It lies aloof in the full moon, shadows of the oak upon its abscess
Highlighting the cracks that once were swell
I am eerie, even as this house is.
The part of me sighs and dwell
On the voices of a long night,
And chirps of a red bird afloat at the opened window
The spaces and gaps want to be occupied
But the empty rooms pride in the
Motes of dust in the fading gloom
And the cobwebs of memories
The words were unspoken
The times were past
There was so much left to be offered
Wasted in the lift of the autumn clouds
The reek of the memories nauseates the time
A book rests fallow, open to page nine.
Shadows stretch in a perpetual nightfall
And footsteps echo where no one has passed,
resounding through narrow corridors
where the remembrance crumbles, softly white.
The scent that rises from the attic
is swell and damp like your cologne
you would dab on your wrists.
A sign
of the library of regrets I’ve amassed.
The words were unspoken
The times were past
There was so much left to be offered
Wasted in the lift of the autumn clouds
Come, we’ll uncork a bottle of Chardonnay,
The last memoire of days where the hallow sun
tinted us gold.
If no one speaks,
Perhaps your ghost will no longer hide
in my lonely recess, away from sight.
The impish metal smiles, awkward and cracking
The creased notes passed between the wooden school desks,
Fiercely guarded and embraced with a mischievous touch
No more lost sleep to late night calls or worries unrequited
The disillusion of forever painted names on the last furnitures
Or all those candyed heartaches….
So tell me again, why the heart races
In the palpitation under the goose bumped skin folds
Why I devour every word you say Or
Keep it with in the blues of your eyes
Tell me if I am too old for this
Or
Say I ‘m not.
Send me the star that you dream on,
The pillow that carries your tear stained mahogany,
The bloodshot eyes that
The pitiful picture of the heart lay on its whites.
Send me the credence of your world,
That made you bow with its every pretense,
The desert heat in your heart and the stillness of it all.
Send me the weight of your heart, that took every blow as its last,
With its romancing liars and dancers under the moonless stars.
I would set it all ablaze,
And carry it to the waves and
Watch it go down………………
Well, for starters, you should visit the place that you never do- that’s the gym” he said, looking up from his wrinkled copy of “The Week”.
She stood there, the wet dish in her hand dripping soap suds onto her gloves into her sleeves.
“Well you asked,” he said, now getting pissed it was going to become an argument. She always had to do it, ask the question to which there was no right answer. And even if there was, she always found it so unconvincing or blatant. “Goddamn,” he mumbled and slammed down his magazine. “Here we go again.” As the tears started to roll down her face, it made him cringe more, somewhere inside.
In truth, he couldn’t bear to see her cry. Sometimes she used that as a weapon. But at that time, it just seemed that it did not matter to him much.
He walked to the TV, switched it on and shouted over a commercial for Baby wipes. This was all just a mistake. You want me to do, what you feel like doing, you want me to say, what you want to Hear. In truth, you just wanted a Dog, not a Husband.
She stared at the wall with glassy eyes. It just made him more angry.
Standing over the sink full of dishes, she touched the back of her hand to her forehead and turned away from him. He knew she was doing it so he couldn’t see her shiver and her eyes tearing.
It didn’t matter. He knew her well enough. Or that’s what he thought he did. He always had a way to look at life at a telescopic level, his rationality ruling over emotions or microcosm of feelings.
“Oh fuck this,” he said, knowing he’d never win. “What the hell am I supposed to say to you? How the hell do I get out of these ridiculous situations you set up? It’s like, all I want is some peace and quiet when I get home from work and you’re not happy unless there’s an argument.”
Next to his shoulder on a shelf was a Hummel figurine he’d bought her for their anniversary. He didn’t know why he threw it until after it shattered against the wall. He felt no better. He missed his whole life that he gave up and for what, he thought. He missed them all, his friends, his social life. His whole life hurt. It never stopped. Sometimes he could forget about it for a while. But it never went away completely. It left him helpless and hating the life that surrounded him.
She flinched at the sound of her breaking gift. It made him hate her more.
It was all about control. She was turning into a goddamned shrew and he was not going to be a mindless lump. He’d show her. He would not turn into a dog that she wanted for as her pet.
When she gasped, as if his words were punches, he knocked over the kitchenette table and she held her hands over her mouth.
He knew he would have to hit her if he stayed so he grabbed his car keys off the counter. Why the hell had he gotten married in the first place? It was the “buy the cow” scenario his best friend told him about that got him in to this mess. Now he was attached to someone who would never understand what he wanted in life and couldn’t help him get it.
