Empty Spaces

What do I miss?

Let's see...

I miss sitting by the window seat of a plane

Staring into the clouds set ablaze by a sun I can't see

The thrill of visiting a new place...country, food, people, music

Getting lost in a whole different world

Struggling to hear my friends over the din of a Friday night at my favourite pub

Waving wildly to catch the attention of the bartender for that next chilled stout

Living out of a suitcase (yes I actually miss that!)

And griping about working across timezones

And I miss you...

Getting lost in those moments

As you held me close

And made me yours

Holding hands, sometimes just touching fingers...

But always, always conscious of each other

I've never minded isolation, or relied too much on proximity

But the separation sometimes kills me

Even years later

When all I want...is to kiss you.

I expect you to...

Have adventures

Fall in love

Get your hearts broken

Have sex with the wrong people

Have sex with the right people

Make mistakes
Make amends

Take a leap

Make a splash

Unleash holy hell on anyone who tries to hold you back

~ The Bold Type

“If a man is only as good as his word, 

then I want to marry a man with a vocabulary like yours.

The way you say dicey and delectable and octogenarian
in the same sentence — that really turns me on.
The way you describe the oranges in your backyard
using anarchistic and intimate in the same breath.

I would follow the legato and staccato of your tongue 

wrapping around your diction 

until listening become more like dreaming 

and dreaming became more like kissing you.

I want to jump off the cliff of your voice 

into the suicide of your stream of consciousness. 

I want to visit the place in your heart where the wrong words die. 

I want to map it out with a dictionary and points 

of brilliant light until it looks more like a star chart 

than a strategy for communication. 

I want to see where your words are born. 

I want to find a pattern in the astrology.

I want to memorize the scripts of your seductions. 

I want to live in the long-winded epics of your disappointments, 

in the haiku of your epiphanies. 

I want to know all the names you’ve given your desires. 

I want to find my name among them,

‘cause there is nothing more wrecking sexy than the right word. 

I want to thank whoever told you 

there was no such thing as a synonym. 

I want to throw a party for the heartbreak 

that turned you into a poet.

And if it is true that a man is only as good as his word 

then, sweet jesus, let me be there 

the first time you are speechless, 

and all your explosive wisdom becomes 

a burning ball of sun in your throat, 

and all you can bring yourself to utter is, oh god, oh god.”

― Mindy Nettifee

Boomerang

Coming back home is like traveling in a time machine.

Does it happen to others as well? I guess it does. 

I step into my room, and I’m transported to 1999. 2000. 

It’s like the there is a whole other me just sitting in that room, waiting. To greet the older me, to remind her of who she used to be.

All the old memories, the old feelings, the dreams - it all comes rushing back. So visceral that I can feel it like it’s part of my present. I can taste those moments on the tip of my tongue, my fingers.

Like time has just stopped, waiting for me to catch up instead of the other way round. 

And my room, the smell, the photographs, the hidden mementos tucked away at the back of a locked up drawer with its rusty hidden key are all waiting alongside.

And I’m back again.

In that life, in that love, in that space between staying young and growing up, innocence and heartbreak, moving on and forever staying still. 

 Almost like I am still that silly, naive girl. Like I never really left. 

Pandora's Box

Has it ever happened to you that you've successfully buried some not so pleasant incident from your past deep into the recesses of your mind. When you can spend most days pretending it didn't happen, or that it doesn't matter? Or when you can get away with distracting yourself every time the thought comes up.

And then someone reopens that conversation. In a well meaning way perhaps. In a bid to get answers which all along you thought you didn't need. And now, suddenly, it's all you can think about. And you're not only left wondering and questioning, you're also overnight, seemingly incapable of shutting it down, of shoving those thoughts back into that safe little box where they had resided for so long. Now the box is no longer a corner of your mind, it's like your whole head. 

You made the mistake of having a conversation. And now your head won't shut up. You tried to give answers. You're left with more questions.

Closure is overrated. Especially when it's one-sided. 

Shadows

I'm scared that I'll forget what it was like

To feel my breath hitch when it comes in contact with yours
My head tucked into the nook of your throat
Breathing in that smell that is all yours

I'm scared that I'll not remember your smell
That reminds me of intimacy
that calms my heart and speeds it up at the same time

Today I only need to close my eyes - and sometimes not even that
And I can recall so vividly what it feels like
Your kiss, your hands, the shape of your body against mine

And I'm so scared of only having these memories
And those memories dimming with time
Of those sensations becoming intangible. Smoke-like

What if one day I can no longer remember?
What if I only think I do?
But those memories, painted by time, are far removed from what used to be
you and me?

What if I only remember a fantasy?
When you have been my biggest reality...

