Thursday 19 February 2015

Goodbye Blogger

Hey!
So I have shifted my writing to a new blog just for a change since Blogger was starting to get really monotonous. This will still exist but everything new I write would go up on WordPress.


Do check it out :)

www.thesilentcacophony.wordpress.com 

Goodbye!

Sunday 4 January 2015

Goodbye


I taste cookies and cream,
My favourite mint chocolate chip
As my mouth lingers, comfortably,
On the surface of your lip.
Recklessly, I let my thoughts
Wander into the neighbourhood
Where the u-turns and driveways
Have been kept shut for good.
My mind isn’t in frenzy
It’s not in some lusty zone
It’s consumed with your existence
Even as you whisper into the phone.
I feel like I am thinking
And I think you feel it too
That undoubted madness
Forevermore it feels new.
Keeping my thoughts aside
I can still feel us shiver
When up against our warmth
We look for linings silver.
I want to tell you this meeting
Opened up the box seal
That looked lifeless till you came
Along, opening for me to feel.
I wouldn’t call them wounds
Rather valleys of beauty
The ones that make me lose
My way, because it’s too steep.
Your mouth is more than cookies,
It’s more than just the mint,
We‘re the lasting species of a love
Trying not to be extinct.





Sunday 28 December 2014

Forgiveness

He was tired of staring up at the sky and looking for a purpose. The romanticizing glares of the twinkling, wish-granting stars seemed to be mocking him.
Why do I feel like I did something wrong?
Why won’t she speak?
Speak up woman!
But she seemed to have stopped hearing him a long time ago.
 
First, she looked at her feet, then she looked at his face but her eyes looked lost. They, he knew, were travelling in another galaxy. Her mind was in transit, always swinging back and forth between anxiety and indulgence, future and present, death.. and death.

Her eyes began to look misty before he realised it was his eyes screaming for comfort, not hers.
Her hands reached her face, carefully stroking the strands of hair that had been covering her eyes for the past eternal minute.
Dressed for a perfectly cold winter evening in Delhi, she had her jacket zipped up like always. But today, she seemed cold.
His mind was slowly running out of possible reasons. Before his coherence could tread further, her squeak took over his presence-

“Can you please forgive me?”

He didn't choke.
He didn't want to die.
He didn't feel the dying need to beg or even answer.
His heart didn't break into a gazillion pieces like they did in the romance novels.

He breathed like an old man who had just been informed about a disease he had long anticipated; slowly he turned around and walked away.

No.
But I can keep quiet for the rest of my life and that’s pretty much the same thing.

Ten heavy steps later, he could still feel her icy warmth.




Friday 5 December 2014

Closed Doors

I was told, and told often,

“Oh Dear you’ll have to walk,

Alone.” I shivered, gulped, stumbled,

And thought, “I’ll wave galaxies with

A swing of my hand, and whisper my will.

But how am I supposed to be happy

When I’m alone, atop my magnificent hill?”

My palm in their hands, they said,

“Remember to keep your stars

Quite close.” I let go, the lies, they told

For sometimes your stars are the ones

Keeping your doors closed.


For My Daughter

Something lovely I found online that I'd like to repost here!

FOR MY DAUGHTER

By Sarah McMane
“Never grow a wishbone, daughter, where your backbone ought to be.” – Clementine Paddleford
Never play the princess when you can
be the queen:
rule the kingdom, swing a scepter,
wear a crown of gold.
Don’t dance in glass slippers,
crystal carving up your toes --
be a barefoot Amazon instead,
for those shoes will surely shatter on your feet.
Never wear only pink
when you can strut in crimson red,
sweat in heather grey, and
shimmer in sky blue,
claim the golden sun upon your hair.
Colors are for everyone,
boys and girls, men and women --
be a verdant garden, the landscape of Versailles,
not a pale primrose blindly pushed aside.
Chase green dragons and one-eyed zombies,
fierce and fiery toothy monsters,
not merely lazy butterflies,
sweet and slow on summer days.
For you can tame the most brutish beasts
with your wily wits and charm,
and lizard scales feel just as smooth
as gossamer insect wings.
Tramp muddy through the house in
a purple tutu and cowboy boots.
Have a tea party in your overalls.
Build a fort of birch branches,
a zoo of Legos, a rocketship of
Queen Anne chairs and coverlets,
first stop on the moon.
Dream of dinosaurs and baby dolls,
bold brontosaurus and bookish Belle,
not Barbie on the runway or
Disney damsels in distress --
you are much too strong to play
the simpering waif.
Don a baseball cap, dance with Daddy,
paint your toenails, climb a cottonwood.
Learn to speak with both your mind and heart.
For the ground beneath will hold you, dear --
know that you are free.
And never grow a wishbone, daughter,
where your backbone ought to be.

