To Sleep, Perchance to Dream

There, in the distance, the skies were clouding over. The stillness before a roll of thunder, as the world holds her breath, waiting, watching.

I walked into the sunlight, unwilling to acknowledge the darkness I could foresee.

The sky turned to soup, a thick murky swirl of grey and black. The storm doesn't like to be ignored. It boiled, slowly chasing away the sun.

I turned my back on the gathering storm, I threw down my coat and I whistled as I walked across the grass that died at my feet.

He screamed. The skies opened. The cold rain poured over me and burned through my skin, the ground shook and the earth wailed. The storm was here.

And I kept walking. I turned my eyes away from the carnage, the violence and laughed as blood seeped out through my charred skin, leaving a trail of red behind me.

The storm would kill me. The storm has killed me. I didn't even know.

It was you. With your lips. Your fingers. The things that you whispered to me. I heard them all as the rain dissolved me into nothing. Into a patch of bloodstained dead grass.

It was you, the storm said.

It was you.

The Hamlet of the East

I choose.

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.