Hold my hand

I enter into the jungle that I had only heard of.  On the roads I had never walked on.  I ground each step not without a thought.  Don’t scorn me off.

My desires are tender.  My longings are circumspect.

My dreams have roamed all over your virgin lands, though my earthen remains have always stayed behind.

Ain’t I welcome, dear?  Something in you tells me yes, yet something holds me off.

While I enter into the dark alleys of you, my love, hold my hand, hold my hand.

Of a girl whom I’d seen just once

​If I were to write a poem

And this is 3 in the morning

“A man’s desire” I would put the title

And would write of you, oh girl,

Whom I’d seen just once..

Under the infinite sky when we stand…

Under the infinite sky when we stand, with nothing but stars above, and the milky way going across, silence becomes the word of moment.  We feel.  We fill our hearts with the infinite love our Lord has endowed upon us.  We feel, in silence, what we don’t speak in words.  Peace so serene that even an embrace is unasked for.  With hand in hand, we look up into the sky, walking on the milky way with our gazes.

Why does it feel so real? So real to brings tears to our eyes?  Tears of fulfillment?  Tears of joy?  Tears of separation?  What?  The sky is dark, the stars are shining, the breeze is gentle.  When do the desires creep in?  Why does the mist turn so dense like it’s a bar on lungs?  Like we’d choke up with a pang so miserable that our hearts will stop here and now.  A sudden heaviness; a half-tear under the eyelid.  Why?

My Lord knows of my heart.  When we two — the two eternal souls — stand beneath the sky, speaking no word, with hearts leaping with happiness of being found by the other, the good Lord watches awestruck, taking immense joy in the serenity of the moment.

And do we cry? No, we don’t!

Of an infidel morning..

Such infidel thoughts in this circumspect world – and you’re being watched from everywhere. I’m missing a girl whom I shall not! But is there really something that “one shall not even miss someone”?

I was reading Slow Man by Coetzee this morning. Paul – my protagonist, a man of 70 with his leg amputated – pondering over his feelings for his caretaker Marijana – while she is dusting his books. Paul tries to find an exact word for his feelings. If he has to choose one word, he thinks, it would be admiration. “Can desire grow out of admiration, or are the two quite distinct species?” Paul thinks.

I, suddenly like a twinge, thought of a girl whom I had fallen in – principally an admiration. Whatever it was, it kept floating between admiration and desire – more towards admiration. What was it that I admired, I know not. Not really intelligent – someone whom I would put in “average” range – someone who makes mistakes in spellings and words and gets confused between convince and convenience. A beauty she was – no doubt absolutely gorgeous (so much that I once in my thoughts had named her Georgiana), but that must not be the reason. Was it her innocence? Perhaps it was, at least for the first few days, but later it was more of her reluctance to fall. I knew she admired me – a lot – and hence perhaps more cautious to let it not move up to desire. Sheer reluctance! Perhaps, it was no more an innocence.

My days were counted. As such, I was kind of taking a liberty to indulge, knowing it is to end on a fixed date. I weaved my days around her. I knew it was cruel of me trying to break her reluctance and I was still doing it. I knew it was best of it to leave it unsolved, and I was still trying to untangle it – only such that it does not get solved indeed. I lived my days between a yes and no – between admire and desire.

With an abrupt end, it started to fade away day by day. It was never to the stage where I could text her and say “I miss you” – in fact, never even where I could text her anytime I want. So when I was reading Coetzee this morning and was thinking of my Marijana, there was no question of me letting her know about it.

Then it started raining today – first real rain of this monsoon – making the weather kind of romantic when you see it out of the windows – and I set myself afloat, let myself flow…