Left Behind

It hangs like doom

Just above our heads

Our hearts

Threatening to come down

Crashing

It hangs like a dream

Tantalizing, terrifying

Just out of reach

There for me to grasp

And make my own

It hangs like uncertainty

Unclear and foggy

Threatening to engulf you

In a maddening maze

It spreads like lead

Through our hearts

Making them heavy

And our thread

Thinner, fainter

It spreads like fire

Through my being

Burning with pain

And passion

Both waiting

For direction

It spreads like dread

Through your insides

Making you ache and yearn

Wishing for time

To crystallize

Right here

It feels like
A thousand emotions

And no words

Misty eyes

And one syllable

Because I had wings

To take flight

To reach the stars

To claim the sky

And you

You could chase a tornado

You could claim the earth

You got left behind

"Bright lights, big city

She dreams of love

Bright lights, big city

He lives to run"

- Bright Lights, 30 Seconds to Mars

A Happy Buzz

It is just one of those days when I want to whistle tunes and walk with my hands in my pockets and a spring to my step, head bobbing to a happy tune in a happy buzz. I want to jump in the air and click my toes and then jump in the air as high as I can, hands thrown up, feet bent back. I feel like I could touch the sky on a swing I swing so high that I will leap and land gracefully in the air, pirouette and descend to earth to a thunderous applause of the wind and the stars and everything beautiful!

Oh the ecstasy of the unknown, the excitement of an adventure! 

The trepidation of change, the visions of what it would be! 

What a happy buzz, what a trippy thought!

I am going to spread my wings and take flight!

I going to evolve, I am going to rise!

And I am not going down this time!

I can conquer the world if I want it enough. Oh what a happy buzz.

Blackbird singing in the dead of night

Take these broken wings and learn to fly

All your life

You were only waiting for this moment to arise.

- Blackbird, The Beatles

Rainbow

Violet colors my hair

Deep and black in the dark

Rich and free in the wind

'Cause sometimes I choose to

Be unpredictable,

To unbecome

Indigo eyes

With gleam clinging to the lashes

Blinking their length

Absorbing and becoming

The unending Abyss

Of the seen

Blue are my lips

Bright and mischievous,

Light and innocent,

And deep

When words

Are caught in my throat

Green is my chest

With the envy 

Of all things flimsy

Making my mind

Lust

Yearn

Work

Strive

Yellow burns my lungs

Turning to fire

Breathing words of pain

And glows warm

As they breathe 

Warmth of the Kind

Orange glows my heart

Bursting crimson

With passion

and throbbing brown

In anguish

Red,

Red is the color of my soul

Touching

The Violet, The Indigo

The Blue, The Green

The Yellow, The Orange

To shimmer

To enflame

To glitter

To enlighten

My faces
My forms
My frames
My self.

Different Worlds

You and I, we come from different worlds
One of dark blacks and blinding whites,
With flashes of unexpected reds and blues
The other doused in bright color,
And shades of grey lurking
Just out of sight

You and I, we've seen the world
You, through your sheared glass
And me, through my tainted kaleidoscope

You and I, we've felt the darkness
And seen the light
You, through a crack in the black door
And me, through my cracked grey window

You and I, we've tried to see
You, through my grey kaleidoscope and blinding color
And me, through your choppy waves and the reds and blues
Catching glimpses,
Reaching for the lightening

You and I, we've stood together
Linked many,
But seldom one
You and I, we've pulled the guns
And planted flowers
You and I, we've come close
As close as repelling ends of a magnet
Can be

You and I, we've gone the distance
Without really traversing the roads
In between
You and I, we've been far apart
With the only separation being
Some inches, often traveled

You and I, we've been strengthened and battered
You, on top of your choppy waves
And me, in the brightest gleam of my eye

You and I, we've been drowned and brought to life
You, with passion of a heart
And heat of a desert

Me, with a weakness for the unknown
And the silver lining of a possibility

You and I, we've been snatched apart
And brought together
You and I, we've been inseparable
And unbearable

You and I, we've been the beginning
Rowed the middle
Lived the end
And found ourselves
In graveyards and gardens
Of possibilities and probabilities

Because you and I,
We come from different worlds
One of dark blacks and blinding whites,
Tinted with a fluctuating grey
And the other doused in bright color,
With the blacks and the whites
Lurking just out of sight.

Uninspired

There are those times in life when you feel like the days have just become a part of repetitive cycle and there is not much inspiration around, or you are just too uninspired to look for it.

I have been feeling like that for a while now. How did I get here?

