The Wandering Mind

She stared outside
Out of the glass window
Through the tinted glass
She saw only tears
On the reflecting glass
She saw only dewdrops
Of her own stunning face
She smiled to herself
And decidedly
Looked ahead.

Dreaming of what was
And what had been
She stood transfixed
Just as she moved
Only her hands
With tremble in her feet
To oil the dampness
Of her hair
As she stood there still
She smiled to herself
And decidedly
Looked ahead.

I wish I could have seen her
Uneasy and discomforted
Not devoid of human emotions
In the shower
With hot water pouring; purring,
In her silent wake
While she stood there
Thinking of things
Thinking of ways
To escape
When she stood there
She was smiling to herself
And decidedly
Looking ahead,
The Wandering Mind.

It Wasn't a Smile

Naked. That is how he felt right then. Somehow, he could always feel it. This wasn’t right.
___________________________________________________________________________________

It flowed in just like a gush of water would hit my small intestines. The oesophagus would face it’s challenges. Just like my face did that second.
My face was yellow, the eyebrows straight, the nose snorting and inflamed. I couldn’t concentrate. But I had his image in my head. I could just about think about the black flowing satin shirt. His skin was soft. Just like that of a 3 year old. The touch gave me goosebumps. No, it was the feeling of his touch that did. It came pretty easy. The stage lights, however, burned away those feelings.
At this point of time, I could sense that the only audience I had was grinning. Or maybe it was a smile. Whatever it was, it was the cutest stretch of of skin I had seen, for a long time. I hadn’t found someone as adorable and yet as smart as the one sitting in front of me. I hadn’t felt the urge to look up and stare into someone’s eyes so bad. I resisted. I let them, instead, burn holes in the wooden floor. But he stared at me. Stared at me and glared. He didn’t feel the tension in the air. The tension was in the air around me. He obviously didn’t feel a thing. But I had expected it to be different.


The music in me, then lashed out. I sang. The glass didn’t break. The sun outside did not vanish. Neither did Sinatra turn in his grave. He however continued grinning. He grinned straight through the 3 minutes of the song.

The empty hall didn’t help me. The empty chairs didn’t. His grin did. His grin didn’t. It evoked the song. It evoked the song in me. The lonely staircase leading to the stage didn’t help me. Nothing did. Only beer could. But that was far away. It was right next to him. It was a few meters away. It was with him. The tension in me reached it’s zenith. I wanted to grab it. The need was urgent. Urgent enough to make me forget where I was standing.

I was in front of him, on a stage, staring at the wooden floor with a flaming stomach, with the want of beer, maybe of something more; but a want none-the-less. I was imagining. He was up here, right next to the air near my nose. I could have reached out by a centi-meter and felt any muscle I wanted to. Rather I wanted to. I had an immediate reaction to that. The stimulus was way too appreciable. The want way too deep. Just as my hand moved half a centi-meter upwards, I awoke from the dream. I was there. I was in front of him, on a stage, staring at the wooden floor with a flaming stomach, with the want of beer, maybe of something more. Yes, it was a want anyway.

A “Thank You” was all that I could muster, instead. I didn’t dare to look up. I couldn’t bear the idea of looking up to see him stare back at me and smile, his cute little smile. But I still wanted to. I wanted to know if was grinning. I wanted to know if he would offer me a beer. I wanted to occupy the seat next to him and make the auditorium look fuller, maybe even scarier for every new prospective entry. I wanted to know if it was a smile.

But I left as he whispered “Next”.

I walked.
I shook the hand of the next contestant. A little too enthusiastically at that.
And I looked up. Finally.

He was still smiling. Or maybe it was him, smiling. The face remained in front of me and my eyes. The expression hadn’t changed. I tried changing my focus to the vastness of the auditorium. I did. I couldn’t. My eyes swept back.

I looked at Sid introducing herself, on stage. I could feel the tension again.
This wasn’t right.

“Ma’am , coffee?”
I turned. The co-ordinator was there with a cup of steaming milk and Nestle coffee powder. After mixing and then stirring, I dared to look up again. The same expression on the same face; it haunted me. It haunted me even though he was right there, in front of me.

Anyhow, I turned to try and talk to the same co-ordinator. He stood there, looking at me. He too was grinning.
I decided to walk away. I did. I couldn’t take the looks. I couldn’t take his eyes. Their eyes at me, together, I couldn’t take that.


It seemed like the music was leaving me. The overwhelming feeling never came this time. The instinct ti add another rift to the song didn’t come. I was disappointed. And appalled. I hadn’t expected any such reaction.

I sat in the rusty Opel waiting outside.
I was half way through smiling.
I stopped myself.

I talked to my thoughts. I wandered through them. Blades of green grass under the blue sky; I was dreaming again. Shouldn’t happen.
Why isn’t the head working its path? As usual?
Why do I have 5 threads to catch and one to tread on?

I went back to the first though of the day.
I wasn’t wrong. It hadn’t been right the entire day. The tension was now missing. It wasn’t. It was in me.

_______________________________________________________________________________

He felt it again. He couldn’t take it. He knew it wasn’t right. He had felt it the entire day. It had been a nightmare. A plethora of meetings, an odd number of seat beads dangling and flashes of fake smiles; that had been his day. His feeling of uneasiness, of discomfort hadn’t vanished for a nano—second throughout. It seemed highly unlikely that the same would change for the night. Living through it, he wanted to smile genuinely. He awaited the arrival of his wife.

