Geographic

You are a fleeting experience,
one that drifts away from me
like living fog on the riverbanks of my fingertips.
In the light of this beach bonfire
I can taste deeply the sweetness of your colors
and the salt of your skin.

If I held my hand outstretched in front of me
I could say that it marks the depth where my love exists.
From this distance I could see the curve of your cheek
meet the fold at the corner of your eyes.
I could use my finger to trace the gradient of your smile
like the slope of a grassy hill on the horizon;
silhouetted by the setting sun behind your teeth.

Come closer to me,
so close that I am standing on a ledge above the clouds,
so close that I could say that  I am falling into you from the high atmosphere
with nothing to slow my descent but the butterflies in my stomach.
As I fall I fail to memorize your blemishes and pores
and the wetness of your lips
because I am still trying, and failing to memorize your eyes.
My hands grab and claw at the buffeting winds
to cut through air and earth to let you engulf me.

7 books

In my library, there are 7 books.

1. I have both an ocean and a deep fire in my head and heart. I fall freely in my ocean, converting thought into breath. I adore this tiny infinity because I am warm and understood here. I bring puzzles and mysteries and ideas here to unravel them and to dissolve their length and depth in my ocean. In here I keep the galaxies and the spaces in between. In here I experience gravity and entropy and relativity as emotional bursts of color and sound. From my ocean I can feel the breath of the universe, follow the rise and fall of the stellar membrane that pulls us all together. In my ocean I float, unburdened and complete.
   
2 My fire is both terrible and profound.Its heat burns the inside of me into charcoal black and leaves me feeling like weightless ash and dust . It burns a deep orange and reaches out from the space between my heart and my feet and makes me want to run away. My fire takes too much and gives very little, but it gives a light to see through this world . My fire glows sadness and too many goodbyes, it reflects against the edges of my consciousness to shine on me and envelop me in unforgiving light. Bathing in the liquid core of my tiny raging sun, I am lost.

3. I will love you violently, absolutely, and without compromise, in short to medium bursts of time. I don't have the capacity to love at an even burn. Or maybe it's just that I haven't discovered the room in my head where I keep the ability to do that. But some day I might just open a door and know how to love you everyday every time and everywhere. But in the moments where my love is infinite and strong you will be the sun and stars to my tired eyes and the silver rain that falls at sunset.

4. When I was a little boy I danced with God. He told me stories and gave me heroes to play with, but he forgot to make me believe in him. So in my dance I drifted away and found the universe to be brighter and closer to me than any of God's stories. The universe told me that I was hydrogen in a star, an ice crystal in the tail of a comet, that I was warmed by the heart of the earth; that I was darkness and light and that I was once everything, as you were once everything, but we forgot.

5. Music can stretch and shape me to fill the containers the world presents. One vibration melts me while another can turn me into diamond. It is both fuel and a safety net when I let my mind fly away from me. It binds people together into groups that I call friends. It rescues me daily. It is a friend that doesn't judge your addictions and fears.

6. I am continually amazed by the process of being human. I am afraid of mediocrity and simplicity, I am afraid that I won't go insane someday and that I won't die gloriously. I am afraid that my life will be filled with absolute values and unmoving resolve. I am thrilled by chaos, by not understanding. I strive to always not understand, so that I will never run out of new moments. I worry that I won't see fireworks when I kiss you on the beach at sunset. I worry that I will pass away into this grey night, and not leave enough color behind in the world to satiate my conscience. I am terrified that one day, love will not be enough, and for that day I am sorry.

7. Give me the words to tell you my secrets and I will give them to you gladly. Tell me that you smell of old books and I will love you forever. Words fill every corner of my mind and soul and eyes wide open. I stand in the eye of this storm to scream aphorisms and alliteration back into the swirling mess. I write because I am not human if I don't. The words raised me and showed me life and love and hurt and moonlight and honey and your breath after we kiss. The words allow me to show you the dust motes trapped in the light of your eyes and the scent of coffee and cigarette smoke.Without words I am without hope.

 And with this word, it ends.

Little light

Come out little light, he said. Come out from under there.
Half naked and clad in blankets, they shared a bed. He sat up while she cowered under the sheets.

Little light, it's dark out here and I need your warmth, he whispered.

She whimpered and shrank She couldn't stand that he saw her hidden sun because it shared a space with her smallness and hate. She hated that he told people about her smile.

He held his hand in a shaft of light and dust motes from the coming morning.

