The Forget-Me-Not Plant

Sometimes, 
the act of forgetting
is self-preserving
and sometimes,
a return to presence.
Involuntary
and subconscious.
Memory and remembering
make stories
to fill spaces
in the mind.
Why do we hate 
vacuum and nothingness?
Aren’t we all
simply specks 
with too much self-importance?
The urgency
to go nowhere
like an ambitious electron
imagining it will float
outside its orbit.
Maybe,
being aimless
and wandering
is the balm
life needs 
to carry on living.

Uff

Halak mein saans atakti hai
Seene mein uthhti hain daraarein
Akelapan sisakta hai
Gala ghot’ti hain yeh deewarein
Marr jaayein toh 
Shaayad saans aaye
Jeete ji toh dum ghut’ta hai.

Everything, Everywhere, All at Once

 I’ve been thinking, we all meet crisis — major or minor — the same way: self-protective, spring-loaded, already rehearsing the worst case, fighting or fleeing what is. We become ER doctors of our own lives, stiuffing cotton into the open wound, because the animal in us is certain the bleeding is the whole story.

But a small zoom-out, even mid-chaos, shows that it never was. Every actor in our lives — an event, a person — moves by their own script, not ours. And the wound itself has more than one author: it could be self-inflicted, an accident, or simply what happens when the blood was already thin. The cause may not even live at the site of the injury.

So the work isn't to attack the one big thing with an intensity the nervous system can't hold. It's to widen the frame — from the cut to the whole body, from the body to the whole lived life — until the single cause dissolves into many, and the pressure quietly goes out of it.

Yeh jo lagta hai na kisi-kisi moment mein, ki WTF, life khatam, because ek bada loss ho gaya — that feeling comes from handing all our power to one prediction: that a single event, a single person, decides the course of everything. But what decides our life is what we choose to live out of the many stories running at once. 

There is never only one story unfolding. Just a tilt of the head and — oh, yeh bhi hai.

Committing to memory

Time is an eraser 

of memory

But if you,

like me 

write harder

pushing through 

the page every time -

Your memory will 

also have gullies

that cannot be erased.

This morning

I wondered

If you forgot

my kisses...

Did my lips not

make soft

meandering gullies

on yours?

Did my breath

not burrow

through yours

and turn desire

into an exhale

that you would 

never

let 

go?

Fragile

Go slow my heart
Rest a little
Stay here
Silent by the brook
Where the wind is cool
And the water flows
As if nothing happened
No one 
gave it their tears
No one 
silent yelled into the trees
Nothing bad happened here
Not that anyone remembers.
Except your tender walls.
Go slow my heart.
You are love
Even if no one remembers. 

The River

The rush sometimes Isn’t in the water

But in the glacier

Sitting up high

Atop a mountain

Frozen in time

Molten by noon

To fall on stones 

It doesn’t know

Making its way

To the sea

Growing trees

On banks

Washing the grime

Off rocks

Only to become

Nothing when it 

Meets its end.

Falling in Love

Falling never felt this good
Love is a beautiful place for it
And joy an obvious outcome
I could make a home here
The hands of time however
Remind me to pause desire
Longing isn’t an investment
It decays time in the most
Loving manner
Bringing profits
Only the soul knows.
I could make a home here
Yearning that as I pause
Cherry blossoms will bloom
Fall on my cheeks 
Like a gentle kiss
And rain on me 
All that I have missed.

Wounded

The chasm
the gap

the big gaping hole that lies 

somewhere in the middle of my chest

and our togetherness.

It bleeds

The stuffed cotton wool

and sutures, give way

to the gash

that neither time would heal

nor the years caress.

45 minutes

 

Hatred doesn’t feel good in the body

At 3am, it feels like the worst enemy

I tried squeezing it out of my system

gave it a thought massage

It still felt like venom

I had gifted myself.

 

Hatred doesn’t feel good in the body

At 3:15am it feels like brown sludge

Of karmic debris from many births

Asking me to finally learn 

that the one that I hate

is here to teach me love

for myself.

 

Hatred doesn’t feel good in the body

At 3:25am it sits on every out breath

Refusing to leave till I sit with it

like a co-passenger 

Stinky, smelly, noisy, chatty

choosing this choicelessness

for the ride home 

to myself.

 

Hatred doesn’t feel good in the body

At 3:40am it turns to grief

that comes out through the eyes

Lungs waiting

for the brown sludge

to turn to water

to expunge

what doesn’t belong here

inside the self.

 

Hatred turned to grief

in 45minutes

this morning

And then it

Turned to air.

Default

You were always my default.

The holder of all my expectations

the ones that never got fulfilled.

