Can We Get Used To This Silence

Photo by Karen Lau on Unsplash

Can we get used to this silence? The empty streets, clear sunsets, the gentle rustle of leaves falling from trees, silhouettes across windows. Birds faraway chirp in tandem with a Hemanth Kumar’s song playing in the neighbourhood. The schools are shut — where are the kids though? Are they stuck to their parent’s phones? I dust bags full of books; I charge my Kindle and watch the day take its own time. Things that mattered a few weeks back, don’t anymore. To say I have fleeting moments of hope and faith is an understatement but it gets me through the day. Some nights I feel hollow and it weighs me down, but I’m partly in charge of this state. There’s not much I can grumble about now, can I?

Can we get used to this silence? The new normal is not everyone’s cup of tea. People have stretched their sleeping hours and yet complain about not getting proper night’s sleep. We get more face time with our friends but now I find it tiring. Oscillating between what they’ve eaten for lunch and who’s tagged me on a new Instagram challenge is plain vanilla. I’m sorry but I can’t keep up. Where’s the heatwave everyone’s talking about? Maybe it won’t kill the virus. Maybe it will. But never have I ever looked forward to the summer. Unless mangoes are involved.

Can we get used to this silence? The dogs in the colony don’t bark much. Obviously, they don’t spot strangers lurking or driving in the dark, anymore. It’s safe to say they’re practicing social distance better than humans. Dogs have always had the ability to sense danger before stupid humans. We are truly at the helm of our own suffering. But let’s talk something else — happy thoughts, happy thoughts. Let me ask the voices in my head to shut up. Numb down for a while.

Can we get used to this silence? The future seems fickle but it’s best to accept misery as a company. For now. Let it sit next to you like a fallen leaf. It fidgets, it bothers. Pick it and tuck it between the pages of a book. I’m not reading a sad book for now. I’m picking something blithe. I don’t want my characters to suffer. With misery for company, I’m not making long-term plans. I want to get through the day. As a friend said, you’re one day away from suffering and you’re one more day healthy. If there’s a perfect book or a movie or a song that could save me….it’s probably my mind.

I’m five again. It’s summertime, the trees have come alive with mangoes. But this time, I’m allowed to binge-eat only after I finish my milk and Milk Bikis.

Tune for the day: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DwRYh8lBjCI

If It Were Your Home.

It is eerie how the streets of Goa evoke the pleasure of loving a boy you’ve never fully had the privilege of having. You want to call it home, you want its laidback alleys with burly arms and colourful homes to not treat you like a stranger. Perhaps beseech you to come back on a night you’re leaving, because that’s what home does. You really want to call it home. And why wouldn’t you? Why would anyone not want to call it home?

You’ve always loved waking up to the gentle rustle of waves crashing against each other. Or maybe you are the kind that runs, barefoot, on the beach. Never missing a single morning. In your purple sports bra and black tights with carpe diem scribbled on it, you think you belong. I wonder if you are someone else — a man in his 60s — retired and finally seeking an escape. With your toes in the sand, you look at the sea, with an intent. Nobody really knows why someone like you is here. But what if you are the kind that walks into the beach with a handy cam and spots a few fishermen tugging hard at the boat? You flippantly throw your satchel and cam and offer to help the fishermen, and pull the boat ashore. Would you, kind sir, do this every day if it were home?

The thing is I’m a collector of seashells and a trifling spectator. I watch you from a distance, stealthily glad that this distance is what keeps me away from you and the stranger who, as we speak, is sprinting towards the sea in the name of Instagram validation.

If it were home, would I still collect seashells every morning and observe the people, smells, and colours around me? Would I still wake up to the first beat of my alarm tone?

I want to know. If it were home, would you still cry when you are up in the sky during the sunset hour? Would you stop scribbling your name on the walls? But importantly, would you still come home to it?

Tune for today: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uxTXp0-iZrY

Shedding.

My bags are filled with bills

handed over to me by

restaurants and shopping malls and

parking lots,

in one corner, I have stacked

some polaroids,

of friends I love,

and the ones I barely talk to,

there are paper napkins with my

lipstick stains and poems,

the other corners are full of unused pens

and coins,

I keep wondering how my bags contain

memories

of the times I'd like to forget, and

the ones I'd like to collect

like the things in my bags,

but time has come close

for me to discard what I've held

so close to my heart,

they've no place in my life,

like these bills and paper napkins.

Tune for the day: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RfSVFtv7-90

My book ‘Warm Delinquencies’ is available on Amazon for worldwide shipping.

You can order it here: http://bit.ly/2gnn6j9.

The enclosure.

I wrap my mouth

around your

words,

gently yet hastily,

and now,

my lips are stained

with ink,

that refuse to wash

away,

like the scars from

yesterday.

Tune for the day: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KGK6NwgSNtM

My book ‘Warm Delinquencies’ is available on Amazon for worldwide shipping.

You can order it here: http://bit.ly/2gnn6j9.

The shape.

I've changed the shape of

my heart

far too many times to fit it

in your palms

like how black coffee

twirls and whirls

in cups and mugs

of different shapes and textures,

each time with a new form,

each time with a new aroma,

and yet

remains

strong.

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

I'm here.

Paint me in the hues of warmth,

swallow me like the Sun would

consume the Moon,

hold on to me like the sea does to

the shore,

trying hard to take everything the shore

has yet failing incorrigibly,

caress me like the Spring touches

the cherry trees,

the point is, I'm here for falling

and rising and lacking and

wanting,

the point is, I'm here for the

misery.

Tune for the day: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=52FBvP7z2LU

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

Just this.

Hold me in your arms

tonight,

I'll not ask for much,

maybe a whisper or two,

and your voice doing that

thing it does to my ears,

it'll dawn on us in a

few hours,

you'll forget the last night

and the time we spent

counting the stars,

the bright Sun will send

its wishes through rays

on your cheeks,

so, please,

hold me in your arms

tonight,

I'll not ask for much,

just this.

Tune for the day: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bx1Bh8ZvH84

Totally Psyched.

First home.

I wanted to name our first home

after us,

after our love,

luckily for me,

I had several options to pick from,

ugh...where do I begin?

what do you think of naming it

as 'erratic'?

or do you like the sound of

'wrecked'?

because we won't be the first in

the history of having a

wrecked home,

but then, what about 'pensive'?

I like pensive,

it sounds chic,

what do you think?

you don't have to make a choice

right away,

no, really,

there are more names I could

offer,

I can find better nouns

and adjectives,

but let me warn you,

nothing might sound

more right than

'bygone'.

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

There's nothing.

I've been writing for days

about you

about us

about everything I struggled

to say

hoping my words will

move you

because I've heard that

words can melt rocks and hills

but after all these days

I realize

there's nothing that can truly

make you listen

to me,

really,

there's nothing

and now, I am out of

words too,

really,

I've nothing left to

say.

Tune for the day: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ejG2NwA5Crg

FIREFLIES.

Our love bathed and drowned

in the metaphors of

fireflies,

it shone in the dark even with

a lifespan so

small.

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

Time.

Time ebbs and flows in strange ways

with you around,

it rushes,

it quietens,

it pushes and hushes,

tugs and shushes,

time ebbs and flows in strange ways,

and with you around,

it hastens and flashes,

like a stream drifting without a

course.

Tune for the day: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BvsChJvE86M

Your absence.

Your absence was heavier than

your presence,

it bent me out of shape,

leaving me with an unsettling

emotion,

like how the remnants of previous

night's storm

bring down the leaves and the

flowers.

Tune for the day: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wdIVP0ZjBv4