Remembrance for the defence
Of what we have been once,
Nostalgia for the universe
We have come across to,
The place we claimed to be ours,
The memories we left behind,
The self we have left beneath.
Days and nights fade,
Life still pervades,
Within the waves and webs
Of the unfolding memories
We once dared to weave.
Within the rage of dignified fire
And the realms of subdued & broken existence,
I live. I love. I thrive. And I dive. I recluse.
To the other side of the cruise.
Under the rule of doubt,
I’m in fright.
A constant state of disquiet.
Unrulied force of disconcert.
In a bright of a light,
I knuckle under the rot
Of my very own existence.
In the middle of the night,
I, perhaps, would resit.
The power to life
Even a mere existence.
Yet, in the wake of the morning,
I believe. I dare to desire.
I stopped to tire
My unbeaten fervour.
Within doubt, I exist,
Under the rule of desire,
I tremble and flail.
Within the whole of it all,
I keep on.
What are we, really?
When the light fades,
The sun fails to the darkness,
When the sound resides,
When the crowd recedes,
What do we suppose we are,
Really?
Whenever asked to define ourselves,
What we are made of,
Other than the atoms and molecules
We feel brewing inside of us,
Other than the perpetual need for sleep or food,
How are we supposed to define the being we carry?
The entity we are presuming to possess?
What do we think we really are?
In a perfect world,
(Whatever perfect means),
In the absence of blemishes and woes,
If not for the painful existence we must endure,
Or power through,
What would have become of us?
If we were to live in a world of no triggers,
Or a series of stimuli to disrupt us,
Would we have become more
Or less of our intended selves?
What is it to be a human?
To be the being you’re supposed to be?
To suffice a mold, you are supposed to fit?
To knot the unseen pieces into one?
To fit the broken scruples in unity?
Where are we when we exist?
What caricatures do we assume in the dark?
What edges do we have in a full bright light?
What do we see within our portraits?
What do we perceive of ourselves when alone?
The bitterness we savor,
The sweet agony we linger on,
The weakness we dread,
The strength we bury,
What are we, really?
What are we supposed to be?
What is it to live?
What is it to die?
Love, hate, cry, laugh?
What is it to burn?
What is it to soar?
What is it to fall?
If it weren’t for the facades we live by,
The presumed self we pride ourselves on,
Would we have become more or less of a human?
If it wasn’t for the temples,
We built for ourselves,
Where we revere our thoughts,
Where we govern the universe,
And worship ourselves,
What would have become of us?
If we don’t parade ourselves
With the cheer of existence,
The gloat of success (one or too many),
The mischief of living,
Would that be a path to becoming a human?
Yet,
If we are not humans,
What are we, then?
The automated machines we seek to become?
No emotion.
No imperfection.
No taint or flaw.
Perfect, polished, and proud.
What a shame to seek the unknown,
When we can explore the given?
Whatever we are made of,
Wherever we exist,
However, we pertain to life,
If we are to be humans,
There must be a way to become,
A path to trace,
A life to embody,
Or a being to hold on to.
An imperfect folly,
A wavering statue,
A battled soldier,
And a slave to the truth.
Because we are human.
If not all the time,
At least in some.
Living in the now,
Letting it be.
Just be.
Not more.
Not less.
In the premise of the now,
The standards of today,
I don’t peek into tomorrow.
Gripping my reality.
Catching my own life,
Before it drifts away.
Holding to my breath,
Before it burns off.
For not all things mean more,
Not everything has depth,
An ulterior meaning than it holds.
For life is something that happens
Within the turn of events
The tornadoes of the changes,
Within the realms of simplicity,
Despite the raves of the complexities.
And yet, it persists.
Life endures the past, the now, and even more.
It’s sometimes better
To just be, other than not to.
It’s perhaps far better,
To exist, other than not to.
In an attempt to exist,
And an occasional living,
I am holding my breath.
Receding to my brace,
Flailing to my loci of reality,
I’m holding my breath.
Dearly. Closely.
Warming my being incessantly.
And when I breathe,
I see the holding fading,
The fog unveiling,
My life unfolding.
How do we fall apart?
How do we fall in love?
Where do we go when we feel pain?
Where lies the specters of ache?
The glimpse of a bliss?
The crest of sadness?
The edges of happiness?
The realms of marvels?
Between rising and falling,
Crushing and thriving,
The whelms and the peaks,
Where lies, the resilience?
The pose. The quest. The recess.
In the untold mysteries of life,
We unfold the untold,
Redeem the lost,
Rewind the present,
And plot the rest.
I know how to love when unreciprocated,
Unrequited.
Abandoned and depraved.
Not that I’m a sadist,
Nor that I chose to.
My heart felt deprived
Of the half life I endure.
Aches I sustain in my bones,
The pain I bear in my being
Would say otherwise.
I know how to love
Even when unloved.
I know how to care
Even when not taken care of.
In love, I know I can find myself.
In love, I know I can be myself.
Yet, in hate,
In the brims of bitterness,
I know I can lose myself,
Entirely. Completely. Wholeheartedly.
If love can hold my universe together,
Would I give it a chance for more?
Do I hate the world or myself more?
Do I intend to lose myself forever more?
Or do I choose to believe love and something more?
Just something more?
I let the sun kiss my face today.
I let the warmth caress my skin
The beams to blind my sight,
The rays to hinder my being,
The shadows to caricature my lashes.
