Saayali.

On the back of my mind I know I have a home to go:
Where the lights fade into endless conversations
About the phony and the afraid that surround us all.
Swallowing me complete: the poetry, the serenity,
The solace, the presence of someone time taught me
How to love. But can love be taught? 
It seeps in deep, it sings me to sleep, it wakes me
After a nap, it loses itself for me to find: this is love.
And you learn to live with the midnight comfort of
An old blanket that you've just re-found. 

Saayali, now our world speaks your words,
Now Sonepat knows a language new, that you
Taught. Taught them how to speak.
You make me question much like the intellectual
But you teach me to love like the irrational.
How hopeless, how useless, but yet I learn
For in love there's magic, in love we find
The part of ourselves we're ready to let go of.
You teach me to resist, but also to feel.
You teach me pessimism, but also hope.

Saayali, when the world speaks your words,
I smile like a proud mother. In you, I find the light
I thought missing in everyone. In you, I find the
Aggression for revolution. In you, I find the words
Once lost--never found. In you, I find all I need
To go through the day. In you, Saayali, I see the
Sky bluesky, the horizon, the radiance of a time
We conveniently forgot. And I'm afraid,
Afraid that you see nothing I see, that you fear
To be infinitely limited, that you lose yourself
More than you find, that you feel inadequate for a lot.
But that's not true.

Saayali, when you hear the world speak your words today,
Don't be afraid that they'll say it wrong. Us writers are most
Misunderstood, yet most loved. When the world speaks
Your words today, smile and hold my hand. I will show
You in those minutes that love is written, learnt and spoken
And those who run away from it, fall right back to it.
When the world speaks your words today, you will know
What I speak of when I say you teach me and I learn.
The world will speak your words today, and you will learn
How to teach love again.

Saayali, I think you forget that this is not the last time,
If no one else will, I shall speak your words again.
We need to be reminded. Need to be taught. Need
To ask the question: What, after all, is a bard?
Without your words, we might live. But live a life
Of no question? Saayali, wake up and know:
The world needs you and your words in their entirety.
And when they speak your words like they say:
"To be or not to be", I will still grin like a proud mother.
For in you, I find the truth I think I lost much before
The lights went out.

To Saayali, with all my love.

Juxtaposed

Hope and hopelessness: Blurred lines,
Merged separations. Distinctions make one
Of two. Distance and silence
Rhyme their ways through the night
When the loneliness seeps in, and the
Emptiness fills us.

We stay afloat:
We make a whole being parts of
An unspoken disaster. If I were free
Verse, he was a haiku. Literature,
Poetry, Philosophy: All mean
Nothing without us where contrasts
Blend and similarities disappear.

The known and the unknown
No more mutually exclusive:
Because I no more know when
The light died and the darkness
Began, Two opposites we are
Making our way through
Dysfunction and paradise
All the same.

If he is silence, I am The Iliad.
If he the ocean, I am the desert.
If he loves, I restrict. If I love,
He's away. Half a story is me,
The other half he. Maybe we
Were just meant to be.

The philosophy of entwined fingers.

They'll see your fingers entwined
And know for a fact that it is love.
Short-lived or just for the night or forever:
This distinction no one can make.
Just love in its form of tantalizing serenity
A promise when your hands touch,
A history so deeply etched that
When you're old and blue, her fingers
Entwined in yours will make you feel
Love in full bloom--fresh and undying.

Her touch, her heavy breath, her crystal
Eyes that give her away--you'll memorize
It all. And the memory will rush back to you
When she hides the flaws of your palms
In hers. Like she owns them, like she'll
Cure them. And when perfection sings
To you, you'll know it is your fingers curled around hers
That make the music. In the brief moment
Before you have to run and give it all up
Hold her hand again--she'll teach you how to live.

