Immedicable

How incapable he had become

Of a normal way of dealing with her

Every thing she said or did

Reminded him of a past that she created in his head

That she had moved out of

He believed she had moved out of it

Yet it was he who was now stuck in it.

How much ever he tried to outlive the past

Fragments of it, stuck to his ankles,

Like creepers of some monster hidden under the earth,

Pulling him back,

Making him insecure, suspicious, jealous,

He had lived a lifetime without ever feeling those emotions,

She had brought those on him in an instant,

And no matter how hard he tried to rid himself of those,

They had come into his life and would perhaps keep raising,

Their ugly head, till he can face them and fight them.

He is sorry, he ever felt them first,

Never knew they will take hold of him,

And conspire to change what he had been, forever

And always make him a monster in her eyes...

My solo audience and a dead response

This is not a poem. Everyday after school, my daughter sits at our hall. I can see her looking at me from the corner of her eye as she opens her school bag. From it she takes out her art book and other tiny books. She heaves a tired sigh as she begins to leaf through the pages.

I make it a point to accidentally go and sit next to her. Accidentally, I peek at what she is seeing. And then I say "Wow! That is such a wonderful picture!" or "My god, you write really well." She smiles. And I can see her joy welling up inside her.

For her, most of what she does, is for me alone. She will soon grow up. A day will come when I will continue to be proud of her. I will continue to tell her "My god. How wonderfully you write." And she will say to me "Will you stop being such an embarrassment?".

By then I will have got so used to praising her, and so used to actually being proud of her, that I will not be able to stop myself. Not be able to stop being an embarrassment. And she will never know why I so gush after her.

It is different with someone older. When I write something or take a picture nowadays, I don't even care to show it to the world. The world has a way of praising all the wrong things. And saying all the wrong things as criticism. There is only one person I care to write or take pictures for. I show them only to that person. My solo audience.

And every time I put up a poem or take a picture, I wait for my one and only audience to react to it. Sometimes, almost a week has passed. And I've waited for a response. Like a dying tree waits for rain. And when I see that she has time for everyone else, but my work, which is essentially ONLY for her, it hurts.

I have to find a solution to that within myself. If I hurt, I am to blame, because I expect a reaction. A response. If I can so re-construct myself that responses and reactions are out of my system, where I create for the pure act of creating itself, that day, maybe, things will be a lot different.

And my single audience can react to everyone else, whoever they choose to be worthier than me.

All that he had...

He was sleeping She on him His hands around her The smell of her, reassuring Her ear to his heart Listening to his heartbeats, That were She to him Her heart beating soft On his belly Once in a while he drifted off to sleep Holding her tenderly He saw a burning cigarette Approach his eyes Their burning embers threatening To singe his pupil He awoke with a start His arms had eased their hold on her In his sleep his muscles had given way Now he held her firmly again Held on to her Felt her steady breath on him And felt reassured But then again... He saw himself falling Down an endless flight of stairs Woke up with a jerk Again he saw... His hands had eased around her She moved her beautiful head once Disturbed by his sudden movement And went back to sleep "Hold on to her" He told himself "Save yourself from being burnt, tortured or slain" She was all he had to save himself.

All these are for you...

A squirrel scrambled through the branches at night.

It was not the time squirrels loiter about,

Bats might get them,

Snakes might be crawling,

But this was a hungry squirrel,

And had not the ways to control it's hunger.

It scourged around and finally found a nut.

Holding it up to see it in the dark,

The squirrel saw the moon behind the nut,

It stood there looking,

Looking at it brought tears to it's eyes.

An angel passing asked the squirrel

"What do you want?"

The squirrel replied

"Maybe someone will give me the moon someday"

And my hunger will be quenched.

Lifted it's tiny paws up to wipe its nose,

Squeak squeak it said twice,

The moon made no noise back,

It just radiated,

silent and spectacular,

The Angel smiled,

"But I have already given it away to someone"

She looked at the squirrel kindly

"But that is what I want, give it to me"

said the Squirrel.

More tears in it's eyes.

"If you don't like it belonging to another,

I'll hide it from you.

But what is given to another,

Can't truly be given to you"

Said the angel, and with a wave of her hand,

She hid it away.

saying "What do squirrels want to do with the moon anyway?"

The squirrel crawled back into it's burrow dejected,

saying "I want the moon, or nothing else."

You can hide it from me,

But it is there,

And I want it.

More moon-like than the sun...

And this is what has happened...

He lives for a 4 O clock to happen to him

Every day his sunrise...

Till then he survives.

At 5 the sun sets on him before it sets on the world,

And he begins to die,

A little every moment till the morning,

In between, he anxiously glances

At the one flash of sundrop on his instrument,

To make him breathe another moment.

Sometimes he is lucky,

Often he isn't,

Cause setting down,

The sun forgets him till the morning,

And has other work to do,

Another side of the planet to light up...

While the rest of the world has it's own sun that dawns,

He gets a blink of his, on the instrument,

And again a void for a long long time,

Till it is sunrise time.

But somewhere deep within his heart,

There is an ache,

A gnawing doubt,

A fear for inevitability...

That one day,

His sun might not dawn at 4.

It had happened to him before,

For a few days, weeks, months,

He had lived without the sun.

His crops had wilted,

His seasons gone haywire,

His livestock had died..

He had survived though

And had even thought,

He might get used to living without it

But who can live without the sun?

What kills him,

Is that one day

His sun might not dawn at all, ever...

Then at least, will he get his moon?