Not that there is not enough for me to do; there is. Tonnes to do and time is running fast. Yet, all I feel right now is lethargy. There are emotions that come and go in a way that has become too familiar - and not in a good way, laughter that sounds forced and conversations made just to avoid awkwardness. There is a bitterness that has crept in and a distance within myself, and from myself. It makes little sense but sometimes I do not recognize me. 

Change is inevitable. Change may be good or bad but I have not seen the good kind of change happening for a long time. The times that I have let myself believe it happened, it has not lasted. It makes me wonder if I can do things that I am endeavoring to do - if I can be one of those focused, brilliant people, people who are so DRIVEN no matter what to get where they want; or at least find themselves in a place they are meant to be.

There are two sides to everything and we are merely people walking on a tightrope, trying to find a balance while tipping a little to the right and sometimes to the left along the way. Of late, it seems that every time I think I am tipping towards one of the sides or finding a balance, it never stays long enough for me to wrap my head around it. It is absolutely exhausting. Sometimes I think I should just close my eyes, take the free fall and see where I land, but I cannot find the courage to. There is always something or the other holding me back to the same draining routine.

I have known and heard that "this too shall pass", but that does not seem to be making the 'passing' any easier. It would just be a relief to be able to two steps in the same direction without the world beneath my feet spinning. It does not spin long enough for me to get used to it and fall into a trance, and it does not stay still for long enough for me to get used to its solidity. My feet seem to be on a precarious, teetering precipice and nothing stays long enough for me to get a grip.

I wish I could just close my eyes and fly, fly long and high enough for me to make revel some exhilaration that would come with the cadence of the rise and fall of the flight. 

I wish I could sink into the feeling, indulge in it and forget myself and my reality just for some time; for long enough to feel some inspiration to start over with myself.

What it means to be Home

Home is unlocking the doors to dusty, unused spaces, adorned with walls and furniture; but the scrubbing does not feel so bad.

Home is the colors of red, white and grey, the television I seldom watch and two rooms.

Home is sleeping in a bed where the pillow is neither too flat nor too full but just right to cup my head.

Home is feeling of the bed soft enough for me to sink and strong enough to hold me.

Home is the sight of old books, long unread and drawers full of collected, hoarded and colorful treasures.

Home is the windowsill where I can hear music, feel the wind, watch the rain and conjure surreal scenarios in my head.

Home is the fancy, inadequate lighting to complain about, the smell of onion and garlic wafting through open doors and the low hum of a chimney occasionally inhabited by pigeons.

Home is going for evening walks in the perfect weather and lying on the grass, staring at the sky.

Home is flying on my dear Aviator, knowing where to go- that I will not be lost.

Home is when the "Ma calling" or "Home calling" flashes on my phone.

Home is going shopping with Ma that ends up in role reversal.

Home is waking up to the voice that tries relentlessly to correct my sleep cycle in a way only she can.

Home is watching television with my head on her lap and sighing in exasperation at all the melodrama onscreen.

Home is a lazy Sunday with Papa cribbing about no new movies airing on HBO.

Home is saying "Let's go for ice-cream!" and watching the eldest man become a pouting child because he thinks he got lesser ice cream.

Home is playing board games and UNO that are six months overdue, complete with the peeking and exclamations of “That’s cheating!”

Home is learning to talk in basic gaming jargon to bridge some three years short of a decade in between; and the having a heart to heart with all those years intact.

Home is all things familiar, near and yet too far away. Home is that freedom which its confines can bring. Home is a familiar touch, familiar ways, favorite colors and music playing uninhibited with doors wide open. Home is to take off and knowing where to go. Home is not being afraid, not being alone. Home is the warmest comfort there is. Home is tidying up the mess and feeling good about it because it is mine.

Home is the tightness of hugs that grow in between the periods I get them.



Home is where I always want to stay

Please, just for one more day,

And though I have done this many times,

It always hurts to leave it behind.

10 Minutes to 20

So I've spent the last few days cribbing about how I don't want to turn 20, and how TILL twenty it is like oh-you-know-there's-still-time, and how once you hit twenty it's the countdown begins to when you are a grown up.

I don't feel so different as of now. But yeah, it has been a bittersweet ride till here. Life has taught me a lot in its ways, big and small. A few minutes ago I had a surprise cake in my hair and now I am here getting all philosophical about it. So many memories, lessons and so many firsts.

So here's just saying cheers to life, cheers to leaning and cheers to living. Though I still don't feel as excited thinking that I have already lived and seen two decades (that makes me feel so OLD), but it is still a new day, with new people to meet, new places to go, new emotions to feel and a lot to learn. So 'the twenties' it is!

Also, I realize that I may be twenty, but I still think 1990 was just ten years ago.