Young man and the sea

The magnetic, all consuming sea
reached its fingers inside me
and drew my conflicted phantom out
leaving me oh-so-lonely and distraught

Rain

Sometimes when it rains,
I feel moist inside, I feel like
the grease stains on the soul,
and the grime in the system,
are being rinsed away

And then when the sky clears,
wringing myself to drain the moisture,
I sprawl under the post-rain sun,
emerging with a serviced soul,
crispy dry, gleaming new, ready for use

Answers You Seek From Me, To The Best Of My Ability

How does one achieve closure? How does one move on?

I don't know exactly when it walked into my life. It was as if I was too engrossed playing in the sun, and didn't see the clouds gathering. And then one instinctive second, I felt a shadow fall on me. I looked up to discover that the sun was gone and it was chilly.

I had experienced clouds before. Even liked them on most occasions. Days when the Sun would not feel upto it and decide to stay at home, snug under a blanket of clouds. But the clouds, almost always, melted in a torrent of thick, cold water. The day after always felt cleaner, purged. It was like fasting. It left you feeling pure.But this time...it was different. It felt permanent. The clouds seemed to have come to stay. I had a premonition the Sun was gone from my life. Bright, broad day light, against the backdrop of which I could see things clearly, was gone.

And so it was. The clouds were always there from then on, hovering. I felt haunted. Weighed down. Then it stretched its fingers down and reached into my heart. My heart, dark and dank for the lack of Sun. There was now a thin streak of fungus. Soon it started branching out, multiplying. Everyday, it made progress. It wrapped itself around my veins and arteries like creepers. I could feel it creeping and closing in from all sides.

I ran very hard. In search of a blue piece of sky. I was told it existed. And I could get to live under it if I was sufficiently strong. Fear of the fungus inside, made me stronger. I felt I ought to stay back and fight. Rid my sky of its scourge. Get my Sun back. Fight the fungus. I didn't know how to. I wasn't smart enough. Or strong enough. And my sky was resigned to its fate. It had forgotten its Sun. How do you rid something of itself? My sky had become the clouds. So, I ran. In search of a borrowed piece of clean sky with Sun.

One day, at the end of my tether, I saw Sun in the distance. Not mine. Nevertheless, warm. I was relieved. And hollowed by the struggle. I gave myself to it. The fungi stopped growing. I was terribly weak, so I let the new Sun wash all over me. Nourish my body. Give me my strength back.

I owe a lot to the new Sun. It gives me warmth. And I toil hard under it, giving it my sweat and blood.

I look at my reflection often in the clear stream. It gives me a lot of pride. I am tall, muscular and strong. I can hunt the wildest of beasts. I can run miles. Climb the tallest of mountains. Nature appreciates me - I am productive.

What they don't see is my scarred interior. Gripped with fungi. Fungi, that doesn't creep any more but doesn't go away.

I look back at my sky. At its last remaining vestiges. Just beyond the border. Blackened now with barely noticeable streaks of azure that was its color. It still looks out for me sometimes from these rapidly diminishing portions of its past self. But everytime I start getting hopes it is beginning to clear up, the frowns are back. The dark forehead, black eyes, cruel countenance are all back. I cower back. I remember what it was. I tell myself that the sky may be mine, but it is disfigured. It will destroy me.

I am living under a borrowed sky. My days are borrowed. One day, the borrowed sun will take more than a day off. There will be a longish rainy season. The fungi will crack open the surface and emerge out. I will be enveloped, annihilated. And you, my friend, will not know. You will blame me for what I cannot fight. It has defeated me...long back.

How do I achieve closure? How do I regain my lost sky? How do I rid myself of the fungus within? Fungus or fungi - how do I tell the difference? Is it one long streak of fungus, or multiple, end-to-end? The borrowed sun is like artificial sugar. It can keep things sweet but will I ever taste sweet as I knew it? How do I heal the blisters on my soul. Do I owe something to my sky? My rotten heart - it can sure lay claim to that. And my worthless body. You can sure lay claim to it.

I have nothing else to give. I have no answers.

A Summer Afternoon Memory From a Long Time Back

Drowsy seconds crawled by with eyelids droopy
the air hung heavy with heat, the formless kind
lacking character or dimension, soggy, sloppy
and people plodded through time, groggy in the mind

It was adorable, the concentrated summer atmosphere
undiluted by contrived comforts of electricity
unpretentious, intense, substantive and bare
it made up with endearing laziness, its lack of felicity

His Story

At best a vagrant muse
at worst, a cheap potboiler
leitmotif a trite, facile ruse
and the climax, that bit deader

T'was purportedly his story
yet he merely a bystander
while others came to party
he looked on, a lone outsider

Love (and funeral)

I am in love. Head over heels. I discovered Emily Dickinson purely by chance and boy, am I glad I found her or what? Below is one of my favorite poems from her. A trifle sad, but what is not on this blog :-)

I felt a Funeral, in my Brain,
And Mourners to and fro
Kept treading—treading—till it seemed
That Sense was breaking through—

And when they all were seated,
A Service, like a Drum—
Kept beating—beating—till I thought
My Mind was going numb—

And then I heard them lift a Box
And creak across my Soul
With those same Boots of Lead, again,
Then Space—began to toll,

As all the Heavens were a Bell,
And Being, but an Ear,
And I, and Silence, some strange Race
Wrecked, solitary, here—

And then a Plank in Reason, broke,
And I dropped down, and down—
And hit a World, at every plunge,
And Finished knowing—then.