Home, away from home

It is serenely quiet here, as I try to become a tool of submission to the sounds of nature, to the thoughts of you. Funny, I called this place home. Funnier still, is the fact that it is merely a figment of my imagination and there is nothing 'homely' about this place. It is just the existence of lost words, flowing thoughts and erroneous truths about me. Or you.

I survived an avalanche of negative feelings yesterday when I assumed you were mad. Mad at the thought of me owning you. 'We don't own people, we only think we do'. So true, my love, so true.

So here I am again, writing about the horrors that surround me, even while the most tranquil and peaceful thoughts ensnare me into happiness. It is because when I find peace in seclusion, I give into thoughts of the damned realities that color the canvas of life black. And it will always be black. It will always be that horrendous piece of information and neglect that I will see even when you make me happy. Happier than I have ever been in a long time.

By the way, for that, thank you. Thank you. Thank you. If I could explain what you mean to me, what your existence implies in the circle of life, you could die. Die from the shame you attach to such emotions. That is why I remain quiet, silently wishing that you realize yourself, like you do.

Back to seclusion. Yesterday was wild. We were collecting the imagination again. Imagination about ghastly truths, heart-aching tasks, forced doings and clenched-teeth premonitions. Yes, I call her imagination.

For she is imagination in all it's forms. She's wild, she's unique, she's that person who you're in awe of. And then she kills, she destroys, she amends your soul to a steel-handed, iron-encrusted sentinel of orders and punishments. That's all you do with her, and when she breaks, you break too. Like imagination. Like that wild imagination that sets you free and manhandles you when you err.

Lightning in the distance. Aye, the sky's black now. Blacker than you. Wait, how do I really compare? How do I measure who you are, when I don't want to know you. 'Don't want to anyway' rings true. Again. And again.

Like the vintage love for old typewriters grew with collective awe, I let the fears and pain of horror endorse in me a fatal flaw. I thought human contact would soothe me. Now I feel dirty, selfish and a burden on the others when I know that they sympathize with me. Without having the necessity of actually feeling anything. The human contact has increased by the number of one. And I fear if it has grown too much. I can't be really sure. I wouldn't want to create a negative aura around me just for the sake of sympathy. Of organized sympathy. How artificial that sounds. Organized sympathy. How naive.

They created a silence of horrors. A circle of hollow, coarse sounds that ripped at the innards of me because in front of this silence my voice is reduced to ciders. I cannot speak. My thought is locked. My tongue tied into oblivion. Brain freeze. How unfortunate.

Let's think happy thoughts? Because for how long can I keep myself tied into a diabolical and circular sequence of depression and forced introversion?

But no
Rubies splattered across purple carpets
Purple curtains
Purple sheets
Silken harmony
And your denial

Denial for the good, denial for the stifling words of love
For love is something we couldn't believe in
Love is something we won't trust ourselves in
Scared and marred
By denial and reality

Fresh alpine breaths
Tin roofs and the din of triumphant nature
The bird-calls, the systematic voices
Stomach rumbling
For it is early morning
And the day hasn't started yet
Words haven't been digested yet
Rain hasn't fallen down yet

I called it home
Home, away from home
Because I was sketching realities into papers of dreams
I was speaking to you about lovely dramas
Dramas concocted to vanquish reality
Raindrops falling onto imagined grass fields

Trust falls in pieces of dust
Silken sheets flowing in the wind
They are kept away from us
From the fear of us
From us.

