Here I, volunteer for the dirt staring at me.
Stumble over the mean mock-rock.
Give away my urbane for bear hug.
Let the craving carve the gray out of me.
Push brain down to leering limbo.
Refrain from taste but touch filthy flavour.
Address my conscious with oblivion.
Play mild, low, mellow to my hatred.
Hurl down Lego cubes, watch it fall.
Listen to time laughing, laughing, laughing.
Watch crow's-feet grow with used bed-sheet patterns.
Roam aimlessly carelessly homeless-ly.
Tussle my brown hair to Pink-Floyd drug.
Kick your brute lust in face, once, twice, thrice, and again.
Watch myself through the window, mirror, door.
Blade over to smell the red rivulet dripping.....

Thrill

The ride.
I take it everyday.
Up down fast slow
There is no end to it.
My heart thumps.
Gives me thrill!

If you see me,
Call.
I might give you some.
But it dies too quickly.
Your touch might kill
That thrill.

Just be there.
I need your shoulders
To rest
For respite
From my fight
Of endless thrill!

Empathy

What I saw and pitied today, later collapsed on me like some viral disease I caught through my sight. The story of anguish might be different but the pain can never be. I empathy-ied with her moist eyes reflecting the light-blue colours of her saree. Her choked throat was mine when she asked the driver to open the door in her buried voice indistinguishable in the hell of horns. Tears glistened as she stood facing the huge transparent glass and I kept wondering of my own miseries.

There she stood with her eyes numb
to the world who eyed her curiously.
Her choked throat and sobbing chest,
were brothers of a war, together,
clogging together, throbbing together,
facing the mob together.
Did she know, even my chest pained?
that I too had a heavy load?
Her sight was fixed on road before
and mine, with a yearning, on her.
She will never know that I too cried
behind the black mask on my face.
I remained conscious of her posture
as I stood with my numb eyes,
numb to the conductor, driver, passenger
numb to that stranger in blue saree.
I stood with miseries in my luggage
waiting for her to hug me.

Protocol

Independence and freedom to choose teach us life lessons which can never be forgotten. The room you live in becomes a wet-lab where experiments of mind and body are performed using tools which were once taken great care of by mom, when you were still under shelter you called my home. Now, they stare at you blankly, waiting to be held and put to use the way they are supposed to. Here starts our experiment of building and testing strong opinions on essential resources, extra resources, alive resources and dead resources.  We start trying on our own since there is no generic protocol.

Walk to that which demands your choice
Choose solitude over blood relations.
Care not for any comment,
You're not a scar on their face.
Bother not for any rumour
They rise and die everyday.
Teach yourself the shamelessness,
The attitude of liberty and control.
Ride alone, as ever, defining
Your own Protocol.

Anonymous

The screams of silence are deadly than those of noise.
I hear them constantly inside me through nothingness.
There is a void which pulls my voice, strong and exact.
There is a space where my personality, character hides.
There is that time when my pulse is the only sound I hear.
Sometimes it's just my dream, other times it is the pain.
Sometimes it slaps my cheeks, other times it simply smirks.
There is that incomprehensible which I am attracted to.
There is that inconceivable which kills my peace.
There is. Just that. Inside. Dark. Unknown. Anonymous.

Hell

Last evening's events were just too tiresome to be given a shape of an article with details. For the first time in my life I faced such situations, back to back, in a queue, like the ones on busy railway stations, in Mumbai, with closed ticket counters. Chaotic and exhausting! The moment I solved one problem next one was right there at my door steps smirking at my relentless efforts to put things in order, to make them run the way I want, like Dagny and Dominique trying to run their empire with limited resources at hand, headstrong and brave. I liked the fight but hated what I have bought for myself with all the exchange currency I had. So, I am in hell right now, the place where I will do things I have scorned at all my life. The devil in me wishes luck to my suffering soul who is indifferent to pity, sympathy or empathy of any creature. I am on my own.

Just two days and I saw hell -
the tiring flights of stairs
which never seem to end
just like a paradox;
the fuming arguments
with the irresponsible rustics;
the fight for justice,
for getting things done;
the cheap Indian attitude
of dirt and filth;
the cheap Bhojpuri songs
of D-grade movie, if there's any;
the notorious conductors
of infrequent buses;
the elbowing to my books
held in my hands, near my chest;
my descent from the state
of my idealistic yet practical ownership;
my agreement
to the ones I despise;
my willingness
for the ones I discarded;
my hide-and-seek with chances
when I am sure of providence;
my skill too tired
to make an entry.
Shivers run down my spine
I do not crash. I fly,
with screams in the sky,
desperate cries off agony
intense urge to release -
out, out, out of this hell!

"If you are going through hell, keep going."
— Winston Churchill

Run

Inspired from the experience at prestigious city event for the corporates - The Urban Stampede, Bangalore 2013.
 
It is the motion against the stationary,
the rock that supports you, pushes you,
bears your weight.
It is the freedom to be you.
A breath of passion, an endless desire
to be set in that.
There is a light at the end
which pumps the blood,
a baton in the hand
which thrusts your lungs,
a gun shot in the air
which jolts your nerves,
to fire the winds,
to burn the meter,
to  rise from the ashes.
There is a noise outside your head
and a voice within.
There. Run!

Blushes

After listening to the beautiful poetry - 'Do not go gentle into that good night' read by Dylan Thomas himself, I thought to myself, I should someday try to compose a villanelle. But somehow, I couldn't get powerful refrains to start with, until very recently I finished a novel - The Bell Jar by Sylvia Plath. The end of the book had a brief note on Ms. Plath's life and it contained a villanelle written by herself, 'Mad girl's love song'. The poem was so fresh in my mind that, when I was chanced upon by two refrains, I was pushed to write the following, my first villanelle:

In my pink, the blushes hide their history.
They cannot brave your steady eyes.
It's you who started to tickle the mystery.

As I walk in paragraphs of unknown story,
Romance topples from between the lines.
In my pink, the blushes hide their history.

Encounters are too close to be carelessly free,
to be walking in beauty before your designs.
It's you who started to tickle the mystery.

Do I play Juliet at nights too starry?
Or do I just hallucinate those throbbing smiles?
In my pink, the blushes hide their mystery.

The greens and purples look lovely in vinery,
from where you stole my charms and shines.
It's you who started to tickle the mystery.

It happens again, as your emotions carry,
a dream of red, from my earnest divine.
In  my pink, the blushes hide their history.
It's you who started to tickle the mystery.

Addendum: “I wasn't actually in love, but I felt a sort of tender curiosity.”
― F. Scott Fitzgerald, The Great Gatsby