three hours.

'What's the time now?'
'Yes, I am sorry..'
'Yes. Do you know, for how long I've been here?'

While alice wanted to talk more on her waiting, a question, what could've happened in the last three hours, anyway?, passed her mind.  Time, sometimes stalked her like a loud voice from behind, sometimes left her alone, too alone, that she could not guess if it was three hours, three days or three weeks -

They walked the street down a hill to a city, holding hands; passed an empty afternoon restaurant, sharp sirens of fire brigades, a church that never was open. People walked by, talking in loud voices. And then there was nothing, time had ceased to exist. But wasn't that a cliche’, a long forgotten and a despised one - time always exists, alice reminded herself - she was twenty seven years, six months, three weeks and three days old and tomorrow she was one day older.

Alice had waited for him by the street in front of a door to the empty afternoon restaurant. And there was snow falling on to her face, with the winds, for the first time in her life, so unlike her country in the tropics - it drained the sky, so unromantic so cold.

She stood there under an unlit marquee, shivering from first times which always were longer and heavier than the other times;
like kissing an ice cream dripping pair of lips
a pair of hands holding her breasts
nipples erect for the first conscious times
a slight beating pulse on a right hand - while she asked;
Is it really possible 
to be silent, could you not
hear your own heart beat
in every noiselessness -
so could it 
really be called silence
ever?

That word ever, sent a nerve unwinding across her body, when she first said it to him and when she remembered it now again in an afternoon of pale-white shiver,
why did we use such words so much,
words that no longer decompose.

And then he came, they held hands and walked down as she waited again, for
another three hours three days three weeks, may be there was another one
of the first times -  as they walked past the ever closed church, the ever loud people, noises.

She looked down the hill to an evening sky,
there was no more snow falling -
saw large clouds - of thoughts
of all those who went by and were ever there
spread across a city skyline;
endless lists
of me and mine
of the very first times
of kisses
of one's own cliche's,
they floated above and flowed with the winds,
slowly decomposed-
as did time.

that woman and this music

There was this music,
she was sure.
There were silences
in between
and then
there was music.

The woman
of this room
saw the day's
dramatic slowness
merging
melting into
long yellow street night
outside her window.
She stood
by a burning bud of cigarette
a cold cup of coffee
saw clouds
passing by.

It was raining outside,
and then, the music.

Things Like Pure Pleasure.

When you can't think of it
in terms of words;
images such as these,
dark nights of thick green forests
or deep blues of undersides of the ocean -
you will have to refer to,
in order to explain
what you have in mind.

You could also
use phrases such as
rats running
on my rooftop
or a rainy evening sky.

Thats what I was saying,
about what happens
when you wish to talk about
things like
pure pleasure.

Tell me,  what would you say
when my fingers run through
your skin -
when each hair throbs, shivers
becomes inexistent
on the exact moment
the touch moves on
just to shift
the throbs and shivers?

You might never
completely tell it,
neither with words,
nor with phrases.

mornings

in and out of this room
i gather a thousand sounds
ghosts of my past
flutter
out and about
its wide open window panes

this room
floods with stories
images i've been pretending
to forget,
all the wrongs
painfully accounted for.

my head crowds
with fear,
some plots of conspiracy
and other instances, wounds.

and then
you wake up
i look at you
i try to see,
would you still love me,
the me i've never completely
let go of.

you don't understand but yawn
i look around,
find everyone gone.

i try to smile.

one fine morning,

after years of debates
and discussions on freedom,
they've decided to be totally free,
ajayan and remya.

they've decided that
for everything in their house,
for the broom and the tea spoon.

remya struggles
with her days and nights
she's not used to
that kind of a notion
when she can do anything
she thinks and thinks,
what should be done, really.

ajayan roams around
room to the other room
whole nights and days
doing everything
he had ever wanted to.

none of them had encountered
freedom that directly.
now,it may take years again,
on how to leave oneself alone
- and another fine morning.

Paranoia

she talks and talks to
herself
and finds
echoes and counter echoes
as answers.

at 7 in the morning
she decides to stop this.
at the afternoon 2,
some strange thought string
holds her subtly.

at 5 pm,
she decides
to let it go, again.
but at 7,
an infinite loop
of what-could-have-beens
afloat in aAnxiety cloud above her head
as she walks
looking for
potatoes and cooking oil
on the streets.

Of Determinability

it was just when
a car dashed past alice
she stepped backwards
from the street to pavement
and thought
isn't it so weird
one has to bear with oneself
the whole life?

a frog's carcass
she stepped on
and saw how successful
the wheels of vehicles can be
in battering things
down to an exact impression
how lucky the frog was
to look like itself
pressed to a suface of tar.

she reached home
and it was just then
a cockroach inside the cupboard
leaped towards her
and she thought
isn't it so weird
one has to bear with
a lot of strange people
the whole life?

The Mirror

This afternoon,
I am prepared for a
complete show down,
I tell myself.

I've known Seena for years.
There are many things
she wished she did.
There are many adventures
and misses
that circle her room
in the night time.

Like, last night
she was taking some steps down
somewhere in the middle of a garden.
But then, when she looked up
she saw fishes over her head
a huge aquarium for a sky.
No, not like
underneath the sea with a blue backdrop -
everything was green,
even water.

She lied a lot,
I remember.
Sometimes it was just how
she thought it was.
And some other times,
she was scared.
(If I told him
it wasn't really interesting
being me
would he still stay?)
The stories she narrated
were almost believable.
When someone asked her why
she never had answers.

Today
I am her psycho-analyst.
I know she would talk about
the dream of fishes
and a green aquarium above her head -
I will look into her eyes and say
That's okay, my dear, don't worry about it,
It's curable.

The rear side of a poem

She,
trying many
skirts on
to match the yellow one
he wrote about.

He,
sleeping enough
to write
i slept too long.

City streets, rivers,
lizards on the ceiling,
all on their final touch up
inside the green room.

An Old Acquaintance

Someone
a ten thousand years old
mute
and scared
woke me up last night.
It was between a disturbed evening
and a cold morning,
I was trying to sleep.

She was my master for the longest time,
she got calm when
I fed her what she asked for.

There were times
I was almost dead
or wounded and needed an escape.
Right then she wiggled her chains around
made noises
said No with the corner of her eyes,
Are you sure
you can?
Wouldn't it be scary out there, alone?
She made me late,
she made me miss my trains.

She waited for me
at every step in and out
of my room,
No, you are too alone
my dear
don't go, try
find someone to help you
try listening to them,
they love you.
You don't get love, hope
gods or civilisations, easily.

It took me so much time
to learn
I was tied to her.
Tired and scared of being lonelier,
each and every loop
of those knots
I thought I untangled
with patience.

But last night,
she came back to me

between a disturbed evening
and a cold morning;

the slave inside me
a ten thousand years old
mute
and scared.