It was a mistake. He’d fix it. There were people who understood him. There were things he enjoyed doing. There were things he resorted to for his escape.
He thought she would have hated it when he went there because he felt good there. She didn’t want him to do anything that made him happy.
He told her not to wait up for him. He told her she looked like a fucking scullery maid kneeling on the floor and crying, and what the hell did she think she was, Cinderella? And he was proud of himself for thinking of the analogy. At least one of the guys would find a way to laugh at that.
When he slammed the door and her sobbing faded behind the metal and wood what pissed him off most is he was sure she had no idea what a huge favor he was doing her by leaving.
He wanted to paint the colors of the sunset in the dancing rivers. With his father beside him, he felt like a superhero though he could not walk much with a virus in his legs. And his hands made up for that, for the fingers danced in the canvas when he was happy, stroked higher when he wanted to run or just laid still when he was tired.
He and Tom, his father, used to sit by the lake every evening or most of his days, otherwise marked by the stillness in his legs. He never had felt the earth on his toes, they said he was one of the lucky few who had to rest well for they have to make long journeys.
They used to sit by the dock down the lake. They counted the stars as they slowly emerged from the blankets of grey, orange, and purples. He wanted to capture each of that hue on his canvas, and take that moment with him forever. He would not have minded if the universe could have ended just then, for there is no where else he wanted to be and that was not a moment when he felt like a cripple. He would trail his numbed toes through the waters and watch the reflection of a dreamy sky in its ripples. He felt alive in his legs then and accepted and celebrated them in all its glory.
Tom used to get some tea and sometimes played his tune on the strings, making the evening more beautiful than ever. He used to think his father as a genius with nothing impossible for him. In his jacket, that Tom wore everyday for this occasion, he looked peaceful and content. The jacket belonged to his mother, Tom’s wife, who gave it to him before she slipped from this world. And with the jacket snugged on to Tom’s shoulders, it reminded him of the way she used to stand beside him with her soft tiny hands, as a blanket of comfort that he missed now so dearly.
Tom loved her much, guess, too much.. and no matter what he did to fix it, his eyes could never hid it and no matter how many times Tom and his son spent in the evening together, or how many sunsets came and went, his soul had left with hers and only a tiny piece remained, that piece belonged to his son and always would. Tom’s heart was in nothing that he did, except those evenings when he used to play his music by the ripples in the lake. That’s why he longed for them so, just to know Tom was at peace in this world, if only for a time. Tom had tried, he knew, to sort through the thoughts he had, but there was something changed in his mind, something had just died in him.
Tom’s gone now, and left him and everything and everyone behind, to be with his mother – the only place he truly belonged . He misses him, his songs, his jacket.The lake seems so lonely now, but every evening he still pulls through in his wheel chair down to dock, slips his socks off and soaks his toes in the lake. He trails his feet through the water lightly and pretends that he can see the reflection of Tom’ smiling face amidst that of the sunset’s.
He smiles as the wind blows gently across his cheek and he knows, by the way it picks the fallen leaves up and tosses them into the sky, that Tom is truly happy now.
They rested, celebrated, found each other all over again in a cheap motel room that seemed as surprised in the hues of pink and magenta of their shadows.
She leaned closer to the side of the bed, lazy with the darkness looming in the curtains of the room. He was spinning verbal menageries like the spider on the corner with its cobwebs of reason and imaginations. The words swirled with their cigarette smoke, dissolving in the rings of air, humidity and underlying innuendos, dancing across the hazy air like a perched dancer on an invisible boulevard.
He had been away all weekend and most of the time that spanned through it; she felt like she would burst in her own bubble of solitude and loneliness of chaos in her head. And now she sat here watching his theatrical montage of words and smoke mixing together.
He speaks in turquoise, cerulean, yellows… whiskey amber, and delectable embellishment, each breath laced with nicotine and lucid dreams. Every day is a void canvas and a new paint-brush of dynamite; somehow the paint always drips, and he lights the fire in her head, each day every day.
For him, it was not a matter of a ploy, or for his own catharsis. He was his own character, poised, comic, tragic and poignant, all at the same time… he is words with wonder coated in a fabulous thin candy shell.
And he has this lousy habit of making people fall in love with him.
