Foreplay

Peel off all the layers of clothing

Strip off all the pretensions

Show me your nakedness,

Your simmering rage, your cunning deceptions,

Your misery and your frailties.

Show me where you hide yourself

Show me where you sharpen your knife

Cut through my flesh and let the blood flow

Let it flow, let it flow

Let the rotten love drain.

Conversations with myself

My favourite kind of weekends are the ones where I don’t step out of my bedroom, lay sprawled in my bed, avoid taking calls and get up only to feed my beloved kitten and listen to Regina Spektor all day. If happiness seems to be spilling over, which is rarely the case, I like to inflict a little misery by revisiting Conversations with Other Women, which I plan to do this weekend. 

The film celebrates melancholia, and all that is associated with unrequited love, love that was never meant to be, love that was as transient as a train journey, love that was as finite as a season or a novel, love that was probably just a convenience, love that was curtailed by a phone gone dead, a missed flight, an inflated ego, a myopic vision or laziness. It leaves me with a haunting sadness that is hard to describe.

Then there are weekends when I want to change the world. I want to write a novel, invent an innovative kitty litter box, take a trip, run to the hills, direct a movie and again write.

Write. Write. Write.

But I don’t write. I wallow in self-pity, bask in the glory of unwritten, unpublished novels, watch unscripted films in my head, and my ideas die every day.

And I don’t even mourn.

source: tumblr

Vengeance

Why should I let you have that hungry kiss?

Why should I let your lips seal mine?

Why should I let you find moments of relief from your pathetic existence

When I find none?

Again, tell me, why should I let you have that kiss?

The incessant struggle of my lips against yours,

All that rubbing, rolling and pushing against each other

To divert attention from a tongue-

Angry, tired and molested.

They are two medieval knights fighting for a stretch of land- our lips.

While you devour my lips I close my eyes and count

One to ten and again backwards.

But it doesn’t work

For my ears are still hot. And I still want to stab you in the back

While you wipe your mouth and brush your hair

Before getting back to business.

Spring

Must I stop missing you?
Must I forget your smell?
And wait for our worlds to collide again,
Till ages turn into eternity and eternities into infinitude,
Till we bloom again
Like the purple amaranth.

Infidelity

The one who loved too much
The one who did not love enough
The one who was slightly intrigued
And the one who inspired the seventh verse-
Barely knew the meandering mazes of love.

Straightened bedsheets, creme white curtains,
Fail to masquerade the musty smell of fornication-
It rose from the barren beds and merged
With the smog outside the third floor window
To produce the piercing sensation
of a lingering pain-

a thorn on a freshly plucked rose.

Autumn

You were economic with words as always.
A few pregnant pauses, slight whimpers
Unavoidable sighs and uncomfortable silence
Was followed by an agreement.
That it was never there.
We shook hands, smiled nervously
Gulped down our drinks
Thankful that there were no hurt feelings on either side.
It was mutually agreed upon
That bothering about the gifts would be too puerile.
I stayed a little longer to admire the new painting on your wall.
A cold winter evening descended outside your window.

While Negotiating love

“You never ask for too much from Men,

They invariably fail you”- Didi devised a smile

With one hand on her now swollen belly.

“They don’t have the power to love as much as we do, didibhai,

They can’t bear the pain of it”,

Burimashi observed as she mopped the floor.

“Sacrifice is the woman’s virtue, men can love,

But never can they sacrifice for love,”

Maa spoke as her experienced hands deftly shaped the chapaatis.

“You are always giving more than you get, why my love?

I shall tell you why. Because you are a woman,

And all women are like mothers,

And mothers always give more than they get”

You said as your fingers twisted my curls.

But I expect, I demand, and I ask for more

And I break my own heart every now and then

And I hug you and cry.

I thought it was love.
But now you tell me it was a transaction,

A lucrative one, for you, for sure.