Reminiscences of a timeless bond
Strained with time
Bundle of entangled emotions
Unknot the ties or breathe in through the knots?
Find solace or continue craving?
Broken narratives
Discoloured images
Time’s vicious assault
The deception called memory
The colossal loss
Acceptance of the given or give in to the accepted?
Build castles or burn them?
No man’s land
Fractured contours
Mending- life’s game.

She is gone forever
It seems
She was here earlier
Had always been
Without a sign
Without a sound
Gone
Just
Gone
Whatever happened?

Is that why she didn’t stir for days
Could she be ill
Distressed
Depressed
Why not?

Another had been here
They had fought for space
She had resumed her place
What might the other have said?

It could be me
I notice i mention
Things revert
Phenomena alter
Beings cease to be.
This is not the first.
I kill my intuition
I cannot mention it
It is forbidden.

I should have known
Just why did i?

Where do you find that depth from?

Is it the intensity of your gaze
Or the curiosity of your soul
Is it the intricacy of your voice 
Or the plurality of your emotions
Is it the ecstasy of your expression
Or the brevity of your conclusion
Is it the suggestion of your eye
Or the precision of your assumption

You travel through others’ perceptions
unravel them without hesitations
fascinate them with the beginnings
lay claim on their imaginations
intrigue them with conjectures
leave them without resolutions

and yet…
What inspires you?

Let go
The desire to be desired
The need to be needed
The want to be wanted
The sweet nothings of yesterday
The widening gulf of today
The fragile hope of tomorrow
The faint promise of forever
The diminishing strength of the unsaid
The ephemeral bond of silence
Bondage?
The mirage called freedom
When expectations only shatter hopes
When oblivion is the only consolation
When even the fag end of catharsis is non cathartic
When letting go is losing a part of self
The heaviness which stays
reflects a definition of me.

The times…
When last seen creates more complexities than when they saw them last

When innumerable expression tags are misappropriated to convey what they do not feel

When threads of words remain inadequate to convey what they wish to say

When one post resurrects confidence and another dismantles it 

When a picture construes an image which renders faith vulnerable

When the display recites what the heart sings and leaves others suspecting

When the status embellishes the experience of the moment and is soon replaced

When likes are likened to approval out of custom and disliking is forbidden

When the plus constant does not add to the expression and deepens the void

.
.
.

Then the # and the … tell a tale of togetherness

Another thought another time
There, lost. Entangled.
This moment this request
Here, a theme. Write.

Wondering how thought gets into words
If what i wish to hide gets revealed
If what i am thinking is what they read

Scrabble of words or scramble for words

Chequered with possibilities
Waiting for combinations
Your turn

Words disappearing into distributaries
Intersect with expectations
Your turn

Burdened with another’s interpretations
Accessible to everyone
Your turn

Spiralling and meandering
Looking for spaces
and gone with the turn

What did we begin with.. into what did it turn

To the one who brought me into this world
And told me that pain was life but endurance strength.
To the one whose fractured stories became a coherent narrative
And made a child’s world meaningful.
To the one who grew with me
And induced in me a fighting spirit.
To the childhood friend who listened and listened
Adding colour to my dreams and fantasies.
To the one whose presence lifted the darkness
And made me see beyond perceptions and notions.
To the one whose eyes are a discourse
Narrating her story and mine too.
To all faces of childhood innocence adding vigour to my life
To all mentors leading and inspiring unconventional lives
To all writers who fearlessly wrote under pseudonyms
To the woman feeding her child on street
To the working mother’s daily toil
And
To the one who taught me tears are pearls
And whose dreams keep me alive.

Zami.

She…

Looks at my tears
Listens to my incoherence
Never stirs
Is terrifyingly patient

Has seen me grow over the years
Waking sleeping fighting laughing writing curling undressing
Without flinching
Is unbelievably uncouth

There are no boundaries
..lives with me
There are no responsibilities
..loves independence
We have individual spaces
..respects differences

I see her peeping from behind light beyond time
Day after day night after night
She is always there
I see her as i lift my head
I am no longer afraid of
Her uncomplaining presence

She is getting old now
Has her share of wrinkles
Might have her worries too
She never tells
Never expects
Doesn’t socialise

She…
the lizard on my wall.