He didn’t know about the weekend she’d had. He did not know that she had just lost her Enzo, her dog , her companion and the car was a reckless thing on that lousy Sunday Morning. Enzo was a hyperactive silly dog running across the streets, chasing squirrels dropping from the fall trees .All it took was a screech to bring her perfect world to an end.
He didn’t know how she thought she might be going crazy. How she had read that dogs are the best friends and people mourn their dog’s death more than the death of their peers or folks. How she had not eaten well ever since and was clinging on to her shards of reasoning, failed and discarded.
There was a quiet moment. Not an awkward silence – with him, these did not exist. The fan was louder than it seemed with chaos in her head. He stared quietly into the distance like he was tapping onto his thoughts from a distance, like he was thinking about something way smarter than anything she could ever understand. It was nice, this silence. And then he turned to her, out of nowhere, and said
“Look at you. You’re writhing in the crushing grip of reason.”
And he was right.
She hadn’t told him a damn thing, and he was right. He had a way of saying it that made it sound bigger than everything else in the room. He had an understanding that dissolved in the smoke of his cigarette, like he was not one of those making a mockery of their own words, like he understood that Enzo was gone and she never would play with him again. Like he was joking but he was not.
“So how do you suppose that it was so?”
She continued chasing the smoke clouds in her head and squirmed. There was no need to say anything further. He knew already.
He knew how scared she was.
What good is a conversation when the words have already been spoken in your minds?
It’s a huge waste of space. That’s what it is.
“She will remember your heart when men
are fairy tales in books written by rabbits.
Of all unicorns, she is the only one who knows what
regret is – and love.”
-Schmendrick
Her lips open part for the breaths, dissolving into the sweats and blood,
Her words are not powerful-her speech faltering and embarrassed
But she is sincere!
First- she has to tell you
That there is a reason, a justification and understanding
That you always sought for but missed in her
Second- a caution- a request
Dontsayanythingyet, youmightmisunderstand
She doesn’t want an answer,
Leave beside a wrongone and misunderstood!
She conjured a whispered affection, fondness in her shadows-
Spoken with dry lips, parched and devoid.
Her averted eyes and apparent hopes
Gleamed in her eyes that don’t shine!
In her mind you’re a destiny,
just not the one she took home but hoped sincerely!
She would never say it in words,
she cares at least too much to pass it by.
But she’s been telling you for a while
with the way she leans in the doorway
always in the midst of lights and her gloom
where her shadows meet yours, becoming one.
A long dark alley stood before her, as she tried to put together her scattered self in the corridors of the hospital. Her beeper had gone twenty minutes before, and she had slept early hoping no distractions of the world coming to an end today. Two hours later, she find herself standing in the hospital, quiet and not as swarming as she had left it in the evening. She walked towards the morgue, somehow the remains of the life with heartbeats numbed in the plastic bags intrigued her in a way she had never known. There was no rush, no panic- for the worst had already happened. She saw herself one day zipped in one of those blue plastic bags, with her beeper in her apron’s right pocket.
He was seventeen years old- attractive, athletic, popular and in the yellow body bag. The yellow indicated that he was found by the relative, close or distant and he would not have to depart alone. The ones in Blue body bag were those consumed by the electric crematoriums of the hospital. The yellows were like a  parachute, bringing the soul closer to home, while the blue ones were like an ocean, swallowing the whole life, never to be found again by anyone.
The charred remains of this boy’s life was revealed as the director unzipped the body bag. She didn’t remember the boy’s name, she remembered the sound of the opening bag and the sound of his father’s gasp as the bag peeled away from the corpse.
Raul, the Director at the mortuary, had brought the body up from Burgess Rd  at the request of the father. She was supposed to be available if he needed anything . She stood, behind the father, as he stared down whispering to the corpse in the open bag.
She looked at her shoes, embarrassed that she was wearing her casual white Nike and Levis. Raul had told her that she wouldn’t need to dress for this call but she felt awkward, uncomfortable and disrespectful. She felt that at least she should wear a tie if she were to view such an intimate moment.
The father whispered quietly to his son’s blackened, burned remains, his voice rose only as he choked back tears or held his sobs with slow, controlled breaths.
Raul turned and looked at her with concern at first, seeming to notice her discomfort and he leaned over to whisper in her ear. “You need to go get some tissues.â€
She lifted her hand to her nose in dismay and looked up.
