Of collapsing fairs and closed Ferris wheels,
Of cotton candy and wet sand,
Of blind shadows and white-hot spotlights,
Of warring confessions, of neon streaks,
Of muddy horizons and violent skies,
Of translucent tendrils and childlike wonder,
Of aimless walks and meaningful glances,
Of rearview mirrors and cold, orange streets,
Of unfinished sentences...
Of twin thoughts...
Of me...
Of you.

Our lips met like waves that crest and merge the whirl of storming seas. I felt that I was falling: free and falling at last from the love that had opened, lotus-layered, within me. And together we did fall the length of her black hair to the still-warm sand in the hollow of the sunken boat.

When our lips parted, stars rushed through that kiss into her sea-green eyes. An age of longing passed from those eyes into mine. An age of passion passed from my grey eyes into hers. All the hunger, all the fleshed and hope-starved craving, streamed from eye to eye: the moment we met; the laughing wit of Leopold's; the Standing Babas; the Village in the Sky; the cholera; the swarm of rats; the secrets that she'd whispered near exhausted sleep; the singing boat on the flood beneath the Gateway; the storm when we made love the first time; the joy and loneliness in Goa; and our love reflecting shadows into glass, on the last night before the war.

And there were no more words.

And so, I finally write about you.

No, that would be wrong. I have written about you before. But, can you find yourself in the mire of "you's" dredged in these dusty archives of my life?

I wonder whether you know who you are and who you've been and what you've been. I do not know whether you know who I am.

I have subjected you to the vagaries of my temperament. I have confused you, addled you and smothered you. I have done you no wrongs, yet done you no rights.

You are like the knife with which I explore my life. I am like the white fog that descends quick and unbeknownst, clogs every street, every house, every pore and every dream and breaks with the first ray of the sun.

Ours is a war that smoulders like red embers covered by grey, ashen coal.
Will a small blow of air dissolve you into a hundred swirling particles? Or will you have turned into a statue of ash, remnant of warm winters and cold fires?

I create mazes with unfurling tendrils that snatch at you and rip away pieces of your soul. You dive blindly into the stormy sea of my mind.

You swallow everything.
In me, everything sinks.

Will this war end?
Will the fire burn its course and blaze again?
Will you find your way out of my mind?

I remember you as you were in the last autumn.
You were the grey beret and the still heart.
In your eyes the flames of the twilight fought on.
And the leaves fell in the water of your soul.

Clasping my arms like a climbing plant
the leaves garnered your voice, that was slow and at peace.
Bonfire of awe in which my thirst was burning.
Sweet blue hyacinth twisted over my soul.

I feel your eyes traveling, and the autumn is far off:
Grey beret, voice of a bird, heart like a house
Towards which my deep longings migrated
And my kisses fell, happy as embers.

Sky from a ship. Field from the hills:
Your memory is made of light, of smoke, of a still pond!
Beyond your eyes, farther on, the evenings were blazing.
Dry autumn leaves revolved in your soul.

Miscellaneous Musings at a Traffic Signal

So, I sit to write again. I don't quite know what to write and there is a lot of work that is pending, not to mention a lot of emotional turmoil. But, I sit to write, nonetheless.

I force myself to remember thoughts so fleeting that I could mistake them for ambient noises entering my mind. Noises that could be gotten rid of by a few shakes of the head.

Anyway, the thoughts were as follows:


The city is such a marvellous bundle of contradictions. There are so many disparities, such unevenness that I am forced to marvel at the manner in which the city-dwellers have managed to hold it all together. A vibrant painting hangs in a dull gallery, echoing with solitude. An empty chair faces the painting at an angle, spending endless minutes, hours contemplating the vulgar reds and oranges—the painting's sole appreciator and critic.

Light glints and gleams off muscle cars. Blindingly fast, I've been transferred the desire to own those monsters that cost a small fortune, to whizz down cavernous tunnels and hairpin bends and to leave the rest of the world eating my dust. I do not like muscle cars.

A bored executive regards the traffic warily and puts on an affected air in his personal eight-figure monster. His equally bored driver fingers the steering wheel restlessly, raring to go. The engine revs menacingly.

Through dark tinted glass, the face of a twenty-something girl is illuminated by her cellphone. A few gifts lie helter-skelter next to her. She seems engrossed, happy and is in a shiny new cab. The driver hawks and spits.

Another girl looks up from windowframe of a cab that smells like old shoes, burning paper and nostalgia. Her head is twisted back at a strange angle and her eyes are fixed on the sky—a sky that is drowned out by gleaming vehicles, glittering dreams and glaring street lights. Two stars twinkle in short rasps, doggedly trying to match up to an old nursery rhyme. There is an intense longing on her face, almost as if she wanted to put out all the lights and spend an eternity looking at the violet sky. The cab sputters and groans.

In this love you are like a knife, with which I explore myself.