. carrying forth unasked baggage. and sands from every shore.

the same river flows now. incessantly. fed by rains and unknown springs. or majestic glaciers. for as long as forever. fighting your memory with its new waters. constantly. so that it remains the same river. that flowed there. then now and forever.

an ode to white

walls silenced under white

voiceless

and blind

stand testimonial

to the ebb and flow of life…

 

white white white

this inescapable sight

that paints the walls of the inner eye;

our sorrows muffled under

pangs of laughter.

fog that is white

sometimes the moon too?

silver white!

white

that dresses the skies

and our whispers alike.

white:

unred, unblue, uncolored,

white that isnt green

white the bosom of a page

studded in script

white that listens

when asked to speak

white

us washed off our sins.