a doubtful interrogation of an uncertain problem

how
did your life
change

why
are you
now

where
i was
then

who
haunts you
today

what
do you
think of

when
she looks
at you

Between the lines

When it started, it was not a beginning. It was picking up the pieces that someone else had left behind. It was a start but not a beginning. It is very important that you understand that properly, that is why I am starting by telling you this.

There it was, a trail left behind from before. The pieces in no particular order. They were not even pieces, they were crumbs. There was no way of putting them back together. Then why did I bother to trace them and collect them? What would I do with them?

I didn’t know.

And because I didn’t know, something told me that I should pick them up and keep them away. For the future. To read something into the past. To make everything come together. To take this shattered start into a beginning. A beginning that was about to begin but could not because it was not meant to be. Not today. Not now.

In the middle of this celestial complication of starting and beginning, was what I was looking for. Neatly placed between the crumbs.

It was a space.

But as the crumbs were cleared away the space was no longer the space that was the beginning. And within that space lay the answer. It was all in the shape. The shape that defined the shape of things to come. And that was lost forever. All because something told me that I should pick up the crumbs and keep them away. For the future. To read something into the past. But it was all there.

And now it was not. It was gone. And that was the end of another beginning.

Further than away from the past

I travel through your soul
I unravel mysteries that don’t yet exist
I contradict the very purpose I was born for
I move without moving
I see more than my eyes can feel
I become what I am not meant to



For I swim into your soul
When you look at me
Even that one fleeting moment
Is enough to tear you apart
Into a million pieces
So that I can go beyond



Note: This is a collaborative piece with another artist. The words are mine, but the picture is not. Need your help to know how well they work together and what this conveys to you (emotions, feelings, thoughts, etc.) when put together.

Frozen facade

What do you see in me? Why do you stare so longingly at this frozen moment?

I am resting. I have traveled many miles to reach this instant. This ordinary moment. Which no one has noticed but you. But I do not think you see it for what it is. For what lies beneath. For what flows beneath. You do not see me because I am just a blur in the background. I am the background. You see me only in the circumstance that I have trapped myself into.

There is a crack where I am held together. Even you have not noticed it. Just a small, tiny, little crack on the surface. It is tearing at the seam, threatening to burst the vein of my salvation open. And mark the end of this endless solitude.

But it won’t. It is held together by the anguish of my forlorn individuality. Which no one sees, but me.

No, not even you.

Among the ruins

At the edge of the broken kingdom stands a new king. He surveys the ruins all alone. Ready to begin his new battle. His new crusade. His discovery.

Behind him, the sun rises in all its magnificence. He is silhouetted against the blood red sky, his figure imposing on the kingdom that lies ahead of him. The light falls gently on the broken kingdom, bursting through every broken doorway.

From behind the rubble the child watches him plot her uncharted future. She does not know it yet. Nor does he. For now she looks at him, while he sees the future.

The ruins are not the same anymore. The kingdom is coming to life. The king has returned.

Immaculate

One small, fleeting moment later, and she was gone. Gone the same way she came. From the mist. Into the fog. Away from here.

But she had never made any promises to stay forever. She had never given any more than she had taken. But did she know that she had taken so much. So much more than those before her. And possibly so much more than those who were to come.

She had shown me places. Places I had seen before and places I had not. Places I had seen before, I had not seen the way she showed them to me. Places I had not were now my seven sins.

And the twelve nights that she took me through were pure enchantment. I cannot recall or relive every moment, because the experience was more than the physicality of it. Then it struck me. That in times like this, you need to smile when you look back.

And so I did.

Once again, for the last time

Another moment
Another time
His boundary
Is just a line

Another meeting
Another glance
She said
It was romance

Another instant
Another journey
They set off
On a new discovery

The thread in this yarn

Sometimes, change comforts you and is deliberate.

But this time, the change that came about in her life was not deliberate. It was fortuitous. Fortuitous that she had to move on; that she felt that she needed to move on.

But it was so good. It was meant to be forever.

The strangeness of the word ‘forever’ struck her as she penned down her thoughts. Was it a possibility? Was anything ‘forever’? The moments played back in her mind again and again; since the day the magic started. But each time it played, the reel changed ever so slightly. The story took that small little by lane and twisted itself through a new path. Each time, it landed up at the same place but the route it took changed over time.

And time was all that was left between them.

The past was altered in every memory and every moment. Nothing lasted ‘forever’. Because every time you turned on the memories, they were altered. There was another new version, another chain. And this time, when it all came together to the same point, she wondered whether it would have been any different if things were changed. If people were different. If she were not around, and the story unfolded on its own in someone else’s life. If there were another.

Probably.

But this was the story that had taken place. Or at least the version which existed today. The blasphemy of questioning it. How could he? Why did he? Distrust was the basest of emotions that could destroy this story. Or this version of it.

That is why it changed. Even if it was not deliberate.

Deafening tranquility

Hush.

Do not speak to me in this lone moment of observation of deafening tranquility. It has been a long journey for me to reach this point. This point that will come and go, and not be noticed by anyone but me.

For this is the moment when everything is still. For an instant. And in this instant the decision that changes the world is taken. Because it could have gone another way. On another path. A path that we can only think and speculate about but will never get to see. What is done is done.



I am right here. Like I have been. Observing this din merge into harmony. Of everything seeming that it was supposed to be exactly this way. When it was not. It was not.

In another world, in another parallel universe this moment went the other way. On another path. On the path that we can only think and speculate about and will never get to see. But I can see it now. I can notice this point in time, which no one else can.

I can be in two places at the same time. It is in this moment of stillness that I travel from one universe to the other, to observe the paths fork and diverge into different directions. Into different lands. Into different worlds. I can see both of them at the same time, but only to a point. After which, I must choose. I must choose whether I am going to get carried away by seeing what could have been or float back to what is.

Hush. Let me decide.

Being with her

She whispers to me
Ever so softly
Her tinkling
Adding music
To the wind



She sways towards me
Ever so boldly
Her chimes
A rhapsody
To the night



She flutters away from me
Ever so playfully
Her pealing
Adding festivity
To the moment



She rises over me
Ever so quietly
Her silence
A testament
To her exquisiteness