“No, no.†his voice was a sharp whisper. His face and voice was serious but his eyes showed amusement at her misunderstanding. “Just bring them back†He pointed silently back to the offices and she scurried over and found an open box and returned. She handed it to him and stood back in her place – out of the way, wishing herself invisible.
They waited just outside the calling room as the father spoke to his son for five or ten minutes, leaning over the body, or whatever remained of it. These remains that could have been anything – they barely resembled a human being- let alone his strong, handsome son.
The air of the lobby was dense and she wanted to throw up. She clinched the right corner of the table behind her and wondered why the boy’s mother was not there.
When the father’s words had dried up and he was left staring, he leaned forward and kissed the face, then touched what was left of the arm and tried to shake his son’s hand. He stepped back for a moment and absently brushed the dry, charred flakes from his fingers and they fell to the tile floor. She noticed those flakes, parched and devoid of father’s last embrace.
The father’s lips, nose and chin were flecked with ash and his face was red and blotchy with tears.
Raul pulled out several tissues from the box and handed these to the father. He subtly indicated the end of his nose, lips and chin drawing line down them with his finger.
The father accepted the tissues and wiped the black away, crumpled the tissues – crushed them in his hand. He dropped them carefully into the trash as he walked away.
Raul zipped the bag and wheeled the body to the back room as the father left the mortuary. He said he would wait in the car for the body. She retrieved a broom to sweep up the dust on the floor.
Tomorrow they would cremate what was left of his body – all that the fire in the van hadn’t consumed – for the funeral on Thursday.
She had to walk through the calling room in order to get back to her apartment and she passed picture after picture after picture… She tried to put a face on the body but failed. She wondered if the father had. She wondered if the father had ever spoken the whispered words to his son when he was alive – and she figured that he’d never said them before – and never probably would say those words again. She crossed the ward where she saw an old man sitting on the chair besides his ailing daughter but she knew she would get well. This old man probably too would never say those words again.
When she went back to her apartment, she turned off all the lights, blew out every candle in the room, and listened to her heart pound in the darkness. In her mind, she counted the number of yellow bags to blue bags and was glad that the yellow bags were a unit less.
“Hey You Ok!!?”
Steven called out to her, that little squirmed figure by the road side.
“Lost your dog? Or lost yourself?”
She sat there, still.
“You look sad”!
Steven just presumed so; her eyes gave way more than that.
“Want some ice cream?”
And then, she rose up. An attractive woman, in her late twenties or may be less. She had been crying and he had to ask. He knew an ice cream parlor two blocks away. She wore shining lacedRed shoes, which was funny in the afternoon summer.
“What’s your name, little red riding?”
Steven thought it was a funny name to call her, but it was more on the spontaneity of the Redness of her shoes. She wanted the Old fashioned Butter Pecan ice-cream, which was funny for her taste. Or for her shoes!! The Butter Pecan ice-cream was more of a man’s thing.
“Do you like your ice cream, little red riding?”
She was a pretty girl, pretty more so as she did not talk much. Steven liked those kinds. He did not believe himself, cheering up a stranger with an Old Pecan. And he did not seem to mind it as this was not his first time. She was a real feast for his eyes, and she didn’t have much to say. She was very gloomy and self-obsessed.
And they sat there, he could not get her to talk to him or say her name. She sat there still, her only life rolled in the layers of her ice-cream.
Steven was beginning to lose his interest. He was late for his routine poker game and rounds of beer at his friend’s place. He thought about dropping her off at the bus station on the wrong side of the road. But the way she crossed her legs on her stool at the ice cream stand brought his attention back into focus. His attention was back to her shoes, that looked now pleasant and not so Red.
She enjoyed her ice cream cone ever, oblivious to Steven or anyone around her. For her, the world did not seem to exist. This was the end or beginning to her. And she flashed her sad eyes on him, as if she was trying to thank without showing any joy whatsoever.
She was a real drag.
He asked her where she lived. She did not seem to listen to him. And Steven felt morose in missing his beers and being stuck. It was over thirty five minutes now.
“Would you take me back to your place!? She spoke as slowly as if eating her every word.
He wanted to take her back to his place. But she seemed funny and drugged. This should probably would help him in some ways. He could use her in his nights of loneliness or as a home keeper. He had been staying alone and she seemed pretty enough for a company or for being his mistress.
A life, or its sort formed in his mind as she let another tear fall from her eye. This made him re-think his plan, he did not want a whiny, depressed wreck in his house. He convinced himself that he would not get his life disheveled in her emotional breakdowns.
