it was clear that he didn't have much time left, she realized. the skin at his cheeks was stretched, the soft creases in his face harder now, not pulled in a smile, but in hollowness. he smiled, in spite of it, but she knew that he had decided long ago that he would one day die in a state of flux, in a place where there are no meanings. human beings, he had once said, are fascinated with boundary conditions. roofs, beaches, edges, the deepest, darkest places on this earth are where we find ourselves faced with the simplest questions; we are, ofcourse, obsessed with simplification - our lives are one big experiment in definition. i will die, he said, one day, without it.

she should have known, back then, when he had insisted that she bring him here, despite his illness. he was sitting in the rocking chair, as old as he had once (long ago) predicted he would be, on the other end of a life so full of words, staring out over the green and yellow fields, past the barbed wire fence and a hundred imaginary meridians.
my parents, he said, came from just over that hill.
i know, she said, softly.
i wish i could see the house that dadi used to talk about, late at night.
i know, she said, holding his hands. im so sorry...we can't.
he smiled. i'm just being melodramatic, ofcourse. don't worry, it's alright. they've been fighting for all of our lives, i suppose we've no right to expect them to stop for the sake of an old, dying man.
it will be harvesting season, soon, he said, absently, staring at the hundreds of yellow flowers that had appeared, suddenly, overnight.
she was staring at the horizon, trying to tear the early morning fog apart, to see, if only for a moment, the red-brown house with its steep, narrow staircase which dadi spoke of, so late at night. to see, if only for a moment, a piece of history, to give the tiny part of an old soul that she carried within her a way home.

he coughed a little, and she immediately offered to go get his medicine. he held her hand, first violently but then with more grace, slowly wrapping his fingers in hers as she crouched on the floor, next to his chair.
ji, jaan?
we loved well, you and i. no two souls- ah. melodrama, again. i love you, he said, simply. thank you.
he began to cough again, and she squeezed his hands before she rose to go to the front door. she closed the door, quietly, behind her as she went to find some water.

*
he left a note, ofcourse.
some say that we live our lives in reflection. you are a mother, fighter, sister, daughter, god, lover, Diya. you are incredible, and it is in your eyes that i will (always) be reflected. be well.

this story begins on a roof, with two people, and ends with death (of a sort). it is often the way.

there was the longest silence, the kind of silence where the slightest movement might sound like something beautiful shattering. m was lying on his back, his feet dangling off the edge of the water tank, swaying gently back and forth, like laundry in the cool, summer breeze. he was staring at the stars, as s stood over him, bathed in the orange neon glow of that pulsating city. she took a long drag from her cigarette, and let it fall to the ground, three storeys below, it's still glowing tip arching end over end before it hit the cold, hard concrete. they told each other that they came here to think, but it was only one lie.

'it's 4.30am, on a tuesday. how do we end up here, again and again?' he asked her.
'we've got nowhere else to go,' she said, and sat down next to him, roughly. she dusted her hands over the edge.
'this is no way to live,' he whispered, still staring at infinity, 'you know that.'
'and what would you propose we do, then?' she said, her words edged electric.
'that,' he sighed,'i do not know.'
she leaned backward, so that her palms were spread open on the floor behind her back and her arms were taking her weight. her eyes searched for the edge of the sky, for a pocket of deep darkness.
'perhaps we're only searching for oblivion,' he said, suddenly.
'how do you mean?' she asked, startled at how close his words were to her eyes.
'you realize that we're pushing ourselves further away, each night?'
silence.
'you do. we're constantly pushing - because we don't care about anything. you and i, we're not content until we break something,' he continued. 'i wonder which night it will be that i find this roof empty, again. i doubt i'll be surprised, but who knows? we're capable of anything.'
she turned her head, slowly, the streetlights setting her long, brown hair aflame.
'i don't believe that. i don't want to break you,' she said, her voice softening.
'no, i don't think you do. but you will. or i you,'he said,'i don't think you and i know how to love any other way.'
'is honesty that brutal?'
'we're on fire.'
she nodded, and took his hand in hers, gently rubbing between his fingers. he looked away from the sky, then, and watched s, hair aflame and eyes laced with tears. and they held each other, gently rocking in the breeze, for a time almost as dark as the sky.

