...

Dull eyes. Hunched backs. Swinging half-doors.
Stunted thoughts and a half-awake self.
The thin coat of cheap paint is peeling itself off of these half-funded walls. A lot buzzes and hovers around with the intent of cloudless clouds over our heads. Little goes around without us knowing as we wait for something unconsciously. Amidst whispers and knotted fingers, creating out of thin air, spinning unknowingly. Waiting till all comes around again. Waiting to rest. Waiting to wake up again.

Unscripted.

Words. Words and some more words. Meaningful, rarely. Always careless. We're thrifty with our sentences, our clauses. Some die and others pass away. They swoop past our ears and fly off our tongues without mostly meaning to mean. Steamy cups of coffee brim with the pungency of grounded, powdered beliefs while the heat carries our words across to one another. And names. We share the same names but never do I wonder if we share the same consequences of that pool of alphabets. Wouldn't it be so much better if we never had to use words to explain how and what we feel as our grays grow grayer and reds renege to maroons; without every thought trying to adjust its tone to the hues of these coffee-shop walls every second to second? If you just understood, with one contemplating glance and simply knew. Only knowledge... no words. But I guess the thoughts you read are a product of the words you choose to glue together.
Now we stare, blocking out the sounds of swinging doors, creaking floors and the hubbub that are words that we choose not to own, ones which never meant anything to us. We continue to look and search for explanations. But before you settle back into the armours I think I will open my mouth to speak, erasing fragments which will never fit into the human scale of words. I think I will use words again.

I think you are selfish. Very selfish. Enjoyment is banned. Of all sorts! Be happy. STAY happy. Take that frown off. It's so selfish of you to always put up that frown. Stubborn! I think I neglected you. You don't realise what happiness is! Stop binging. No wonder your new pair of jeans doesn't fit you anymore. You're still a child. I cannot leave you alone. It's too risky. I trust you. I don't trust you. I don't trust this world either. It's always a trial with you. You seem reserved that way. I don't mean to be rude but it's so surprising to hear your opinion on this. Oh, you didn't know? She's a feminist! I hate feminists. You smoke? WOW. I don't believe how much you've changed! But I think you just succumbed to peer pressure. You know what I mean? It's called the "labelling effect". We studied about it in Socio class. I don't mean it in a bad way but I don't think you really know what you're doing. They never let you decide for yourself. So controlling! They might never let you go. It's all so controlled. Do they sniff your clothes for drugs? Do they go through your school bag for cigarettes? I'm sorry. I really didn't mean to say it like that. But you know what I mean, don't you? I trust you (Laughter). Now that we're done with school, will your parents find a rich boy and have you married? How cute! You're all that I used to be five years ago. Oh, don't worry, you'll get there eventually. Get married. Get a boyfriend. Sex sounds like fun. Run away. I think you'll do well as an architect. Why don't you become an architect? Will they allow you to study law? Yeah, you should run away. I can't imagine how claustrophobic it must be for you! I understand. Really? You want to act? Will you be able to? Don't be angry yaar. Anger is a waste of time. But obviously you don't like rain! You haven't travelled in public buses in the heat. Who would with all the air-conditioned cars and classrooms? I didn't mean to be offen- ...really? You're taking this pretty well. I thought you'd just burst out with anger like you always do. But, oh well! You're growing up! You're Muslim? No, it just sounds a little ridiculous. I mean, I don't believe in God. Prayer is stupid. You believe in God? You don't look like the kind who would. You don't even say Bismillah before you eat. I just hope life doesn't turn out ugly for you because that is what happens to people who don't pray. You haven't been through half of the shit I have. You're so lucky! You seriously don't know what life is about. I just worry about how innocent you still are. Hopefully, life won't make you pay. I hope you don't mind. You know what I mean, don't you? 

This Man.