“I would, I guess I could use some help around the house. Do you feel better now, little red riding.”
She seemed to appreciate what he had done for her and timidly asked if there was anything she could do to repay him for his kindnesses. He figured a thousand man ways for repaying him and he thought he would get them all sooner. He grinned and said he would like to read his poetry to her. He didn’t have any poetry, but he knew there were three drug stores along the way. They would offer the dreamy words of literature he needed for the perfect seduction.
Once they were in the car, she took off her red shoes. Depressed people always spend a lot of time polishing their toenails and hers filled him with a borderline sensation of awe.
He lit a cigarette and offered her one. He liked the way she blew the rings of the smoke. He knew he wasn’t going to hurt her. He just needed her to make the world go away for a little while. And maybe she needed him for exactly that. And maybe that’s why they met that day.
Her name was Marcia.
She was born in a cheap motel.
Her mother sold herself for drug money.
She never saw her father.
The church in her neighborhood was burned down.
The minister retired and took her God with him.
And her favorite color was Red.
Steven had a dog named Capricorn. He had built a shrine for his ex-wife in the backyard of his house. His wife died after something horrible happened to her white blood cells. They told him she would be happier where she was going. Steven tried to believe she went to Vegas. His wife was a saint amongst sinners, but right now he was just trying to get himself a little something going with Marcia to kill the time that passes too slowly between birth and death.
Somehow it seems that everyone needs a little help, or maybe someone to carry them over the finish line- in their Red Riding Shoes.
And her grandmother told her stories about the Stars. Stars that she loved every night, stars that shone just for her. Stars that did not disillusion, and disgrace love.
Oh, she hoped they existed for her sake!
She stood still in her garden, bending forward as if admiring a dead flower- or almost dying. The moonlight caught the hem of her dress, sparkling at the corners, giving it its own whites of melancholy. Her hair, golden as a hay, was pulled up into a knot high on her head leaving a neck as graceful as a swan’s, as vulnerable to the hunter’s arch.
And the west wind blew.
He approached her from the west with the wind and his scent and his steps were carried with the autumn leaves. He moved soundlessly except for the winds that were carrying him forward before his steps. He brought along a faint jingle of silver-white necklaces, as a token from a parting lover. She stood along, did not seem to move but left a deep sigh, as if an acknowledgment towards him, and his weight carried in the winds. Her back was turned to him and the west winds.
His cloak was of a warrior, shining and crisp. It was as if he was leaving for a far away battle, as if this was just a temporary home for him. His hands were brown and smooth and longed for her last touch. He smiled vaguely in the moonlight, but the moonlight shone on his agony more than the pretence of his smile. Had her back not been turned to him, she would have seen the moon shine on his smile, she would have seen the light in his dark aura and she once more had been dazzled and heart-broken. She was prepared and did not turn to look, she only said, “You are leaving,” it was not an indictment.
His smile faltered, but only for a moment. They always knew that the Warrior left them alone; never before had there been one who did not beg, who did not ask in vain for him to stay. Smiling wider, he stared down at his brown, smooth hands and said, “I am leaving.”
At this, she nodded, her silver-white gown shimmered faintly in the moonlight. She closed her eyes and bowed her head, as if in approval. There was silence except for the faint jingle of necklaces and the sound of the west wind doing her part of begging and beseeching.
And the Time stood still, as if capturing the last moments of love frozen in the garden of autumn winds.
He broke the silence, awkwardly, as if he were unaccustomed to speaking, “Since you have not begged me to stay, I shall grant you a wish”. He was surprised at the tone of his own voice, tender and shaking. He added quickly, “but do not ask me to stay. I may return some day, but I will not stay.”
She smiled a strange, secretive smile, the kind that always accompanied a tear drop. But did not turn to look at him. Her voice sounded as if it came from very far and she spoke very slowly, “I ask that you never again return this place, and you never again seek me out.”
His smile fell, and he wrinkled his smooth, brown brow. He stared for a moment at the merciless back of the one who would not beg and felt a sudden loss. The arch of her neck killed him with its own bend, sharper than the swords he ever fought with. He turned on his heel and walked away, the winds carrying his footsteps farther, he thinking of moonlight and her stories, knowing that he would be, at last forgotten.
Man and his visibly pregnant wife are in bed together. His chest was bare and he kept looking at his cell-phone for the alarm to ring. The woman just had bouts of her routine morning-sickness. She was paled and breathless.
