Unpoem #1

July 9th, 2013

4:26. Running past eerie trees, all black and wooly, silhouetted against watery azure skies. In a couple of hours, I will see the fog swathed blue mountains lining the north. Tell me, darling, are you dreaming of me? Because legend says when you cannot sleep, it is because you are awake in someone else’s dreams.

4:38. Lying here wondering what will be the taste of you on my tongue. Or the feel of your fingers on my hungry skin.

4:55. The sky is an unjustified blue. Rich. Ornate. Candied virgin. A blue so immaculate I could drink it.

5:00. Sleep seeps in through gaps in resilience. I want to curl onto your chest, weave my sighs through your lips.

7:30. Shadow play of light and darkness. Chiaroscuro. Another lonely station is left behind. Zapping past beady eyed signals. All sleep-clad. Over overflowing streams. Blinking.

8:18. Delayed. Monsoon lashes disgracefully on the window. Everything is sous l’eau. I am still wrapped in the blanket, smelling of God-knows-who. Chilly. Rangapani station. Black script bold on yellow. I want you to warm me up, lock me in your carotene wistfulness. Breathe together. The rain dribbles, falls bell-like in little cones and dissipates. Sillage. Concentric circles. Black. Wet. Furrowed. Faceless. Inside me, yesterday’s dirge stings. I am a flower, pulled petal by petal.

8:30. Three sparrows hopping in the rain. Fallen leaves, pale green, heart-shaped. Half-drowned. The antiseptic fluorescence of the coach. Maroon curtains. Fresh crunch of newspapers. Half-coffee aroma. Half dissolved in opaque conditioned air. Interwoven voices. Mumbles. Water running down the glass. Thick braids. The rain has strengthened.

8:38. I shut my eyes. I see you. Bright twinkling eyes. Crow-feet in the corners. Sugar-plum smile. Sunny. Brilliantly sunny. Your narrow forearms. The pearl on your right-hand. Index finger, was it? The leanness of your being. Deep set eyes. Your smile. Your strikingly unabashed smile, so beautiful it can put any galaxy, any shooting star to shame. The way it burns through me. Your sweet brown eyes, darker sometimes. Your clumsy walking. Atrocious silence. That charming languidness. The way you always fold your fingers into half fists. And your smile. That disarmingly psychedelic smile.

8:50. Light green. Dark green. Yellow green. Blue green. Water green. Sap green. Tea green. Moss green. Saturated green. And grey. Green and grey in motion. Fused in floods.

9:00. Arrival. Chaos.

9:28. Umbrellas. Big. Small. Variegated. And auto rickshaws. Raincoats flapping. Looping through deserted bylanes. Reckless. Perforating thick fogs of petrol. Hairpin bends. Chilly mountain rain. But today I don’t want to taste it. My favorite city feels so alien.

10:14. Without you, the rain has lost her beauty. Never have I found her so depressing.

10:40. More rain. Möbius strips.

10:50. Tell me, darling, do you ever miss me? When it rains on the arid, coppery plains of Gurgaon, do you trace my name on frosted glasses? Suck in petrichor and let it permeate your being? Let it crawl under your skin and bloom as goosebumps? Do you float paper-boats in the rain? Let it swallow you? Do you find my absence as empty as I find yours?

10:57. Sleep folds in. And the world falls fast behind a sugary pall of quietness.

13:53. Nothing has changed. I still lug around the heaviness. There is no joy, only a black hole that drags me in. And you still do not love me.

13:57. O why did I not descend on some Godforsaken station in the middle of the night and run back to you? Why do I hold myself back even when it hurts?

14:26. Hot baths do not cure heartaches.

14:29. You are wrong. I too have secrets. Dark, decaying secrets. All infected and cancerous, of loss and death and loneliness. Bitterness. To tangle you in the quicksand called my life would be cruel. A living suicide. That is who I am.

15:20. I need you to heal me. You might not be the angel I hoped for. But you are really close to being one.

16:10. The way heartache oozes into your soul.

19:41. You shut your eyes, the suffocation is gone. You open them and you sink. Once again. A little more deeper.

20:14. Tea. Rosettes of smoke. Peach walls. And gloom. Thick, descending featherless gloom.

21: 03. The Kurseong Himalayas rise up high against a navy sky. Dots of starry lights. Connected. Disconnected. A solitary red beacon. Frozen.

22:44. To have you on the other side of the phone. Just to listen to you breathe. Strung together by vacuüm.

22:48. Your bright yellow t-shirt. Another lemon yellow one with pale green checks. Blue-red checked shirt. The feel of you on fabrics. Navy-blue t-shirt with red detailing. Receding in the early morning slant sun. Your steel-blue shirt. The jet black one. Stripes. Lines. Sometimes wintry. Oranges. Then blues. A peach hoodie. Your bare back. Perspiration. April heat.

24:00. Poetry by Kazi Nazrul Islam. Inebriated rain. Whir of a table fan. Creeping loneliness. Distilled. Dissociate.

24:22. An afternoon spent over at Love & Olive Oil. Sterile dreams: cooking for you. Sharing coffee and reflections. The scent of your aftershave. Mint cookies. Ice-cream. Your evening cup of tea. Just washed hair. Unbuttoned shirt. The wet shimmer of your chest. Deciding dinner. Arguing over stir-frys and chutneys. Kisses. Waking up in your arms. Smelling of you. Tousled hair. Deliciously warm. Writing love on your skin. Your sleep flecked face. Drawing closer. Perfect.

24:55. Blank.

1:05. Someday I will hem moonlight in your shadows. You must look so beautiful when you sleep.

1:08. Mundane. Sleepless. Thinking of you. Of how it would be to be with you, to be yours. To be complete.

1:15. Your breath in my hair. Fingers circling navel. One. Two. Half-crescent. Crescendo. Ten. Hyperventilating. Tremulous. Fifteen. Eighty-six. Explosions. Quarante. Fireworks. Twelve. Raindrops. Lavender. Us. You. Us.

1:24. Pull me into you. Raw friction. An absent moon. An absinthe sky. Deliquescent.

1:30. Counting backwards.

1:32. It is time I should let you go, darling. Let you go. After all, how long can I hold onto someone who isn’t mine?