divas-k

[divas-k]

Accident Report in the Tall, Tall Weeds - Ada Limón

[divas-k]

wednesday

The day before yesterday I told you

That we feel like monday

Soft and curved, not wriggly- just comfortable

Rumpled like a pillow that’s been slept on

exposed to the cool air of absence in the sleeper’s 2 am visit to the bathroom

Your hair curls gently like my lips when I say M and I can wrap myself around your laugh like a blanket before work

Missing you is wednesday

Everything feels longer and farther away

I am an island of yearning trapped in the middle of the week

The symmetry in an ocean of pairs

You seemed to get a hang of the game

Quietly, you said-

Then kissing must be thursday (with all that tongue involved)

it felt appropriate — thursday does sound like a mouthful

taking just the right amount of time to say

a delicate dance close to the shore of Friday

vice and virtue wrapped in one

as my battery fails me

I feel the panic of sunday

but I tell myself that it’s alright—

tomorrow is monday

[divas-k]

Delhi

Haze awakens before the millions lying in their tombs, and the defeated horizon gives way with the tired sigh of a winter wind. The first citizens of the city, winged, grey and worn, raise their heads in unison in the mourning of a new day. A muted sun climbs onto the horizon, and unfurls its wings with the birds.

There’s madness in these rays, rousing the ambitious to hateful alertness and caressing the careless into a deeper death, they turn over in their tombs, some made of red sandstone and others of peeling cement. Soft in the quiet first hours, the light deceives the first ones up to leave their graves. They are guided on their pilgrimage of the day by a shimmering haze that steals each breath with no intention of giving it back.

Like Charon of the Styx, rickshaws ferry their passengers across the screaming concrete waters of the city. Their faces are molded into stoic grimaces, and red towels adorn their heads, crowning each of them as the kings of dust and dreams. Their duty is eternal and the dreams of yesterday fuel the dreams of tomorrow, and so they pedal on, in the hopes of one day being able to put their feet on the ground.

The maze-like streets of the city are at their most beautiful now. A million windows, opened to commence bleary attempts at lunch, release the muted sounds of last night’s soap operas and reflect the madness below in the strangest of kaleidoscopes. Below this world of mirrors is a surge of ink that begins to fill the streets as the residents leave for lunch. The faded red sarees of tired old wives meet the fresh white kurta and cap of the priests. They crash into the black suits of businessmen that have lost all sense of self in this river; as they rush to quickly return to their towers so that they may regain it once more. 

This river flows one way during the day, and the other during the evening, all the while unconsciously flowing around the unofficial monuments of the city; the seemingly-permanent stalls of vendors. They keep their eyes on the street and their mouth to the sky with ululating cries that only get louder as the sky darkens, attempting to gather customers in shouts that endear and frighten with equal efficacy.

It’s in this darkness that the extremes of the city become pronounced. The urchins at the Minar gaze in wonder into the prized fashion emporiums, and the designers stare back in confusion. Neither can see the other ever fitting in the clothes that lie behind them, but castles are seldom built by kings, and so they both play their parts in silence. 

The only place where it’s hard to tell these opposites apart is, ironically in the pitch-black depths of the tunnels that run under the city, and sometimes on the tracks that snake high above it. The discriminant here is the card and the token, but the kings and the poor here sit on the same thrones all the same, staring blankly at each other from across the train. This great, turbulent equalizer comes with an unspoken price more costly than the fee paid to get on it, and it is paid by the sea of formless workers getting off the trains at the end of their journey. They look at each other in confusion on the escalators, trying to tell the other apart, business cards are exchanged and yet they all bear the same titles.

They walk home at a timeless pace, already having forgotten the events of the day.

It’s always deep into these desperate nights when identity returns in the embrace of solitude. A woman looks down from her terrace and alone at last she tries to recall a city that was once so familiar; aided by the haze of a half-burnt cigarette and the memory of a song once beloved. She is joined by many others, on balconies and roofs stacked like jigsaw puzzles that don’t quite fit together, and they search together for their lost city in a silent symphony. 