I retreated for the light,
I stayed for the warmth.
Craving the coziness,
Detesting the vile power
Embedded in the rays,
I hesitated. I tripped.
But, then, I stayed.
The warmth cracked the cold,
The ice cold in my heart,
The shield of my being,
The guard of my life.
Braced with the glow,
I uncovered myself for more,
For more life,
Forever more peace,
And for less of death.
Pain is a random stranger you haven’t met yet.
You think you know it.
You have seen the edges
And the depth of it.
The slithering aches you have experienced
Makes you think you have fathomed
The entire fold.
The complete world.
Yet, again, it strikes.
It surprises.
It pierces.
Unfold the untold.
Like a random stranger,
Like the one you haven’t met yet,
It startles.
O pain, o pain,
Would you cease to stun?
Would you stop to ambush?
Would you care to forlorn
Our consciousness alone?
Live!
Just live, sometimes.
If not, always.
In death, we find
The meaning of life, engraved.
But it’s in life –
We find the whimsy of the dread,
The precipice of a grandeur,
A cruise of pain,
The path to peace,
If not, joy.
In whispers and sighs,
Within the breeze of the days,
The current raves.
Life, itself, survives.
Why, then, not live?
If not always,
Just sometimes.
I dared to stare at the sun.
I envied to fly across
The rays and the warmth
Of the beams.
I dared to be Icarus.
I pride myself to steal the glimpses
Of the heat and the reeks
Of life, power, and finesse.
Only to settle,
For less.
For blindness.
For loss.
And mere humbleness.
I dared to tempt the gods.
To prowess before their eyes.
To stare them down, perhaps.
My pride reigns, at times.
It overwhelms.
Tempts the odd fates.
Only to crush beneath
The layers of the lights
In ever-growing darkness
To cruise in the abyss.
But, for a moment.
For minutest peaks,
I embrace. I let go.
I held. I loosen.
I fight. I surrender.
I recline. And then, I dare.
Today, I attempted to be Icarius.
I stared into the direct sunlight.
Only to tempt the fate.
And to dare my fright.
Down in the pitfalls of the cavern,
I hear the echoing silence,
Not a hiss of crickets,
Nor a fuss of insects,
But, the silence.
A serene of quietness.
It’s been a while now,
At the bedrock of the hollow.
I, sometimes, think it is a burrow.
Other times, I feel the tides
Of the waves and the breeze.
Maybe I’m 6 feet under
In the dark, cold water.
I’m lodged in the middle of nowhere.
Stuck far from the shores.
Callings, I hear.
Distant roars, I listen.
I sought out myself
To find where I kept me .
But only I hear echoes.
And distant cries –
Of my name,
Who I used to be,
The ‘me’ I murdered,
The inner person I devoured.
And then, it passes.
The agony of superfluous.
The calling settles
To return my serene.
My deafening solace.
It is quiet, now.
When I’m far away.
6 feet under –
In the middle of nowhere.
I am awake. Again.
To roll my boulder.
As high as further.
Only to roll it back down,
To the depth of the cavern.
And sometimes,
I push my boulder,
So far, far away,
It skips a beat in bounce.
Reaching the pit,
In fierce.
And in the middle of the night,
I dig myself out,
From the depths of the pit,
Only to raise myself to the peak,
Up, up on the top.
So, yes. I am awake.
Again.
Raising from the drain.
The exhaustion.
The deep pit.
To raise my boulder higher,
As high as further,
To dig my pit deeper.
A scar is born
Out of an apthy torn.
A numbness, unfolding,
A coldness, unyielding.
In a bold attempt of fighting the cold,
Unwinding the endless knot,
Follows the thread of the cut.
The surge.
The impulse.
Satisfied. And gratified.
The appeased god of numbness,
Engulf the pain of existentence.
Fries the coldness,
Only to enrich with warmth.
Igniting pain, spreading ache
All over the dead.
Indifference is disarmed.
A wound is invited.
For twinging pain is alarmed.
A wave of healing is inflicted.
Leaving one to wonder,
If only healing was painless,
Or granted.
Pain thrives while healing sprouts,
Wounds thicken.
Agony is sown.
And, a scar is born.
Marking the pain.
Declaring the mend.
All is well,
Until numbness swell,
The looping cycle resets.
The wheel of scars –
Is completed.
Within the blazing fire,
Crackling and hissing afar,
Melting and bending window panes in my sight,
Cracking of the walls all around,
Suffocated by a mist of smoke,
I’m sitting in a chair.
Amidst a burning house,
Lively, actively burning house.
Has it not been for the flames,
I would have run.
I suppose.
Has it not been for the smoke,
I would have screamed.
Maybe.
Has it not been for the locked door,
I would have escaped.
Probably.
Has it not been for my smoked ego,
Or wounded hypocrisy,
I would have screamed
Of the top of my lungs.
I think.
If I were not busy falling apart,
I would have stood and walked.
If it wasn’t the blazing fire all year round,
I would have tried to put it out.
Yet,
The panic of living in a burning house,
The exhilaration of fading in the ashes,
The fright of being muffled by the smoke,
The forlorn of asking for help,
Hazed out in the abyss,
Of a burning bliss.
I live in a burning house.
Till the fire absorbs,
I, myself, and my chair.
Unabridged Manuscripts 