You can live here, my star. In this brightness, in this space, in my hand.

Silence

Sometimes you blind me, he said.In you lives a tiny infinity.But today, if you want to hide your smile teeth and eyes, if you want to keep them for yourself, I understand.

Cahaya, he said her name like it was a paper thin and brittle. Like he was afraid to put it down. It stayed on his lips and left them hanging open.

A tiny smile leaks through the bed covers.Although today she will not shine, glow or shimmer she smiles because she knows he understands. Today, all that is there, in the space inside, is darkness.
But this too shall pass.

She will make it up to him colouring his Sunday morning the dark grey of her void.

An amalgamation of 5 moments and 2 lovers

Gravitas

The sapphire light of the dance floor laser shattered her into innumerable fractals.
Her movements are a slow sway,
but they pull on you like the gravity of planets and suns.
She is a pocket universe on to herself,
quantum entangled with the photons that collide into you.
You are hers.

The music stops and lights come on,
but not for her.
The crowd parts and  return to the real world.
But you are trapped in her orbit,
one that slowly decays as you work up the courage to interrupt her reverie,
and see her world from its surface.

But she snaps out of it, and reality colours her open eyes.
She adopts an ugly pace. A human pace.
Losing her secret, temporary divinity.

This world ends before you can get to it,
and you are left dreaming of a sky that doesn't exist any more.

Hush, we are small

hush
reach away from me
twist your back to miss the fall of my gaze
hold your eyes in your hands
become lost

pupils dilate to drink the dim light
the fresh sweat and old desire
you are my secret silhouette
and your fire ignites the falling dust

Silence like a lace net
silence like dust motes of crystalline ice
small, worthless and beautiful
infinite and dark

hush
heat and breath diffuse us
light is shattered by cloth and night
and it ends with a thousand memories of morning.

(p.s. it's been a while since I was here, and there might come a day when it might a while again, but I stumbled upon some new things to say, and some new ways of saying old things and Im hoping to say it for a medium to extra long while at least. Or till the next mayan apocalypse. Whichever comes first -Praveen.)

After Sunset/Sunrise, an attempt at something Linklater-ish

Him      Hey, tell me something. If you died tonight, what would be the last thing you wish you’d said to me,but didn’t?

Her:      Something I wish I had said, but didn’t? So you’re saying that I am dead, gone to  heaven, or hell or whatever, and I am thinking about what I’d wish I’d said.

Him:     Yea, what would you have said to me, right before a dinosaur comes storming out of that bush over that and bites your head off, or before the Rapture begins and Jesus takes all the good people to heaven.

Her:      Or maybe you kill me?

Him:     Yea, or maybe I’ll kill you.

Her:      Why would I care? I’d be in heaven.

Him:     Or hell

Her:      Or hell. They’re both not really places where you worry about last words. Or hypothetical last words. Plus I do not think that I would end up in hell. When St Peter meets me at the Pearly Gates I’ll just blame the dinosaur attack on you. I’d say ‘Hey, Petey, the dinosaur bit our…

Him      Heads.

Her:      Bit our heads off, cos this jackass I was hanging out with said he didn’t like it’s haircut.

Him:     Then I’d say, “Hey Pete, I know what this looks like, but have you EVER seen a triceratops pull of a green Mohawk? It looked ridiculous. I was doing it a favour.” I know Pete would have my back, cos he’s a rational guy.

Her:      So you’re saying that I’d end up in Hell because I’m an irrational, emotional woman?

Him:     I’m not saying that you would, but it doesn’t matter. Say you went to Heaven.

And just for fun, imagine that your reward in heaven was to relive this night, this perfect night, forever. And you had all the time in the universe to work up the courage to say what you wanted to. What would it be?

Her:      And what if I was in hell?

Him:     Then it would be your punishment to repeat this night for ever, et cetera, et cetera. But you’re mute, unable to speak. You’d have an eternity of thinking about what you would have said, without being able to say it.

Her:      So either way I’m cursed to an eternity of living in a boyish fantasy where you’re the centre of my world?

Him:     Hey, I don’t make the rules; I’m just asking a question.

Her:      And that question is?

Him:     What would you say to me, if you knew that we were both about to die?

Her:      I’d say that I need a bit more wine, before I start reciting hypothetical last words.

Him:     Ok, fine, you can have the last of the wine.

*He tips the bottle of red wine over her empty glass, shakes it a few times to get every last drop out. She takes a sip.