I don't want to search in my mind for those darkened evenings
When you heard you whisper my name against my mouth
I want to remember the cadence of your heartbeat...so familiar against my ear

I want to remember the exact words you said - sometimes unexpected, always precious
The dips and planes my fingers traced
The sound of that throaty laughter of yours

But I think it will be difficult
When I can't seem to remember to smile myself

How do I hold on to you. Us?
Can you help me? Just help me remember?

Because I'm so scared that I'll forget. And scared that I never will.

Desire is easy to fight.
Especially when the only weapon desire possesses is attraction.

It's not so easy when you're trying to win a war against the heart.

~ Maybe Someday

The Slow Regard of Silent Things

The touch of an imaginary finger

Smoothening away the furrows on my brow

The spaces in between the lines I write

The grey areas that fight my black & white

The intense concentration of silence

As it listens to what I leave unspoken

My fingers that clench into fists

A mirror that shows me the truth

My pillow that hugs me to sleep

The red lipstick that kisses my mouth

A life that's surrounded by the inanimate

That has more life...than my life itself

My father had taught me to be nice first, because you can always be mean later, but once you’ve been mean to someone, they won’t believe the nice anymore.

So be nice, be nice, until it’s time to stop being nice, then destroy them.

—  Laurell K. Hamilton

Late night musings...

Another night, another city, another hotel room
The view is great from my 26th floor window
Inside my head, not so much

It's strange
How I spend my days on flights nowadays
And my life rooted to the past

Dreams that were simple
And now seem completely out of reach
Over compensating with meaningless triumphs 

An Instagram feed that speaks of great adventures
And friends in every city
The filters effectively camouflaging my solitude

No lack of attention
Compliments, flattery, harmless flirting and unwanted advances
But what I want has turned to dust

Sitting in a darkened room
Twinkling city lights below and that fleeting sense of glamour
An ordinary girl craving an extraordinary love

Hey you!

Yes, I'm talking to you.

I have a bone to pick with you.

I don't like this. Not at all. Not one little bit.

This feeling of restlessness, of some vague unbalance.
Of something gone missing, or a tad out of place
Of looking around for the familiar - and finding the unwanted
Of waking up to forgetfulness, and the rising consciousness of reality
Of the expectation of laughter and calm - replaced by a jaded perspective
Of trying to figure out who I am - and coming across scattered pieces

This is not me. Or who I want to be. At all.

I need you to fix this. You are the only one can. The only one who can put these pieces of me back together.

You are the only one who knows how they fit.

After all, you are the one who shattered them with such careful consideration.

Borrowing words...

Heard this song today. And now I can't stop listening to it...

You Are Mine

Everyone has their obsession
Consuming thoughts, consuming time
They hold high their prized possession
That defines the meaning of their lives

You are mine

There are objects of affection
That can mesmerize the soul
There is always one addiction
That just can not be controlled

You are mine

Everyone has their obsession
Consuming thoughts, consuming time
They hold high their prized possession
They hold high their prized possession

You are mine

The doors are now closing...

I think I'll go mad. Thinking about things. Trying not to think about them. Trying to live...actually just trying to breathe...

I find myself short of breath so often. Screaming inside my head. Smiling, laughing, socializing. And just utterly, completely alone. Not isolated, just alone.

So intensely scared. That life will go by just the way it is. And I won't have the guts to change it. Or the strength to bear the consequences if I do change it.

So desperately sad. That I'm perhaps irretrievably losing a few things, the only things most precious to me. And I don't see a way out. Every time I try I split into two. One side goes into denial of the downward spiral. The other is in auto pilot, pretending life is just as she planned it.

Wait, that's just denial again right?

So much so for thinking I was an independent, strong woman. There I go, falling to age-old tricks played by life. And being nothing but a coward burying into my comfort zone. Which is not so comfortable anymore. It's become my biggest compromise.

My days are stifling. My days are frozen in time. Yet I'm overwhelmed by it's pace. I'm still there...and everything else is whizzing by. Or maybe I'm going too fast and everything else is getting left behind. Leaving me behind. And I can't get on the roller-coaster. And I can't get off.

The frantic need to take a decision. Because I'll bitterly regret it if I don't. But I don't know what that decision should be. And will I regret the decision itself?

All I know is...this can't be it. Can it? I don't know if I can bear it then.

See what I mean by going mad.

I am suffering from a Benjamin Button like EQ syndrome. In the past few years, I've been feeling and doing things that are fine when you are 19, or even 25. But downright stupid at my age.

And I tried to stem the downward spin, I did. But it's difficult when stupid makes you so happy. I guess I should have remembered that it's even more difficult when you get the inevitable wake-up call.