Alas, time turns its cruel hand and their songs meet their end. They turn away one by one, having tried their hardest to remember for the night; and all that remains of the city is the spiraling haze of a stubbed cigarette.

[divas-k]

12:21 am

I woke up frazzled that night, roused to sentience by the dying creaks of the ceiling fan. 

We’d just lost electricity and the dark shadow of my room greeted me. The shadow was uniform, it enveloped everything. The desk, formerly covered in frustrating papers and books was a mirror to the night, unknowable and impossible to pierce; an alien monument to the unknown. The same went for the tall bookshelf next to it, and the chair. They belonged to the world that came with the darkness. Mine no longer.

The only break in the shadow was the door to the balcony, halfway open. The only thing to be seen in the void beyond was a solemn green light in the neighbor’s room, illuminating a bizarre fresco in the quiet night. A man with a face still in shadow danced to the song of that silent night, ecstatic and somber, aware and asleep, he moved untiring in his own dream. 

I looked away then, ashamed of the voyeuristic nature of the trespass I was committing, and closed my eyes. I was hoping sleep would pass the time, relieve me of this strange dark dusk that hung suspended in the air like a sheet in an unmoving wind, where it seemed even the clocks had forgotten to move in their usual song and dance; taking a break from the loud march into eternity.

My mind drifted off at some point, scouting out the ruins of the world I had first fallen asleep in. It came back with sounds, from somewhere far off, where the cars still blared their hateful horns and vendors screamed the prices of their wares into deaf crowds. They were the sounds of that deafening world I usually lived in, ceaseless shouts between lovers that were no more and the sussurating whispers of gossip between adults indulging in bashful escapism. As the sounds built to a roar, I thought of how tired that world must be, denied the reprieve of silence and suffocated by the whims of those that never rested.

I shut the sounds out, welcoming the quiet oblivion of my street and room for the first time. My eyes moved back to the stranger’s room in curiosity, where he remained locked in his mute dance. I could only smile as I closed my eyes. The two of us relished the blissful interlude of gloom in our own ways before the sounds and lights of the old world would inevitably rush back in, that strange, antique world where we were all strangers to each other under bright lights. 

I drifted off into the next morning, hoping that the hands on the clocks would never again remember which way to run.

[divas-k]

broke

loose change

falling through

count the seconds

misplace a few

empty my wallet

squander my time

you keep what's yours

and lose what's mine

no way to save

what's mine to spend

every clock seems broke

with my last penny

I'll suffer the end

until the final stroke

[divas-k]

keeping time

These are the people you used to know not that long ago. You were a part of their stories, their smiles. Well, you still know them — it’s just that they’re different. And so are you.

Everything is different. In fact, some of the faces are new ones, and so, all of the stories are new now too. Your smile falters as it mirrors theirs.

Losing count, keeping time.

They’re talking over each other in familiar harmonies and their laughter is a song only they know the lyrics to. I try to hum along and for a while, it sounds alright. But I haven’t learned the lines and the beats are all quicker than I remember.

So I simply sit back and content myself with listening and bopping my head along to their music. And for a while that works just fine. It is only later when I can hear my breathing that I recognize it. It is measured and yet erratic. You can almost hear the thoughts floating between the spaces of in and out, in through the nose and out again.

For a while there had been silence. But now it feels like a lone drum in a crowded bar — quiet until played.

[divas-k]

the artist

Terrible dreams adorned the walls of the path to paradise, and the damned gazed in ecstasy. 

There’s an irony in the fact that the one place where we remain truly powerless is the hallowed hall of our own sanity. The world outside ceases to exist when the dream begins; the box is gone - and the cat is no more. I know now that dreams are what lie between the first light and the last, a mere hallway between the primordial breath and the briefest of deaths. 

