Relinquish.

I loved you

to the

point of vanity,

breaking the

thresholds of all

floodgates and inhibitions,

and now,

it refuses

to relinquish,

it merely and starkly

refuses.

Tune for the day: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=k4V3Mo61fJM

Souvenirs.

I've wasted far too many tears on

someone like you,

who refused to see the daylight in

my eyes,

who refused to shine even when

there were no storms

in the sight,

look at my arms,

my neck,

and perhaps my heart,

you've left far too many scars,

but after all these scars and bruises,

I still let you devour me in full,

see the problem is,

there will always be far too many tears and

far too many scars,

and we'll learn to call them far too many

souvenirs

when we shouldn't,

see the problem is, we still call them our

souvenirs,

when they just aren't.

Tune for the day: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UlF8eYNn6Uk

Those Days.

I still remember those days,

when my life was different and

I was a different person,

the biggest problem then was a boy

breaking my heart,

or me breaking his,

following days and weeks of regret.

I still remember those days,

when it was summer and

the Sun was either at its best

or worst,

both of which weren't a reason worth celebrating,

confined to the darkness of home where

even sun rays refused to reach,

I hoped to bid Summer a warmer goodbye soon.

I still remember those days,

when it's raining, and the raindrops on my windows

lure me into the world, outside,

as I step out into the balcony, the water forms a

little puddle around my feet,

the memory so fresh, it still feels like this morning,

I get drenched in the rain without an iota of worry,

I might suffer from sinusitis tomorrow but today,

I am wild and free,

and as these thoughts form a little castle in my mind,

I hear my mother's voice from the kitchen, downstairs,

"Your coffee is ready."

An Unsung Song.

I remember the first time I saw you,

I was younger, and so were you,

The lights, like you, were at a proximity which was morosely faraway.

There was music in my head, which kept me oblivious to everything around,

Maybe even to the music that was played in the coffee shop.

Reticence and silence were lying astray in the air between us,

Like an unsung song whose lyrics I knew, but never the tune.

But even before we realized, we build a fort around awkward hushes and masked emotions,

The secret path to this fort, as someone once said, was not giving in to the urges.

We could have given in to it. Maybe we should have,

Instead, we made a deal with our mystical little minds,

To replace our hearts desires with vague reassurances and unsure answers.

Because in a battle between wants and needs, we were neither,

Maybe we were in-between but never enough to create symphonies.

Going back to the day when we first met, I now realize that,

Love was never our cup of tea,

It never was our humble abode.

A Room Without Windows.

I once asked for a room of my own.

Several months and appeals later, I got one.

But with no windows.

As a person fond of windows, I found this deplorable.

Confined to the four walls of the room with a shelf full of books and a painting of a mountain on the wall, I began to make conversations with words on blank sheets and stories inside books with slightly torn pages.

I fell in love with words and together, we realized that we had stories to tell and hearts to win.

It was in this little room I grew familiar with Elizabeth Bennet and her love for Darcy.

Here, I discovered Shelley and her Frankenstein and grew weary of the mysterious things the world held in itself.

The adventures were many, but I was a lover of windows and longed for a room with one.

And when I got one, I rejoiced!

I was no longer a prisoner of my thoughts and imagination.

Now, I had visitors in the form of pigeons and neighbours who took long morning walks.

I began noticing the tasks of the watchmen in the night, and slowly fell into the regular pattern of life.

I grew weary again, and this time, it wasn't short lived.

I wondered if this was what life was all about? Mornings and nights, noons and evenings withheld probably nothing that the stories I read offered.

Horrified with the banal reality of life, I wanted to run back to the room with no windows.

Where I went fishing with Tom Sawyer and pictured the view of River Thames in the words of Pip.

It was here that I wrote alongside Ruskin Bond and the likes because they were my only windows to the world I desperately wanted to belong.

But like words, there was a lot in life, that once said and done, had no going back.

Home.

I was three when I nurtured the habit of looking out of the windows.

Misty mornings made way for warm sunshine and jaunty evenings waltzed into starry skies.

But the lofty green mountains remained strong and the bougainvillea trees stood still even in the shadows of darkness.

I was four when I felt the salty aroma of air engulfing me as I stared at the endless blue sea.

I collected shells and souvenirs and stood with my toes in the sand as the waves gently lapped me at the shore.

Even as the tides got stronger and the waves, higher by the night, the distant lights always lulled me into a strange quietness.

I was five when I cycled my way through the wide roads to a library my mother visited every evening.

The mischievous world of Bapu and Ramana, the mystical world of Viswanatha Satyanarayana, the mysterious world of Chalam enticed me into their realms.

Oblivious to the value of those writers, I cycled home with the joy of spending another evening annoying the librarian.

I was six when I discovered how the city was surrounded by mountains greener than the greens of my crayons and I was seven when I realized this was home.

I was eight when we moved to a different city, and to another, and kept moving.

It took me more than 8 years and yet another long stay to understand this city is more than just home.

It is first steps and first discoveries. First beach rides and aquarium sights.

