Paper/Person

I informed my diary
Last night
I'm replacing you with paper
It'll keep me saner

I will imagine
As I once wished
To touch
Your skin
Like paper

Little inscriptions
on your face
I thought
I'd leave one of my own

But here you are
Replaced by paper
Forevermore

You are on paper
And the paper becomes you

Pulp and process
My heart into bits of mush
And pull sheets from it
And I'll write you

I have replaced you with paper
And beat my heart into it

Thin sheets of you, and you and you
In short words and long
words and ones which
don't make sense
and they're unearthly
but mine.

And you aren't.
You have been replaced by paper.

My Dream.

What do you want to be when you grow up?

A distraction, a disruption, a disgrace.
A disenchantment, a delay.
A defacement, a derailment.
A distant drum beat
Along some dusty street.
Indiscreet debris.
A design, a deceit.
Dedeliniated, darling
A deluded, denuded
Delinquent dud.  

A Hystory Of Ovaries.

When I’m in pain

I like to complain

It so happens that

For the last

One decade

My body leaks

For days

It’s a raw deal

Extra blood

Extra sweat

Extra tears

I think I was given

Too much woman

I keep having to

Give her away

In spurts

Ever so often

And it hurts

Like a bitch

I asked about it,

Concerned

It isn’t a glitch

It will always have to be

Exactly – like this

Sometimes

It promptly arrives

Like my internet bill

Full of mixed feelings

Every 11th of the month

Or too often

Like a faded, forgotten

Familiar face

Shows up

46 days late

Turns my back

Heavy

With exquisite pain

Takes shape of the world map

On my bed sheet, stained

Pours incessant

Like rain on my parade

Which feels like home

Because I am

A monsoon baby

It’s in my veins

I wonder

If the body is a temple,

Many would disagree,

Ask me to leave

Myself at the door

Am I a house, a strange home

Where the staircase hurts

When the faucet drips

I wonder

Does it tremble

Out of anger

There’s no one living in it

No one will see

In the dark

There was

Bloodbath in the halls

Warm palms on my back

Relax, sit back

Woman contorted

It will all be duly sorted

Soon

Maybe because

I like red too much,

Oh wasn’t it

Something to do with the moon

My hands smell like earth

The war inside woman

Is a silent pogrom

Of lovely her against her

Lovely self

Equally stubborn

I wait

Without blame

For the leak to fix

Itself

For it to cease,

Unpinch, to breathe

Through musty windows

For it to leave

I never did ask for

An extra side of

Blood, sweat, and tears

But here I am, I was

and will be, with

Too much woman,

Attached to my existence.

Damn it.

What was I doing? Nothing is going anywhere except the damn time.

Where is time going? Is it late for class? Does it have a date? Does she wear short skirts, accessorise with small talk? Does she have a book on her at all times? Does time's date's father have a short temper? A mother with a long face? Can she not stay out late? Is time late for work? Does time tie his tie standing in the metro? Is time looking behind her shoulder to see if there's someone following her? Is time staring intently at computer screens all day, eyes burning, selling by the second? Is she trying to keep her hair in place, while the evening breeze in filled with little boys' screams? Does time want to travel to outer space? Does time try hard to keep in line? Inside the lines? Does he not waste time online? Does she feel guilty after lying?

Does time not spend nights sighing and sighing and sighing?

What is time doing? Why is time in a rush? Who is waiting for time? Does time want to be with someone and can't? Did time not want to leave? Did time ever just want to sleep, all day, every day, till the cows came home, till the cold winds had blown, away from her? Is time trying to kill himself because he has to be everywhere, underappreciated and overburdened? Is time depressed? Does time suffer from attention deficit hyperactivity disorder? Why cannot time stand still? Why cannot time be content? Does time find herself a damn bore? Is time scared and is running away, it didn't mean to kill anyone? Does time not read poetry? Is time not poetry?

Where does time go? To places with loud music and quiet hearts? Is time running across a sandy beaches with orange suns? With green mountains, blue mist, tiny goats? Is time too overwhelmed being wanted so badly? Can time not let herself be at someone's side, for all of time? Does time have commitment issues? Who does time stalk?  Does time fumble over her words in imagined conversations? Is he in a rush to get things done, because time doesn't belong to time? Is time buried inside a good book, a conversation, sitting in a corner at a railway station? Where does time go, seatbelted, looking out at midnight, at blood red skies and steel grey clouds, dawning across countries, everywhere at the same time?

Does time want to go away, get away? Go somewhere, go places? Does time want to stop and go nowhere, sit down, smile and look at faces?

What was I doing? I looked at a stranger looking at me writing in my small notebook, covered with pretty red flowers. Looking at me sitting at a window of a train on the other platform. A platform in an ephemeral station of emotions. Magnetic tracks led trains away from each and I wasn't going anywhere. Nothing is going anywhere except the damn time. Answer me.

Poem for a Cliché in Full Costume

When did you stop wanting to kiss me in elevators
When did you stop wanting to unsee the crowd of watchers, at inner circle roundabouts
When did you stop knowing which words make my breath take inroads to my trembling heart
When did you stop thinking butterfly blues shaped the maps to the stars
When did you stop demanding fingertips as fingerfood to your hungry needy love - never full, never enough
When did you stop seeing through words that meant something else, hell meant my lovely heart and go, to stay forever
When did you give up, let me slip to distant places in your mind, where you don't step in fear of looking back
Now, the waits are not so weighty
The suns are stars,
Not hot ticking time keepers to goodbyes
I cross the streets
I climb the stairs
That meld into each other
Dusty step by dusty step
A dog on ever corner 'case
Rumagging through imaginary bones
Buried in his heart
Looks through garbage
I bark a sudden tune to soothe
My worried mind
Am I an animal without a cave,
Without a street
Water is bland
The desert is sand
The forest is one tree after another
Tables and chairs and pencil sketches
On newspapers wet in unseasonal rain
Pouring on my heart like warm tepid realisations
Feet in murky depths of meaningless monsoons
I am like a bird without a song
A temple without a gong
Been away,
Far too long, far too long
I have forgotten the verses to my name
The letters to my poem
Coordinates to my frame of thought
I forgot. I stopped.
To be myself, the same the same
The blind spot
The sweet spot
Spots to be cleaned and kept that way
Nice and sweet and blind
To me
A spot unseen, behind a screen
Careen careen
Forget about it
Now we've meandered back
To our daily routine
To think, to dream
To feel too much
To wonder about
When
Did you stop doing that.