You might wonder where this is coming from, what my sources are and if I’m truly ‘all there’ in the head, the honest answer to all those questions would be ‘I don’t know’. 

I’ve tried hard to trace my dreams back to where it all began, and I always end up on that ashen, bone-charred field, shivering from the cold as I gaze at the man in the casket. I saw him for the first time many years ago, I was still a child then. His stiff corpse was tucked snugly into a mahogany casket. He looked no different from what I imagine any other deceased man would have looked like, and yet there was something remarkable about him. I can’t recall why I was at the funeral, not knowing who the man even was. In the years since that day I’ve resigned to the theory that he must have been a distant relative. 

I could see him perfectly, his face was lit up without a shadow from the cold, bloodshot sun directly above us. He was neither handsome nor ugly, the perfect visage of a stranger; it was a face created to be forgotten. 

And yet for so many years I’ve tried to forget him. After the best of my efforts I’d manage to erase some recollection of his clothes, sometimes of his nose, but I was never fully successful because there was something remarkable about him - his eyes still flitted around under dead lids.

The man in the casket dreamt, and I would’ve called it a miracle if it wasn’t for the unholy smile on his face.

I dreamt of that wretched place for the first time that night. We stood at opposite ends - the casket-man and I. Behind him shone a blinding white light, and all I could make out was his silhouette and what looked like a paintbrush in his hands; his posture was relaxed. Between us stretched the oddest hallway I’d ever seen. People I’d never seen before gazed at the walls of the hallway, some were entranced and others wailed in fear. 

It was hard to discern the size of this macabre gallery, the strangers would be replaced by others at random intervals, each person reacted differently to what they saw on the walls. I tried to move closer to one of the strangers to ask where we were, but I could never move in the dream.

I returned to that place every night since then, unable to move but free to look around at the promises on the walls; some were of flight, and some of unimaginable wealth, of lost love and ancient joy.  Many nights would pass, and I looked at the painted promises in quiet satisfaction. 

I had grown to enjoy my retreat to the dream, years had passed and I was comfortable in our familiar anonymity until my shocked realization that the dream had changed. The walls were the same, of course, and the hallway hadn’t been altered in the slightest, the man still stood there- only he was closer than before, or rather, I was closer. I realized that night that every dream brought me closer to the man who waited, his silhouette an ever-larger presence with every visit.

I write this now in the presence of fleeting dusk, the daylight evades me these days, and the nights are almost permanent. I’ll have to go back there soon, and he’s ever so close now. I can see him a little clearer in my dreams now, his brush drips red.

[divas-k]

a ceiling fan

Shinji’s life was chronicled by the shifting hues of the walls of his apartment. 

The morning light would blearily struggle through a moderately sized window behind his bed, making its way through the thick dusty curtains to paint the room auburn. If his eyes ever opened so early they would see the multitude of places where the plaster peeled off of the walls, a slow march as inevitable as the morning light itself. 

The sacred silence of the morning was only fitfully punctuated by the sounds of the occasional rare early-riser. The engines of their cars were an almost inaudible hum in Shinji’s apartment on the second floor. The doting landlord on the floor beneath him usually went back to bed after sending the kids off to school. The only other sound that would disturb the peace until his awakening was the landlord’s knock on the door much later; he’d always carry a tray of breakfast for Shinji, and at having his knock ignored, would leave the tray outside the door for him. It had become a ritual of sorts, and they were both comfortable in it.

On one of those days Shinji’s eyes opened upon the unholy inferno that the Kagoshima sun brought with it at noon. It was relentless, as bright in the winter as it was in the summer. His afternoons bled by in the same peculiar manner each day. He’d begin by replying with a cheerful affirmative to the usual texts from his mother, asking whether he’d gone to class or not. The charade being over, he would stare at the ceiling fan and ask himself the same question every single day.

‘Do I turn it on?’

