cliches

i don't want you

to kiss her,
be with her

touch her

know her
look at her, or
smell her.
feel her breath
on the hair
curling over your collar
as she inhales you.
i don’t want you

to listen to her pretty words,
her lilting voice

lying about me.

no, don’t draw her closer
to you, no don’t.
i dont want your gaze
getting entangled

in her long hair.
i dont want you

to want her,

the way i want you.

smell

sweat, sarcasm and cigarets,
the smell of you,
is in my every pore,
curling down my back,
drawing me closer
to the buckle of that
snakeskin belt
slung low on five loops,
an exquiste caress of pain,
because i smell
the reluctance too, you know,
you don’t want me.

your beautiful hands,
that i’m holding,
in an aimless taxi ride,
are hoping your phone
will light up and rescue them
from my rough, life-scarred fingers.

you never look at me

directly, so i won’t see
that teeth grinding mix
pity and loathing,
but i know it’s there,
and there’s anger too,
because you know somewhere
inside that head of yours,
there’s a fleeting memory
of you and me.

gardener

don't go, there's

kisses to be planted in a row

along your jaw

sighs to be exhaled into your collar

they are still brewing

deep inside me

your sooty lashes

need to be straightened

by my tongue

you're weeding my arms

from your neck

laughing at my surrender

not now, not now, not now.

i have built a trellis

around my heart

so your words can climb everywhere

the tendrils will get caught in my hair

just like your breath

gets entangled sometimes

so don't go. don't go

because i'm still trembling

from being close to you.

images

garlanded me with a tire
'call hanuman now', they said,
and set it on fire.

two held me, one stripped me,
'kill the katua!' they said,
and hung me from a tree.

flaming crucifixes outside,
'no rights' they said,
we hugged death inside.

wrong side of the wall.
'wrong papers,' they said,
bound and gagged i fall.

deaths on tv, i must confess
are terrible, but the worst
is death by loneliness.

lust object 1

my world is made of routines

and aloneness, carefully constructed.

no time for clever word play,

lazy motorbike rides or rhum people.

you are intensely distracting,

and it's not fair

that you should flash your smile

and play that wicked tune

on the silver harmocia,

you mother gave you

on your twenty-first birthday.

it's not fair, not at all,

that i should need bitter oolong

to get the taste of you

from my lips,

that you should exhale smoke

into my mouth, and so easily

entangle my hair into your stories.

stories that would be illogical in daylight

funny even to eavesdroppers

sitting at the next table

comparing our kiss-filled nights

with theirs.

of course it is not fair

that you have turned the meaning

of adharam madhuram

so unholy now.

i am not crazy but i can hear,

the dj at totos is playing vitthala vitthala

while you figure out

complicated math

on the abacus on my hands.

i think i am ready to carve

your name on my heart

and mine on yours,

with the new ginsu,

that arrived by UPS just last night.

puzzled

there are thorns

that have tasted my blood

on paths you have not

dreamed of crossing,

my hands have grabbed flames

that gobbled marshmallows

from fires that have never

burned your insides,

there is no ice in your eyes,

none around your heart

you've never felt the twist

of a rusted blade in your gut,

you've never crinkled your eyes

to the relentless desert of yearning,

you've not needed, wanted,

preferred death,

or laughed hysterically

at the futility of prayers

when you woke up to taste

yet another day break,

then why are you supporting

my rum-soaked walk

under dust infected stars?

why are you in my head?

on carton road

tired of walking upright,

i found myself sitting on the last

of the two rows of red plastic chairs.

then crumbled into tears.

it was only

when they brought in a woman

dressed in red,

that i saw the wood,

the shed,

the pot of fire,

the smoke,

and the people.

but they did not see me,

so i was content to sit.

later it was an old woman and then a young man,

more people wringing hands

at flames,

and the smoke got into my eyes.

an old man with tired eyes,

asked me what i was doing there,

'koi saga thaa kya?'

not 'who', i wanted to say,

ask 'what' had died.

and yes, it was 'sagaa', very personal.

i collected my defeated shoulders,

stood up straight

then walked home. who'd have guessed

so close to the neon lit cafes of carter road

there existed, a perfect refuge.