Friday, July 22, 2016

Strangers

Sometimes I can't help wondering
If things would have been different between us
If no one had said a thing at first
If we had been free to choose each other
And I wonder if in the absence of interference
We would have fallen in love
But then I remember that different isn't always good
And I picture us as strangers
Walking past each other on a busy street
And the mere thought of such a thing happening
Makes me feel thankful for what little I have now with you

Wednesday, July 20, 2016

New Galle Road

In the mornings
I love sitting by the window
As the bus takes the
New Galle Road
On its journey to Colombo
This road that runs along the sea
That surrounds our
Serendipity
Brings to me the smell of the sea
And a great many opportunities
With its harsh winds
And it is with this same wind
Blowing my hair
Here, there
Enveloping me in its own little cyclone
That I feel calm
Like I never do

And at a certain time of the evening
When the sun fights against darkness
Everything takes on an orange glow
The leaves of tress
Windows of houses
Everything looks like
A fire burns in them
And it is this glow that makes me feel
Both happiness and sadness
Without allowing a feeling of nothingness
One would expect as a result of
Happiness canceling out sadness
The way one plus minus one
Is zero
But at that time of the evening
I feel happiness in all its intensity
And I feel sadness
In all its ferocity

And sometimes I think of you.

Monday, July 18, 2016

Second chance?

Let's not call it anything this time
It can be anything
We can be anything
Let's not fit what we have
Into a mold that isn't for us
Instead
Let's just be us
Forget about labels
Hold hands when we want to
Go days without talking
Kiss under starry skies
Have picnics under old, wise trees
And you can tell me you love me
Without expecting an
I love you too
In return
And I can say it too
For no reason
Whenever I want to
And truly know
What it means to
Love someone

Sunday, July 17, 2016

Marriage

She had begun to suspect
He thought
Or maybe she had finally found
Affection in her heart
After putting it away
When the kids were born
One after the other
And consumed her world so fully
They had had a moment
Just that morning
Her hand lingered on his chest
After straightening his tie
And he had brought her hand
To his lips and left the smallest of kisses
And then the spell was broken as
The kids ran towards them
Saying they'll be late for school
But when he had kissed her
And felt her coarse skin
A fragrance once familiar had hit him
With a force unexpected
And he couldn't recall just what that fragrance was
And why it was so familiar

All day he was distracted
He couldn't get it out of his mind and he thought
Maybe it was just a reminder
Of why he married her in the first place
But no
What his mind was trying so desperately to remember
Had nothing to do with
That sort of love
It was something much deeper
Something at the very roots of his being

Later, when he took dinner for his girlfriend
He awkwardly kissed her hand
As she reached for the food
Laughed because it felt strange
But he was determined to
Remember
And on her hand he smelled
A lotion he had bought her
And maybe the faint smell of
Nail polish
A fresh coat must have been applied
That evening
And that fragrance he was looking for
Wasn't there to be found
On those smooth fingers
And later, his distractions were noticed by her
And she asked if he was thinking about 'her'
The wife, the one they avoided talking about
Because it always led to a fight
And he was honest and told her
That maybe he had been unfair to his wife
Who he had once loved and maybe still did
And the girlfriend asked him if he loved her
And he told her he wasn't in a mood to play that game
When he left that night
He was sure he wouldn't keep returning
For much longer
Because something was missing
And it had something to do with
How his wife's hands had smelt that morning

And hours later
As he lay restless in bed
Sleepless
Tossing and turning
Trying not wake his wife up
It came to him
So suddenly
That was the same fragrance
That covered his grandmother's hands
The same fragrance that covered his mother's hands
And it was a mixture of spices
Onion and garlic
Of hours spent in the kitchen, preparing meal after meal
For complaining children
For unloving husbands
Visiting family and friends
It was all the time that a wife couldn't
Spend with her husband and give him
The attention he later finds
From other women
It was all the duties and chores that took place of
Affection and longing
Romance
As had consumed them during the first few months
Of marriage

And finally he knew
What her life had become and
How unfair he had been
To be unhappy in a marriage
He was also responsible for
To complain about a woman
Who had been left alone to do
Everything at home
And he turned to her
Sleeping the not-so-heavy sleep of the tired
The sleep of someone who knows
In a few hour's time
An alarm would wake her up
And she would go about her day
In a routine
That didn't allow moments for the
Intimacy she craved
Affection she wanted
Companionship she needed
Man she loved

Saturday, July 16, 2016

Weakness

The weakness of the mind is that
It knows before anyone else
When love is a lost cause

The weakness of the heart is that
It refuses to accept failure and is
Determined to keep loving

The weakness that grows within me is that
I believe my mind without doubt
But my heart is too loud to ignore

Thursday, July 14, 2016

Hungry

She was so hungry for love
She yearned it with such intensity that
People mistook it for greed
But she was just starved