The answer was apparent on the blades of the fan- coated in dust they spun lazily in the ghost of a wind lone forgotten, scoffing at the husk of the boy. He’d forgotten where the switch was anyway, and in the unending maze of the chalk-white walls he wasn’t sure he would ever find it again. 

When the ball of fire in the sky had dimmed a little, he retrieved the breakfast tray and scarfed it down in the assumption of hunger. He didn’t feel it, but he figured it should be there. The landlord wasn’t the best cook but Shinji didn’t mind, he thought the gesture was sweet enough. With the tray empty Shinji would often look over his room as if expecting something to have changed from the previous day. That day his eyes passed over his medical textbooks, and guilt made him stare blankly at their insides until the moon’s tired light whispered across the pages.

Feeling comfortable in the dark, Shinji let himself out of the room for dinner at the local soba stall for noodles. The door to his apartment shut softly behind him, and the pages of his textbook still rustled in a birthless wind that paced in the empty room.

His walk to the stall was always a short one, and he’d always take the same route that led him behind the streetlights and out of the gazes of the usual parade of drunk businessmen returning home on some pretense or the other. Like any other night, Shinji walked the length of the short street in long hurried strides, his slight figure indistinguishable from his shadow on the wall next to him. 

He ordered the usual bowl at the stall, fried chicken and eggs - his mother’s forte. It didn’t taste anything like what she made at home of course, but he’d never bothered ordering anything else in his two-year stay there. He contented himself with watching the small strands of wheat circle each other in the bowl, while the murmurs of the other regulars and the chef’s cooking reminded him of the familiar sounds of his own house. As with each night, he stayed late until the last of the night’s customers had shuffled home, and the rhythmic sounds of the chef’s knife had slowed to silence.

Shinji let himself back into his barren apartment, not bothering to turn the lights on - he preferred the moonlight. The wind was gone by now, and the books pages lay unmoving when Shinji dropped back into bed. His eyes were both alert and heavy as he stared at the dusty fan that spun slowly even now.

[divas-k]

the end of the world

Eden is full, the angels are home once green, the trees are stone paradise is a death short lived life was a sin of flesh and bone the garden is where we came to atone

We were ended in a quiet emerald flash, the end was kind life obliterated, without a sign we faced the light, our smiles a final crime our eyes opened and civilization was a memory in the garden of Eve, we gazed at Eden Her leaves were gray, and they withered away in silent wind His first creation fell prey to sin this paradise was a memory of joy and sorrow we prayed to a god we could not remember and forgotten it died, reminiscing of tomorrow

We mourned Eden, now a stump on charred grass a funeral for paradise, an obituary of metal and glass this garden is where we came to mourn burnt in a flash, a legacy scorned the first child, Eden burned.

[divas-k]

toast

.

time these days is a sandwich that I like to eat alone,

savouring the centre, wincing through the crust (the liberty for leftovers, is not mine to share).

I take what I can get – I take what I must.

I let the sun warm my back

as I sit and stare

at passing sand – dreaming about plates of roast,

although I don't know what I'd do with them –

I'm so used to eating toast ;

.

//crusts/

[divas-k]

If words could break hearts, and mend them, all at once :')

Ink

Inky hair and a star-bright smile, she lived between the lines of the stories I could never tell.

I met her somewhere between never again and forever and ever and for the first time in a long time, things were just fine for once, and that felt incredible. Sitting under the green shade of the fading trees I learned that life didn’t always have to be lived in the landslides of fantasy, that it was okay to lazily play with the shards of emerald grass and let the air of the dying day wash over me. That’s how our first day ended. Not with a boom, but with a whisper amidst the intertwining of fingers that feared not the future but the past. And yet as the amber sun set on the tired horizon, I felt those fears begin to recede, it was the death of the tired and beaten day, and the birth of an incredible, infinite night. 

At some point between the silences of sunsets and the cacophony of a thriving city of which she seemed to be the only other inhabitant, our stories became one and the same, and each word seemed to mean more than the last. I can’t be sure of what’s in store for us, but I do know it’ll be the greatest of tales. Here’s to our infinite chapter.