A car creaked outside. The tires screeched. It was obviously his son. Here ws another thing that wasn’t right. At least for that day.

Both, then tried to smile at each other and for each other. As their smiles spiraled down, he walked out, leaving his son alone. This wasn’t right. Again.

Time passed. The clock seemed to be ticking slower than usual. The hour hand had been frozen on 11 for many a hours or so he had himself believe.

This so wasn’t right.

Slowly it defrosted. Then 12 froze in and over.
The silence however was not broken. Not be a bird, not by a gramophone, not by screams of children; there was silence. Pure golden silence. It lasted till another car screeched. This however, was much more of a softer screech. It made him feel better. It made him smile.

Afterall, this might just be right. Maybe finally the new day had begun.
As she walked in, he smiled.

________________________________________________________________________________


I walked into my house.
Was it a home?
Thoughts in the form of tokens of the past two years floated in my brain, here and there, from one neuron to another. I was still engulfed in that auditorium. Engulfed I was, in the emptiness of the auditorium, of his eyes, of him.

I opened the door. My face was blank.
I hadn’t felt ‘that’ way for a very long time. I hadn’t felt it for a longer time.
But as I walked in, he smiled.
I knew he was smiling. I didn’t mix it with a grin. There was no way I could.
It was a smile. Not a grin.
I forgot the past 2 hours. The last 2 years flashed past.

I smiled.
He smiled.

It was all right.

The Walk

She walked the staircase. Carefully. Tactfully. Her story reflected; just like water trickling down into the washbasin; in the way she walked. In her apparent blank stare. In those vigorous blinks. In the span of the minute she decided to look away. In her slow chatter. Yes, in the way she walked.

What is her story? That in itself is another story. For there is more to a stare, than eye contact. There is more to blinking than eyelashes. There is a depth in every word. In every action. And there is light in every dark step.

Shadow, that is her other name.

Dormant.

She passed me by
With that emotionless bundle
Yes, she passed me by.

Staring with blank eyes
She didn't look straight
Looking back,
She craved for a smile.
While she just passed me by
With that blank face.

Walk on; scream for your life
No, the skies don't inspire
Water isn't (her) perspire.

On the face of it
Dreamss lie
Deep inside
Dormant earthquakes; so sly.


Now, the snake sneaks out
Lurking around, it slithers through
And with that emotionless bundle
That blank stare
Her dreams slither with that snake
In or out, take a calm guess. :)

Goodnight

With a look of oblivious faith,
She smiled
The lies are hidden
Not so deep within.
The tears are unkempt
In her darkest dreams.


Now,
With a look of obliviousness
She smiled at me
The hidden lies are out
While the tears are hurriedly buried.

She talks of some lively moments
And after the following silence
She laughs without a sign of despair
Abusing him, she says she is okay
While her eyes dance
A different love story

A goodnight and a hug
Her language reads
With a 'talk to me',
I am politely asked to leave
Walking out of the door
I turn to see
A tear finally rolling down her cheek
Streaking her identity.

Runaway

The song, it killed her. Had she been in a state to talk, she would have. But the mind is a clever little thing. Or not so much. Not at the required time at least. She couldn’t reach a decision. No, not with Nothing Else Matters playing in the background. She took off her headphones, and looked up at the night sky. There it was. But where was he? What was he thinking?

“I need to be strong. Or so says everyone. But this isn’t me. I m not giving this any thought. But the decision was made. On my behalf.”

Her hands reached for her cup of strong coffee. She needed to think it over. But for what? There isn’t any point anyway. Drinking and slurping, she couldn’t help but turn the lights on. She moved. Only if that was a “she moved on”, how much more happiness that one word could have been. But well, it wasn’t.

“Okay. I smile. I laugh. Minni is apparently proud of me. My parents trust me. My friends think it hasn’t affected me. Well I don’t really show that it has. Has it, actually? I knew it wouldn’t last. But I wanted it to. Hell.”

She slurps. Laying her hands on her cell phone, she opened her contact list.

“Staring at the screen won’t help ma’am. Come on now.”

Finally deleting that one name, she decided to wade through memories. At slow pace. Chats. Talks. SMS. One by one, all of them were deleted. She doesn’t hear them. She tries to not read them. She stares, and hits the delete option every single time.

“It was all fake, wasn’t it? I was faking it. I hate myself. No, I hate him. No. I can’t.”

She sees the video. The credits. They were funny. She switches it off. That reminds her of that one piece he wrote on some webpage.

“I can’t delete that.”

She doesn’t. What bout the music list. She tries hearing some songs. Her list was topped by lips of an angel, learning to breathe, Romeo and Juliet, far away, cold,

“I never really wanted you to see the screwed up side of me that I keep. Locked inside of me so deep. I never really wanted you to go. So many things you should have known. ”

, please forgive me, runaway, it’s not over. The list wouldn’t end. But the tears never came.

Never.

Sure?

Weak inside
You scream for love
Yet all you get are screams,
Internal and eternal

You feel the pain
You feel the morose
But you feel you won’t yet give up
Not yet, at least.

Stare at the sky for some inspiration
A blank stare into a vast ocean
You want to swim
And now you want to fly

Oh but darling
Because your feet are curled
Doesn’t necessarily mean
You might touch the sky

It is best to not let hopes soar
To a height hitherto unknown of!
For its ok to be weak
But always
Always, be sure.