Our Mirror.

The mirror, that mirror, her image
My reflection, her reaction, in the mirror.

The mirror is cracking up. I see.
Neither you clearly, nor me. I just can't see.

You saw me once, and I did too, in the mirror.
You don't look anymore. I feel incomplete.

Hating your image, shattering mine. This mirror.
Take it away, doesn't make me smile anymore.

Last I saw, you were pierced, didn't bleed.
I turned. Never looked again. But I need to.

Happiness invited me in, I look at you for permission.
No answer, turned to mirror. Its too damaged to answer.

They ask what's wrong, I know. But you don't see.
I drag, push, pull, no movement. Tired, I sit in corner.

Lets make it bleed, so we can bandage at least.
Don't look at the mirror tomorrow. Wounds are ugly.

Marks of broken mirror, etched on you. I still need.
Need to look, need to smile. Allow me, or let the mirror.

Turn away, lets. Move away from it. No answers.
Face each other. Did we need the mirror, anyways?

Mattress and Cupboard.

11/12

6:00- Alarm rings

6:15- Try to wake up

6:30- Wake up

6:45- Washroom time

7:30- Get Dressed

8:00- Coffee at regular coffee shop

8:30- Start walking to work

9:05- Say Hello to everyone

9:15- Reach your desk

9:20- Work

14:30- Lunch

14:35- Laugh

14:40- Listen

14:45- Joke

15:00- Eat

15:45- Go back to work

16:30- Check phone

17:30- Leave

18:05- Reach coffee shop

18:30- Reach Home

20:00- Make Dinner

20:20- Eat Dinner

21:00- Laugh

21:15- Listen

21:25- Talk

21: 35- Cry

22:00- Stare

00:00- Set Alarm

He lived in this routine, everyday of every week of every month, that lasted all year. He never invited anyone over, never talked to anyone on the phone. They said he had an affair with a married woman, some said he was autistic, others saw him as a possible homosexual. But none could explain his rather peculiar loneliness. He seemed to be waiting of someone or something. Waiting for 30 years, when asked by his therapist once, he couldn't answer why or what. But he waited, night after night and day after day. Not that he was aloof, he had a rather good and quirky humor and his food was popular in workplace. Even his lovers were a fan. Most important was the strictness of this schedule, that never missed a minute. One or two, here and there, maybe, but he was always punctual, one of the reasons behind his success too. Though he was mostly alone now, loneliness didn't bother him nor did it ask questions whose answer he had to look hard for. Looking hard gives headaches, and he hated medicines. He was a well respected, well dressed and well settled man, the kind which mothers like and fathers doubt, best friends hate and acquaintances admire. Everyday began the same way with the same monotony. Monotony never bothered him, and ever since his outbreak 10 years ago, monotony had been the greatest and most efficient treatment. He never talked about exactly what happened, nor did he ever let any questions be raised on his sanity. A man. Such a sane and sober one.

12/12

6:00- Alarm rings

6:15- Try to wake up

6:30- Wake up

6:45- Washroom time

7:30- Get Dressed

8:00- Coffee at regular coffee shop

8:30- Start walking to work

9:05- Say Hello to everyone

9:15- Reach your desk

9:20- Work

14:30- Lunch

14:35- Laugh

14:40- Listen

14:45- Joke

15:00- Eat

15:45- Go back to work

16:30- Check phone

17:30- Leave

18:05- Reach coffee shop

18:30- Reach Home

20:00- Make Dinner

20:20- Eat Dinner

21:00- "Hello, I thought you were going to be late today. You know I don't like that, especially when I am paying for each and every second. What do you propose for tonight, something conventional  or challenging? Well, I can see you want to me to treat you like your lover would."

The woman, sitting opposite to him, doesn't reply.  She had been appearing right here, where he wanted her everyday at the same time. Funny how hallucinations can be tempting and sexy.

21:15- "Yes, Father. Yes, yes, I understand and absolutely agree. I too believe that what you did was much required, much needed. Yes, Father, I know no one else can ever understand. Alright, Father we'll make your favorite tonight, that wonderful curry for dinner. Shall I call out for mother, then…oh."

His father had a habit of dressing well too. A red tweed coat and brown pants with a decent shirt. Old yet charming, his father had a way with him. A way of making him listen, a way of making his mind turn inside out.