[divas-k]

What Comes After

A dying fire burned in the hearth of the snow-covered cabin in the woods.

It gasped with each flicker, the dwindling twigs crackled faintly, each more feeble than the last. Weak as it was, the fire provided enough light for the two inhabitants of the cabin. A clock hung on the wall above the hearth, its hands frozen in place and time.

“You’ll have to leave eventually, John.” Murmured the taller one, he had close cropped black hair and a kind face, with lines tracing the ghosts of smiles past. He looked young, but his voice didn’t match his looks, you couldn’t tell if it echoed off of the walls, or if it came from them. His words hung in the air, like a promise made long ago. He reclined in an armchair facing the other person, a nondescript cane leaning against the side of the chair. 

John had his eyes fixated on the struggling flames, hunched over in his chair. He did not reply for a while. “Got any more wood back there? You’ve gotta have some, right?” asked John in a hurried voice. He couldn’t remember the man’s name, it was on the tip of his tongue but he couldn’t get it out.

“I’m afraid we’re out.” replied the man, his voice level and his gaze focused on John.

“We’re in a forest, there’s nothing but trees here, man. You’re just gonna let it die?” John gestured towards the fire, incredulous. He got up from his chair and sat directly in front of the fire, hands cupping the flames, each trying to steal some warmth from the other.

The man knew how this went, he’d done it many times, perhaps too many. He left his armchair, moving to look out of the window.  The trees swayed in a breeze that hadn’t arrived yet, and a child ran through them, giggling as he was chased by his father in an endless game. They ducked and weaved between the trees, and the rays of a cold morning sun that dripped between their leaves. The two laughed soundlessly in the infinite woods. 

“You know why you’re here?” asked the man. They were always so confused, he didn’t blame them.

“I remember the chair. Felt like I was on fire, man. The coldest fire. Don’t know how I got here though.” John shuddered despite the heat from the flames

A couple walked through the woods, hands intertwined and their eyes lost in each other. They walked fearlessly, leaving no marks in the snow, and although they laughed and joked together, they left no words in the air. They paid no heed to the running child and his father, who still played with reckless abandon, their laughter hadn’t dulled, and the white snow-covered ground was unblemished. 

“Do you remember why they put you in the chair, John?” The words came with a quiet, practiced intensity, as if they had been read from a script. The man’s gaze was still on the woods outside, he didn’t need to turn.

John stopped cupping the fire with his hands, his mind jolted with the pain of a wound forced open. He sat blankly in front of the flames now, his eyes glazed over in the memory a distant past. “I-I did bad things. Bad things to good people. I didn’t mean to. I know I shouldn’t have. I’m sorry, I mean it. Just help me get home, my kid’s waitin’.” Even as John answered the man, he realized he wouldn’t be going home, not this time. The words were half-hearted, fizzling into the air like the embers of the fire which had grown noticeably smaller, not much remained now. He noticed the embers didn’t disappear, they kept rising and turned into dancing flakes of snow, they drifted out of the window, joining the rest. John idly wondered if it was always so cold there. He had a sneaking suspicion that the other man couldn’t feel it at all. He still stood at the window, slightly hunched. 

Another man had joined the group in the woods outside, it was the same man who was walking with his lover, and they still walked together, not seeing the new arrival. This version of the man was different though. His head hung low, and eyes that once beamed in pride and love now lay empty and unseeing, lost in unforgettable torment, like lakes without ripples. He sobbed quietly. What stood out the most about him were his hands. They were covered in slick crimson, the blood was fresh and certainly not his own. It writhed and wormed its way down from his arms to his hands in an unending stream, as if it was still alive, in search of the person it once coursed through. The drops fell from each of his fingertips. turning into snow the moment they started falling. The snow fell relentlessly from his hands, in an uncaring and jubilant dance, and the ivory ground lay as pristine as could be. 

