Tug of War

While I try to figure

Which is the trigger

And which the consequence,

A battle breaks out

Externalities cave in.

Simultaneity takes on a horrid meaning.

Anticipation becomes the catalyst

Of a demon that I created

But know not how to kill.

I forget where my comfort zone lies

In the sphere of my inability

To face, to do things all these years,

Or the realm I wanted to leap to.

There's no single-leap shortcut though,

I've been crawling all the while

With my head buried in the sand.

P.S. My stubborn mind preferred the stagnant familiarity. I don't. I had to distinguish between the two till I won the war.

Puzzled Enemy

There’s vengeance gnashing its teeth

The anger, blindfolded,  

Flagellates at my insides

Churning out a fresh helping

Of supine decay,

Feeding its crippled existence.

I shrink at the sight

Of fingers pointing at me

To then direct wobbly steps  

Of melting courage

To be able to peer at

The faces behind

The exclamations

Of accusations aimed at me.

Till I bump against a mirror,

That, I had thought to be a window.

My palms scramble for strength

Clamped on to the mirror

As I slip on to the floor

I hope the aches will

Numb me into sleep,

Till I wake up

To fidgeting arms and feet,

As the glass ceiling above shatters

To reveal in mockery

A mirrored ceiling right above,

Which I had thought to be the sky

Before I had entered the room.

 P.S. The mind is its own worst enemy. 

The Fear of Conveying 'Thanks'

The only feeling
I am sensitive to at times
[When someone says or does something,
Making me very, very happy indeed,]
Is the spread-eagled numbness
Gagging my thoughts.
Happy thoughts of gratitude,
Weren't those meant to be?

I smile at the person
Straining my eyes, 
So as to not let them blink 
As they look on at me, with a word of love.
While I,
Stoop within endlessly 
To pull out a few thoughts,
Clearing my throat
Hoping for a sentence to follow next,
However mindless;
Eventually falling silent.
I'd like them to know 
That's not me being cynically laconic, no.

I think -
The memories,
Charred with inadvertent retrospection
Wake up from their insomniac slumber
At such moments,
Rush to claim their place,
Smearing dust on the present.

P.S. Have you ever shied away from saying a thank you to someone who made your day?
It's not shyness being discussed here, of course. It's a constricted state of mind, feeling stifled enough to stop you from thinking at all, making you restless enough, though.

Living Things

I often have conversations

With objects around me -

From

Mindless banter snowballing into

Heart-to-heart conversations,

To

Waking up in the middle of the night,

Fumbling for the right switch in the darkness

To put the lights on so I can see

For a split second,

Things obligingly lying still in their place,

As they stagger through burdened time

To lull myself into sleep

With an assurance of familiarity.

On days I enter my room 

With bottled thoughts, when these things, 

With all their weathered, withered strength

Spur me on to etch out utterances at length

Knowing as they do, 

You don't always seek 

A response, reaction, remark, judgment, 

To something you nevertheless feel the need to speak, 

Which at times starts to turn incomprehensible

To yourself and to the other, 

As your tongue rolls them out

In the gibberish of vowels and consonants.

So I start off on a mindless rhyme

At times confessing my mind's crimes,

Scraping out fears rusty with neglect

Pulling out halted thoughts from a staggering stack,

Laughing as I admit to myself that joke was funny.

Crying with relish for I won't be accused of being weak.

Stretching out a tune I'd only ventured to hum [in public], 

Into a song, hearing my voice sing & strum,

In a long time.    

                           [Hitting the table with a pen 

                           To make up for the beats.]

Dancing with awkward steps on my two left feet,

But dancing nevertheless.

[Thank goodness I have feet to dance.)

P.S At times, when the familiarity 
      Of my own presence poses a threat,
      I need their company, these non-living things, 
      The only solace sensitive to my minds' mutterings.

