It doesn’t go away that easily.
It clings to your clothes, like a favorite perfume…
Lives between the pages of a well-loved book.
Like wildflowers in your hair.
Refusing to fade out, to die away.

And so it lives…

Dusk

I was in a rickshaw, on my way home yesterday, when the lights went out.

But as I sat there, the nervous rickshaw-puller carefully weaving his way though the narrow by-lanes… I discovered a whole new array of sights and sounds that I otherwise wouldn’t have noticed!
The darkness had somehow transformed the familiar lanes and neighborhoods, suddenly, everything was quiet and still. Noisy people stopped talking abruptly, and even the stray dogs fell silent!
The sudden darkness had caught everyone off guard.

Fireflies! Who knew we had fireflies in the city!? And so many of them! But they’re there…these tiny, eerie glowing green lights in trees and bushes. I guess they’ve always been there…I just never noticed!

And I realized that you could pull weird faces in the dark, and nobody would notice!
So I did!
I smiled as widely as I could…at random people! And I pulled some rather bizarre faces…stuck out my tongue at absolute strangers! Then the headlights of a car flared up, and I stopped! But as soon as the headlights faded, I resumed grinning weirdly!

Once I got home, I ran up the stairs, rather noisily (the people I annoyed, would probably imagine I was some bratty ten-year-old!), and walked straight into our apartment, without stopping to acknowledge our rather unpleasant neighbor…I could just pretend I didn’t see him in the dark!


Darkness is liberating!

afternoon

My world is bathed in that strange, beautiful afternoon sunlight.
Nostalgia.
Suddenly, I feel more helpless than I ever have…
I have to sit down and catch my breath.

My world is slipping…falling away.
Once again…I stand alone.
Reach out in the darkness. Searching.

My world is fading away fast…into twilight.
I’m losing Me.
Suddenly, it’s more than I can take…
I sink onto my knees, close my eyes.

It’s all gone now…

Twice a day, I pass death on my way.

Death smiles at me.
A smile, that is at once, reassuring and terrifying.

I watch, unable to tear my eyes away from it.
The frantic clucking turns into a drawn out scream of agony.
That too, dies away.

Death looks up, from the puddles of blood, from the sanitized white-tiled floor,
and smiles.
A sickening, terrifying smile.

Death, in the bloody knife on the counter, in the money handed over.
Death: packaged, sealed and delivered.

Then it all gets swallowed up… in the all-consuming hunger that we live for, live in.

Death fades away.
Other sights and sounds take over.

It’s all sealed and shelved, until tomorrow…

my frosted ginger-bread mornings…
my crisp arum-lily afternoons,
Mahogany nights.

Winter is here. I can tell.
Something has changed in the air.
The quietness has set in.

feeling good...

got caught in the rain...yeay!
am dripping slush all over the floor now.

but i feel weally good!

I need:

• A haircut
• The 1818 edition of ‘Frankenstein’
• Shampoo
• Stationary
• New shoes


I want:

• Ice cream
• A really trashy horror film
• Flowers
• New music
• A hug



I need:

• To forget
• Coffee
• Help


I want:

• To remember
• a walk in the rain
• ...