21:25- "If you still believe  I lay around and never missed you, then you're wrong. I could never say it, because I have a fear, that people are plotting to make me happy. I heard you talk to your sister and discuss such schemes. I love you, I did from the day you ran away from my bedroom and I grabbed your yellow dress. See the color is still in my hands, see?"

Nancy, was his first lover, the truest. First love is always wrong, and he would start to believe this. After Nancy, he never talked of love to anyone else, nor did he suspect of them plotting against him.

21:35- " I saw a puppy getting squished under a car today. I felt its pain. I saw a carpenter cutting off his finger today. Bones are hard, but it must have hurt. I saw a man running after a woman who was weeping. He should not have let go. I saw my mother on the bed again. She was naked, and I didn't look away."

He had a little pet once, which his father resented. Having a carpenter father is interesting for a child, the fun of looking at your dad make things is both proud and amusing. Nancy and he broke up in a market place two years after they met first, she made quite a scene.

22:00- " I shall try with this tie tonight, maybe I will wake up as a different creature tomorrow morning. The belt didn't work, this should. Let me check the ceiling fan again. I have always loved Kafka. The bathroom tub is already occupied by her and then the cupboard is full too. Father still lies in the mattress, so I must hurry."

He always had trouble sleeping. He hasn't slept in 10 years.

When Was It?

What was it? Chocolate brown or caramel?
The color of earth or sweet candy?
Burnt sugar or weathered leaves?
Maybe it was a pleasant soothing brown
Or maybe a piercing cold shade of a warm color.
What was it? The color of her eyes, that made my day.

How was it? Sweet and soft like cotton candy?
Or hard and permanent like a strong flavor?
Like a frost bite lasting in my mind with pain and thunder?
Maybe it was nothing special
Or maybe her breath on my neck was better.
How was it? The taste of her lips when I kissed her first.

Did I tell you? The pleasant windy warmth?
The soothing sensation and familial abode in her voice?
Like an honest word, never denied nor accepted.
Most of all never rejected. Or maybe it was how I heard her?
Maybe it was just another conversation in a crowded room?
Did I tell you? How easily she made me laugh.

When was it? Summer or winter?
When she wore cotton shirts or high boots?
Was it the chill that froze me or the heat that took over me?
Maybe it was spring, a quite morning
Or maybe it was the melancholic autumn
When was it? When I told her I loved her.

Letters.

The apartment where she lived, was very small. They had looked at each other long and hard enough, he smelled her and kissed her, she smiled and touched him, long enough. When nights were cold, they would tell each other warm stories of hills in summers and beaches in winters. Stories made and forgotten, nights passed as easy as days. Their letters were regular, sometimes he didn't reply, and sometimes she refused. Relationships on letters are fragile and longer, they counted on the longer part. Love, it might have been, since the correspondence was frequent enough, it felt like love. Yes, it was love.

My dear,

It should be raining that night, when I meet you again. Intoxicated and drenched, I believe they never fail to create magic. Magical and unreal, like our other meetings. I would see you by my favorite place. Come high, you know I am shy of your staring. The skin, be it through multiple layers of inhibiting wool and cotton, feels familiar. Like the touch of warm blanket, heated by my own body, the smell, the taste, all familiar and comforting. 

The room is small and dim, the moment we'd enter, you'll pull me to a corner. Start kissing, it feels like the first kiss. The very first one, which stupefies and satiates only to be repeated over and over again. Your lips taste like that of a new lover, whose passion hasn't worn out, who hasn't been many places. So I dive in to suck in more of that innocence. Your hands move onto my back, underneath the sweater and it sends a chill, such cold hands. I make us stop for a moment, look into your eyes, tell you I love you and kiss your flaws. Flaws of imbecile love and unrequited wishes, flaws from dreadful dreams and miles of distance.

Despite the doubt, fear and transiency, I pull you over me. Ah! How warm you are now, and how perfectly we fit together, how well our contours embrace each other and don't demand too many movements.I ask you again, if you are sure, you remain silent and put your lips over mine, all over again. The dimness has turned into dark, and this doesn't feel like I thought it would. Its like the hunger is gone. We are still high but are overcome by a strange sadness..not sad really..but a poignant heavy love. But you come over me again, and it feels unlike anything. Its not sex, and its not making love, its like a confession, a surrender, a submission of flaws. I take you in warmly and we are in something extra ordinary.Greatly satisfying and piercing.