It is first friendships and first fights. Of innumerable skating classes and injuries. First movies and first brush with literature.

The first rush of teenage and walking fearlessly into darkness without a speck of doubt.

Over the years, the city is growing older with grace.

Natural disasters have only made it stronger.

The lovers of the beach have slowly made way for the lovers in the beach.

The nooks and corners are flanked with the cosmopolitan glory.

The otherwise conventional people learned to coexist with the modern ones.

So much has changed but the air is still salty and the evenings placidly wander into starry nights.

On the roof of every home, a child like I once was dreams high of becoming big, someday.

To explore the world behind the green mountains and beyond the greenish blue waters.

To travel the cities without mountains around walk in the beaches with a different scent in the air.

Yet come back home, from distances far away.

Maybe it was only that distance that made the heart grew fonder.

After all, home truly is where the heart is, isn't it?

Mood Swings.

My mood swings are like shapeshifters.

One day, they are bottled up tight intact,

The other day, they are freely flowing.

They come in blacks when I anticipate the whites.

But when I expect the blacks, it's always the whites.

Grey areas, they announce unabashedly.

But grey areas are not what I like.

My mood swings are like shapeshifters.

They chase me into the darkness sometimes,

And prance around me like sunshine, the other times.

But it's more than just the confusion, you know?

To do the unwanted.

To want the undone.

My mood swings are like shapeshifters,

Even they do not know what they are in for.

It could be fancy, or it could just be plain.

But how would they know if all they do is surprise me?

You Are All You Need.

You come into the world with nothing in your arms,

You find the meaning of life in melancholy and the joy of living in love.

All by yourself, stumbling upon places and people you carry within.

You fight the demons of your life, sometimes with a friend by your side.

You are taught different things, but your experiences remain to be the greatest of your teachers.

You come into the world with no survival kit in your hand,

You understand the way the world lives. Even worse, you understand it  by failing.

You learn that you don't come out of a battle without a few scars here and there.

Never place your trust in the wrong hands, you are told. But you misplace it. You squander it.

You come into the world with no plans in your head,

You stand tall beside your literary heroes, you chase the evil with the superheroes in your heart.

You walk the cities with your little heart on the sleeve and go everywhere you feet take you to.

You build your home in the darkest hours and you walk alone even in the brightest hours,

Everything you need and all that the world can hold is just inside of you. Hidden but waiting for you to discover it.

Dear man, you are the architect of your own happiness.

Make it or break it, but don't be the creator of your bitter endings.

You come into the world with all the strength in your heart,

And maybe, that is all you need. Now and forever.

Live.

Stay.

Stay longer.

Live longer. Start living the life you've always wanted.

Your pain will fade.

Your hope will resurrect.

You will find joy again.

You will survive this. You will fight this struggle.

Stay.

Stay longer.

Live longer. Start living for the world you created.

You will discover love.

You will seek comfort in music.

You will lose yourself in dance again.

You will endure this battle. You will find your strength.

Stay.

Stay longer.

Live longer. Start living for the heart that beats inside you.

You will walk the paths you've never walked before.

You will run ahead of everyone in time.

You will leave your name behind. Your life will find a deeper meaning.

But for all of this and more, for all that is said and unsaid, you need to stay longer.

And live longer.

Heartbreak.

Get your heart broken. 

It's the best thing that could happen to you.

You'll never know what love is until someone crushes your heart.

Pour yourself some cheap wine and gulp down your sorrows.

Drown. Just drown in the ocean of pain. You'll learn how to swim gracefully.

Let out all your tears till you grow familiar with them.

Risk your heart. It was made to be broken only.

Heartbreak is glorified in countless forms.

Musicians write songs about it.

Poets pour their words into it.

Artists need it for their art.

However, our heart does not ache for it the way it does for love.

Forever cautious, we carefully guard it against destruction.

But then how would the heart grow fonder if it doesn't break?

Rain.

The windows on the fourth floor were slowly unbolted,

The speeding car on the street leisurely came to a halt,

The child in red and his mother huddled under a black umbrella,

The cats were nowhere to be seen but the dogs were frisky,

The streets were almost desolate and looked spotlessly clean,

The trees looked greener and the flowers were dangling up above,

And as I stood on my balcony with a cup of coffee in my hand,

It looked like everyone was savouring the first rush of rain.

Words Versus Silence.

Words come easy to me.

But when I'm with you, I don't fill the silence with words.

As we sit at the corner of a coffee shop away from the world,

The darkness of the place, the pretty lights dangling up above,

Everything is perfect, but I don't try to fill the silence with words.

We laugh over the things that remain unsaid, we smile over the

thoughts that run in our heads.

You ask me to spill them out loud, but I don't feel the need to fill the

silence with words.

As I circle my fingers over a cup of coffee, I know your eyes are on me.

You look like you mean to say something but your lips twitch into a smile instead.

Neither do you fill the silence with words nor do I.

Words do come easy to me.

But when I'm with you, it's mostly silence that engulfs me.