A whisper of the start of something that only
Time will tell how long it will last. A scream
Of distance that you know not how long you need
To map. A cry of an uncertainty: Blame the wandering
Heart. But a forever, a story, a never-ending connection
Of the time your fingers entwined in completion.
A story you'll tell with everyone you've ever loved,
But for now--it is her. Her fingers will make you
Promise for eternity plus one. When silence fails you one day,
Entwine your fingers around hers, reassure her, and stay.

Just before

They matter:

The ones who cried

Just before the lights went out.

They live:

The ones who broke

Just before their youth began.

They amaze:

The ones who stand

Just before it was another dawn.

They hide:

The ones who lost

Just before the war began.

They love:

The ones who sang

Just before our poetry failed.

They walk:

The ones who hurt

Just before their legs wore out.

They write:

The ones who live

Just before we spin toward disaster.

Those who matter, live, amaze, hide, love, walk--they write.

Please don't medicate yourself until you can write yourself out of tragedy: Nothing that words can't heal.

Take that shot.

Heavily-breathing, I see you stand at the edge of the court
Waiting for your turn, for this one chance to prove yourself.
I wasn't there to get impressed. If impressions matter,
you took my breath away years ago. I don't care
If you lose or win this game, I want to see you play.
I want to see you run to take that shot which you'd
Miss if you didn't start right now. And when you win,
I want to watch you pause to look at me for approval.
I can't give you any, I've run out of fucks I could give.
But that doesn't mean I can't hope, hope for you,
Hope for you and her, you and him, you and them.
You and I? A story long done, but yet, I want to hope
For us. Because I want to see you let go as strongly
As you've held on, I want to see you laugh as hard
As you wept that night. I want to see you succeed,
As you gave up when I walked away. I want to see
You know that bitches come in colors and I was black.
I want you to take more shots at the court, to pair up,
To break up, to struggle, to live. I want to see you live
And learn that I can finally give you my last gift--
A smile, for all you were, are and ever will be to me.
I can't repay you, I can't find another like you,
But when a game's over, it's over. There's no turning
Back. You know this now and so do I, so when
I walk away without saying goodbye, say
I never deserved it but never think you didn't.
Because losers turn away and walk out,
The winners still play the game. I'd win another game,
Another time. But right now:
I want to see you play, I want to see you win
Or lose. Or draw. Just play, until the lights are out.

hollow.

These men
Who down a hundred cups of chai
Each week--sun or rain,
Will just depress you
Making you hollow from the inside.

They won't write to cheer you up,
Nor will they dance when you ask.
They'll stay sullen in corners
Of happy celebrations.

Your heart just had to
Tend towards the heartless,
Wanting to give them life,
And understand who they are.
Give them form and art,
To make them your masterpiece.

You'll cry yourself to sleep, fine.
You'll fight the odds to love the boring.
You'll break all norms to look beyond,
But all you find is nothingness.

For God's sake, you poet,
Learn to love one of your kind-
Do yourself a favour woman,
Fuck someone whose words
Will kiss you goodnight.

Separation.

With fingers entwined, hidden behind the two,
Flashes of fond memory buzz past you-- the separation,
You make your way through the crowd,
Looking away- probably at the puddle in the corner.

You consume the dim, yellow streetlights;
The smell of the night- you find ourselves bottling it up for posterity.
His fingers now cupping your face, your eyes fixated on his,
You know how the impression of his intense gaze still
Burns the side of your cheek. To be called beautiful,
When all you think is you are a fat, unimpressive existence.
To have your lips speak to another's in no language,
You suddenly know the distance approaching
Will just make you desperate- So you kiss him some more,
Until you let go to smile and hold his hand one last time,
Say goodbye and feel the weight of his absence immediately,
But you know you'll live, you know there is no end-
You're never over, you see.

The next morning's sunshine makes your head spin,
Like you're hungover on a memory, a fantasy,
Something you can't see for months now. You leave
On a flight and land somewhere. Jump into bed,
And realize you're gone. So, you cry
Into your pillow carefully tucking him into your thoughts
Like a poem you now know by-heart.