wishlist-3

I love to lose myself in other men's minds.... Books think for me.  ~Charles Lamb

I want a huge room overcrowded with books. I want to live in the library. I have a bookshelf at home that is in one word minimal. I want to live amongst the books, smell them, and look at yellow pages. I want to open up plastic covers from new books off the press, but more than that I want tiny notes made on a book, smart lines underlined by people who have read them. I have not read enough. Not because I never had the time; But more so because there are too many books, yet never enough. I want a piece of each book. I want to read a line from each book that I have. The story is not as engrossing as the words. The small words that make amazingly crafted phrases. 5 worded wonders that make or break a story; just like that last line in Black Swan that justified the entire movie.  I am bad with grammar, I am bad with spellings, but I know a line and its entailments when I read one. I can’t get enough of the writ. I can’t get enough of writing. I can’t get enough of reading.

I’ll change jobs. I’ll work at a bookstore. I’ll be a bookshop owner or a librarian in a few years. 

To sit alone in the lamplight with a book spread out before you, and hold intimate converse with men of unseen generations - such is a pleasure beyond compare.  ~Kenko Yoshida

.......................................................

...

Of the many ways of beating perfection, one is to stoop low. 
So low, so that you know, that you are not good enough for perfection any more.

Aïcha.

I wish I could draw.

I would have drawn for you her exact picture.

It was late in the night and she was sitting all by herself on the three-seat bench on the train. Draped in a laced orange burqa, this former beauty wore horn-rimmed glasses which went well with her wrinkles. Her skin shone, almost competing with her Swarovski bracelet that she wore with élan. I almost smiled at the vanity, one that I assumed.  But this was not why she caught my eye.

She was engrossed. Her crystal studded bracelet laden hand was holding this copy of the holy Quran, her lips mouthing her lord’s diktat. No this was not why she caught my eye.

Her other hand was slowly patting her bosom, right over her heart. Have you seen a mother patting a child’s forehead as she lulls him to sleep. Yes, just like that. She was slowly rhythmically thumping her heart.

She looked at me, saw me awed and as if she read my mind, she smiled at me in acknowledgement.

I wish I could draw. 

.......................................................

where do you go?

She stood in front of him, naked, stark naked.

Without clothes, without masks, without hallucinations, without a single thought running in her mind.

She stood naked in front of him, stark naked.

She had always been too much to take, too pretty to look at. Too large to grasp onto, too plain to be gorgeous, too complicated to understand.

She had always been like this, always naïve, clinging on to him with all her force, yet, somehow she was far, far away from him.

There she was, naked, in her true form, in front of him.

She had always been like that; she came too strong on him. She told him how obsessed she was with him. How fascinated she was with his lips, she was jealous of the cutlery he used, she had once told him.  She was vulnerable as a child; she got hurt, made a face and walked away, not once, many times over. She had done that. Yet, she always managed to find her way back. Unlike other 3 month wonders she had lasted. He was not sure how, he never asked her to leave neither forced her to stay.

There was no way back, she knew. He had made it clear to her, he knew that she knew. 

He called her stupid. Yet, deep down he was scared, scared of the strength she had. 

She could destroy him.

Somehow he knew she wouldn't, it was not his destruction instead her annihilation that he was afraid of.  

She stood there naked;

She had given him more than he had ever asked for. More than he wanted, more than he could take. He was guilty. 
Guilty for his un-acceptance of her; guilty for the atrocities she meted out on her identities.
He kept standing, sitting, resting, covering up yet never moving.

She asked a lot of questions. Everything about her asked him questions.

He didn’t know answers to them himself; some he just didn’t want to answer.

She was persistent.

He wasn’t helping.

He wished she would just stay, not ask questions, just let time flow, and not rush.

He wished she would let him be. 
Let him understand himself first; let him know where he stands before he could tell her where she stood in his life.

Let him make up his mind,gather enough strength to let her go; enough strength to let him cut loose off her.

She stood there naked in front of him, she scared him.

He finally held her, for he was afraid she would collapse.

She slept in his arms. He was awake. He kept wide awake. 


He keeps wide awake.

 .......................................................

she packs  nonchalance and charts her path to disgrace with every turn of the page.

annihilation.

what should I look for when I look at you?

what face should I wear when I see yours?

am I more than a number?

I am not sure if I am even a name. 

trailing headlights

creased memories. 

biased hindsight

myopic prospicience.

...still rains...you still don't know.

random gets random-er!

[after 15 days of silence]

X: so NOW you call.

Y: yeah. thought of you.

X: kaise?

Y: was watching ALIENS vs PREDATORS.

X: =|

Y: good night! =)

X: =|

.......................................................

i won.

I won’t apologize tonight.

Do I come across as the slut the whore?

Yes I do, I make you walk on that road,

Walk on THAT road, the cemetery of the sins; of guilt.

What hides in there do you notice? What hides in there, do you care?

In there is buried my pride, doused in fire, my identity.

Or is the soil fed the ashes of your ethics?

Do I sound obscene to you tonight?

I do sound distasteful, almost like bad porn.

Do I?

I do, don’t I?

I am no lady with pearls, I am no lady dressed in silk.

I am no lady clad in grace;

Fuck, I am no lady and YOU are no man.

What have you on tonight? What colour are your hands?

Are they crimson again?

Will you colour the sky red again?
Colour it red for it is my colour;

It is my colour yes, colour it red, for it is my blood that drips from your hands.

Wash me with it, for it will wash you off me.

Let me fall silent. For silence is all I have. Silence is where I can hide.

.

There will be the day when I will make peace with peace,
One day there will be no more words, someday I will stash away the swords.

There will be a day when I will stop hoping, stop hoping against hope.

One day this nagging thumping in the chest will cease,

One day I will not miss me, one day I will be complete in my incompleteness.

 Sandpaper my loneliness away.

One day I won’t look for a you in a me.

One day I will stop looking for me.

One day with silence I will elope.

One day, I won’t wake up with a nagging headache.

One day I will sleep.

ZERO

Nothing.

Nothing worse than my powerlessness at loss of words. 

Nothing is worse than impotence when I can’t weave those broken sentences into a melody. 

Nothing is worse than tearing off pages writ with broken images of absurd situations.

Nothing is worse than my incapacity to indite the sun in my wan sky.

Nothing.

Nothing is worse than poetry’s persisting abstinence from my indulgence.

I just can't get it back.

he whispers secrets.

HIT, HIT HARD.

"don't make me feel worse"

"I am not trying to bash you up or make you feel worse. I though you were better than this. I would rather you mess with some one as a rebound or a fling than than go back to some-one with dignity between your legs. 
No, I don't hate you, you lost respect, don't know if it matters to you though."

green.

[out of the blue]


him: tu nahin hoti to main kya karta.

[taken aback]

her: main nahin hoti to koi aur hota.


[slowly but surely]


him:aisa nahin hai.

Wrath kept hissing in my ears as I absolved lust …No, you are not on the spot, it is my vanity that is ridiculed, for the jest has always been me. 

my lullaby singer walked out on me.
now i sleep at nights.

whtever.

i thought it was fashionable to hate your boss, now i know it is an integral part of the scope of work. 

the LIST

Vanity:
taking a great picture and photo-shopping it, trying to make me look prettier.

Self-deprecation:
waking up unkempt, going through the day unkempt, sleeping unkempt.

Sorrow:
no one to show the picture to.

Hypocrisy:
reading the SECRET and trying to make-believe that i can make-believe

Bliss:
papa reading snippets from the gujurati newspaper when i leave for work, mummy gushing about my long working hours when i am back.


to be continued...