The Distance

I will never step at your door,                  
Let me gaze at it in eternity,
From a Distance.

I will never call your name,
Let me be called your lover,
From a Distance.

I will never sing your poems aloud,
Let me be consecrated with them,
In a Distance.

I will never speak of your passion,
Let its memories skin me inside out,
In a Distance.

I will never ask for your hand in anything,
Let my grave be marked next to yours,
Going the Distance.

I will never envy the epitaph by your loved ones
Let me etch one for both of us,
Claiming not a communion,
Only the Distance.

           

Dispossessed Deonar Dreams

I broke a million mirrors

Into a million shards

Watched them go up in smoke

Making a lazy trail

With abandoned realities

Of my hunger

A hundred years of 

Listing out children

Dead from disease

Has not been enough

For my molten dreams

Mixed with unsettled ashes

A hundred years spent

In measuring distance 

From the city of dreams

That pushes me away 

Towards a killing spree 

Of dim departures 

On some days 

I hope against hope

When I see people with colorful cameras 

Gaudy gadgets and a ruthless census

That buys me few minutes of prime time

On other days

The mellow fruitlessness 

Of their passing passions bedazzles me

After a mewling monsoon 

Life sprouts in deception

Lush green meadow covers my muck and methane

As grazing cows revel in rain 

And a boy yearns to walk over me

Looking to break a million mirrors 

Into a million shards 

For his deathless dreams

The boy is you

And the boy is me

I am the Deonar Dumping Ground

I dream 

I dream too often

Of a deathless me

Saima

She exists in the 'auto-save' 

Of their system screens

They wonder, "if she ever screamed!"

Been a few days

Her puzzled weight 

Reached its grave

On the shoulders of 

A stinking bait

"She wasn't meek", 

They wonder. 

But why didn't she scream?

She lived her name, 'Saima'

Torn apart

Enlisted in her frail father's 

Worn out ration card

She is gone now 

He is silent 

More than ever 

How could she scream after all? 

She is gone now

It eased her pain, may be. 

The desk is moved 

Closer to the window

For someone new

Aazadi

When the dark fleet footed clouds

Settle above me

Into pink candy floss

Like the plump face 

Of my Mongolian muse 

From a folk tale 

I quiver as they thunder 

I rush outside 

Take the shorter alley 

Before I reach the bell

On my toes 

I hear their voices in unison 

Floating in mildly wet echoes 

I see them on rooftop 

I scream loud 

It teems down

And there was us

Happy and bare

It all belonged here

Every drop inside us

We got back up plans

If it stopped early

We will roll in the mud 

Won't brush 

No school tug

Memory

While collecting the fragments of a foggy afternoon

She heard of an errand stated 

A twinkle in her eyes, she rose quick with her heart elated. 

But her smile dropped 

Before it reached it's corners 

She sank in the irreversible 

Leaning back on the chair 

She almost said a word

They almost heard

She would run for it, 

Everyone thought. 

She almost forgot. 

They didn't work there anymore.

It had been few days after all.

How could she ?

She can't run for that errand anymore 

She wouldn't wait outside 

that facade anymore, 

The caffeine maladé no more.

It has been few days after all 

From behind those rheumy eyes

A few days felt like an age

This winter is different 

The freezing waves outside, 

Seem settled like a sorbet.

Outside that station

Where they often forgot time

And felt nothing but their 

Frosty cherry red noses

And suede bags 

Against each other 

His fragile fingers 

Couldn't hold their hearts together 

It has been a few days 

She takes the steps, 

Alone. 

In anticipation, 

of Bloody Mary 

And a writing Djinn