Reflection
This afternoon I dusted my table
arranging everything in order
In a desperate attempt to get hold of myself
Later I watched
My 21 years swim effortlessly ashore
In a cup of tea
However there is no end
To the deceptions I have practiced on myself
I have lived off friends
Told the usual lies
And not batted an eyelid
I have almost burnt my diaries
For fear they'd close in on me
I have even kept letters unopened for days
A motherless girl losing my father in cradle
I had no time to waste
On the visiting dreams
I was a grown up during my teens
Grew old in my practical day dreams
And became my grandfathers
Wisely solving the mysteries and miseries of life
I don't have to complete anything
Now I spend most of my days
Snuggled up on a rug
Once in a while I look up at the ceiling
Follow the cracks and grooves
As though it was a private tour
And imagine my footprints
As a slap on the face of God.
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For VJ - God Bless his heart
Sulky, I'd thought you at first
And cynical
But when you laugh
Your face changes more than anyone's
And becomes gay and young
As a laughing boy's in an Italian painting
Yet you've always seemed human and no more
Even after knowing your force
Mental power
(Its perhaps more formidable than you've yet shown)
You....
So much like my ideal
So much like him !
WHen you talk, I think not of you
No
But what you say,
Of war, pictures, poems, plays, history, suffering....
and more
Through your words I see an immense half lit screen of human struggles
With a streak of light thrown in over a shoulder
Or a leg doubled up in an agony of thrusting efforts
But you remain,
(Even though rationally I know you are in every way stronger than I)
Of the same material as myself
Giving expressions to the unexpressed
Words to my beliefs
In the last few hours I've been happy
And effective
I'd wasted so much strength in self doubt
You stand for the things I've always wanted
But never been able to express
Our working & living together makes sense
We'd add up and help each other
Occasionally the relationship seems as good and
necessary
as bread
But then, thats only occasionally
Mostly, its those fears undefined - You're right, I'm terrified...!
I write coz I'm so full
So full that I must tell somebody
And whats better than you ?
Tell while its still fresh
I feel aware of a certain clearness
Brightness
About the experience as if
It had neither been a social research
Nor the days of holidays,
But some kind of a finely produced play in which I had the speaking part
Assumptions...???
Oh at least you have the pain !
I am numb...
I have often tried to localise the pain, like you
Why is there a shadow of two...
Hers as it always had been..
And you ?
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Student Life
Every morning i sit at my table
Fiddle around with my books
Pencils, papers, rulers
In an effort to recapture
My lessons
A sequece of daydreaming begins
This happens every morning
And I relive with the kings and queens
and villains of childhood
As the evening starts to fall
I realise I haven't been studying at all
Guilt, misgivings, promises follow
Of a better tomorrow
And I surrender to the blessed sleep
This keeps happening
Every morning
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Emotion
Words and gestures
A superfluous exaggeration
As the longing within you dies
For want of recognition
You can't give it a proper burial
FOr the graveyard is full of
Dead longings...
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