'i won't leave,' he whispered in her ear, his voice suddenly stronger than the damp circle that had appeared on her shoulder would suggest.
'it'll kill you,'she sobbed.
'i won't go.'
'then i will,' she said, quietly. and she moved her hands from his back, turned her head and moved back.

and he let her go, until she was standing on the edge of that water tank, ready to let herself down. he brushed the hair from his eyes and looked at two brown irises, quivering, on a body that was glowing slightly at the edges, filled in with darkness.
'why?'
'because this is going to kill you.'
he didn't move. 'you're lying.'
'i-,' her resolve faltered. 'i'm sorry. i-,' she paused,'i don't know what to do.'
'what do you want to do?'
'i want this to stop.'
he smiled. 'what? just when we're getting to the fun bit, where we end up hating each other?'
'don't be flippant,'she said, but she smiled in spite of herself. 'what do we do?'
he leaned back, again, and contemplated the dark, dark sky.
'we live,' he said.
she sat down again, on that edge, and stared at the streets below, that intricate maze of houses, dreams and neon that made her city at night.
'there's a city down there, you know?'
'i know. and yet you and I, lovers, trace the same circles, night after night.'
'then maybe we really do have nothing to lose.' she took his hand, squeezed, and pulled him up. they stood there, regarding that city asleep, hand in hand, breathing in the texture of its dreams, watching its electric claws sparkling in the distance, and wondering if they should step down from that tiny water tank into a big, big world.

*

sometimes, late at night, when there's no-one for miles, i can still make out the dim outline of a shadow touching a shadow's hand.

i sense the scent of your skin,
(insideout), in between syllables
and concrete.
your dark, sweet taste lives in the space
between my teeth,
tongues probing, searching
blindly, constantly.
(i hunt for your soul
in the spaces)

your eyes met mine,
somewhere, long ago,
and we chased each other, furiously,
in endless circles, until your nails were white-hot,
and my skin smoldered, silently.
i wonder,
if, perhaps, life is not simply one
elongated
moment of intensity,
rather than a series of images,
if, perhaps, we are not
god.
(i write to you
in my sleep)

i do not know what it is about you,
that sinks beneath this flesh, bone and soul,
tattooing itself, powerfully, underneath my skin,
only that i, no poet, can not live
but with the scent of your skin
on the tip of my tongue,
always.

[when i was a child]

god is not a white haired and bearded old man. god does not live within the spaces between words, leaves, the wind - god does not listen to us when we are at our worst, breaking down in showers, buses, in classrooms, wide open spaces, it does not live as close to you as your aorta, it does not forgive you, or forsake you.
god, like death, is not.

do you believe in god? he asked.

no, i believe in life.

-

it's all existential, post modern, modernist, enlightened, positivist, apologist, structuralist, linguistic bullshit anyway - deconstructed and reconstructed, in seven different flavours, sold to you the citizen/consumer/human being, built by you the angeldemon, burnt up to a deadly crisp by you, the collection of senses and organs that is called (in this symbolic system of signs and concepts) a human. hu-man. namuh. huwoman? wohuman?

it is so very, very easy to destroy something beautiful. all i know for sure is that i am the only one in this orange neon room, watching the yellow lamplight spill itself all over the carpet. we're all just spilling ourselves out, after all; again, and again, and again. and again.

[of cold floors]

not every man has gentians in his house,
in soft september, at slow, sad michaelmas.

bavarian gentians, big and dark, only dark
darkening the daytime, torch-like, with the smoking blueness of pluto's
gloom,
ribbed and torch-like, with their blaze of darkness spread blue
down flattening into points, flattened under the sweep of white day
torch-flower of the blue-smoking darkness, pluto's dark-blue daze,
black lamps from the halls of Dis, burning dark blue,
giving off darkness, blue darkness, as demeter's pale lamp gives off
light,
lead me then, lead the way.

reach me a gentian, give me a torch!
let me guide myself within the blue, forked torch of this flower
down the darker and darker stairs, where blue is darkened on blueness
even where persephone goes, just now, from the frosted september
to the sightless realm where darkness is awake upon the dark
and persephone herself is but a voice
or a darkness invisible enfolded in the deeper dark
of the arms plutonic, and pierced with the passion of dense gloom,
among the splendor of torches of darkness, shedding darkness
on the lost bride and her groom.

