verbiage

you and i
always
only words

first
those of love and longing

then
those of estrangement

then again
those of love and longing
and the battle to survive

and now
of ashes
spat on each other
of what we resurrected and curcified
again and again

you and i are just words
it is how you will always remain with me

teach me how to wait...

for better days...writes K. and it is what i have been asking for everyday, of myself. to teach myself to wait for better days.
because even in this despair, there is something like hope. too often, i have hoped this is a long nightmare and i'll wake up to find that everything in the world around me is alright. that people never died in this country, houses never collapsed, never fell on unsuspecting lives, that landslides never swept away people sleeping in their huts, animals tied to sheds. it's a desperate thing, this hope.
 and as i type these words, i find myself hoping there will be small tremors and not massive ones that kill people more than just physically. because since April 25th, i feel as though i have become a heap of crushed people. and all of these people are me. a crushed daughter, a crushed friend, sister, a crushed co-worker, lover-- whoever i might have been.
but i have also learned this about myself. i'm crushed the most, by love. because there can be love that changes your personality, your faith in things and everything you believed in, just because it filled you with hurt.
but even in love, the wise ones say one has to be patient.
life, teach me how to wait for better days, just as K

Tremors

Since the earthquake, you are so unreal.
The only things real are the piles of bricks and bodies.
The smell of people crammed together, smelling like fear.
The shuddering of windows as planes fly overhead.
The dust from abandoned mats.
The eyes of hungry dogs.
The cries of people in pain.
The need right here in the house--
water, oil, money, everything.
Everything is so real these days.
Only you,
You are what never was.

journal entry

So, we all got together and went up on stage, delivering fierce words about how our vaginas feel. And at the end of it, I think we all felt good. Like an orgasm, long held back had just been released.
I guess our vaginas have been shy, sad, angry, heart-broken, and even wrecked completely in some ways. But I'd like to think that they also have the strength to still breathe, just the way people move on with their every days even after massive heartbreaks leave permanent cracks in them.
I have really seen the worst of so many things in my life last few months-- from health to personal affairs and the loss of people who stood like stars on the horizon.
But I have also gained a lot.
I've learnt that there is beauty in little things in life:
1. Right now, the relief in the gash left behind by a bad tooth that threatened to burst through your head.
2. The feeling of hollow you get when you wake up to a lonely house in the afternoon.
3. The warmth of a puppy next to you, when you wake up to a nightmare.
4. The reassurance of a cup of tea when you have a bad headache.
5. The joy in changing nappies of a newborn.
6. Just watching a newborn.
7. And I guess, just knowing life goes on, even when your heart is broken.

My vagina

I wonder how it would be to talk to my vagina.

I feel like it is the most ignored part of my body-- most ignored, brutalized, and now embattled.

I feel like my vagina is the most special part of me-- no one has to see it, or ask questions about its shape or the spread. I don't need to buy a correct cup size for it. I don't need to hear my friends comment on how nice or fat or sagged it looks. It's the most intimate part of me.
And always, when I feel an emotion strongly, I have felt it connect to my vagina. Not just sexual stuff. Emotions like anger, fear. It's like an intuition.
There's a certain man, for instance, whose presence always churned storms in my navel in a nice way. And the winds tavelled everywhere below the navel in so much warmth whenever he was around. And it was with this man I experienced an orgasm for the first time in my life. So, the intuitive part of me is my vagina, I like to think. Because when someone touches me the wrong way, it has always been my vagina that felt repelled, even before my head or the heart did.

let me build you a home

I'm dreaming of a home. Two and a half rooms for our books and our pillows and our cups and flower pots.
I'm dreaming of a home. With tiles as white as a time without history.
I'm dreaming of a home, which will be yours and mine. To stay. To stay.

Tea time

When it rains relentlessly, you want to stay tucked under warm things and dream. And read. And drink a warm cup of tea. Tea. I never thought about how tea is sort of been the transition, in my life. Most mornings, I wake up to my parents' fights over tea. The sugar is not right some mornings, sometimes it's the milk and sometimes, it's just not strong enough.

"I like my tea strong," I told a friend over chat today. She said she likes hers strong, too. A little bit of sugar and some milk.
"I drink tea three times a day," says she. And i say, same same.
Often, the only thing that can salvage me from my near-paralyzed stupor in bed every morning, is a cup of tea. Baa puts no sugar in my morning tea. Only milk and tea leaves. Tea is my incentive to abandon the dreams and hallucinations I have conjured up in bed.

Then it's tea time at two, just before I leave for work. It's been a ritual. While Ajee was alive, I made tea for her and Baajya. Tea and biscuits or cookies. They still feel like a treat, just before work, although I no longer have a cup for Ajee. Afternoon teas come filled with memories of Ajee's humming and Bajyaa's demand for a sweetner. What is tea if it isn't sweet? he still says.

Every evening at 6 pm, I break for tea. I have done that for last 12 years or longer. This one comes with office gossip. But over the years, my companions have changed. Some saw me through whatever was haunting me at different times. There were colleagues, who wanted a one-on-one across the table-- a longing to be elsewhere, they made up for by gulping down several glasses of tea served in glasses rinsed in a hurry. Some tea sessions occurred with girl friends, whose sole priority in life was to open their hearts up to some loving.

Some teas, have been quiet teas, as I drank alone and just tried to get over the day.
Tea. Tea. Tea.

I think I'll call myself Tea. Because I read today that there's no heartbreak a good cup of tea cannot cure. Just drink tea and stay calm :)