The black raven looks inside the empty soul
Like quenching of thirst
Like drugging the extremities
Like foretelling the future
Only without the names
And incidents
Like killing you now
Without an aim

The wind at this home hustles everything inside
The downpour in the early morning
The din of reckoned pride
It is a personal jest
When the rain falls
Your glory wasn't mine to keep
And deep down, deep
We slept in echoes of your laughter

Sparrows wrestling with singular tree branches
Voices, clear and repetitive
Drops of God's faith
Cleansing traits
System reshuffled
The tranquility creates a barred block over the heart

The forgotten wings
Launched again, in that moment
The heart springs them open
For those forgotten and silly desires
Someone would come, smile, and sing us the rain song

Rain creates a sound
And progresses from the background
To the hustling heart beats
That make us numb
Drumming on the insecurities of the soul
To ward of insignificance and doubt
To relegate lust and shrewd mistrust

Heart warming and gut wrenching
The blood swoons to keep the heart alive
And the limbs fall prey to agonizing cold
The penetrating cold
The nature's metaphor
I let go of you, to keep the dream alive
I let go of you, to keep the worries, the sick reality alive

We're enshrouded in peace sometimes
When rain falls

And they may suppose this heart's kindling with young love, but it's not. It can't be. It scares me. Scars me, scars that we cannot heal. But it isn't what we say, is it?
Love, to me, is twisted into shreds of friends, fiends, a friend, you and us. It's easy to verbally transpose the sentiment into feelings, but how much do we really mean? And when do we really mean it?
When we're searching for an answer, and you come cascading down without an answer but just the belief that everything's going to be alright? Or when I scavenge the dark side in everyday chaos and you provide answers to yourself without wanting to? Or when you smile? Or when we lock our heads in mindless laughter creating incoherence and insane love for the little-heard? Love, in all it's forms but one, is sacred. And the irony? That unified marble concept of love that I cannot muster the courage to face, is all that it means to you. To all of you. I/we survive longing for the fringes of love, never really wanting that brand of love but ravishing in it just the same. Such hypocrisy.

5th May, 2013.

Home, in other words.

HOME

By Edgar Albert Guest


It takes a heap o’ livin’ in a house t’ make it home,
A heap o’ sun an’ shadder, an’ ye sometimes have t’ roam
Afore ye really ’preciate the things ye lef’ behind,
An’ hunger fer ’em somehow, with ’em allus on yer mind.
It don’t make any differunce how rich ye get t’ be,
How much yer chairs an’ tables cost, how great yer luxury;
It ain’t home t’ ye, though it be the palace of a king,
Until somehow yer soul is sort o’ wrapped round everything.

Home ain’t a place that gold can buy or get up in a minute;
Afore it’s home there’s got t’ be a heap o’ livin’ in it;
Within the walls there’s got t’ be some babies born, and then
Right there ye’ve got t’ bring ‘em up t’ women good, an’ men;
And gradjerly, as time goes on, ye find ye wouldn’t part
With anything they ever used—they’ve grown into yer heart:
The old high chairs, the playthings, too, the little shoes they wore
Ye hoard; an’ if ye could ye’d keep the thumbmarks on the door.

Ye’ve got t’ weep t’ make it home, ye’ve got t’ sit an’ sigh
An’ watch beside a loved one’s bed, an’ know that Death is nigh;
An’ in the stillness o’ the night t’ see Death’s angel come,
An’ close the eyes o’ her that smiled, an’ leave her sweet voice dumb.
Fer these are scenes that grip the heart, an’ when yer tears are dried,
Ye find the home is dearer than it was, an’ sanctified;
An’ tuggin’ at ye always are the pleasant memories
O’ her that was an’ is no more—ye can’t escape from these.

Ye’ve got t’ sing an’ dance fer years, ye’ve got t’ romp an’ play,
An’ learn t’ love the things ye have by usin’ ’em each day;
Even the roses ’round the porch must blossom year by year
Afore they ’come a part o’ ye, suggestin’ someone dear
Who used t’ love ’em long ago, an’ trained ’em jes’ t’ run
The way they do, so’s they would get the early mornin’ sun;
Ye’ve got t’ love each brick an’ stone from cellar up t’ dome:
It takes a heap o’ livin’ in a house t’ make it home.

~ Because sometimes words that others pen mean a lot more. Mean everything. Mean something.

Lines of Black

~ Sapnon se bharay naina
Tau neend hai na chayna

Monochromatic gray skies and pearl-white moon: it's like the world's been colored black and white by God's hand. The only colors raging through the mind are memories of small dreams, forgotten instances. In this moment, the totality of absence is absolute.