- bavarian gentians -
d.h. lawrence

it was only as the sun was slowly swallowed by the waves, extinguishing itself in the hazy blue-orange horizon, that it dawned on him that he would never again be surrounded by her scent. his fingers turned ashen, wrapped around the railing, white as gravestones, as this realization made its way through his body, traveling up his strong, brown arms and pausing, for a moment, at his chest, where she had marked out a place with her fingertips to denote his heart.
he stood there, for a long time, remembering how those self-same fingers would travel up, and down, her arms, each fingertip lingering, in turn, for just that single moment longer than desire would allow for. he thought of how he had never believed that people of this earth could turn to smoke, be breathed in by one another, twist around each other like the thin tendrils of a quiet fire - as if human beings were, really, only flame and ash. and as he stood there, his body stuck rigid against that railing, he realized that he could not, and would not, leave.

an old man played a sad, soulful tune on his guitar as this young man looked out over the horizon, finally realizing that he had known all along what it was that love smelled like.

some say that it is roses, the wet earth and thunder; but they do not realize that even curiosity has a taste, and some are not quite as feline as others. perhaps all that we were put on this earth to do was to smell our scents, to discover the tastes of our lives.

as i look back on it now, that was the summer that i finally realized that love was not a weapon, and that sorrow could never be a crutch. we all grew up a little, then, even mother, who still stands on the landing, leaning against the railing, saying 'it was better before.' - but its only a whisper now, as if she's still trying to shake the cobwebs of the weight of those years away from her eyes, and she stands there and says, softly, 'it was better before,' as if she might one day, finally, wring all of the truth out of those words.

days turned into months, and as the golden yellow rain fell on the parched earth, forming glassy puddles across the city, the leaves, too, decided to finally let it go; they fell in a soft, muted rain, soundlessly, until what wasn't wet was covered by dry, parched leaves that crunched satisfyingly when you walked through them, despite the weight of the rain. bhai never quite recovered from the summer - he was quiet before, but it was as if the leaves that fell that night took with them his last remaining syllables. nothing was the same again, ofcourse, but i realize that we all, somehow, expected it to be - minus that great negative. we didn't realize that leaves, too, have weight - even dead ones.

my sister left, ofcourse. that was inevitable, but what we didn't expect was that she would leave so completely, as if her presence had only ever been a figment of our imaginations, a childhood entirely imagined, an invisible friend who held our fingers when we were cold and told us, quietly, 'close your eyes and think of home.' i never conjectured as to her reasons - i realized that her departure was reason enough. we would only ever hear from her from a distance, after that. she would never step foot in that house again - and i don't think anyone could blame her. for a while i thought that mother would add another ghost to her cane, but i think she, too, saw through it. bhai took it as he took everything, quietly and solemnly - as if yet another great truth had been confirmed and his suspicions about the leaves had been the truth all along.

and i - i never quite left that summer, i realize. a part of me will live there, always, in the place where things are born. my fascinations with power and skin were, for the first time, satisfied, and i saw no reason to move, even as i saw the soft, muted rain fall and knew that i already had. but the summer of cobwebs was about moving, in the end, and not settling.

*

'i'm going out,' she said.

and i, remembering a soft, muted rain, followed her. because love, i realize, is not a weapon.

