That Butterfly I Could Never Catch

Rustled it's wings and liquified the colors on it's back
like the ocean does to the sky on the horizon,
it tempted my inexperienced fingers to savor a touch
on the powdery blue and shimmering gold
yet like the proudest queen that walked the Earth
not to be touched by the unexceptional,
it rose into the air the moment my naked fingers came close.
I pinched the summer air, hot and heavy from
the exhaust pipes of the rat-race cars and the smoke
from chimneys stemming out of hearths where
apron clad men and women cooked brains
to serve to dark men in dark suits and dark sunglasses,
the very definition of contrast to my butterfly
sitting on its next perch of wild primroses that stared with their jaundice eyes
without a feeling in the world by themselves
but add them to the hand of a man about to go on a  first date,
there was now something about the flat petals and their jaundice eyes.


There were other butterflies around me to catch
but the blue and gold was etched into my pupils
as they clenched to keep out the sun.
I failed over and over till the sun went down
and my pupils finally dilated
enough for me to accept resignation.

You Are

A boy who, all of a sudden in the middle of class,
slips his hands into the left pocket of his friend's trousers to grope at his private parts.
A girl who wouldn't pick up calls or meet him after
she left him a text saying she was pregnant because words can create and destroy the world.
A boy who started chain-smoking at the age of fourteen
and tried to quit in vain till you found your nicotine patch in God.
A girl who never paused to listen to what others around her were trying to say
because you always kept a packet of condoms in your room till the right time.
A boy who disappeared inside a well years ago
and resurfaced out of the blue as a woman and shocked everyone who knew you and didn't.
A girl who stitched together magazines to shut herself out from the cold
and got interviewed by the biggest magazine in the city for your debut ramp walk.
A boy whose mother picked you and your friend up after school,
who showed him his first dirty video after lunch when he came back to your place .
A girl who collided with a wall while you were dancing
to a tune released by Britney Spears ignoring your homework for the next day.
A boy who understood the ways of the world at ten
so got labelled as the bumbling class idiot by his friends and overconfident by his teachers.
A girl who decided to take the matters into your hands
but got beaten up by your own husband while your in-laws looked on.

I Realize

There are these memories ingrained
within every person and object I have chanced upon,
stirred alive on dark winter afternoons
that sleep slowly into oblivion so deep
that you could hear brittle bones getting ground into dirt
which rises up and floats around everyone else
infecting everything and tying every one of us together
and the ones that are stirred alive in dark shadows
of that lone tree on the hottest day of the year where
there was so much food that I beckoned
squirrels and birds to help us finish the lot
as everyone else drowned in a siesta
except the children who were now free of maternal reigns.

Bodytalk

I'd call unknowingly
You'd know before I do.
Even if we're  over,
habits don't die soon.

My eyes don't blink as much
as my brain strays to your eyes.
As our bodies did all the talking
I couldn't spot the lies.


Should I hold on to bits of you like
flaky leaves on winter trees?
I'll run away
I've made my choice
but my feet are slowing down.


What a waste of time.
What a waste of time.
What a waste of time.
What a waste of time.
What a waste of time.