Lines of Black

Fears of a different kind
Circling the thoughts in unison
Creating halos of smoked and forgotten
Dramas of mind and fingers twitching to play
Harmonies of system

Lines of black
Gray hues; gray you
Like true fears
And then forgotten
Like you

Piano notes of a new tune
A soothing new world song
Something serenely modest in playing mind games
Like you
Quietly modest in ruining me

Shattered like glass
Thoughts of you
Held together once by us
Now it's only you

I'm trusting the voices to procreate
A love, an understanding between this moment
And us
But it's always you

You, against the world
Lines of black
Dark canvases
Monochrome intense
Trees dense
Forests disgruntled
Skies enraged
Nature eluded
Time suspended

Chaos.
Your lines of black
That we drew on our hearts

(23rd April, 2013)

Dark and Light

It is still slightly chilly, and it is still lightning. The clouds have wept enough for one day, now they are just growling against the vestiges of rain and occasional wind-storms. I have this unintentional practice of writing when it rains. I don't know why, or how. I don't even know if I appreciate it that much as well. For the routine brings one closer to fake attempts at keeping the tradition alive. And I would never want to do that. At any cost.
But it happened, and so I must wrote. Write because emotions overwhelm me, and I write because that is my get away. I wonder what's yours? Yes, yours. Envy, for that getaway. Because lightning strikes in caged minds only. It creates a picture in my cosmos, still.

Wilderness, in all its glory
This place, this howling kingdom of rain and wind
The battlement of words and meetings
Exchanged for a night today
Planned triumph, juxtaposed with my wilderness today
Eluding trust, voices calling a different tune today
People have died, people travel on
Your beauty transcends
On the lost, and that which I feel
Its You today.

Oh, it rains again. The usual rain. The rain that gives off a synced noise. The pitter-patter of life against our blues. The humdrum of people against our thoughts. The wind against our waterfall.

Oh I am thinking of you again. And I wonder till when will this heart accept the fake and pretend? Till when will this body answer to questions of mundane importance? How will this cycle end? Of your time. And my still standing breath. Upon the rain-canvased onto empty vessels. Empty light vessels, aching for a sliver of dark and destruction. Empty fake vessels trying to reach for the truth and they find it in the dark, brooding somewhere in the unknown but they cannot find it once and for all because it eludes them always. Always. Always.

Relapse

Pink and black dupattas on the high-tide of the wind, flying through imagined and felt memories and transitions of the mind.

How fragile and crumbly is the heart when it comes to feeling a little something off the dirt-tracks of routine. Routine? What is this word that defines the normalcy of me, of you?

I defy it sometimes. And let go of things. Because well-structured and logically balanced minds also need a relapse once in a while.

This is the relapse today.

In the distance, a mandir merges with the white-gray clouds. And the red earth mounds topped by the vibrant greenery of the March rain; there is a sense of distance. A large distance between my thoughts and you.

This morning, I listened to my heart only. The brain refused to throw back chunks of illogical wishes of the mind. This morning, something changed. This morning, I let passion die for the fragile heart.

How many more times? How many relapses before I can be a sentinel of cemented passion? Before I can be a reinforced steel model of the dreams and aspirations that I think that I see? Is this real, or is this a fake attempt at becoming One with Him?

Questions and doubts? Sometimes one becomes tired of thinking, reevaluating and reprioritizing. Sometimes, all I want to do is just look into the sky and forget everything. Everything. Escape into oblivion. With thoughts of you. Yes.

Dhokaybaaz

Dhokaybaaz hai barish aaj. Bohut.

Fresh bubble-green leaves growing out of the orange-tree in the backyard; now inviting lost, cold winds into the window of the room. This room has started to live with me, feel with me. It has become me. Inviting yet closing out to people or human contact. It can only show its true colours when I reside inside, alone, without an agenda at hand. 

I was falling prey to perfect storms, lovely dark forests. Then I thought, how naïve. 

