To Dive

In the running water,
Flecked by the sun
I saw you wash away
Disappear into the depth of the river

In the sudden silence
It became clear
I have no choices to make

Untitled

I was born, I am told, with my heart on my sleeve. A fistful of sinew that would bind me to love, all consuming, obsessive, unreasonable, a result of simple theft, of a willingness to trust the light fingers that brush my arm.

With my heart on my sleeve, I wandered into you. And you took my heart and you left, without knowing you would leave me bereft.

Without even the ability to awake my limbs and feed my starving mind, until I wander into you again, and remember to reclaim what I have lost to you.

If I ever see you again, I must remember to swallow my traitorous heart, that would follow you everywhere, but home.

Dreaming Tree

Talk to me. Want to talk to me. Think about me, remember me, send me messages for no reason, to let me know I didn't make a mistake with you. Worship me, just a little.

I can't do it any other way, I'm a coward and a romantic.

Or perhaps I like you in many more ways than I can say, at least out loud. Never to you.

Live with me.
I will keep you warm.

The Fate of the Fly

I am trapped in you
Like the foolish fly
and the golden amber
I know I'm a dead thing
But I can't fly away
In a million years perhaps
I will be a beauty too

The Great White Fear

I knew you all my life. Even though I didn't see you all that often, I always knew you would be coming home sometime in the future. To stay with us and bring us funny presents, to make jokes and tease me about my latest boyfriend, to take me out for lunch and teach me about being quick witted.

At your memorial I couldn't get up and say anything, because I just couldn't stop crying. I wanted to let everyone know that even though I wasn't your friend, or your student or your colleague or one of your supposedly numerous girlfriends, I treasured your visits and remembered you with nothing but laughter and good memories. As I will try to remember you from now on.

I regret so deeply that I couldn't know you as a full fledged adult. That our conversations were always you teasing and me giggling helplessly. Except for the last time that you were here, when I would crack a joke and you would look surprised and delighted before you started to laugh. I couldn't wait for your next visit, so I could make you laugh, and test my wits against yours.

Thank you for letting me have the brochures of Miss Saigon. I know you wanted to keep them, but to twelve year old me they meant a lot, and the pictures from it helped me get really good marks in my seventh grade project on the Vietnam War.

So many of my happiest childhood memories revolve around you and that beautiful house in Dehradun, and those fabulous visits to Delhi. Like the time when I was six, and I opened the door and you said "Driver!". I still remember that and smile, even though it makes no sense whatsoever. And thank you for eating that terrible food I cooked for you. Thank you for the yellow towels.

I will never be able to shake the feeling that you will definitely come to visit again.

Farewell Great White Fear.

Come The Spring

The transition from winter to summer is a traumatic time for many. Here in Delhi, where winter is an infinitely preferable state to summer, everyone watches the rising thermostat with unease and more than a little apprehension. Those with delicate constitutions, or in many cases just unlucky, crumble under the merciless onslaught of coughs, colds, bronchial pneumonia and other gifts from the change of season. It really is a miserable time, and all you have to look forward to is the blazing heat of summer.

Of course, my trauma at the hands of what cannot even jokingly be called spring, is more severe and desperately cruel. You see I have two dogs, and while for most of the year, they are sweet, lovable, and mildly inconvenient, come 'spring' and they are transformed from cuddly canines to gigantic balls of walking fur, the only purpose of which is to shed on everything. And when I say everything, I mean EVERYTHING. My lungs I am convinced sport internal fur carpeting that would make PETA turn Iran and issue a fatwa for my immediate death. Every piece of clothing I own, almost all of which is black, is now brown. And not a very nice brown either.

Curses to you Mother Nature.

The Coreworld Begins

There was a Tower that still stood, on the very edge of a cliff. There were no roads that led to it, no trails, no way to climb the forbidding rock wall it was perched on, but it was not empty.

On warm days, when the air was so still and languid it could be spooned into bowls, they could hear the voices of a castle drift down into the valley. The clink of glasses and clatter of hooves on flagstones, the high pitched laughter of the young, and the clack of wooden practise swords wielded by the enthusiastic, if unskilled.

Life was strange in the valley in the shadow of the Tower that still stood. It was about to become stranger still.

The Dragon came. She was gold and green, with enormous black wings that cast a shadow on the valley as she flew over it. Bound for the Tower that still stood, for the castle that once was. As she approached it she slowed, as if the still air had indeed turned to soup and fought the beating of her wings. It was a battle hard fought, but at last she alighted on the roof of the Tower that still stood. She spread her wings and roared silently, calling on powers ancient, wise and in many cases rather grumpy. They were reluctant to help, but the Dragon would have none of it. Slowly, as if it were rising from the depths of the squishiest bog, a castle arose around the Tower that still stood. The cliff became less fierce and more a hill. A road appeared grudgingly, unwilling to serve again after such a long holiday. And a wind began to blow. To all in the valley, it said, unmistakably and with great feeling, "Bugger off".