Cerulean Sky

“A cicada shell;

it sang itself

utterly away.”  – Basho

In the half-light of dusk through the rippling curtains, the blossoming evening wafts in through my window. Your old guitar lies cracked in one corner of my room, an abandoned whim gone slightly to rust, or holding the yellowing smell of old notebooks. I have lain in bed all day, and it seems but a day- you hang about the room, lingering in deep corners, shadows I am afraid to explore.

Blue smoke curls into your eyes, and sometimes, if I am lucky, you become the night. The night… every night is new loss.

Dusk and dawn are strangely similar, transitions before lasting finality. I, lover of the unfinished, fall deeply in love every dusk, every dawn, wishing to stop time, and not wishing.

Fitful fancy, when the silver moon lies shattered on the floor of my room, I drown in an ocean of white, waves of sheets pulling me down, as once I drowned in you.

I think I may have forgotten

how to breathe.

Fragmented

All my yesterdays and tomorrows jumbled,

woven around your long fingers, you play a game

Cat’s cradle with my life.

The broken pieces of mist seep in

through my eyes, ears, nose, until

I am choking with uncertainty, grappling,

fumbling for closeness, finding meaning

In petty, paltry squabbles

with you.

Purple-blue dusks are the ones

when I miss you the most.

Sometimes, the room still smells of

the cigarette you held between

your lips, long after

you have gone.

You are

rose-leaves and moonbeams, the

taste of starlight from your eyes

lights the corners of the room when

the shadows are darkest.

The sunlight glides across your back,

tracing the line of fine hair. You are

golden in this light, so beautiful

that the glare of you burns on

my eyelids like the sun itself,

blood orange in the sky of dawn.

Light and Colour

Taken in Bandel Basilica, Hooghly. Another beautiful church which filled me with peace and awe.

Fragile

There are things that always catch me unawares- a pretty road, with the sunlight streaming in through the tall trees to fall on the gleaming red petals scattered on the road, the smell of those crushed petals as I walk over them, a taste of something heavenly, a wonderful book, old or new, familiar as the skin between my fingers, and still new every time I read it. Love almost never does. You see, I am a romantic, always waiting- waiting to be swept away and off my feet by beautiful words, by promises, by rides in the rain, and long walks, and unexpected actions, fingers bending gracefully to pick a flower, or the dust in a room gently blown by a gust of wind. I am always waiting for love, and to fall in love. But when you came in, you were a moment of warmth, like hot chocolate on a rainy day, smelling of goodness and safety and comfort. You were all the colours of the rainbow, streaming into my life unbidden, and I never knew that love could grow on me like that. It was not the storm I had felt before, but it was a calm sea, drawing me in, and almost before I could try to float, I knew I was drowning in you. Ordinary, safe and comfortable are underrated; they are now synonyms for something I have wanted to be for a long time- happy.