- my monster -

- new pictures on flickr -
click here

'why would you do that?' she asked.
'its beautiful. it's a picture, can't you see it? the lights perfect, with the salt and the napkin, the lines between the shaker and the tablecloth,' he said.
'no, but you can't just knock things over because you think it looks better,' she said, pushing her plate to the side and wiping an errant crumb from her dark, creased lips, the simple silver ring she always wore glistening for only a second as it caught the lamplight, like fire and the night.
'why not? simple, little things. a salt shaker overturned, a step missed, a note skipped, a t left uncrossed,' he said. 'would you take even that?' he added, bitterly.
'so what if it's beautiful? you don't understand - beauty won't make your bed, pay the phone bill. and beauty certainly won't take care of you, a. you're so spoilt - you don't even realize how bad it is, how terrible it's been. all you care about is this beauty, a photograph, a paragraph. it's like you folded in on yourself, that day (so many years ago, now), and you've never seen another person again. they're all just actors, props, pieces, and you're always constructing something. but you don't see anymore.'
he was quiet, then. outside the window he saw a black bicycle being wheeled, it's tires flat and its rider staring at the ground. he followed the man's progress across the street, pausing every few seconds to look up and see where the cars were, but never changing his pace or his step. a held his breath until he had finally, magically, reached the other side.
'i think that underneath the surface of every action, every moment, there is something incredible. and i think that if we ever want to live our lives as anything approaching extraordinary, we have to..have to look for that seam in reality, every moment, every day. and sometimes it's tiring and exhilirating all at the same time, and at others it is simply draining, to look for that colour.
'take that woman, there. you're right, am. i can't even see her. it's like she's blended into that ever so intricate woodwork behind her, and i'm trying so hard to see the colour in her eyes but i just can't. is it judgemental to look at someone and say that you think they're unhappy? because i think you're unhappy. incredibly, tragically unhappy on a level which twists your skin inside out, and won't let you escape. and i'm so sorry, i don't know what else i can do or say, because maybe i am selfish, but i will not twist and turn in on myself in order to get you to smile. because..and understand, it is not a smile i am after. not for myself, and not for you.
'i think that life is an incredibly complicated process that incredibly simple people excel at. i think that if people stopped for a moment and breathed, they wouldn't necessarily be happier, but they could sleep. and i think that we are all someone, and so often we forget that. you forgot it, am. i promise you, i remember you as being so colourful, so incredibly vibrant. but since then, it's like you forgot how to paint, the same way i forgot how to speak. and i'm sorry for that, i am. but not half as sorry as i am to see you, today, like this. the truth is, i will not make you happy, am. i'm sorry, i won't do it. and not because i can't, but because i refuse to paint on you, as if you're just raw, white pulp.
'you said that beauty won't take care of me, but i think you're wrong,' he said, as he held her hands, like a child's, within his own. 'i think you're beautiful. and i want you to believe that, because there is nothing i can do or say that will ever approach the beauty of people. it's not about a word, a phrase - it is not about what hands do or lips say, it is what people feel, inside them, underneath skin and flesh. and i feel like i've never spoken to your soul, but i'm doing it today. i'm sorry...maybe i'm not what you need me to be, but i will never let you be anything less than everything you are.'
she started to cry, but stopped herself, because it was if he was suddenly a stranger. someone who had come into her house dressed as someone familiar, who had broken all the chairs and glasses, the tables and doorways. and she didn't want him to see her cry, because she realized that she didn't want him. she wanted someone else, and the man in front of her would never be less than a stranger again, on some level, because he never spoke, before this day. he never even introduced himself.
she took her hands from his, and began to get up.

the hotel ruthe used to be a dormitory for a jewish school in vienna in the early 20th century. i could see why, the rooms were depressing as all hell. the beds were all bunked and pushed together against the far wall, next to the single tiny window that let in almost no light. through the window you could see the back alley where the hotel's front entrance was. some hotels like to have a fancy lobby and uniforms, but the hotel ruthe wasn't like that at all. it was cheap, and it was exactly the sort of place my father always booked for us.
we were on 'a family vacation', which made no sense to me. we never did anything together when we were at home, why should putting us in some old city where a bunch of people ruled a bunch of other people from make any difference? apparently we were supposed to bond over seeing new things together, but we never wanted to do the same things. my mother wanted to go to every single museum she could find, my father was only interested in old buildings and my sister just wanted to shop. all i wanted to do was sit somewhere quiet, but that never happened
either.
that keeps happening, somehow, with my family. everyone wants to do something else, and no-one ever gets to do what they want, because we're always 'compromising'. that's a really strange word - its supposed to mean that everyone gets to do a little of what they want and a little of what other people want, but i've learnt that it just means that no-one gets to leave the hotel.
so anyway, we're in vienna and we're arguing (as usual) as to where we want to go today. my mother says we should go to some cruddy museum about the hapsburgs, my dad just wants to spend all day at some cathedral. my sister was sitting, poised at the edge of the conversation, waiting to ask where the nearest mall was. i wandered off from the lobby into the breakfast area. there was this really old guy there, he must have been atleast seventy years old...i mean really, really old. he had white hair and brown spots on his face, near his eyes. he was wearing an old grey coat. i always remember that coat, for some reason. anyway - he called me over and gave me a big toothy smile.
'so how old are you, young man?'
i hate that. i hate it when people start off a conversation with asking how old i am. i'm goddamn fifteen, does it matter? he doesn't really care...he just wants to talk to someone. stuff like that really gets to me, when people start off a conversation with something stupid and mundane that they don't really want to talk about. i mean, if he'd asked me what i dreamt about at night, maybe i would've been interested, but he just asked me my goddamn age. guess..i guessed yours. anyway. my point is that its not important.
'fifteen. how was your life?' i asked him.
he looked at me sort of funny, like he was taken aback. i get that alot. 'that's a very strange question,'he said, and turned to finish his toast.
'only as strange as asking a random kid his age,' i said. and i walked away. just like that. i do that, alot, i realize.

