I remember almost every moment,
but when I ask you,
you just don't answer.
I don't know how you cannot remember our first year together.
But somehow you do,
and that's really confusing.
My heart shriveled up and died when I learnt,
but it's nothing new to me.
It's happened countless times before,
what's one more time?
I remember the first time we kissed,
now I'm wondering if it even matters to you.
I remember everything,
big or small.
But you can't even remember our best Christmas together.
You who can usually remember everything,
It's a sea,
raging all around me
There's no escape
From the feeling of drowning
How could they
just leave me here?
Alone to drown
No sense of direction
Where is up?
Where is forward?
What is going on?
There's nothing,
Nothing left
I need to find my own way
With no one to help me
Maybe,
at 20, I danced with men who smelled of Polo cologne
thinking only of me
at 30 when I nursed my baby, I
had no thought to ever wash my hair again
at 40, I drove the kids’ car pool all day
without complaining
at 50, I sat up past midnight waiting for teenagers to come home,
fearing the worst
at 60, I sat up past midnight waiting for my husband to come home,
thinking of divorce
at 70. I sit alone
waiting for these memories to die
Somewhere in your corners deep,
Lies my love's first letter to me.
Somewhere in your corners deep,
Lies my dreams smothered dead.
Somewhere, hidden, swaddled in clothes
Trembles my fears, dark and black.
Somewhere, among the faded silks
A chempaka flower, fragrance faint.
These books that you hold for me,
These clothes that you keep for me,
These souvenirs of my forgotten past
These remnants of my self, uncared for.
One day, not long after have I left,
Somebody would sweep it all off,
Give you a new coat and polish your glass.
New clothes, new dreams, sparkles of a new life
All this talk of love, love lost
Joys and sorrows -
Of inexplicable thoughts
Of death; worse, fear of death –
Its fine for a solitary afternoon
Or a late night when you have
The freedom to brood…
All you have to do is to regurgitate
The stale memories.
Though the utter pointlessness of the exercise
Hits one like a blast of cold air
And one shudders as the blizzard
Of loneliness shrouds the self.
Once in a while you have to clean your system.
Empty the Recycle Bin,
Clean up and defrag the disks.
Files accumulated over the past
Move crumpled into the bin
And then to oblivion.
It would be nice
To have a hard disk instead of a brain
Where fungus-ridden memories grow maggots
Eating into my soul.
My home, oasis in the middle of concrete desert.
'Still at the old house?', they ask me -
Little do they know I am so proud and smug
That I live in the hand- me-down decrepit
Where my grandmother and other ghosts linger.
I see them; there he is, my father, hopping down
From the coconut frond to nibble the leftover rice
There she is, my mother, the bossy Jungle Crow
Trying to edge out the squirrel.
Grandmother comes in the evening, hooting,
Espying from behind the tree leaves
Muttering to herself, uttering inaudible curses
At me, her grandson, that impractical dreamer.
They are all there, cousins and aunts
Maids and men, children and dogs.
They come as they wish,
At the click of the mouse -
History is on.
Switch off History
At the next.
At a click are gone -
Memories,
Love, longing
Rage, Sorrow
The moments you spent -
With me.
No, the next will not
Bring them back.
I shudder to think -
If in real, as in that virtual
You would flick - me off
With a click.
Dear reader, if perchance you happen upon here now,
Move on, with a casual click to somewhere else -
I have nothing to offer, other than a word,
On a pair of dead pigeons.
Move on then, but with a briefest thought
Of the beauty of life that linger even in death
Of the parting of ways that you and I will, one day
Remind yourself that this is how it all ends,
Not with a bang, but with a whimper.
Pigeons that you fed
Pigeons that cooed, cozy beneath your roof,
Pigeons that rose with a flutter
To the sky as blue as their wings.
That's all, my dear reader, move on, as I did -
But before you do, step aside as I did
Gently picking the memories up and laying them
Looking through old albums, reliving,
Moments captured long ago,
I sense me smiling
Sometimes wincing,
Sometimes unfeeling,
Sometimes marvelling and then again
Flipping past, lest pain infiltrate my mind -
Suddenly, I stop, shocked, realizing
That they are just images -
They don't exist - no more, never again.
How silly is it of science
To say that senses are only five!
How insensitive is it of science
To censure those beyond the ken!
Eyes screwed up tightly
Head turned sideways abruptly
Lips clamped firmly
Trying to shut in momentarily.
Would it, please, go away
Images, sounds, the smells,
Words uttered, heard, this sense
Of pain, wrenching my heart?
Time exists only in our minds
In the recesses of memory
Facts of past and fictions of future
Time stands still only for those
Walking the streets of Cochin
Walking back in time.
Walking over my footprints
Walking, tracing, remembering.
Remembering shadows of a spent youth
Remembering lights bright and empty streets.
Remembering an open window, a shut door
Remembering light filtering thru leaves.
Gone- the room, the hotel, the lane
Garbage piled up where geese once honked.
Gone- the shops with fruits and cakes
Gone- the girls with shy smiles and love.
A stranger to faces rushing by
Strange indeed, the memories bidding bye.
Did I ever live here, doeth my breath linger here?
Did I ever stand in this shade- why, only a stump is here!