At last, the man turned back from the window. He’d seen enough. “I’m not the one you should be apologizing to.” His voice came from the walls, and the flames and from the man himself, John felt it in his bones, colder than the eternal winter outside.  “As for home, you’re already here.” The man’s reply thrummed with a frozen finality, he returned to his armchair, and closed his eyes.  The door to the cabin swung open, John could see the child and his father, the couple in love and the snowing man. He recognized them all. He stood up with what seemed to be gargantuan effort, and turned away from the corpse of the fire. He knew where he had to go, and his feet took him there. He wandered out through the door and onto the snow outside. His foot left no marks, and yet he felt it all; the brilliant chill of a hundred winters forgone and a hundred more yet to come, the warm laughter sheltered in the summer blaze of childhood and the eternal, unwavering smile of the woman he loved.

John lay in the snow, watching the snow drift across a blood red sky,  hollow clouds flowing like veins. He closed his eyes and smiled, listening to the laughter of a past long lost, and the shameful sobs of a present he couldn’t escape. 

[divas-k]

there is a special place where half finished poems go

where unsent envelopes taper high

and angry impulsive emails dot the sky

where the ground is strewn with unspoken goodbyes

and blank pages lay thick as snow ;

unread chapters of mistaken books

torn and smudged where the reader's hands shook

abandoned greetings that nobody took –

stricken, they pace to and fro.

I came to that place, it's easily found

footsteps of the lost litter the ground

for once there, it is harder to leave –

to sign off, you must believe.

[divas-k]

Too real

[divas-k]

“It was a feeling before it was words.”

—

[divas-k]

the third act

Cause of Death : Negligence

Here is the truth. I have been sick. And I’m well now – but I have been sick.

That time was uncertain and I was a fool to mistake apathy for medicine. My wavering heart was quelled by a broth of lies, and I silently accepted your prescription of 36 square minutes of space. But black holes are always hungry, and the one inside me grew larger before I could stop. So I filled it. With empty words, and jilted lies; with dark nights, and one more try.

Each time I thought I was well, you made it worse. It got so bad, that I let you strip the problem down. We examined it together and it seemed like it was fixed – but 2 days later and you just didn’t care to see me sick. 

Did you know that sound doesn’t travel in space? Because I doubt you heard me. I kept calling you when I should’ve called you out instead. But words are wasted on the explicitly deaf. And soon enough, I couldn’t breathe. 

It’s time now, to end what I started. This play has no breaks. This is the curtain on the stage. Your part is over. 

[divas-k]

You

You’re trying to remember the future and forget your past, while the present drips away into silences you wish you could fill with something meaningful. Your missing destiny makes you anxious, but that’s okay. The sun’s going to be up soon. Ennui fills the days and a listless ambition grips you in the cold nights, you’ve got dreams you’d like to dream, but the road to that oasis is long, and you’d like to rest for a bit, just for a while.

You’ve been here and there, wandering from one crowded room to the next, the people look different but they act the same. You make friends with ghosts, there one minute and gone the next, your bonds have an expiration date. You’ve lived in houses but you’ve never had a home.  I hope you find the ones that’ll never leave, the ones that’ll say hello, and never goodbye. You’ve been a ghost for so long. I hope your feet don’t fall through the floor, I hope you stay.

You’ve been so content with your mediocrity, never really felt the stab of loss. I hope you fail, I hope you try your hardest, and get as close as you can to what you wanted, and I hope you fail.  Your life’s been a pretty short one so far, victories you never fought for and defeats you never really felt.  When you fail, take the first step towards that oasis, you’ve been resting for a while now, it’s time to go.

When the sun sets on the longest day of your life, I hope you’re happy. I know you found a spot for yourself in that busy room, I know your day will end with a smile. When they scatter you to the stars, they might not know your tale.

But I’ll remember you.  You were me, and I’d like to be you.

@adiwrotethis via tumblr