anyway, i don't even know why i'm talking about vienna. that was years ago. we're sitting at the kitchen table - my mother and father are fighting (again). i drift off like that, whenever they start off. usually i'll let myself go into some memory or other. it doesn't even have to be particularly happy, or really good. i just like to go somewhere else, you know? the funny thing is that wherever i go, they're always fighting. i mean..it's true. nothing changes. most of the time i just think about leaving whenever their voices start getting louder, and then suddenly im in this other place, some memory or other. yesterday i started reliving this time my mom bought me a cricket bat, when i was a kid. it wasn't what i wanted at all - she just picked up the first bat she saw, without even thinking about it. i mean..fine..so she got me something, but she could have atleast goddamned thought about it.
don't get me wrong, i love my parents. they're always there, and i know they really care about me and stuff. i just wish sometimes they'd think more. i wish everyone would think more. sometimes i think they know me about as well as that guy in the grey coat, you know? they just want to know that i've got food and water and all that stuff. i can't remember the last time i sat down and talked to my parents about anything. they're always fighting, for one, so you can't really sit down with them..you've got to do it separately, when one of them is gone. and i don't know..i don't want to make that effort. i just kinda wish they would sometimes. i mean, they're parents.
you see? i did it again. they've stopped fighting now, and everyone at the table is looking at me funny. that's usually how i know a fight's over, when everyone looks at me drifting off and starts yelling my name. i'm not crazy, even though i did go to a psychologist once. she said that i just had a particular kind of coping mechanism, and told my parents to try and get me more involved with other kids. that didn't really work, though, because other kids and i don't really get along. i mean don't get me wrong, i've got friends and stuff, but i don't really talk to people that much. turns out most of them don't have that much to say, and sooner or later i get tired of asking them stupid questions like 'how old are you, young man?', and then they start looking at me funny, too.
anyway. i'm going to go up to my room and stare at the stars for a while. i've got a telescope (they bought it for me last year, for my birthday) and everything, and i really like staring at random galaxies. i don't know why, it makes me feel ok. even if people are looking at me funny, i feel ok when i look at the stars. i guess its got something to do with how big they are and how small we are, or something. i just get this really connected feeling, you know? like i can feel every single particle of dust in the room, and see how it connects to the air, to the sky, to the clouds, to the trees, leaves, earth, house, bed and me. that usually makes me feel really good, and then i can sleep.
i can't ever get to sleep, normally. it takes a really long time, because i'm always staring at things. and i don't like closing my eyes. it's not like i'm afraid of the dark or anything, i just don't like closing my eyes. i mean, if i'm awake, then i want to have my eyes open. so i end up staring at the ceiling of my room alot, at night. it usually takes a few minutes for my eyes to adjust to the light, but after awhile i can start tracing the cracks in the ceiling. i like doing that - making patterns and connecting the cracks. this one time i remember doing that, and then the next thing i remembered was being outside in the lawn, and my dad was shaking me. he kept asking me if i was alright. i didn't know what was going on..i asked them how i got there, and they said they didn't know. i must've sleepwalked from my room.
i guess freud was right about the subconscious, then. i always liked being outside better than being inside. that time in vienna, i actually went back to the lobby where my parents were arguing just in time to hear my sister's interjection about the mall. i just suddenly didn't want to be there anymore, so i left. i went straight out the front door of the hotel into the street, and just started walking. to nowhere in particular, just walking around. i like doing that, looking at people and places as i walk around. i didn't really speak german, but i could make out what some of the signs said, and so i found my way to the subway. i just took the first train that was coming. the system in vienna's really different from anywhere else - they don't really check you for a ticket or anything, it's all sort of on an honour system. i just got a train, just like that, and headed off. there was this older guy sitting next to me, must've been forty or fifty. he had a paper bag in his hands, and kept taking swigs from it. he smelt of alcohol, so i just kind of got off at the next stop. then i took the escalator back up to the street, and starting walking back in the direction the train came from. i walked for a while, and then i saw all these buildings that looked sort of familiar, and then i realized that i was back near the hotel ruthe. so i went in, and my mom and dad and sister were all sitting at the lobby, looking dead worried. they hugged me and kissed me and then they started yelling at me, asking me where i had gone, why i hadn't asked them, how i could be so irresponsible, all that. but they were crying, too, because they were glad to see me, i guess. i didn't really respond or anything, i was still trying to figure out where it was we were going, that morning.

