Across

Across these miles I wish you well,
May nothing haunt your heart but sleep.
May you not sense what I dont tell,
May you not dream, or doubt, or weep.

May what my pen this peaceless day
writes on this page not reach your soul
Till its deferred print lets you say,
It speaks to someone else than you.

-Vikram Seth

I could use this as a dedication for almost anything I write, so figured I'd put it in here :)
The words of my favorite poet, describing almost everything I write (and I like to imagine he'd say the same of his own work :) )

Blind

Arms outstretched we stand,
Fingertips spanning unity to infinity,
We move all there is.
Yet we stand, afraid to look
beyond our feet and our selves-
Why are we so scared?
Blindness brings fearlessness.

Old lessons, renewed

We walk down the roads of life with old friends and enemies, always hand in hand with both. Demons to be conquered are not distant windmills looming terror, a la Don Quixote- the worst demons are the small shadows that cling to our feet- weightless little things that we'd never observe, yet strong enough to pull us down. Strip them off and loose their grip, then we look up to find that the windmills were only their reflections in the pools of our fear.

This song I brought home today-
Did you like it?
It walked a long way
through heat and dust,
Watered by saltwater tears and little else,
Fed only dreams, and thoughts and whispered prayer-
A stranger to rest and quiet it is.
This song I brought home today-
Did you like it?



Let it rest a little here,
it will soon move on-
To greener pastures and fuller thoughts
Soon, it will go.

Invisible

In your rejection of me, I am once again the child that wasn’t wanted in the game. The odd one out- a little slower to race, a little more observant, a little easier to hurt; Maybe I was naïve in believing, like a child, that love solves all these issues. Will eight year old feelings never be assuaged by twenty-five’s accomplishments? Does love mean I will never feel unloved again?

Un-anchored by the ties of love, my spirit floats weightless, a little harder to touch, to understand. I am the wind, leaves dance night-time whirls within me. I linger over a lover’s soul, weighing it down with all my childhood grief. I see her pause and wonder over the sudden rush of tears my favorite poet inspired, but, unasked, I offer no explanation. Love might demand why I cry over these words, but tonight there are no questions, no reasons for my being. And so I am not, and I walk invisible through all my days and all my nights. Invisible, intangible, transparent- Soft, subtle, quiet, yet strong and bold, is what you call me. Always and mostly alone is what I call myself.

Second sight, first :)

I don't believe in love at first sight. To tell the truth, I don't believe in love at all. The world is a logical, reasonable place, and love is just a rush of hormones. True love, as science has proved, lasts only eighteen months.
If the first sight comes from the heart, the second must come from the brain, must it not? And how much happier we might all be, if we realised that and just waited for second sight to come first.

Poets believe that the heart has its reasons, that reason knows nothing of.. A contradiction in words and in belief. I choose to deny the reasons of the heart. Except once.

Late one night, you asked me a question, and I said, "Yes". And true to intellect, I have questioned it a million times hence. Was it necessary? Were we not happier apart? Did we have to dance this stage together- through regret and anger, cutting our feet and bleeding over the shards of unrealistic expectations, slipping on tear-stained patches- Sometimes graceful, others clumsy. Standing still, leaping weightless through the air.. the whole rigmarole of the dance. For what?

What reasons did my heart have, to make me choose this life? As love stands questioned, what defends it?
A snowflake. Well, a few of them, really. Falling on a bright winter evening, as we walk in a garden by a sorcerer's felled tree (Even his strong magic could not hold against the October storm, and now his birds are wintered in other places.)
It has been a long, hard day- Only one person believes in my work, the others have all trashed it. Not caring to read it through, it is easier for them to invoke terms like "not enough effort" and "vague", and ask me to re-write until they can understand it without reading a word. In the face of their critique, I am a child once more, questioning my abilities, exhausted with the effort of justification.
And then we go for a walk in the park. You speak of the tree, and the ducks, and the snow. We throw snowballs, I fall in the snow and you help me up. Walk across fallen tree trunks, make snow angels. Find a quaint coffee shop, and you sit and wait until I am ready to tell you my worries. Buy me chocolate cake, and hot chocolate, and we sit on an overstuffed couch and dissect the mural on the wall.
And somewhere in the evening, the world spirals back into normality.

I was told once that the love of a good man can save your life. A gentle spirit to lift my own, a strong heart to lean back on, peace to come home to... What more reason is needed, to justify each step of that painful dance?

Sometimes, second sight and first come together, and the only word in response to their question is- "Yes."

???

Huh ? I just jumped on the bandwagon and got this thing... someone hand me an instruction manual please.