Shopping List:

Abhi, buy these in the evening:

1. Wheat flour (3 kg)
2. Rice (the one that costs 45 bucks) (10 kg)
3. Mustard seeds (100 gms)
4. SSP asafoetida (POWDERED!)- the big bottle
5. Ariel (front load- 2 kg) (Or is it Surf? check once)
6. Eggs (get the small box)
7. your deodorant (must you buy that?)
8. Nail polish remover (where did mine go?)
9. make-up concealer (I also want you to see that dermatologist. come back home at an earthly hour some time!)
10. that ointment (check the name on the box. does it still itch, butt?)
11. pair of white ear-rings for your new kurta- pick something visible
12. large hairclip. sorry, yours broke.
13. pre-blow drying hair spray (HOW LONG has yours been empty??)
14. sun block (Find SPF 50)
15. it's time for your contact lens' solution, too. please tell me you finished the one you bought LAST year?
16. false teeth/vampire fang/clown mask... something. just make sure you stop wearing that expression on your face!
17. peas (1/2 kg)
18. Sun glasses for you. Aviators are on sale at that place. go check.
19. Femininity (25 litres) (I'm making you bathe in it!)

Love,
Abhi

Fore-verse

A mere white tube-rose

Must first be freshly dead

Before it becomes experimental paraphernalia

In the ink-pot.

At first, the broken stem puckers its lips,

Daring to test the moist blue-ness.

Slowly, all the chromes are drunk,

The white tube-rose turns blue

Somewhere between lifelessness and decay

Holding within itself what could have been

A poem, an endearment;

Gaining omniscience over what would have been

Secrets, bitter truths.

Stories consume it

So they can be told in another life-time. 

Bleed

How the red capillaries bloomed under the epidermis,

And you held my hand

Lightly dusting pharmaceutical fairy powder.

A sanitized doctor's touch it was-

The wound healed

The heart only continued to bleed.

Remember how the capillaries blossomed under the epidermis;

A-rose to your first, aiding touch. 

Tonight I Must Write

Tonight I must write-

The road is long

And the sights are many.

In the dark distance

Ruby tail-lights flash,

Threatening to block my right of free passage.

I quicken-

I must go home before curfew

And so I rush.

In the darkness, I don't slow down

To see the chopstick end of our fine-dining,

The tree below which we sat,

Or the road safety board at which I said

"Slow down sweetheart, the speed limit is 50".

I crouch angrily and the accelerator makes a feline growl.

All the time, I think of how I'm not thinking of you.

Somewhere ahead, green turns orange

And in a split second, I break a rule-

Not knowing where to stop

Not thinking about you. 

Perennial Night

It dawned for me, finally-

The day.

But what are you doing still, out west?

I look hard- it is you

Camouflaged in cloud colours,

My reminder of the night before.

I cannot be with you still!

The white on you is translucent,

I can hear your luminous voice fade;

At the brink of my eye

Rises the elegy of our broken temptation.

Go away, now!

It is time for me to be charred

By the brightest gold of day,

It has risen to dispel you- be gone!

I must now seize the day.

You rise and you leave-

With hurt pride, with hidden fears,

With indignation-

Like the last strand of a dream.

But you remain in the recesses of my heart

For me to visit all day.

Lone Marauder of Perennial Night,

You know it is time for you to leave.

Little by little, you disappear each night,

Leaving me in darkness.

Only to return fully

To haunt the-

Garnish

Anger, coriander, love,

What is each but garnish?

Only the tangible survives-

The smells, the tastes, and-

Oh.

The tactile memory.

So fresh in the greasy night,

With half-a-foot's distance

That insulates the heat…

Next to a biriyani stall-

He, she and well lubricated morsels

Of carb-energy,

Feeding seven screeching children in their body.

Impatience hisses, grows, and bursts at the seams.

Quick! Hasten! Run!

The last pairs of jeans will do

What they were created to do.

"Oh, honey! Oh, honey! Oh!"

XXX -Y?

Garnish, they garnish their love.

Flavoured air dances

Here and there-

The tango begins

With tangerine twists of Russian ethanol

Travelling to places

With the rub of

Un-flat bellies.

They satin for each other,

Nails playing different chords,

Teeth whistling in saline hot-springs,

As the prickle sizzling, wandering, shocking

Cloaks them in one swift movement

Plunging them in blank darkness

Putting out all lights but their eyes.

Their eyes.

Glances, touches, whispers-

What is each but Garnish?

Hide

Wash it tenderly

And hold the gleaming ass and say

"Holy Cow! Goddess of Prosperity!

The arrival of Wealth!

You're auspicious, Auspicious, I say!"

Run your fingers over me,

Eye me with greed,

Spank me with the mirth of Acquisition.

You bought me cheap, you prefer it that way;

You milked me so lustfully.

Rejoiced in the triumph my hide had to offer.

And once my skin was touched and used,

Your many devotions came away,

You saw no prosperity in familiarity.

You turned this aging, ugly cow away,

Because I was not that kind of a girl for you.

Unrepaired

Sleepless nights,

Red-rimmed eyes of blackness,

Snot-nosed, the babe fallen lies.

Medicant Time falls dead by her bed,

Past into present crashing.

Future frozen before the morn-

'Die child, die', lulls despair.

To Put Pen on Paper

Running, fleeing, endlessly in circles;

Again, again, Always-

Escaping, surviving

The execution by sharp needles

In narrow clock radii.

Shackled by diktats,

Unable to flick a wrist

In protest or in mere expression.

How then, the brow sheds

The brine of the ocean inside!

And descending, the intercourse with tears

Runs its acid course;

Red cheeks sizzle, extinguish.

Wordlessness streaks havoc

On sun-browned face,

Disappearing in dead mouth,

The hollow of silence.

Potability lost.