[for you]

we forgot to leave
breadcrumbs,
i can't trace
your start, your end
(you are
a non-issue)

[driving back from
the beach, your hand
in mine
in yours.]

do you want to go
a little
crazy, tonight?
ill lose my mind,
and move,
like you've never seen before.

all this,
and i only ever mean to say
the one thing.
between my letters is a place
you know how to get to.
is it lonely where you are?

i'll take
this dance, if you
will.

-february 12th, 2006

when i was a child, with little hands and big fingers, i believed in god. life, however, made no sense. money plants, for example, did not have paper leaves. rocks fell at the same speed, but petals never fell the same way twice.
as i grew older, i started hearing god in the rain. it was very soft, at first. like white noise and grey skies meeting, you had to strain to hear her, push your ear right up to the glass, let your breath form patches of condensation before your eyes that came and went, rhthymically, with each breath you took and gave back. not everyone has the luxury of being soaked, allowing him to wash over you.
like most whispers, god (contrary to popular belief) is very easy to block out. you simply have to ignore her. he doesn't go away, she only breathes. between this drop and the next one. and the next, and the next, and the next, until your skin is covered with it, until it forms streams on your bare back, finding its way through rivers down your arms and off your fingers, jumping off to join the next drop. and the next, and the next.

you can drown out whispers, with drops. but next time it rains, listen for the silences.

wrappedupandtwisted. like tongues and lips, like hearts and skin. follow the silences.

self-portrait 2

- new pictures on flickr -

i dare you to look out of your window and see something beautiful. they promised you the rain, the power (in your small hands) to change the world, if you just watch and wait, and take over when you hear your beat (getting faster). but that never happened, did it? they never did whisper the last bit into your ear, about how whenever a generation makes a promise, whenever a collective gets together to tell a someone a truth, it's inevitably a lie - because there is no collective truth, justice..no morals and no soul to sink into. there is only the you and i. and when you kill someone, there is no judge and jury, no god in heaven and no devil in hell - there is just you and a corpse.
because whenever you see a them, they're never actually looking at you - they're looking at each other, because someone is bound to be somebody. but there're so many thems, so few somebody's, in a world where we don't rise, listen, see, hear, speak, taste, feel.
do you think love is just an emotion in your mind? do you think that joy doesn't have a taste, that hatred doesn't smell of something? if for one moment in your life you can say that your skin didn't define your boundaries, that you were able to fly, would that be enough? no - it is not enough to just live. because life is significant, every action is a war, and everything has a side. it is not enough to simply go - you've got to take it all..you've got to fly, every moment. you've got to sink, let the mud ooze between your toes, let it choke you, let it fill your nostrils, let the stench of it drive you mad - because that's as significant as the wind, as the sea, as the birds, mountains, oceans and the sky.

i dare you. to look out your window and taste something beautiful.