Sunday 30 November 2014

Battle Scars

Oh, Mother.
How can I say things to you without sounding like I am crying out my words?
Oh Mother,
I cannot tell you about that night 9 years ago
When your husband found me hiding my tears in between the soft fabric of my comfort blanket which didn’t exactly feel comfortable that night.
How do I explain to you the nasty bruised mark it left in invisible ink around my ankle
Which I drag along with me
Every day I go, everywhere I go.
Oh, Mother.
How do I tell you that your voice now hurts my ears every time you yell after coming home at night because it stopped hurting my feelings a long time ago.
Oh, Mother.
How do I kiss you goodnight when I haven’t had a goodnight’s sleep in a year and a half since that night you locked me in my room, thinking I am asleep, and did not return till sunrise.
I lay there, mother, just waiting for your car to return to the parking lot.
But you took my night’s sleep that night and haven’t returned it ever since.
Oh, Mother.
How do I reminisce when my memories don’t involve a bustling house of food and family on a lazy Sunday afternoon in the summer of 2008.
My memories are sharp and I have coloured them with the black crayon I stole from my kindergarten teacher’s cabinet when she wasn’t looking.
Oh, Mother.
How do I tell you that you have been strong like ice and soft like fire because it does make me proud to see how you got through it even though you knew it would mean ending up alone.
Mother,
Can I say these things to you without making you feel guilty?
These insidious facts are less about me and more about your battle scars.

But, mother, how do I explain that to you after all?

Wednesday 19 November 2014

Semblance

I wake up
To days that begin with laughter
And joy of being around people.
I fall asleep
To moments of desire
To moments of wanting to not be accepted 
To moments of being the quiet force of hidden jubilancy.
To moments I know I'll always dream of
Because I did not have the courage.

Do I always wake up from that dream
Where I'm camouflaging 
With the very next crowning
Of symbols and serenity
Hiding behind that semblance
Of majesty and malevolence?

I don't. Want to.



Saturday 15 November 2014

Addict


Hello. I’m an addict.

No Please don’t take that step back that you are about to. It’s not contagious, I’m sure you know that. Then what do you fear?
My anticipated cry for help? Or the reproachful glances of the society when they find out who you’ve been talking to?

I can see you standing with that trembling posture.
You don’t know how grateful I am that you didn’t step back, yet I can see by the back-and-forth movement of your toes that you’re unwilling to take a step ahead.
It’s okay.
I’m used to it.

I can feel that pity in your handshake but it makes me happy.
I can see that look of curiosity in your eyes.
I want to answer it and I know you want me to unravel the mystery for you, too.
But I don’t think it’s a good idea. Most of you don’t understand.
You consider it to be a disgrace, of sorts.
But you want to know anyway.

Okay, I’ll tell you.

No, I have a perfectly stable family life. I am not the rich brat who sleeps in manifestations of wealth and dreams of absentee parents.

No, it’s not peer pressure. You see, I don’t exactly have many friends left, do I?

No, it’s not the television or the uncensored media you blame. I know I am stronger than that, even if you don’t believe me as I say it.

No it’s not because I’m depressed. Although, I do fear slipping into that dungeon someday in my life. But when I do, I know I won’t need any of this because that darkness will itself be more commanding.

No, I am not heartbroken and living every moment in the self-deprecating shadows of a boy who forgot to pay attention to me.

No, I don’t hide in my bathroom and shed midnight tears as I watch the numbing red streams of fluid trickle down by thighs.

No, I was not a teen who tripped over the wrong rock and has been unable to get back ever since.

No, I do not how all of you come up with such guesses but I do know that you are wrong.