After all, only the very lucky are able to stay on in Fools' Paradise forever - the rest are just shown glimpses. And I've never really been lucky. In anything.

Full Circle

You're humming some random tune
Making yourself your morning cup of coffee
And suddenly that tune messes with your memories - and your head
And the coffee turns cold, sitting forgotten on your desk

A weekend spent surfing channels. Endless, mindless sitcoms.

Laughing at a silly joke you sink into the couch

And then you remember a talk you had in that very place

And the mindlessness becomes a welcome relief...

A perfectly normal conversation at work

On mundane, boring, every day things

When out of the blue, that voice over the phone

That intonation, certain pronunciations - reminds you of someone else

And the yearning hits you - like a fist to your solar plexus

And you can't respond to the questions coming over the line. You are short of breath.

They say time heals all wounds...
...Except those it doesn't

...

You think you are too old to have your heart broken.
And then you discover pain never goes out of style. 

Breathe

I love the smell of home.

The smell that assails my senses when I step into the room I grew up in
My memories traversing a different space and time, automatically
When this was life...

My fingers move, of their own accord.
Opening this, adjusting that, trying to place things just as I liked them a decade back.
And all the while, I breathe in a past.

It’s a whiff of childhood, and of adolescent pangs
Of the sense of liberation once exams were done and dusted
And the warm, lazy, endless summer days began

There is an aroma that could only mean mom
Her clothes, her cooking, her hugs
Mixed with the sharp, burnt, heady smoke from dad's late night cigarette

It’s the scent of first love, of late night phone calls
Of the feeling that anything, absolutely anything is possible
The scent of dreams yet to be realized, and thus, yet to be broken

It’s the sense of growing up, leaving the comfortable behind
Forcing yourself to spread your wings, even if you are scared of heights
The refusal to acknowledge the overwhelming homesickness

It’s not a sensory overload, oh no.
It’s more subtle, creeping in and catching me unaware during those flying visits home
And that’s how it departs too. Slowly, almost unnoticed, almost too soon.
Till suddenly, I feel the familiar ache of something missing
And I know it’s time to move on.

A random love letter

Dearest,

You have given me so many 'firsts' - I could put them all together and create a brand new life. A brand new me.

A me that I wish I could embrace all the time. And not in bits and parts. A life that I wish was the one I lived endlessly, and not in stolen moments.

You are the madness in my life. And the sanity. The storm and the anchor. The dream and the reality. You helped me find myself - by letting me get lost in you.

Deliciously, maddeningly lost.

You've woken a part of my soul. And changed my essence forever. And I'm back to where I started, longing for us to begin, all over again. So that we can discover, all over again. Resist, all over again. Surrender, sink and drown, over and over again.

I'm waiting for the firsts', to transform into forevers'.

Yours

This is how you lose her

"This is how you lose her.

You lose her when you forget to remember the little things that mean the world to her: the sincerity in a stranger’s voice during a trip to the grocery, the delight of finding something lost or forgotten like a sticker from when she was five, the selflessness of a child giving a part of his meal to another, the scent of new books in the store, the surprise short but honest notes she tucks in her journal and others you could only see if you look closely.

You must remember when she forgets.

You lose her when you don’t notice that she notices everything about you: your use of the proper punctuation that tells her continuation rather than finality, your silence when you’re about to ask a question but you think anything you’re about to say to her would be silly, your mindless humming when it is too quiet, your handwriting when you sign your name in blank sheets of paper, your muted laughter when you are trying to be polite, and more and more of what you are, which you don’t even know about yourself, because she pays attention.

She remembers when you forget.

You lose her for every second you make her feel less and less of the beauty that she is. When you make her feel that she is replaceable. She wants to feel cherished. When you make her feel that you are fleeting. She wants you to stay. When you make her feel inadequate. She wants to know that she is enough and she does not need to change for you, nor for anyone else because she is she and she is beautiful, kind and good.

You must learn her.

You must know the reason why she is silent. You must trace her weakest spots. You must write to her. You must remind her that you are there. You must know how long it takes for her to give up. You must be there to hold her when she is about to.
You must love her because many have tried and failed. And she wants to know that she is worthy to be loved, that she is worthy to be kept.

And, this is how you keep her ."

- This Is How You Lose Her || Junot Diaz

Sublime

The conversations about everything, and nothing
Full of words, full of silences
Over coffee, wine or ice-cream
Over arguments or childish jokes

The dates, or are they non-dates?
Anticipation, and the comfort of familiarity
Time you spend waiting forever for
Time that's over before you know it

Fingers playing with fingers
The lightest of touches that make you hold your breath
The lightest of breaths that make you close your eyes
The moment before the kiss, and all the moments after

All sublime
All yours
Only yours...