I wish I could write more, I thought a lot more, but there is a knock on the door, it must be him. 

Goodbye.

Unfaithfully, yours.

Chameleon.

Its hard to find people who take just what you give, we are all needy miserable. Some want too less
some want too much. A peace, is rarity almost an illusion but we still keep hoping for it.And get sad when nothing close to it is achieved. People who are together for a very long time, are two disturbed people who have found the perfect balance of the amount they feed each other of themselves. Basically, a balance of neurosis  Our times are that of cracking-up and they have always been, because there is always an option for something better. Something nicer, something that makes a bit more sense, gives a little more love, expects lesser and asks fewer questions. But the fingers get pointed back to ourselves.

Don't we all have a chameleon soul, that once dreams of running away into a never ending road with strangers who are comforting. And then all of a sudden it wants to get married to that illusion of perfect someone, the one you read about, the one who reminds you of childhood and nascent dreams of innocence and premature lust. The road never begins and we keep struggling in bridging this gap between innocence and experience. A kind of experience that is liberating and conforming at the same time. A profane kiss, an illegitimate love affair, a corrupted affection and a hidden masochist; this experience that is the keyhole to a wretched yet exciting universe. But then we move back a few steps, and decorate our living room which looks like a promise of 25 years and more. A comfortable and sophisticated sofa, a medium sized bed, a sufficient dining table, kids like decorations and an evening in solitude. Is it a choice, or a great illusion of one.

There is a gift, that very few of us have. There is a great struggle that preludes to this gift. Gift of peace. These men and women have found the bridge and a companion to build a cottage with on it. These lucky ones learn to love without consequences. They greet people from both side with warmth and respect, maybe because they understand the anxiety, or maybe because even their abode is not satisfying and misery of these travelers is comforting for them. Maybe happiness is settling for the illusion. Think of the ideal in your head that can never be fulfilled, think of the burden it might have brought, and then maybe watch television quietly at night, so your partner, who is capable to sharing the loneliness, doesn't wake up.

But, after all the talking, I feel like hugging someone. Hugging is so comforting, if its the right person.

Final Cut.

Bleeding, not from a wound or a ceremony
But its spilled on the ground and its hard to walk
Pick up the corpses, and wipe this off
Clean shirts are rare to find, why'd you have to ruin it?

The sand is stuck in my toe nail
The prettiness of this beach is immersed in gray
The sun hurts my eyes, and you said we'd stay inside
Take it away, my foot hurts, why'd you have to bring me here?

Take the clothes off. Slow or fast, doesn't matter.
Touch the skin once. Feel it on your fingers
Run them along the contours. No. Not like this.
I was waiting for so long, why do never do it right?

Its dark, lonely, cold and wet. I hate this together.
A finale now, finishing up the fragmented mess
That pretended to be a happy saviour. Say goodbyes.
But the blade was cold too, why is it so hard make the final cut?

Souvenirs.

I know the strike was deadly and final
Your head fell straight and bled itself lifeless.
Death doesn't change anything, only makes us still.
You were as silent as you were ten years ago.



It all started with a souvenir,
The one you got from your lover.
It smelt of her sex and hair, as I played with my tiny hands.
Little, I was, and have always been. Too little, too easy.
Easy and vulnerable enough to fall back in your arms
Again, and again, and again, after every conscious fall.

I made the souvenir my mantle,
And placed every man as an artifact of memories
Memories of love, affection, warmth, always seen, never felt.
The big book filled page by page, recording lost pieces
Broken and lost souvenirs of men as lovers, and lovers as faded memories.
But you, I never lost. Nor did I hide, but I kept yours always safe.

At nights you put me to sleep, some days we laughed.
Then I kept seeing the wound, in you, me, in him and her.
You kept slipping and lying, I did the same, and to many.
Happiness is disillusionment, the mourning is reality.
The plasticity of your being in my nostalgia shop
Suffocates and murders every possibility of an escape from wonderland.

Vividness takes over my mind as I sit opposite.
You are still the vacant monster who stole my light
But did you set fire to my shop,
And broke all those souvenirs.
Lie to me once more
And I am prepared..