Life at Cross-Roads

There's no going forward, and there's no going backward, for it's not a regressive backward, it's not a forward-leap, either, for how do you know which is which, when can you ever claim to figure the coordinates of any point in infinity? There is no path because the path e-merged from the whole. To be sure, all paths lead us there, but all paths had begun from there, so there's no mid-point limbo where you're stuck. And all those paths, they spilled in all directions, criss-crossing each other, overlapping each other, like strains of water sliding down fogged-up window, suddenly giving you glimpses into the other end.

Experiences

As they say

Words fall short to describe experiences.

Photographs are still pixels away

From being a reflection

Of one's memory -

A refracted reflection,

Of the experience itself.

So what about hopes

To capture, treasure memories for this lifetime?

What about people

Who love to imagine,

And spend their lives

Living on memories

Of those imagined sights,

Scenes, smells and people?

How much more real is our world from theirs', I wonder.

Epilogue: Memories are interpretations. Memories are karma. Retrospection is imagination in an inverted frame, or a regressive mode.

The Echo

Before you set off on a song

Strumming tunes

Of a hunky dory future that calls,

That frenzied adrenaline rush,

Bring it to a halt.

(These dreams my dear,

Should be taken with a pinch of salt.)

If you're chasing a wish,

Because the inaudible frequencies

At the back of your mind

Clash rather than merge 

With your future song's rhyme,

Then you've clipped its' wings already

For your creations,

Fantastical as they may be,

Stem from a mental hypochondriac

Stamp of injustice.

Epilogue:

‘Do you often catch the chime of reality,

Singing to you a morbid lullaby

Have you lately been crawling

To unbeknownst corners and turns (in your mind)

Only to slide down back into the pit of

Questions, angst, fears?’

Problems are meant to motivate,

Turning our thoughts to action,

Not so we become complacent 

In our mind's utopia

While reality becomes

Only a reminder of 

The mental hypochondria 

We subconsciously keep 

Seeking a right to.

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. 

There are Times

There are Times

When I am

Groping at the vapours                         

Of nothingness 

Hoping to churn out

Life and hope from it,

(With a desperation 

That makes me feel

As though I were 

strangling emptiness itself.)

There are Times

When I wish with all my might

(Believing for just that dead moment 

that my thoughts are powerful indeed.)

That the concrete reality 

Would crumble and melt

into nothingness.

There are Times

When I remember 

That it's darkness

Staring at me in the eyes

[Threatening me or encouraging me, 

                                          I know not.]

And I shut my eyes

To crawl within 

The cold comfort of familiarity

That I first meant to escape.

There are Times

When I seek to

Merge into a shadow

As the gust of Light, 

Having shot out 

From unseen corners and walls of impasse 

Now straining its eyes at me

Sears and sieves through

The dust of opaque fear

Settled since long before I was born.

There are Times

When I realise, a truth

Shall not be uttered by me

Not the right time,

How do you set a time for truth?

There are Times

When I must not let

The truth run amok

Lest it wreaks havoc.

P.S. / Epilogue 

Don't tell me that you

Have already forgotten

That there were times, 

You did not know 

Or even want to know

What you wanted to do, or 

What you ought to have done.

 There are times when we seek hope, in the form of an opportunity, a person who could guide us, without realising that the only person at that juncture to help us, would be our own self. But there's a constant wait for (Godot?) something to change things, as if trying to make the universe say that we were in an unfair place that could not be helped, and only a definite pattern or turn of situations would give meaning to one's life. The manifestation cannot be, prior to the determination. 

There are times when the opportunity doesn't merely knock at your door but stays put like a silent comrade waiting for you to pack your bags, so it can bring you to a new dimension of you yourself. Many a time, our fear stifles us, overriding the striving that seemed hope enough till now, only to bring things back to status quo.

There are times when one feels that one needs to take a stand, make his/her voice heard, to try and bring a halt to something that shouldn't happen, and is happening, yet. But circumstances spell out a different path altogether, and then we are faced with situations where we'd rather not let something be known to everyone, because it would do more harm than good. What is the truth, then? 

On Education

Indeed, over the years, all the definitions, I scooped up for exams, have been washed out from the accessible corners of my memory, thanks to them getting used to not being summoned for recollection. This is of course, barring a few things which happened to be of interest to me. For I still remember the day when mom-dad woke me up to have me get ready and wear a new set of clothes, socks and polished shoes, when I realised that was to be my first day at school. Since then, I have only gotten used to knowing, and not understanding education in the context of fourteen years spent at school, besides college, and in terms of qualifications that keep getting dropped like fused bombs around me. Taking up literature for my graduate course, is probably the best decision I have taken so far in terms of pursuing something that caught my interest. Learning and remembering things taught at school perfectly, and trying to pin them in all four corners of my memory, through semantic codewords, if I may term them so, sounded a little restricting, then and now. For despite 'words' being frightfully cradled by 'definitions', things go haywire. Miscommunication, failures, and so on.

