Style ..

She used to be quite good with words,
Not a single feeling escaped her pen
And if you cut her, she would bleed -
Black with despair, sadness,
Haunted with memories of Others,
She would bleed black and then
Weave a web of her own making in
Infinite words and phrases that
Don't have an end and run-away
Sentences.

Run away. She always just ran away,
From notions of love and passion
That wasn't dark enough,
That wasn't deep enough
Like a night sky full of storms -
Till you came along and
Seeing your red tshirt and blue jeans
She rephrased her sentences and it all
Became. Very. Short.

From then it was just -
Smile, the curve on his face.
Grin, his lighting up the night.
Red, his tshirt, shirt, blood and heart.
Blue, his jeans, his watch, his flip-flops.
Love, when he turns to her in RBGs.
She didn't need much and her flavours
Changed so much, her dark friend faded
And everything was light.

Then she found beer.
Beer which made him feel different.
Beer which was brown but made
Him, the dark friend, appear.
Beer which made him in RBGs seem
A bit faded and then delusionary
And then colourful and then a bright
Yellow spot in a night sky
Which swallowed her up and made
Run-away sentences again leading
Her nowhere except back into His arms,
Whose?

Then she found love again.
She found love again with RBGs,
And a black belt, silvery buckle,
New shoes, new look, he was going out.
She felt red was wonderful and then
She tried to describe it.
She fell wordlessly asleep with His name
On her lips and him forgotten.

She wasn't so good with words since then
But,
She started living in a different way.
Instead of in stories and words and phrases,
She started living the days, each one
Finding more treasures and worlds
Than her words took her to and all
In RBGs and not
Black and white. Not again.

Sunshine threads

To my.

It's at times like these that I realise
How much you are to me -
That time when I broke my arm,
And I couldn't write,
I felt I was bleeding ink on bedsheets
Instead of on crisp white paper.

You called me
And you made me laugh,
You made me forget,
You helped me refigure the words,
Repeat them over and over again
Till I knew I wouldn't forget it
And neither would you

And that paper could wait
Because you had me and I had you
To take care of.
*

It's at times like these that I realise
You're much more than a colour -
I would have called you red
For your passion, your life,
I would have called you blue
For the ink you spill on papers
Just like I and
I might have called you yellow
Because you are like sunshine
And white for your Colgate smile.

Did you change to Pepsodent yet?

Then when we both flunk physics
And we tell each other that we've been
Screwed,
And we end up laughing even though
It's either a pass for 12th grade
Or welcome back school life
After the farewell where you turned up
In a wine red sari and I was deep green.
But we both had sunshine threads to join us.

Even in different universities,
In two corners on a map,
Our little corner was always with
That little hut we went to for PE
And you sang, you performed
And I was shocked,
Later turning into your biggest fan
When you light up the stage -
Sunshine threads every time.
*

It's at times like these when I realise
You're my family as much as my -
Best friend, soulmate,
Sister from another mother.

I was going to be a mother and you,
You were to be the godmother,
The aunt who will spoil the kid to high heavens
And it just ended with an anticlimax,
All our plans of Malayalam, English,
History, French, Philosophy,
Any social science, subject which we
Intended to teach him/her along with
Kindness and responsibilities and honesty,
A lot of kindness for this world
That forgets that we are all human,
Honesty in a world which has taught itself
To steal lives, wives, knives, anything,
Responsibilities in world which thinks only
Of its rights without doing its duties...

We lost our much awaited child,
Our baby, my lover and I.
We lost our hopes and dreams,
In one blink of an eye,
In one red torrent and I could detest
That colour red.
But not yours -
Not yours when you came down into that darkness
With a light we couldn't really see,
We were blinded by tears,
Jobs and miserable other lives could just wait.
We needed you and you came.

You came in red for passion.
Red for life.
You showed us what everyone else
Only told us,
That red can be another chance,
Your wine red sari with sunshine threads,
Picking up pieces and
I still remember
Though it was ten years ago and
You told me that I look pretty too
And that we have a whole life in front of us
And papers waiting for my blood,
Red blood, red ink,
This poem stained in red -
Happy and sad,
Destructive and constructive.

Ah. Tell me if I am ever,
A stable grey kaleidescope,
Or a wandering kitten
Or a shade of happy life to you.