Message Pending

I switch the little thingy off, pull out the ear-phones. I’ve been switching it On and Off for almost an hour now, perching myself in different parts of the house, desperately seeking a haven. I can’t find one. And I know why. Spatial displacements have nothing to do with peace of mind. Yes, that is what I was trying to say. You move from place to place, lie down, get up, pretend to watch T.V, fake liking a movie. But it's there, this ponderous, fixed gaze that you have directed at yourself, almost penetrating your everything. Incapacitating. This ominous, lurking thing.

I want to speak with You. Disrobe my mind. That is what I’m trying to say. I want You to plough and plough, further and further, till You find me out. You really can. If I call You now, it’ll be another of those long rambling pointless ones, with Father Time watching.

*************

I want to bleed. A bloody nose, or seeping oozing gashes that take very long to heal. The skin hardens slowly around it. Healing, they call it. If you are careful enough about not worrying it too much, it’ll leave you one day, when you peel it off with one smooth swift tug. It’s fascinating, this entire process. I wonder if I could actually watch it harden before me, witness the thick soft welt become a hard brown yielding crust which I am afraid to pull out just yet, knowing, all the while, of the presence of that soft, pink new-grown flesh underneath. But I just wait.

*************

There’s macaroni 'n cheese in the microwave. And left-over Love from yesterday. And of course, there’s cake, lots of birthday cake in the fridge. But stress-eating was never my thing. So wasn’t writing. Or was it?
Maybe mine is the dilemma of having it All. And yet not having anything at all. Of being an odd-sock with a soul-mate. I have enough reason to be happy, I suppose. But do reasons really count? Shall I count the reasons? (In Soviet Russia, do the reasons count you?)
Sigh. I’m losing It.
You will find me many reasons. And rightly so. I was happy this afternoon. There were things to do, there was your palm pressed soft-firmly against mine, and there was the smell of your hard-earned sweat. But it was the afternoon, full of possibility and yellow- light. Not evening, this dark swallowing beast, the residue of something you never decided to part with. With the grating chirp of Cicadas spreading underneath your muscle, your skin threatening to break in revulsion and revolt. And that ache, that familiar ache. That numbing, often almost physical, visceral ache.
That ache of having to find out that there’s little Affection to go around. That You are tired, so tired. And that I can count the reasons, but stop at three.

*************

And yes, I can’t conclude logically. Can’t see a strand of thought to its logical resolution. Can’t decide what this means, can’t figure out why that happens. Life is much too diffuse, much to complex for ratiocination.

And contrary to what you think, all This is not because I haven’t read a book in a long time.
Or maybe It is.
Maybe I should switch the music thingy on again, and press the ear-phones on. Life is much more beareable with a background score. And manufactured emotions, that don’t hurt so much, because they never belonged to you.
Yes, I’ll put the music thingy on. And wait till the Pending message is Delivered.

I'm singing a new song Now...

It's a song about anticipating Names on lists.

It's a song about rediscovering the beauty of those oft-abhorred little red droplets. A song about savouring Relief.

It's about impending Celebrations. And the thrill of anticipation you feel when you smell Surprises in the air.

It's a song about quoting Marianne Moore in editorials, and feeling flatteringly erudite;

About little accidental paper-cuts on your lip. And the way they stretch every time you smile.

About saying a Prayer for the first time in years. And sleeping in Peace thereafter.

About being able to give surprisingly good 'grown-up' Advice, without looking it at all!

About paying visits to a church in your mind, simply to see the Sunlight pour in through the skylights.

About stealing lines from your favourite song, and using it as a blog-post title. :)

About propping your head up on a pillow, and reading Neruda. While Johhny Cash belts away.

About the end of a long Gestation period, and being born for the second time.

It's a song about remembering when I first heard your name. And Everything that happened after...

But then again...

On second thoughts,

I want to sublimate Want.
Tricky, huh?

I just wish you didn't expect me to.

Want

When You wanted, it was all there, laden out before you. All Yours for the taking. For You to ask for. For You to keep.
And now that I am in want, all I get is Want. More Want.

The Economy of Love

They loved each other. It was as simple as that. No wild flights of romantic thrill, no overwrought outpourings of effusive amour. They had known one another for almost a year now, and love was getting easier every day. Mechanical, almost, she thought sometimes (and then chose not to think that).

They had woven their lives around each other. They had set routine ‘conversation’ timings, (tiny call post- breakfast, His commutation to work and back, a quick good night call before bedtime). They had rationed cellular phone talk time (rupees twenty every day = one hour and ten minutes). It had taken time, and she still struggled to come to terms with the Routine of Love. The Calculations of Love. The Mathematics behind what may seem to start out as an instinctive affinity to another separate, yet similar soul cased in a different body.

But they had done well so far. He said it was imperative to have structure, discipline: even in love. He claimed he needed it. She acquiesced. The possible validity of this argument had, in time, unwillingly settled within her, and she often found herself calculating how much the cost of the last conversation had been. Reprimanding herself silently if she had surpassed the stipulated amount allotted for the call before it was made. She had begun to lose track of the many minutes she spent immersed in the ‘economics’ of love. She called it that. Made it seem fancy. Noble. Governed by a higher cause. For the Greater Good. If not anything, it had definitely improved her mental mathematics, she joked. Something she had never ever been good at. Something that he had always excelled at. Among many other things. “My little mathematician”, he used to call her sometimes, wearing his broad kind smile, his voice singing with the affection-tinged condescension that he mistook, sometimes, for acceptance.

So yes. They had learnt what love meant. That it meant companionship to one, and ache for another. She knew she was the one who felt the ache. It hadn’t taken her long to realize that love had become the absence of something, rather than a surfeit of it. She resented him for that sometimes. For making her calculate the time they should allot to Love. For always being the first one to lift himself off the park bench first, whenever they met. For always being the first to remember that it was time to go home. For always saying politely that it was time to hang up and start studies. He was a winner. And Love, once won, had taken its place, next to the neatly arranged cups and medallions he’d won on different occasions, housed proudly in the glass-face cupboard built specifically for that function.