Experiences or observations, translated into retrospective memories, having left most vivid of impressions on my memory/mind, are one of the few things I instinctively refer to, when stuck in situations I need to get the better of. Also, I would any day prefer to have something catch my curiosity and have me chase that thought till I reach a hypothesis, a conclusion, never mind if it's a dead-end. I don't want to wait for concepts to squint my very vision of myself, the world, and all that exists, and all that waits to be discovered. I would rather die thinking too much of things that make me wonder, with me progressing towards it, one step at a time, some forward, some backward, for the aim remains to go one level up in another dimension. That is when I day-dreamingly wonder when, or rather IF, I'll get to use a few or every thing I 'absorbed' like a sponge in moments of 'devoted student-hood'. And that's also when in a half-correcting, half-disappointed mode I remember what I've heard often - 'Every moment of your life, has something to teach, just that you realise the worth of it at such-and-such time.', and that's when I feel, that it doesn't seem to fit in with this situation. Maybe education in this symbolic order is just, self-regressive in nature. One that you may be aware of, but not necessarily be able to help.

Years and Months

            My very existence, my thoughts had become dusty with neglect induced by self-consciousness, note the irony, will you! Questions interspersed with chortles of laughter about my hobbies would send me into a mental asphyxiation lasting till I stammered and gave into the nausea churned out of the apparent emptiness tugging at me. That's a few years back.

                          Always singing songs on ultrasonics and infrasonics in my mind, or a song that would have me tapping my feet with fervour as I visualized moves and steps that would amaze  me, only to freeze at the thought of performing it even in front of myself. This was till a few years back.

                           I seemed to think I didn’t know what poetry was till I recently glanced with calm acceptance followed by appreciation of my scribblings, without wincing for once, (and always henceforth) at what I thought was meant to be dumped eventually, if I happened to have as much as one retrospective glance at resonances of my assertive existence in words willing to sacrifice themselves for want of better words, or definitions to my life. This is the last few months, this is now.

                            That inaudible hum has now bloomed into heartfelt, happy singing to songs as I walk on and across streets, into my office or anywhere. Never knew any of this would be possible one day. And yet, each day, nay, each second unfurls as more beautiful than the other.

                             This one’s funny, in retrospection at least. Having waded through umpteen rejections at ‘selections’ for dance performances and competitions in school, to discovering the rhythm of my own two left now set right via all that life has taught me in the past one year, probably the most profound of learning experiences in my life till now. From graciously accepting compliments with belief at my dancing skills in college, I further sauntered into dance classes nine months back, and when someone at the studio tells you, that you’ve grown a lot from where you started wrt dance, it’s like quenching my thirst for perfection only for that one instant, that eventually spurs me on to discover perfection in a wholly different posture and garb, with time.

I never knew I could be this passionate about something in my life again. I say, all these years have been worth it. Each day, as I try to bring perfection to my steps, or balance myself during the workouts, the rhythm, the infinite song of vitality uncoils from its self-conscious slumber, and stretches its hand out to me, as my dancing partner, showing me the way to the next dance step, and discovering a certain idiosyncrasy of me. And how do I celebrate the discovery of it? By doing a little jig. Never have I admired myself more than I inadvertently do now, when I catch myself staring at my reflection, as I move to the front row, performing the routine with all my life and imagination. 

As Mary Murphy rightly said in a recent episode of So You Think You Can Dance, dancing serves as oxygen to the soul. I hope I can gracefully dance out my gratitude for dance someday. The irony of it!

Before I Touch the Sky

You're welcoming the future with open arms
As you shrink from your own reflection.
Lost in creating that Utopian vision 
Of the future
Which you think is waiting to walk up to you,
When all you have done 
Is to run to the past for solace,

And away from it when you were you realised 
You'd bore enough.

Before you soar off on the flight of dreams, 

Dreams you're afraid to call your own yet,
Watch where to your thoughts sway
Amidst the sands of time.

Identity

They, you and I.
Are?
Interpretations, opinions, 
Fears and convictions,
Likes-dislikes,
History and anticipations,
Of life.
All, save the living of it, maybe?

A song heard months back in time
You mused over the major & minor,
I'd pondered over the rhyme.
Each of us 
As convinced about its presence.
Winter tastes different in my memory.

Epilogue: 
You must choose between
His bespectacled vision 
And my retrospective conclusion
But you must know 
Which you chose
And why.


Context: 

We live but one interpretation [actions being interpretations] of our experiences, chosen on impulse at times, shortlisted by some preset path on other occasions. Is it about the choices chosen and lived? It isn't so much about 'your' life really, that being a myth for we are constantly interacting with many other lives every day. An interaction of interpretations hence, converts to fears, beliefs, and so on. But what about our identity in essence?

Is life to be described in terms of the experiences [and their interpretation] that I may have had [hence unique to me and to the world] - like the difference in reflections of convex and concave mirrors of the same object, for instance. And how those experiences molded me [or I let them!], my beliefs, and preferences, since that too is a unique cluster held together under the umbrella of a name? 

What about the infinite lurking before and after - Are we the entity or the impressions?  

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.