I am where I am because I want to be here. Or rather, there’s some place else I’d rather not be. Somewhere in my darkness I feel scared. And I would do anything to stay away.

I do this on order to avoid myself.
Which is ironic because in the process of this, it’s the people around me, like you, who start avoiding me; while I am just left there to face myself and a love I know I’ll never receive.



Saturday 11 October 2014

My Mother

7 a.m.
The sun had started to show rather beautifully. The aching rays of sunlight fell profusely on his skin as I stood there naked, burning with indecisiveness and desire both at once. His face, an epitome of innocence perfectly hid the charring that he had tried to cover up all night by attempting to go back to sleep every hour. It had been four hours and here I was, still romanticizing him in my head.
I had been awake for quite a while, making myself some light breakfast as I hid my shame in a towel I found hanging behind his bathroom door.  I had watched him shift from the side of the bed towards the centre. His devouring occupancy made me realize my fleeting grasp on his life. I had owned his presence for one night. For one night, it was mine to hold and exploit as he lay there unaware of light years of pain that he had initiated. I knew, better than anyone, to expect nothing more but were my senses defeating me?

6.30 a.m.
For the most part, I am a deep sleeper. I used to sleep a lot when I was small. What I didn’t know was that I was only that carefree and comfortable with myself.
Nights like these, nights with girls, hardly delivered any sleep. I kept waking up every hour to the smell of the respective sweet feminine perfume, which always smelt like my mother’s.  I’d let it gush into me as I watched my lungs cringe and throw the scent out of my system almost instantly. Sometimes I would even lie in bed just contemplating about who was beside me and what she might say when I told her what haunted me. It was only to while away my time. Fruitless.

Tonight was the same.
I was not surprised.

However, I’m awake right now.  As I lie on my stomach, I don’t see her here. Maybe she’s gone.
I shift towards the centre of the bed. Here it is.
Maybe now I can sleep.  I lie on my back, for reasons of convenience, adjusting myself to the lukewarm temperature of the bed sheet which essentially means she hasn’t been gone long.
My eyes shuffle around in search of some sign of belonging. I can’t see anything.


Thank goodness.
I do speak an awful lot when drunk.

3 a.m.
He is asleep. Or at least he appears to be. His eyes are a little swollen and I can still experience the taste of his evasive alcohol in my mouth. I’m enjoying it. I’m running through his description in my head. As usual, it’s all so poetic and battered. There is a kind of unfathomable damage in poetry itself and I can’t seem to get rid of it.
Those bashful eyelashes, unusually unkempt hair, his obsession with being lousy and his dignified need for being alone; all of it appearing so dynamic in my head. It could be the middle-of-night syndrome where when you have nothing to do; you resort to glorifying the first object your eyes rest on.

When I caught him staring at the marks on my thighs, I knew this was a mistake. He was not conscious enough to treat me with ignorant courtliness and he didn’t.
“Hey, my mom did that to herself too!” he cheered. “In front of me.”
There I was, stripped of my vicious thoughts and shame, dressed in nothing but bland flesh and pretentious valiance and this purposeless one night stand had managed to make me loathe myself for one more night.

I was, suddenly, famished of company and glad that for one night I could wallow in regret with an unconscious stranger, since he had fallen on the bed immediately after, lying next to me.

I was alone, not lonely.
I had a bloodless hand to hold.
I had an insignificant moment.
I had had a crass confrontation.
I was not alone.

2.50 a.m.
What have I done? Why did I say that?
My eyes are closed and my face is dug into the pillow but I can feel the mortifying silence fill the room like a call of death.

Why did she do this to me, My Mother.


Monday 6 October 2014

Some stories never end

Only when I think
Back, and realise what is gone.
How situations changed
And feelings altered,
Because I'm left rather alone.
How I did not embrace the absence,
Nor let it go.
I slithered into a nutshell,
Careful and slow.
I filled the void
With the omnipresent air,
I left papers 
Some crumpled
All blank,
Only to stare. 
I dug out my eyes,
Watched them blossom
Like a cherry tree.
I thought I was flying,
In solitude and free. 
But what did this bird
Know, apart from the cage.
It was only taught:
All the world's a stage.