Woman sits up with an effort and puts a hand on his arm.
Woman: “Please, don’t go to work today.â€
Man: “Trust me, I’d rather stay home but I’ve got loads of shit to do. The crazy clients do not understand a fig. My team-members are a bunch of morons. Is there something wrong?â€
Woman: “No, not really. Have a good day.â€
Man: “It’s just, we really need the money with the baby coming. I really need to go to work for that…. But I still love you, you okay?â€
Woman: “I’m fine. I’m, just…. I’m just….these god damn hormones.. and, you’re right, you should go to work. Promise you would call me every hour.â€
*Man stands up. He bends down to kiss her. The alarm goes off and He picks his cell phone up off the nightstand and starts dialing.
Man: “Dave, it’s Jack. Sorry but I won’t be able to make it in today… No, it’s personal. I can’t explain it though. Thanks. Bye.”
Woman: “I’m so scaredâ€.
Man: “Yeah, me too but I’m here. Things are gonna be okay, you’ll see. I love you.â€
*Man puts his hand down on top of hers..!
And he murmured to himself, with Whitman
I bequeath myself to the dirt to grow from the grass I love
If you want me again, look for me under your boot soles.
The hospital alley was as swarmed as ever. There was a flood in the town, bad relentless rains for last three days. The people were brought in, rushed as many in one room, with doctors doing their shifts all day long. Children crying, big old men dying and there was no less of sorrow in one hollow room. People lost, only to be found dead in the mortuary which had no land left to burn their pyres.
And the merciless rains poured on.
It was 27th May or sometime around then.
In the midst of this cacophony, her daughter was born. As pretty as a pearl drop shining in the rains. She felt her best just holding her little fingers. She was blinded to the world coming to an end outside, her own world beginning to be born. It was raining still, it looked like a 7PM sky at noon. They were coming home today, mother, father and the little girl.
Their two year old son was restlessly waiting outside in the patio; getting drenched in the rains, his restiveness matching the skies above. He ran after every car crossing the streets and came back dripping in his own disappointment.
And they finally arrived.
The boy ran to the car and came back holding his momma’s little finger. He was more than happy with her mother back home, he missed her.
And then he asked them: Can I spend some time alone with my little sister? This surprised his mother. “Oh Darling, your little sister. Needs some rest, she has just made most amazingly tiring journey. Let her sleep for now and probably sometime later you can play with her”.
A few days past, he again asked his mother if he could spend some time alone with his sister. The mother was worried leaving the baby with a two year old. So this time she got him an ice-cream.
Next time, a toy train and another time it was a huge ball.
A few months past, the little child again asked if he could spend some time alone with his sister.
The parents agreed, and the child was left alone with his sister for a few minutes, while the parents stood by the door, listening furtively.
The little boy holds his sister’s finger and asks her-
“Tell me what GOD looks like, cause I am starting to Forgetâ€.
Why there has to be the blues.
There has to be the blues because
Some kinds of sadness are as good as being happy.
Or misery loves company.
Why people have to die.
People have to die because
There has to be room for new people.
Or living forever would be boring as hell.
Why loneliness is fundamental physics.
Loneliness is a universal constant because
If you took every person who ever lived
And gave them their own galaxy
There’d be a lot of galaxies left over.
Or because you’re far from me.
Why there has to be Antarctica.
Antarctica has to be so there was somewhere close we could go
To see what the rest of the universe was like.
Or because God forgot to put something at the bottom.
Why it has to hurt.
It has to hurt to remind you everything has a consequence
That ripples through everyone else’s life.
Or it’s sympathy for exploding stars.
Why I smile when I look into your eyes.
I smile when I look into your eyes because
I’m happy I’m close to you again.
Or I remember you from my dreams.
“Oh Dammit, we are not having this argument again!!” He screams at her, with all his acrimony carved out in the lifeless room. Her eyes were glassy, she wanted to cry, she almost was, but stood on.
And it made him livid!
He had been missing for last two nights. A business trip kept him away as much as she saw him as seldom as his other friends. He had been long gone; she kept herself busy with her paintings.
She just looked at the newspaper, edged out on the corner table.
He slammed it on her face, a murky picture of melancholy and grief.
And he walks out of the room. His cell was ringing unobtrusively and her sight made him sick. He loved her, but that was seven years ago.