All my hopes

that pessimism ate for lunch.

A personful of my love

That life's truck rode over.

The sum total of all my dreams

that these sleepless eyes could not see.

You were my life

that took my life apart.

Breaking Down, Building Up

It is only when your life breaks down
bit, by bit 
that you realise
the sheer number of pieces 
that made it a whole.

It is only when your life breaks down
to bare bones
that you learn
the water from tears
turns dust into puddles
and in that muck
a thousand flowers bloom.

It is only when your life breaks down
every fucking day
that you drop fear
pick love instead
and make every piece your home.

Accordion

इश्क़ की परतें 
accordion की तहों 
की तरह होती हैं 
अलग होती हैं 
तो आवाज़ करती हैं 
पास आती हैं 
तो आहें भर्ती हैं। 

Ishq ki partein
accordion ki tahon
ki tarah hoti hain
alag hoti hain 
to aawaaz karti hain
paas aati hain
to aahein bharti hain.

Black

an unending pit
of smoke
rising, billowing
turning into
dark clouds
that don't rain
like shadows
cast overhead
they don't go
and you stay
underneath
even though
you want to be
anywhere, but here.

Normal

शहर में अब सब नौरमल है 

आज कोई वारदात नहीं हुई

जावेद आज काम पर नहीं गया

नौकरी नौशीन की छूट गयी 

अब्दुल का अड्मिट कार्ड कहीं ग़ुम है 

और अम्मी शायद घर का रास्ता भूल गयी -

मगर शहर में सब नौरमल है।

सूरज आज भी मस्जिद के पीछे से उगा

झंडे का केसर कुछ आँख में चुभा 

लेकिन देखो आज का दिन क्या खूब चढ़ा -

दूध का दाम २०० रुपए प्रति लीटर है 

स्कूल कुछ दिन के लिए बंद है 

और दीवारों पे काली पुथायी है

पर शहर में सब नौरमल है।

अब्बा कह रहे थे 

काग़ज़ फ़रोल रहे थे

बुदबुदा रहे थे खुद से

अम्मी की पाजेब देख के 

चलो अब्दुल बेटा कहीं और चलें

इस शहर में सब नौरमल है।

HAQ

ऊँची इमारतों में
दिल नहीं रहते।
लम्बी गाड़ियों के
इमां नहीं होते।
रेशम की चादरों
की हिम्मत कम होती है ।
और तूफ़ानों में -
टीन की छतों के कलेजे नहीं बचते।
दिखते सब एक से हैं यह इंसां,
पर किसी किसी के
हक़ लाज़िम नहीं होते।

HOME

Clusters of amaltas -
my several hundred suns
Scattered across the bylanes
that I had abandoned.
Clouds of dust and smoke
Suspended on the highways
Homeless and unwanted
The new walls of my home.

The Impossibility of Being

What does one do of sorrow

The one that sits heavy on the heart

Cries rivers every night

And never lets the past depart.

What does one do with tears

That flow at every touch

Like there is an endless reserve

Even when there isn't much.

What does one do with hope

The flame that dies every day

Only to burn itself

Into the soul turned gray.

Goodbye

When you say ‘I love you’ to a dead person, They cannot hear it. The words hang like a large stone, Between your heart and your gut. They pull you down, To a dark place deep inside of you, And throw your heart up to your throat. You want to scream, But manage only a whimper. People gather around in murmurs. The air is heavy with tears. You curl up like a fetus, And pretend you are still in the womb, Despite your many years. When they hand you the ashes, You hold her closer than you could ever did, And scribble ‘I’ll love you forever’ on a scrap of paper, And set your mum free.

Bandh

Bandh kar do
Taale-chaabhi mein,
Kuchh mat bolo
Munh na kholo.
Gir jaayegi
Lehzey ki Sarkar,
Zubaan ki
Kundiyaan mat kholo.


बंद कर दो 
ताले-चाभी में,
कुछ मत बोलो
मुंह न खोलो। 
गिर जायेगी 
लहज़े कि सरकार,
जुबां की 
कुंडियां मत खोलो। 

Dhuaan

Aaj dhuaan sa hai.

Na shape,

Na structure.

Na ghar,

Na baar.

Na dost,

Na yaar.

Na love,

Na pyaar.

​Khidkiyon se phisalta,

mera 'main'

aaj dhuaan sa hai.

आज धुंआ सा है। 

ना shape,

ना structure.

ना घर,

ना बार । 

ना दोस्त, 

ना यार। 

ना love

ना प्यार। 

खिड़कियों से फिसलता,

मेरा 'मैं'

आज धुंआ सा है। 

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