Her:      So, before I do this, why does it have to be something I didn’t say? Why couldn’t it be something I did say?

Him:     Well, you choose not to say something because it’s hard to say. And what’s harder to say than a truth, especially an uncomfortable truth. The kind where the words get lodged in your throat every time you start to speak, so instead you end up making an inane comment about the weather or politics.  Or the nature of heaven and hell.

Her:      Ah, that kind of truth.

Him:     Yea, that kind of truth.

Her:      Well…

Him:     Well?

*she takes a sip of wine

Her:      Maybe I’d say that I wish I’d kissed you that time we we’re sitting on that couch, watching those (giggle) random people practice their dance moves for prom. They were so boring and uncoordinated that I wanted to kiss you just to make them stop and watch us. And maybe I would say that I wish you shaved more often, because kissing a man with stubble irritates my skin.

Him:     Noted on the beard. (laughs)

Her:      Maybe I would say that I have never had been happy, till tonight. That I wasn’t happy when I got married, or when my kid was born. Maybe I’d say that, just to satiate your ego.

Him:     And why would you do something like that? I thought I was childish, and egomaniacal. Among my myriad of apparent flaws.

Her:      I’d say it because tonight is, was, perfect. And a perfect night earns a recitation of uncomfortable truths.

Him:     It does?

Her:      It does.

Him:     So after saying that, just before the dinosaur bites your head off, what would you do?

Her:      Simple, I’d kiss you. So the dinosaur would have to bite BOTH our heads off.

Him:     You little minx, you’d use your feminine wiles, and those thin, pink lips to lure me to my death.

Her:      Yes I would, but you’d kiss me anyway.

Him:     (laughs)Yes, I would.

*He moves closer to her, he closes his eyes. They kiss.

An open letter to the lady reading trashy romance novels on the morning train

Does it excite you?
I think it does, because as I stand behind you I can see your bosom rising and falling in the slow consistent rhythm that signals arousal. An arousal you try to contain, but your face flushes a light shade of pink. Your mouth hangs open, every so slightly, and your grip on the book tightens just as your eyes scan over the more graphic paragraphs.

Are you loved?
Do you have someone in your life to hold you in his(or her) arms? Someone to moan sweet nothings into your ear as your mind becomes a blank white sheet of pleasure and pain. Do you have someone to escape into at night, someone to share your skin and steal your heat and taste your teeth, when your insecurities and doubts crawl out from under your bed to haunt you?

Is the hero appealing to you?

Sweat dripping down his perfect chest in the words on the page, her eyes rolling back into her head, she moans with textual ecstasy. Do you project yourself onto her? Or do you prefer imagining yourself as the watcher in this story. Standing in the dark corner of the stable as the two of them make sweet fictional, grammatically accurate love on the hay pile.

Are you excited that we know?
Does it heat you up to know that you have an audience to your lust on this cramped morning train? I share a brief look with your other observer, an office man with an innocent face. He tries to look away, but your radiant arousal makes him ever so flustered. I could see him constantly admonishing himself internally for peeking into your private fantasy, but failing to look away as every jolt and shake of the train presses his body up against yours. He wants to throw you down on the floor of train and take you violently as all of us watch, and I think you would like it.

But finally, thank you for making filling my morning commute with sexual tension. Your pheromones fill the carriage, with a heady scent. I wish you many amazing orgasms with a tender, thoughtful lover. Someone to make you forget your fetish for reading trashy romance novels on a crowded train. I wish you an eternity of toe-curling kisses, of musky,sweaty scent, of screams and moans in unison, and of post coital cigarettes

But most of all I wish you love.

love, peace, and hand grease,

Praveen

A Good Book.

There's a place you are allowed entry to, when you're reading, that lets you know you're reading a Good Book. It feels like your peripheral vision narrows down to the area around this construct of paper and ink, and the space beyond that takes a darkened, vignette effect onto which your mind projects the imagery from the words and paragraphs in your hand.

It doesn't take a fantastically written story, or an amazingly unique premise. It's as simple as strong imagery coupled with subtle, fragile, larger-than-life elements, like a lace doily made of ice crystals that hides the Fate of The World. It enters your mind through your eyes, and the holes in the corner of your eyes and leaks into your waking vision, colouring your world in the Pantone shades the author has chosen to build his/her world with.

Good Books like these are few and far in between, and I might just give this one another read very soon. Have a dance with this one you guys, it's called The Night Circus. You won't regret it.