She looked at him walking away. Picks up the newspaper and tidily folds it up to the table. The paper read her Name in Bold; she was awarded the KAVA award only yesterday for her art works. She looked pretty in the picture; her dark aura was conjured well with the portrait in her paintings…abandoned and solitary.
She swabs off her eyes and walks to the room where he was smoking up in the dim corner. She walks up to him, stretches her arm with the newspaper in it. He glances up hesitantly, and reads the paper.
He hugs her “Darling, I am so proud of you”.
Yes, he loved her and that was seven years back.
It was a chance that I met you, totally unforeseen but welcome. It had to be at the most unexpecting places, at a grocery store and you stood by the corner. Lost but inviting. I could not believe myself that it was you. I had to come closer; and you did not move a slight. As if you expected me to be there, finding you. It was not the first time, but before it used to be more planned, and scheduled. I knew exactly where to meet you, mostly you used to set up the time and place. I hated to call you back home; I never did enjoy the meeting as much as I did when I was out in open with you. It gave you an extra dimension, a feel, a life to you. Your eyes, the wrinkled look was sexier in open then in inside of a living room. No one else approved of you much, I never had been sly about my relationship with you. I remember telling my best of friends that I am good with my bond with you- knowing that I can never have you but meeting you in a month or two gives me my achievement, seeing you in your life happy and playful gave me my own accomplishment.
and you know she’s half crazy
and that is why you wanted to be there
But that day, I had to call you home. You asked me to come and meet you, week after weeks but it was good 250miles and I never did take that too seriously. I was occupied, lazy and dismissed your tempts. But that day, seeing you at the grocery store was a surprise, a gush of life through my head. And I asked you to come home, as much as I hated it. You were unwelcomed; people at home mocked you and me likewise. I felt bad for you and more for myself. They could not comprehend you and they failed to understand me. I left you alone in the room for a while, giving me time to prepare myself to meet you. Making others understand to be more acceptable of you. But others don’t change. You didn’t seem to mind them. And you were ready for me..and for others too.
But you had changed, with a grey tone around you and your wrinkled eyes looked older than ever. But your smile was just the same, saying you understand why I had to meet you at home and why I could not come where you asked me to come for weeks. You understood it all. You gave me the same rush but it made me uncomfortable as no one else could understand how I did feel with you around. And I could not have them or myself with them against you. I had to drop you back at the same place where I found you…Sadly you were not even finished. I just gave you ten minutes and I had to stop it.
I left you at the same corner. I understood why your eyes were more wrinkled and I spotted that tinge of sadness then. I understood it all. And you did not complain. May be you knew that this time I would make my trip. People at home asked me to move on but I was stuck. Looking at you, dropping you off, tore my heart. But I could not accept you in the grey tones inside the house. It had to be at your place, at your time with your extra dimension.
And I would come.
“Yes, many loved before us
I know that we are not new
In city and in forest, they smiled like me and you
But now it’s come to distances
And both of us must try
Your eyes are soft with sorrow
Hey, that’s no way to say goodbye.”
Its the cracked ones That let Light into the world
Diffused, punctuated with rainbows of tears
Sadness is just a crack in my life
That I fall into, sometimes
Sloppy, clumsy, and weary
not watching, unaware and tired
Misunderstood, arranged to be pushed
Sadness is just a crack in the sidewalk
a space inviting, and dark
I’d rather not stay, just step over the gap
It’d feel like a walk in the park.
A painful reminder of imperfection
My habit to step in harm’s way.
This sidewalk, the smoothness ends shortly
A new route wont come up today.
Or ever…
Sadness is just a crack in my life
That I fall into, sometimes…
Give it up baby,
a whimper would be fine
Some kind of clue that you’re doing time
Some kind of heartache
Honey, give it a try.
I had to call her because I wanted something more than her letter. It was so clean, so therapeutic I couldn’t let it go. We had been through so much together I could not believe that she could be so banal; so simple. It was not enough that she “felt bad”. Or if “she was sorry” That wasn’t even close to the feeling I had; the feeling I wanted her to have.
What did I want? What did I want her to say? How about Lost, how about slaughtered, betrayed-. We were together for as long and she talks about it like it was just a phase, as if we were a bad haircut or part-time job.
It’s not enough that I am now on my own. Not nearly enough. We were one, one mind, one soul. I think the least she can do is join in the misery. Share and feel alike.
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Could you cry a little?
lie just a little,
pretend that you’re feeling a little more pain?
I gave, now I’m wanting something in return
So cry just a little, for me?
