ricochet

we're all so alone.
so desperately alone.

and it's a heady feeling like fuck.

empty lobbies and boarding time

I've made homes out of people
Lived in the eye of the storm
Not known it until it left
footprints of ruin
Loved with an electric passion

Seen the faint stretch of the night sky
as it gave way to dawn
Clicked my shutter on enough
nooks, and corners of hills
tried to capture scents on a camera
foolish enough to believe
memories lasted forever

I've flown over the Alps
Watched valleys seep themselves in pink
Seen giraffes walk away into the sunset
Made two feet tall snowmen
on a sixteen feet cover of white
Gazed at the Milky Way
And it's million wonders

and craned my neck
to the point of strain
trying to remember
sounds, smells, trinkets

I've spent evenings after evenings
on the same ledge watching
my fawn colour fur ball
against grey sheets of rain
and woken up to mornings
after mornings
to beautiful sunshine making
silhouettes out of real life characters
I've associated songs with forests
streams and brooks
people and their colognes

I've seen lakes washed with lilacs
believing my love story too
was lilac and faintly gold
and I've believed

Believed like only I can. 

you

you know the
clichés
they kept doling out
as if we
our fates
came in sealed envelopes

a storm and a
hurricane
we played out our parts
pretty well
I'd say

like amateur actors
under the spotlight
we shone
the moon in my heart
and the suns in your fists

only our scenes together
made our vulnerabilities
resonate
echo and sound
together
apart

you and I
we made
ghost towns out of
each other

if I ever visit again
I'll be sure to step
over the craters
on roads and side lanes
but I hope
I'll muster up
the courage
to go see the pale lilacs
you planted for me
last spring
cause I told you
that the colour
reminded me of home
or you

mid week brevity

listening to her
sing about love and distance
in vintage heartache

take everything

you were yellow
I, a pale lilac

on some nights
you'd paint the town red
leaving me wondering
if I, stuck in this
mezzanine space
would ever
be brushed by
what your heart bled

and then
I mixed palettes
to create a
symphony of waves
that came
crashing you by

the clockwork
of sunrises and sunsets
lunar cycles and moons
and each season of
purple wild flowers
saw your breath
on mine
and an ever increasing
stack of your old
worn out t-shirts

t-shirts
that now see me through
cold nights
spring cleaning
and adventurous days
of spicy chicken dishes
that I fashion

with the 2121 kms
that separate you
from me
it's the lilac
that you are now
and the yellow
that I'll always be
and the red-violet
between us
that will crash us by
today
tomorrow
and after that

light, dust, a little rust

you would think
that the best thing
about globetrotting
would be a worn out,
achy suitcase
stamps on your passport
in different ink
and a slightly
hazed and crazed
mosaic of experiences
collected and forgotten

but the best thing
about travel
is not even a new horizon
or a violently
free sunset

I wish I could take
your hand
and make you stand
where I stood
and show you

the dewy purple
of the milky way
the vast ocean
of the galaxies
that you won't even know
the fairy dust
and the faint lust
of the star dust
a sky celebrating
the light in your
soul
and the dreams
in your eyes
and the violent urge
in every fibre
of your being
to be, to just be
then
there
right there
and gaze.
gaze at the magnificence
of what is being written
before you -
before you feel
a little bit of you
leave you
and join the body
of the star spangled sky
and become one.

it is that moment
when you are
and you believe it more than ever
except you don't

this reality could
not be unparalleled
on the surface
of some violet coloured star
somewhere in this expanse,
where at this moment
a bit of me
must be leaving
to join the body of the
star spangled sky.

drake, iron and wine

send yourself out in the rain
mark crooked windows
them blue window panes
send out ships from your chest
send them out in the rain

the rain which was deep
deeper than the indigo
yesterday
is escaping from the vastness
of the universe
tipping stars over
and finding its way
into your cup of tea today
spread open your finger tips
and invite it in

the late evenings
were full of ghost cars
finding their homes
only to send themselves
out in the rain again
as the earth spun
spun itself silly
the cub's nose remained
as the 'x' in algebra
there
there
ever there

break broke broken

remember how
we used to fall
in little puddles of love
in the midst of dancing
or prepping a chicken
for a recipe
your mother took thirty minutes
to explain to you

and do you remember when
your name would light up
my tiny Nokia phone
announcing your arrival
in your blue car which
would take us zooming
to the next available
film show
or be patient as we
spent hours deciding
where to eat
in the small suburb
home to me
maybe even to you

it seems as if
I'm going to be
sending you a lot more of these
"remember when's"
through the unspoken dimension
that has settled between
you and me

one that was patted
like a sand castle
teased by the salty balm
of the sea breeze
and the thrashing of
the waves alike
but still held strong
even as the moat would
fill up with the stinging
ocean water

whatever happened to
the untainted happiness
that our nineteen year old hearts
realised together

remember when.

it's after 2 am...well, almost

try to pen verse.

then prose.

and then backspace

on the digital spaces

that thoughts

poetry

dreams

all the noise

that this life 

is, will be -

have come to 

become

numbly

but blaring

voices of truth

try dispensing

what they think

is life-altering

advice, or maybe

it's just nostalgia.

maybe

the five-lettered name

that I call myself

has now come 

to stand on

the outside.

maybe his fingers

can trace

fogged bathroom mirrors

or windshields

without remembering

the bends of those syllables.

come on.

it's just a couple of them

anyway.

and here you are -

beating yourself

with your demons

and cheap liquor

at least sit

with seasoned wine

and have a glass

seated across

the devil.

it's only done.

I hunt around

for inspiration

in words that 

are being penned

every now and then

across the Atlantic.

speaking of the Atlantic

do you ever think 

of stories

that could have been?

of hands that

were too close

and then too far away

all at once.

cry freedom

cry freedom

he would say

with the corner 

of his lips

and his fingertips

when silences around

you both

would strain to engulf 

the otherwise merry songs

bursting forth in your

hearts.

oh how I long

to tell those crooked

eyebrows

that I miss the stupid gaze

underneath

and the way those eyes

would crinkle

everytime I made them

laugh.

one two three million

maybe we're all

on our own journey.

maybe my street is

never going to be yours

and my fruit vendor

who fancies 

people call him

"Two Brothers"

will never make you chuckle.

or maybe there is

a grand plan

or a cosmos

that we're all a part of.

who's to say - 

our stories are our own.

are we canvas.

or the brush?

I'd like to think

of myself 

as both. 

the painter and

the paintee.

however - what if 

I was intent on painting

your hairline

onto my story.

the tense seems

to have changed

and I will have to evoke

whirlwinds

to really know.

Landin'

I've been landing on you

after all these months of

travellin'

if I took a blue car

and drove around the hills

at the dead of night 

would the blue

of my car

be blue with the blue

of the night

I feel a little bit 

faded and cracked

around my edges 

like the tea cozy

that found itself a victim

to Cub's gnaws

it's with the same ferocity

that life gnaws at my edges

and my insides

and I try to outrun it

fast and pacy

trying to get places

that I know nothing of

but cups of tea

are always a friendly constant

earl grey, mint and ginger 

it's like their smells are

going to mark

passage of time for me

through wintry Januaries

and monsoons 

which bring with them

only more poetry

leaving Cub and me

musing on the balcony 

maybe the next time

January is around the corner 

I will have the same question

for it - 

must you?