colour me tomorrow

the afternoon sun painted swirls of yellow
on the bare canvas of me
then evening came and night fell down
dousing its blues and blacks
melting away the golden glow
i wait in the darkness tonight
for the blood red dawn

shadow child

i see you,
shadow child
adrift on the edge
of awareness and being
you inhabit my soul,
reject my body
remerging year upon year
asking for deliverance.

a minute at most

cut lose
all articles
life; now poetry

____________

open your coat
as you round the bend
let the wind catch you
and fly

pauses

I like it best
When the light turns red
And we ramble slowly
To a stop
Absent to each other
Bathed in that glow
Waiting casually for
The other shoe to drop

past tense

How will it feel
to have to breathe life into you?
to have to deal
with your three-dimensionality
when it has taken so much
strength to let you in
-to my life as an idea?

How will I come to terms
with you being an idea
with a personality,
opinions,
a mind of your own
and a body impossible to deny?

How will I accept you?
Sitting across from me,
eating for sustenance,
conversing to pass time,
extending a hand in friendship?

How will it feel to have no choice?
To be a hypocrite bound
by who I intrinsically am?
Fallen. Your body will fill spaces,
your voice will have to be heard,
your eyes met,
and your feelings acknowledged.

It feels as if my world is limited.
And you will take up all that I have.
You will do so unknowingly.
You will not realize that the air you breathe
freely is the last breath I have.

You will step unfalteringly onto my ledge;
your step is my slip. No room you see.
How much room can I make
in this heart after all? I don’t know
why it is asked of me.

anarkali quits

no evil king with merciless eyes
no broken hearted prince’s plight
i built these walls with my own hands
no starvation, no shelter less sun
no strings to tie me to this post
i have built my own prison
one brick at a time
how could i have failed to ask
just who this prison pleases most
how could i have failed to see
that i built this on my own

don't say a word

it isn’t difficult
to betray yourself. do it
everyday in some capacity
or the other. it comes
as easy as changing
clothes, even easier
considering fabric struggles.
necessary betrayals. learn
to drown out your voice so
it is lost forever. one less
voice to be concerned with. it can
only help to allow the others out
as they jostle and elbow
their way to the forefront clamouring
incessantly for attention. give
them the right of way,
amplify them in hope
that they will wear themselves out.
or otherwise, if you are that sort,
reach your hand into the water,
grope blindly for the voice
you buried there, resuscitate it and bring it back
to the surface and hear your own call
and wonder how will it stand apart
from the din?

who me?

Characteristically capricious
Unabashedly usurping
Sometimes my other self
Surprises me

walk tall

with my mixed up bag of idioms
slung unapologetically over these
shoulders like a lean cow’s behind,
parchment skin tenting over sharp bones
that will no longer have to curve inwards
to protect this heart that beats wildly
with that fluttering fear in my breast
like a sparrow caught unawares
I will leave here, to return transformed
maybe, baby - one day.

no return

you haven’t any home. never did. so when you say you feel
homesick it is just a desperate emptiness pulling you deep
into itself. when you curl up and cry you have no space
in your heart to return to. no past to blame no childhood to
hold to trial, just an empty dock, a finger pointed
in accusation at the abyss.

exhale

push thoughts away
like wayward strands
the breeze blows carelessly
into your eyes
and pay no attention
to the world that rushes
while you stand idly by
forget a while
the life you led and the hopes
and dreams you had
take for yourself just this
moment and deeply,
deeply sigh

no blame

the oddest thing is that
there is no blame
you had your reasons -
i had some too.
intoxicated we stumbled
blind in the need
to shed our skins,
we of no identity
for i have none for you
and you never knew me

going nowhere

Today I have no place to be
No one is expecting me
I am not filling the space
You would expect me to be
Today I am a loose end
Rather than a tree, no roots
No shoots, no sky above me
There are no signposts
Where I stand, and that you see,
Is the irony of someone who
Always knew the way from A to B

urdu

like a stranger’s tongue
it feels foreign in my mouth
while lips part and meet again
surprised at the unexpected reunion
the tongue curls and probes,
a friendly wrestle forms words
undulating with a decadent languor
as I float away on the sound
- treacle waves of molten meaning

pearls

I can write like string
of moments like pearls
each created alone
irritation made tangible

sell by

They have a lot
of funny pageants
in some places.
The even have one
for mature ladies.
Past their prime
but still acceptable
enough in a bathing suit.
But they have to be old.
They have to
be 28 and over.

can you feel it?

Prescription hunger, caught in a bottle;
curative elixir for the anorexic soul.
Just two teaspoons dawn dusk
and in between displace your body
with those who cannot voice their pangs.
Just two, remember, taken daily
Clear crimson, liquid sympathy.

don't move

I don't love you.
Rather, you are the wall
against which I chose
to break myself.
You will never move.
I will never stop.
And if ever you do
move to embrace me
all that lies between us
will be lost.

2:58 a.m.

Sometimes.
I think about you too.
It happens.
The mind wanders.
Unavoidable.
It settles
in its favorite spot.
That well worn dip
in the mattress.

laugh lines

laughter lines
aren’t really wrinkles
but more like badges
of merry merit
and I just can’t stop
trying to earn mine

_________________

someone saw me
laughing out loud
at nothing at all
in the ladies’ loo
i had to explain
that like most things
a good wrinkle takes
constant practice.