Like the little boy who begged by the
Roadside eatery
Covered in flies and dust
And watched hungry men and women
Children his own age
Mix into rice
Watery curry and
Dried fish
Golden papadum
And all he could do was lick his
Flaky dried lips

And she was like that little boys
Who was too weak to even
Fight the stray dogs for the
Food left behind
And she was so much like that boy that it
Scared her sometimes
And made her feel ashamed that
What made her body ache
And weak
Was love
A luxury when compared to food

But life is cruel in its ways and so
As hungry as she was for love
She could never accept what was sent her way
And pushed away all those around her
She cringed when a loving touch reached her
She covered her ears when sweet nothings were whispered
And she slammed doors shut whenever
Love knocked on the door

And so there she was, weak and alone
Escaping from the very thing
She was looking for

Wounded

It began like a bruise
Turning my skin
Slightly blue or brown
It’s difficult to say
When you are already so
Dark
And the light thud of pain
Seemed to rhyme perfectly
With the beat of my heart
And so I kept stretching
The bruised skin
Until slowly…
There was blood
And it hurt when I splashed water on it
In an attempt to clean myself
Remove the grime and sweat
That collected throughout the day
And then scabs
Little brown dots
That I picked at because
They itched and reminded me
Of there tiny existence on my skin
And so I scratched the bruised area
Of my skin
Until there was a wound, and blood
Flowed freely
Like when my body told me
I wasn’t with child
Like when my body told me
I was no longer a child
And now the wound is infected
Like a piercing from a shabby parlor
And pain shoots through me
And it is only minuscule compared to
The pain you left me with

Sunday, July 10, 2016

Alive.

Oh the stories that are told
In the books that we read
Or the films that we watch
Songs that we love

Oh the stories that are told
In the things that we collect
Or save in boxes
Hidden beneath our beds

Oh the stories that are told
In the words that we write
The truths that we know
And keep from the world

Oh these stories that hide
In forgotten corners of my mind
They keep me alive
They keep me alive

Sunday

You ask me why I'm smiling to myself like a fool
But you forget it's Sunday
Grey and gloomy
On and off rain
And I have a cup of hot coffee by my side
Right next to a book to read
So why shouldn't I feel at the top of the world
And have a smile on my face?

Thursday, July 7, 2016

Next to text?

There is no doubt that
We would talk more
If I stopped being a fool
And just sent you a message
Don't think I haven't tried
But I always struggle
To find the right thing to say
The best way to say it
And even if I have
A message in mind
I am crippled by the fear
That you wouldn't reply
So i swallow my words
Erase them all
And wait for the
Next message from you

Wednesday, July 6, 2016

I try to stop thinking about you
But then it gets too quiet in my mind
So I put on some music, hope it helps
But all these songs remind me of you

Truth

I was looking for happiness
And I got lost along the way
I threw away my map
Crushed the compas beneath my shoe
And then as I explored
Unknown territory
I found you and I thought
Finally happiness is mine
But you called yourself Love
And I thought, why would you lie
I had gone in search of joy
And found love instead
You said you knew where happiness was
And that you would bring it to me
Rest your tired feet, you said
I'll be back before you know it
And now here I am, waiting
The golden sun burning my skin
And a bird that flew above me said
He found love of his own
And I asked the bird if you were lost to me
And it laughed and laughed and laughed
You came looking for one thing, you settled for another
And now you have nothing at all, it said
So I started my journey again
And I found Truth along the way
And unlike joy and love
It didn't cause me any pain
Instead Truth told me just how life is
That happiness and love
Were merely myths
We believed in to hide from the truth
So I took Truth's hand in mine
And we walked towards the horizon
A good companion through life's journey
It is all we ever need

Sunday, July 3, 2016

Dead flowers

I won't lie
I do read my own poems
Not because I want to
Remind myself of all the words
I've strung together over time
But because sometimes
Especially after writing a poem
Labelled 'you'
I need reminding that
It's high time I changed the flowers in the vase
They are dead already
But I can't let go
I can't bear to accept that
It's time to get some
Fresh flowers
So I torture myself
I read all those words
Ignore the fiction
The made-up
And cling instead
To the tiny truths
Hidden between all those lines
And always
At some point I give up
I close the page
Stop reading the poems
And I think,
'Maybe tomorrow
I'll throw away these
Dead flowers'

But I never do.

Or maybe it's not meant to be...



When we are together
Your warm body next to mine
Close but not too close
A comfortable silence
Broken by smiles and words
Things of the past
Plans for the future
Jokes and teasing
When we are together
And I feel so happy
Because it’s suddenly as if
Nothing in life can go wrong
I wonder why we never became
Anything other than friends
Was it that we are both too afraid
Of losing what we already have
Or is it that no matter what we have between us
We will never have the kind of love
That is needed for that something more
I sometimes want from you?