I’ve had a good meal. On a weekday it feels quite like a holiday I’d crave for. Time beside myself, self completed, self sufficient, and self infatuated. So I’m going to write. For the worth of two empty afternoon hours;

I have been dwelling in the discovery of a pattern in my life, if it exists, if the person that I am, can be defined by something authentic, not necessarily words but the emotional equivalent of words.

Went bare-naked-feet climbing mountains, rocks and across rivers and short of the line, across over the sunsets into the nightlife, trying to find the correction, the correlation, the content that is significant to define my nature, and my anguish, my soul, my youth.

I was in love a while back. With the possibility of eternity; and then I lost my balance. And found myself in the cured depths of irrelevant grief, lost faith and freedom and protection and truth. Eternity does not exist I believe now. Not in definition. Not when the feelings you crave, are lucidly incomplete without the presence of your own reflection.

"Saw the world spin beneath you
And scatter like ice from the spoon
I go on as you get colder
Are you someone’s prayer? "

I’ve been lied to before. I’ve been kept unaware. So I reasonably accept it as confinement. People have secrets. Always captive inside their own guilt sphere, who am I to say? I couldn’t ever completely explain myself to anyone; I hide innumerable traits and change with every sentence. Layer after layer of deception and carefully avoiding the concept of trust; I don’t even know if I’m human.

As the vanishing of stability is of no consequence to me anymore because I have finally learnt to deal with it; Drugs and self destruction have helped. Propelled the direction of thought; Now it’s ok. Now it’s all ok. Self convincing is quite a game to play sometimes. It’s a war within a war.

Yes I’m glad. I don’t belong to no one. And that a Shame, But I’m glad.

"Rain keeps crawling down the glass
Good times never seem to last "

I have a lot to say sometimes. But then I won’t say anything at all because essentially it all comes down to talking to myself. Like I’ve done from the time I can remember, the thousand lives I killed to move on and the thousand waiting minutes and hours trying to recollect when I was, where I was, and why I was. And I never get better or worse at dreaming; just get better at running away. Because here has to be gone now,
sooner or later. Right?

"You and I got something and its all and then its nothing to me. "

I’d be a self contained man/boy (depending on the weather) on a side street, completely incapable of handling his eyes, my lies, able to see through all the feeble sham, posing the quiet solid surface calm, keeping to myself, truth is a whisper, if only you knew.
So I write songs in my head. Like this one

Come down the stairs now sugar
Calm down the stares now

I want a vacant girl
I want a naked girl
Who Melts with the wine and warms my heart
And is fire enough to light my cigarette

And the fucking is senseless unless
She runs through me like a razor-blade
Plays cruel, not afraid
Throws little charm, a little recluse
And wears down her soft blues

And she knows I’m a dead man,
Up the mountain for the moon who ran
Not to find his evergreen land
Instead he was paralyzed
Consumed in ancient ivy and crazed
Trapped in sand castles, to be crushed by the waves

I’m shaken by her ground now
Idolized she touches me with her life
Slipping freezing crawling beneath
Cold skin and miracle surround
Repeating an act of precision,
Again, now, familiar derision

What a surprise?

So leave now
Before
The tides turn
And floods the garden of ever low
And the forests burn
And ashes fly in after glow

Who could walk into sacred space and live a lifetime?
Not me.
Not you.
Not us.
There is no eternity.

I'm growing everyday. Painfully sometimes.But I'm growing. I deny it sometimes. The denial of a saint? Maybe. Not really.Denial that's weak, strangely entangled in the cobwebs ever surrounding, ever confusing, ever conflicting. But I m here, still standing, still frozen in time, still making my heart work, overtime.
I'm home after 8 months. Nothing has changed. Nothing except additions to the showpieces, a few more framed baby photographs of me, the signs of an untouched room that used to be mine, the remote control buttons a little more worn out holding evidence of lone hours my mum spends with the television day after empty day, sons and daughters are running miles away, takes courage to stay behind I think; But yes, She still loves me as much. She still breathes the indoor comfort air of her house, she still welcomes with the love that melts stone. And I feel gratitude. Feel a little overwhelmed. Feel a little over-fed, as always. Yes, nothing much has changed.

Lives get separated in seconds. Entire lives lived and lost.

All that we fought for.

There is not much my dad says to me. Checks on my health, checks on my eyes if they look tired, my posture, dislikes my long hair, not really, just dislikes. Exactly like I'd want him to. Dad still takes beautiful photographs. I can see through, maybe he passed it on to me, maybe I'm going to complete his sight. Maybe i ll discover all the places and people he couldn't. Maybe I ll be an extension of his youth, his lifetime, his faith, his age. After all that , maybe ill have courage to be all the things that he wants me to be.

