a demon's nightmare

her white fairy glow trails her wingtip

and she's bright like snow

cold, stiff yet mellow

fooling around with memories

even those fathoms deep

and my skin crawls

herds of animals slaughtered for meat

fancy gig eateries they serve king's treat

desire and gluttony wreck havoc when they meet

in the creaking rooms, dirty sheets, tainted walls

slow death for a city

that's where i live

your flight shall be butchered

and meat shall be sold

my paranoid cellmates will play with your soul

and when you rest your bones in the lap of death

i will defile you inside your grave

your white wings, sprawled motionless on the ground

splattered with red, in blood it would drown

sleepless nights would gather some dew

like all nightmares there's an end of you

echoes - demise

No one left you far behind

You were never on their mind

Were you ever meant to fly

Echoes sped across the sky

In the brooks at dusk tonight

Wounded hearts seek paradise

Diamond dust to dreamers' eyes

Serpent paths and virgin vice

The bleeding heart keeps pacing on

Monotonous beatings mesmerize

Healing wounds of thought cocoons

The butterflies did never fly

The river veins wind far and long

The blinding sun is far too bright

Your grave churns out a silent song

All is good, and all is right.

knaha chali gayi hain saali khushi

Searched everywhere. Everything around has turned into a mess. I can't find her. From the darkest corner of my room, through the loneliest niche in a crowded metro, to drug induced deliriums. I can't see her. Not now. Not for a long time to come. Random songs in full volume, unwanted notes on my harmonica, biting nails as well as the skin around them can only keep the space off my mind for moments. Cold mornings, office gimmick, and dozens of relationship fuck-ups later I have come to terms with the truth. The space left by khushi will be. She is not coming back.

words

The words are falling apart. Each letter stripped off the edge, pushed out, ripped apart, sawn off skillfully by some unseen butcher. Piles of broken words, rubbles of fallen letters all stacked to form one large heap of fire fuel. The entity lives, it waits calmly, to light up, to unleash the un-expressions trapped in the word corpses in a flash of hellfire. Come, lets start, hold hands, chant names of forgotten ancestors, dance naked around the unforgiving fire, move closer into the grasp of the flames, hair strands on fire like a thousand fireflies, make love like animals, smell of burnt words fooling around with mortal vapours. Our ashes shall enrich the ground around us. The virgin tree born out of the earth beneath our feet will utter our names to the wind. Someday that wind will teach a new born child to cry for her mother's milk. In her wails, our burnt, broken, unspoken words shall be reborn. I will find peace.

....

The universe is expanding. At any given time we are moving away from each other. Bastard space is born. Every morning, I wake up in a larger coffin. The winter sun grows dim. Every night, the walk back home grows longer. Colours melt away. Desperate reaches fall just short. Clutched hands give way. I look around sqeaky eyed for something to hold on to, something that will not move away from me. But the universe is expanding. We have to grow apart.

bandhobir sathe cutlet

cold delhi night, anjan crooning through a speaker, four souls bound across a game of 29. beer, memories and fogs across a promise of land, future and dilemmas. a choice of freedom or joy, either-or, never both. a tuck of the muffler , a tightening of hugs apart we are all but sculpted off the same rock, factory made seconds. promises ignored, promises sold, i grow old with a hunch of prophecies and false implications. pieces of soul scattered as sick friends, obviousness of parting ways and beer induced delirium speak of amputated extremities. i miss you durga. i wish you would spend your orgasms in hell!

delusion

My dreams of freedom have stayed out of reach, long enough to become a liability. I am looking for signs, signs that would whisper to me what I already know but don't want to believe. I hoped I would not find a trail, but its hard to miss my own footsteps when I look back. The past dark with all the moments scribbled across the fabric of time. My mind had slaved me to see what I wanted, feel what I needed. Now that I stand here at the horizon, it has left me in front of the truth. I saw things which were never real!

21 days later

It was still not clear how Markov had pulled it off. After years of trying his best to keep everyone around him happy he had finally seen it. It all started at the green haired girls'. Markov had a crush on this green haired girl. While offering her to do her daily chores, Markov had first seen the dark little mischievous creature lurking over her head like a halo, firmly clamping her head with its spiked tail and grinning slyly at him. Markov felt like vomiting his bowels out. He picked himself up and started for his small one room rented flat with a list of promised chores from the green-haired girl tucked in his jacket pocket. On his way in, he took out the trash for his septuagenarian land lady who seemed too old to do anything by herself. The dark little creature was there over her head too, frothing at it's mouth like a poisoned rat. He ran upstairs. Naked, in his bathroom mirror, Markov scanned himself from feet upwards. The creature had fallen asleep floating like a storm cloud over his head. A wave of disgust flooded the darkest corners of his body. Markov knew that this creature was the reason why he was a people-pleaser. A surge of hatred overcame him. It was time to make things right and help everyone get rid of that creature. When done with all others, it would be his turn. Markov donned his jumpsuit and picked up his sledge hammer.

one life year less...

Fifty minutes from now, I would be older by one year. As if with the passage of that last second, time would jump forward by a year, and stay stuck there for a whole year. End results are simple though, one more year passed by making a spectator out of you. If anything was achieved it was how to endure pain and enjoy it too. But then the last 23 were like that only, barring a few disillusioned moments of success, blood bonds and love.

I have no wrinkle I did not have yesterday, no knee aches I did not feel an hour ago, no skies I did not see a moment back. Yet come midnight, my 'don't haves' would make me feel much worse than I felt in the morning. A birthday is like an annual class report. You don't get to pass or fail though. You always move on, the bag of nightmares heavier every year.

As of now, I am still dark-haired, joint-eyebrow-ed, fat, single and geeky. Forty minutes later I would be the same, except I would be more depressed than I have ever been in the last 23 years.

ichhamoti

Dear Ichhamoti, I hope this dream finds you in good health. The long wait is over. I am leaving this city on the coldest day this winter. If you can, come with me, if you can't, run away with me. They would chase us till the end of the world. I will build a wall, we can keep them on the other side. I give my dream to you. You are the only one who can nurture it into a promise. Ichhamoti, I am leaving on the coldest day. If you can, flow with me.