“I do not believe,” [Edison] said, “that matter is inert, acted upon by an outside force. To me it seems that every atom is possessed by a certain amount of primitive intelligence. Look at the thousand of ways in which atoms of hydrogen combine with those of other elements, forming the most diverse substances. Do you mean to say that they do this without intelligence? . . . Gathered together in certain forms, the atoms constitute animals of the lower orders. Finally they combine in man, who represents the total intelligence of all the atoms.”

“But where does this intelligence come from originally?” I asked.


“From some power greater than ourselves.”

Word is Out

An encounter with words in life hitherto
(Brought me asking yet again a helpless -
"Now, where to?")
For company was all I had back then       
An ebbing ebb of 
Self-assuring words at times, 
To a frenzied slew 
Of words, twisted & few 
Which sapped & gnawed away 
My spirits into mute stillness.
Like no adversary had ever managed.
Then another capricious turn
To a voice of rhetoric that mocked,
At every occurring thought 
In my breathing existence
Angry at what, I knew not.
Every mono-syllable I pondered over, or dropped.
Words plundering away words 
I had uttered, memories earlier,  
Words I saw, heard, smelled, lived -
Were they ever in my favour?
Or was it a path, I ought to have taken not?

Those words had more life in them
Than I then did, let me tell you.
Now and then, a war of words with 
The consciousness of words 
They and I had created
A dialogue, now supporting, now doubting,
I had become a dilemma.

Words are all I had at all those times,
And they failed me when  
I needed them most.
They sought a different muse.
Conscious of their mistress's dormant existence
Stammering her way through life,
Were they teaching me a lesson?
To take ownership of my articulations
With courage, wisdom & tact,
That which I probably lacked

Here comes news
Within dreams, with strides taken, 
With gestures, glances, I awaken
As I cross paths again with words,
Uttered - un-uttered, 
Now knowing their worth
Breaking the slumber 
of 
Clenched fists, 
Asphyxiating knot of syllables,
Scripting now, 
Drops of ink 
That shall make a million think.

A Happy Re(s)trospection, This.

  For I don't really know how many nanoseconds of this one second have become the 'past' already. No I'm not caught up with you, and yet I am, for as I write, I realise I can never be 'one' with you. And maybe, it's meant to be that way, for the best. You're never a part of my present, but you have always been my present, once. I'd rather not term my past as a ragged piece of cloth worth being dumped in the bin. From thinking that I could just 'leap' to the glorious, fanciful future I'd visualized earlier, I got to realizing that just as I used to look forward to what was my future once, that future now having turned into my past, is probably no longer good enough, in comparison to what my goals for now, both short-term & long term, may be. However, were I to erase or undo that staircase of 'trivial' victories, life would probably not make as much sense now, my recent achievements would seem incongruous, neither would I know where to turn next.

(Past is the mirror with which we see our future. Yes, you may be looking forward to building something concrete from the muddled slumber of thoughts, but it's always in relation to, in comparison with the things, thoughts, and every influence that has defined you till date.)

From wanting to pass out from school, to retrospecting that it was probably the best phase in my life, till college happened, which became the  new best phase, these so called realisations do have a lot to do with a chunk of perspectives coming from a particular state of mind. 

         I've come to realising that it's wonderful to strive constantly towards whatever you yearn for, but concomitantly, you must realise that in working towards that so called 'ideal' future, you're not really escaping from it your not so ideal past, but learning from it, everyday. If things didn't upset you enough to make you want to change things in and around yourself, wouldn't it be more likely that you'd feel all sluggish and demotivated, in general? Past, present, of future, you have this one life to do whatever the hell you can. And living with the thought that you don't really value your past as much as your present, is as morbid as you could get. Your past will never leave you, and you must accept & cherish it, and learn from it. Many a time we've cast a disappointed glance to it, thinking there's no reason why you or I should remember any of it- of course, if you don't respect what has been and will always be a part of you, where you have always thought your past is an entity separate from you, you're not really building a future, you're only escaping your past, not facing it, or welcoming it. And when you do let go of that barrier deep rooted in your mind, will your mind be at rest.

‘A teacher affects eternity, he can never tell where his influence stops.’  - Henry Adams