For there’s nothing more fake than the love of fantasy, in which we build our get-aways. Life has taught me through a lot of pain, that there’s always a cement wall lurking around the corner, wherever you look. And I have started appreciating that cold burst of air, that steel handedness, that rusty disapproval, that mind-aching rejection. This sustaining heart has become accustomed to sadness. It is almost like a tool to fight life with. How sadistic of me, you might say. But it is this ever soothing contentment you derive from knowing life isn't perfect, and it can’t be and that’s how it’s got to be. You accept the reality with the face of a warrior knowing you can defeat it with the forces you have, and anything else is just a tragedy. 

Haye, this is not succumbing to the numbness of life. This is not accepting that which is there. It is not giving up on hope when there is more to wish for. It is just being a statement of divine existence on the face of this earth. It is a reflection of how thunderclouds roar in the skies above, and you are not scared a bit because you know it wasn't meant for you. You know that there is a power much greater and stronger than you watching over you. That belief, that submission, and that nod to life is what is making me beautiful. Beautiful. Beautiful. I shall colour this life red, because the blue’s all dead. But the crimsons and rubies that I scatter on the canvas of this growing seduction, I pull out of life’s very centre. Life will only give me crimson and ruby, because that is what life has made me be.

Stolen from here

Rain is not meant to look at and wonder and dream about what-could-have-been. It is listening to the sounds and whispers of what-has-been and dreaming that it stays like it has been. Dreaming that it ventures into a more beautiful have-been. 

And thunder and destruction is all I am weaving tonight, for the sky is clear, it is holding no resistance against fresh thoughts. Hold the fantasy and word-brimming poetry tonight: just close your eyes and feel that cold burn the inside out. Feel it sweep deep inside the soul that has pervaded millions of days of monotonous stays and angry rash rants. Make it crush the bones into a powder of rippling denial; Of everything and nothing. 

It is raining again. Probably God wanted me to stop writing and listen to Him again. Thank you, Lord. For giving me a retarded sense of wonderment at this beauty of Nature and You. Of giving me the freedom to feel you when I'm broke and destructed. For not letting me cover my head and face against the growing ferocity of this downpour tonight. For making me the legend of broken strings, and crooked words. And I am building walls around me to make me safe, to make me a place. Where only I can see things and build walls for those wishes I create. Walls and You. Such beauty in such sorrow. 

Fantasy and the paradox of me trying to pick a line between the real and imagined. And I am still unattached from the real and frightening moments. Or rather attached with a crumbling belief in your stories. 

I may not make sense. But I do, for you. Life.

The Other

Two segments grew from the polarized projection of love and fantasy. One attached to a romanticized reality, the other unattached with worldly suppression.
There is a slight hint of red in the reflection of the moon today. Because I am sitting at an angle besides the window in the room. I cannot see the moon directly. Rather it is watching me from the mirrored conscience of the window.
It is strange because it is a normal happening. Orchestrated beginnings of moments, and syndicated levels of conversation about the skies, the moon, the winds and our words. Belittling instances of doubt and inconsistent hypocrisy. One attached, the other unattached.
How do I explain the pieces of thoughts traveling through the mind-cosmos right now? For it is unlike me to think of myself as a superior in a condition like this. Yet I am, and I do.
Perfect colored rings, perfectly said things.
She has a halo of pretenses.
While the other revolves around pretense.
She will swallow her rejections
While she screams in defense.
Create a building starting today
While the other demolishes you, brick by brick.
Hearing stories of the other
While she knits a story for the other.
It is the other you are conquering
While the other remains plundering
In stories of you.
Within us, it is growing
To hate the other
And love what the other brings
Remember the love of the other
For it was pure before you became its other.

Think of the trees blooming fruits in season. There will be lots of fruits, perfect ones, and some not so perfect ones. The idea is to pick the ones that you need, and the others will find their own destinies. Stop worrying about these options that aren't for you, because in doing so, you are ruining more than you think you know.

She bundled a stream of emotions into a sleepless night, and cascaded the woes of the night onto a singular listener. While she gave out bits and pieces of incomplete whispers.

Tell me you fell for the latter.