My heart, a wrecked ship with holes in its sail,
Pining for the harbour as conveys its every wail.
She would restrain not and drown in the depth,
If the sea were your eyes and the wind your breath.

-

On some days I wake up and feel as weightless as an astronaut in outer space,
Nobody to acknowledge my existence
And the constant threat of being swallowed into nothingness.

However, almost immediately you come to mind.
And I think, I did exist at one time.
I existed in the corner of your bookshelf as a book of poems,
In your Bob Marley ashtray which you cleaned fortnightly,
In your guitar strings that the tip of your fingers touched ever so lightly while strumming to Pink Floyd,
In between your fingers when you lit a cigarette,
In the side pocket of your bagpack which I had stuffed with clean handkerchiefs because you always forgot to carry one.
And in the creases of your bedsheet.

So, I guess we exist only when someone sees us.
An astronaut exists only because he has a space station to go back to.

-

Let's talk about unacceptable things today
Like an irresponsible and unemployed father
A money plant in a crystal vase
A clock that is 5 hours and 35 minutes late
A widow who doesn't miss her husband
An athlete who takes steroids
Two lovers who have never met.
And Our very idea of "Us".

Nonetheless, come and sit by me.
Touch my skin with your eyes closed
And read me like Braille.
Kiss me and tuck me into your bed
Like you sweep your mistakes under the rug.
Strange how we are curious people
But our relationship is "no questions asked".
I know, you have a thousand questions.
And honey, I have just one answer.
Funny how my answer is also a question.
"Will you be my mistake?"

-

My room has two chairs
One by the window
And one up against the south wall.
I don't like either.
Because one is too uptight
Makes your spine into a bamboo shaft.
And the other too low
Almost makes you feel spineless.
I have a mirror
Right in front of my bed
To which I wake up wearing
My insecurities as make up.
The floor is white and blemish free,
I scrub it with bleach because
I can't live with fingerprints.
I almost always keep my door shut
Because my darkest secrets
Lie on my bed wearing
A suggestive pantyhose.
The shelves are stacked till roof
It's practically impossible to dust them.
And it's almost as though my room
Smells of failed relationships.
But someday if my housemaid
Comes and changes even the
slightest of orientation of my room,
I don't get sleep.

-

It's a thing to wonder why 
We sleep at nights with the weight
of an enormous building on our chest
Which is crumpling down to ashes
due to the earthquake in our hearts.
And we hold on to our wet pillows 
Which sadly are made of cotton
and not assurance. We so badly wish
for that bed cover to be our shroud.
And we lose every battle in our minds
For our only battle is with our ownself.
So, maybe we are all losers
Landlocked in life.
Or maybe we are all winners
Defeating life one day at a time.

-

What is love if not smothering each other with roses. It's the roses that we see and show. And how we slyly never acknowledge that at the end of the day it is smothering after all.

-

क्या खोया और क्या पाया के हिसाब में 
गुम हो जाता है तो बस एक सवाल,
"महसूस क्या किया?"

-

The truth of love is that there's no truth to it.
Only plain white lies told with the best of intentions.

-

It's strange how your sadness
is yours and only yours 
But your happiness
is never solely yours. 
How you feel sadness so wholly,
deeply and absolutely 
But you feel happiness
in parts and relatively.
And how it's all a lie that life is
equal parts happiness and sadness.

-

I believed you always
Also the times you said
You loved me enough to hurt me
As if there was only one single way
To express both control and love
As if they were indistinguishable.
For a girl who wanted garlands
I was happy to even wear
Fingerprints around my neck.
And you held me by my neck
Like I were a vase and
Stuffed my mouth 
With the flowers from your garden
Such that I still reek 
Of your fingers and flowers. 
For once I know that 
Fragrance is a state of mind.
And that those flowers smelled awful. 

-