RAPE

“It already is bigger than everything else. It lives in front of me, behind me, next to me, inside me every single day. My schedule is dictated by it, my habits by it, my music by it.”
Daisy Whitney (The Mockingbirds)”





“I just want to sleep. A coma would be nice. Or amnesia. Anything. Just to get rid of this, these thoughts, whispers in my mind. Did he rape my head, too?”
Laurie Halse Anderson”

Retch

how much hatred can i possibly hold in this heart? that's what i wondered, when i saw him walk toward me from the other direction today. there was nothing different about him from day "one" of what i learnt to love about him. the usual swanky walk, lost gaze, laptop slung on one shoulder. i cannot tell what his thoughts were as he moved, but there he was- his steps only bringing him closer to me and mine too nervous to retrace. i looked away for a minute. he did too. then we looked at each other again. it was as though we were reflecting it all in mirror action. then we both broke into what was something between half cry, half smile, half scoff and half laughter. just as he crossed, i asked- when did you come? asti, he said and i couldn't fathom why i had asked the question.
here's the man who dispels everything i appreciate about men in a few minutes of push, pull, drag, punch and kills the woman, who is capable of love.

he passed. i kept walking ahead and there i was on the street, retching, as though everything inside me would jump right out of me on the road.

come back?

there is only stumbling
and tripping
over the virtual,
when you refuse
yourself to me

there's time yet

and in the wee hours,

my soul stretches tight
across the streets
blinded by smog
and i'm thinking of
TS Eliot

my skin
is etched with images
of the Phoenix,
forever rising from the ashes

the morning grays
as the sun
slashes through the
under-construction ugliness
of Kathmandu squalor,
to reach my face

and i just know
there's time yet
before i give up on you

slip

i want to get away from myself for a while- from my nightmares, my longings, my dreams, inadequacies, cringing heart, a spinning head, a bleeding body and this need to live and succeed. i want to learn what you say is compassion. teach me how to give

come back

always,
always, there is this hollow
of the shoulder bones
when you leave the room,
sinking deeper
into the waves
they conceal underneath,
as though you were
a ship headed home
and i the novice swimmer-
forgotten.

come back.
oar me for a split second?

tattoo

i like it when i'm up in the insane hours of the morning, just to be alone with thoughts of a you, who doesn't even exist. come and rub a tattoo on my back the day you step out of that silhouette. i am waiting.