What is becoming of me. How many lives am I to balance? Where is my story? My Identity? On my toes. Delighted and expecting. On my knees. Frightened and dis-believing. I still like being like this. I had forgotten. I was forgotten. Racing around in circles, to be all the different people a single day can demand of me, to satisfy and make everything as perfect as possible. Make ends meet? Finally understood I think. Its a collection of endings. And a perfect day, if it exists, would have a good ending. Something beautiful and an endless epilogue.

"Can anybody fly this thing?

Before my head explodes

Or my head starts to ring"

A perfect day is impossible,
Simpler, lesser, mortal things could still be perfect,
A song could still be perfect.A stranger could still be perfect.A home could still be perfect.
Friends and fortune in Gokarna could still be perfect.

"Confidence in you

Is confidence in me

Is confidence in high speed"

Bangalore.

Where is it?

Who took it away?

I want it back.

My head is not working. I’m typing a thousand words and erasing them. I don’t even know why. Sometimes I write and then by the end of the sentence everything is skewed, off-center, like I aimed for the bulls-eye and shot myself.

No it’s not me. It’s the people around me, it’s the city around me, it’s the conversations, it’s the people coming out of offices and the same people going to offices in the morning, it’s the familiarity that is not comfortable, it’s the familiarity that is choking, unpleasant. If it were a race I would think of running, keeping the pace, finding the motion in the purpose. But nothing seems to be worthy of an effort to attain.

Every morning I finish my breakfast and consider the possibilities. Weigh them. Should I have a cigarette? Should I fuck me up first thing in the morning? Should I just be typical and ordinary? Like everyone?

So I lock the door to my house, slip the keys unconsciously in my pocket, walk, unconsciously down the stairs, the morning air is fresh and I am fresh too, from a hot bath and my dirty green jacket keeps me friendly warm. I think of the jacket and I think of her. And then I stop myself and I think of nothing.

I walk down the stairs. Meet no one. See no one. Someone pretty would be nice. Wouldn’t it? False comfort? Why am I in love with every pair of pretty eyes? And why is she so collectively defined by everything, everyone who is beautiful.

Sometimes I wonder that my creative fantasy is not working anymore. Sometimes I wonder that people are just what they are. Fearful, frail, uninspiring, dormant; I’m willing to compromise. Forget what I really want, and find what I conditionally want, right then. A modest escape; good music; self-preservation could just do the trick.

So I reach the end of the downstairs and realize that I could’ve taken the elevator. Dream state still lingers on, and I drag it along till I reach my waiting point.

The crossroad

(in reality, it’s a intersection of four roads, with traffic lights and early morning office traffic…its not pretty…but then I’m dreaming… I dream bare land in all four directions and a man on a motorcycle, the sound of his motorbike like the rhythm in his chest… waiting for his mind to define his identity...then...a flash decision, an accident of clear conscience, an infinite pause…before he powers up his motorcycle, kicking up a haze, brown cloud of dust…and as the cloud settles down, silence surrounds once again and I see a speck in the horizon…one more motorcycle, one more rider?)

I wonder as I sit under the tree beside the transformer beside the streetlight if ill reach a conclusion through all this hypnotic irrelevance. People standing patient wrapped in their own cocoons, inner sanctums, one guy reading ‘Jack Kerouak ’, catches my eye, but I quickly walk past him. Beat generation. Beaten generation.

There is a girl too. Beautiful hair. And tense skin on her face. Nervous but she paints stone cold gray calm, etched in stone; stiff, striking, lovely, deep, constant.

Now I’m revolving, in my revolving chair. Fair enough?

She watched
Traffic going
Traffic coming
Traffic turning
Traffic churning
Traffic burning
Her sight
And letting her be a spectator
A witness inside the machine
The life line
The beat
The retreat
And she's been away a while
Just a while

She stirred her coffee, stripped her soul off sins, took a few sips, careful and slow...and licked the nicotine bitterness aftertaste off her lips and continued....to look upon across the street from behind the glass wall, the reflections seperating her from the outside, severing the noise commotion, letting her count the finer strands and rest and breathe.

The cigarette. The confrontation.The balance. The smoke in her throat kicking her out of her dream, but she held on to it, not to calm herself, but to just try it, try pacification, peace and then...discard it.

"But i hope you know
that its touch and go"