Them

Fingers.
Hearty laughter.
Took my heart.

Joy.
Dimpled smile.
Left me confused.

Forbidden.
Known unknown.
Kept away, good.

Glasses.
Knowing smile.
Gave me butterflies.

Gorgeous.
The coquette.
Comes and goes.

Desire

Desire is no light thing.
My trunk of desire is now almost overflowing.

On the top there is the hope to go to a faraway land,
to be more of what I think I want to be.
Little to the left is the dream to own the ingots.
To revel in it and rub it on others.
On the right is the hope that I'd get to caress those silver.
Look into those eyes and give myself to those lips.
If you look deeper, you'd see the long lost one.
To have joy and spread joy.

Maybe it's time to let some go.
Or maybe it's time get a new trunk.
Ah, desire is no light thing.

'Desire is no light thing' is a quote by poet Anne Carson. Found it here.

Taste of rainbow

After many years, the rainbow came up again.
It had orange, brown, blue, pink, yellow and maroon on it.
We all went with a huge spoon and tasted.

Maroon felt like cough syrup and regret.
Brown reminded me of cookies and summer vacation.
Blue tasted like cheesecake and saturday nights.
Pink like cotton candy and beach.
Orange reminded me of popsicle and joy.
Yellow made me miss mangoes and long train rides.

I tried mixing them all up.
They kinda tasted like life then.
Meh.

Chai in cities

Chai in Mumbai is sweet with a dash of spice.
The portions are tiny
and like the city, it keeps us wanting more.

Chai in Bengaluru was comfortable and lazy.
It tasted like cold winter evenings
and like Christmas past.

Chai in Chennai was like my happiness then.
Hardly found.
Hardly remembered.

Chai in Calicut is like home.
Not too sweet and not too strong.
It always tastes like 6:10 in the morning.

Bougainvilleas and dusty road

The bougainvilleas grew on a stone wall
In a dusty lane that reeked of bad decisions.
They weren't those for which poems were written
Nor were they ever photographed.
But they bloomed.

I noticed it for the first time that day.
Nothing breathtakingly beautiful
But it caught my eye.
I might have compared myself to those bougainvilleas
Blooming unnoticed, but blooming anyway.
But what if I was the wall
who assumed, it was he who was blooming?

Mumbai and honey

At dusk Mumbai was flooded with honey.
As with anything else in the city,
not all are equally interested.

Some want to know if it is organic,
some others feel it's cruel to steal from the bee
and a third category is sceptic about its origin.

If you step out, you can see people collecting it.
In jars, glasses and even in briefcases.
Some people are smearing each other with it,
and some others are capitalising it.

I sat at Marine drive, look at the beach
wondering why can't I collect any?
I can ask the guy next me to collect some for me,
but still why can't I collect any?

Inspired by Magic Realism Bot's Twitter Page.

If we ever date

If we ever date, I wanna have cosy Sunday mornings with you. We'd just cuddle and I'll taste the coffee and breakfast from your lips.

If we ever date, I wanna meet your friends. I want to know your embarrassing secrets. I want them to secretly judge me and figure out I'm good enough for you.

If we ever date, I want us to have mid-week dates. We'd go for a movie, rant about work, take a long walk and enjoy the comfortable silence.

If we ever date, I want us to have a rain memory. Maybe a time we stayed in and made tea and ordered in pakoda, or a time we went to the beach and got drenched and pretended to be in a movie.

If we ever date, I want us to have a song. A simple, or even lame, song. A song that can either bring a twinkle in our eyes or make us burst out of laughter even on our worst days.

If we ever date, I want us to grow with it. Maybe we'd have a happy ending or maybe we won't, but I would want it to be a part of our story.