He has power. Such that is within him. Within his nervous clenched fists and curled feet that he presses against the ground. It leaps up. It flames! But he doesn't see. He feels. He presses his fingers to his forehead to feel the temperature rise and sweat trickle down his throbbing temples. The air-tight warmth of this home seems to wrap this man tight now. He is more than any person inside this realm could deign or dare to be and yet he does not realise; he is a King. He makes his own realm; he spins and unspins webs of unspoken sentences and he weaves his dreams into this delicate of mesh of imagination that no one else may perceive.
He stands alone. He feels the pressure on his lungs, on his toes but he does not see he stands strong. He stands and he endures. He has overcome this air-tightness, which consumed enough of his life to make it his occupation. He feels loss but he does not see it was never anything to occupy enough. And he must realise there need not be any struggle anymore. He sees every thread of this world entangled, sparred and sifted but does he not realise the craft, the skill with which imagination has embroidered courage on this blanket? Rock-steady. Not soft. If you hold his hand and feel the calloused skin on his palms, you will know the ripple of dream, those currents of strength swimming in these hard-earned, long-spent years of thirty.
Brother, I will undo your fist, grasp your hand and not let it be held and unheld once more. Don't you see defeat is not an idea in your creation? Never in these years have I seen anyone rise and rise again. Now that you have risen again, I can see gravity bow down and surrender beneath your feet. Epics will crumble within bookshelves in revision of faith when a man in your name is written. The carpet of man's dreams is not fit to carry the stamp of your tread. Blessed seas will welcome you and skies will clear beyond the Seventh Heaven, parting in your grace. Do you not see, you have only to summon?  Let the truth be known. Turn around and look in the mirror, dear brother. You will see humanity reborn.

An Alternate Beat.

The Sun is relentless. Merciless. And we're never short of energy shortage. It's a typically Monday, hot afternoon. The heat seeps in from these tall windows. I don't think the Sun cares.
It maybe a while before I decide to step into shade. The cool, the light, the ease. The fan blows, bursts across my face and for a moment I consider if it only throws off the heat from these baked ceilings overhead.
I think of water, of seas, of splashes and foams and I think journeys. I hear engines whistle and spot a ship sailing ahead, beginning it's smooth journey. Nonetheless, something tells me this ship does not sail. It steers. And there need be determination, energy to steer or this vessel may totter. Lifeless vessels totter and capsize if no navigator is aboard. Because vessels do not belong to the waves. They were made to traverse. Because sometimes the sea is only a matter of distance, a charted course, and not an energy in itself. It may bear life itself but may hearken death for another. Because sometimes, one life is not enough to move adrift with another just as sometimes, love is not enough to have us travel distances together.
 The heat this afternoon is too overpowering. The windows let in too much of the sun and there's something about this house that blocks the passage of its return.
I think of blue beaches and I can only picture crashing surfaces.
But I try to contemplate the depth, the median, where there is ocean and there's ocean.

Here.

I'm sitting here in my room with this mug of tea in my hand. It's my second. It's odd because I usually don't have more than one in a day. My day doesn't start without it either. I am literally incapable of all sorts of movement until I have had my doze of chai for the day. But it's odd because I've been sitting here in his same position for nearly two hours now. There is no movement. There actually hasn't been much in a while. I think I gulped down that second mug-full in hopes that there might be some today.
No stirs, no turns of a page. The twist of a pen, an ankle, sole of the foot seems lost. I see my reading lamp there, lying on my table in all its order and serenity. Only I cannot reach out and switch the light on.
But what have I done? Only nineteen and nothing yet.
We love, lose, give up, stand up, strive, win and sometimes lose again. There is So Much to be done. So Much to be Read, Heard, Spoken and Unspoken. So many leaps to be risked and a few friends left behind. Why then are these days like those nauseating merry-go-rounds I have always run away from? The inescapable kind. Cotton-candied-pink grins and sharp, sugar-coated, mechanical screeches of joy. Clownish smiles, mocking with electronic, dizzying tunes of the merry-go-round. Whereto from here? How? And I realize I am living my dread; I am living a sense of completion. The point of rest is the death of all thought. There is no rest, thankfully and unfortunately. Rounds. I come back to the same point I start off from every morning, without turning corners. I laugh too. You can die of fake happiness.
I read poetry in times like these, find briefly worded comforts but there seems to be no rhythm in the verses that I find. All of a sudden, I don't see, a rhyme in all that I have composed in these two years.
There are thoughts and there are questions. There were replies too. But there was no poetic justice in them. There was no poetry in the hearts. Only hearts broken and illusions restricted to delusional verses. Only in written. Never in Life.


There is only one window in this room. I think I'll attempt to open a book again.

Letters of Verse - Part II

You were mine, only till twenty-five

but the world swept you away.

In rolled the charcoal skies, to have you abandon that sparkling ray

I recognized, but cupped these ears

only to muffle the roar

The wind now whispers their plan:

the overcast has decided to draw away

to let the yearning sun have its way

I spot the shy streaks of golden too

curving a grin in the once graying realm.

I know and I always did.

I'm glad that Spring is imminent

though the knowledge wrings this obstinacy,

(Forever is nothing more than a word)

Forever this spring will never be.

Though this Universe never promised balance,

It's still an unbalanced trade.

This scheme was not hard to unravel;

I know and I always did

but acceptance, now, dodges this terrain.