Thirtyfirst

How much strong do your promises hold?
Higher than the mountains cold,
Or a sharp ambitious blade of grass
But standing merely in a collapsing fold.

I have wiped clean each of my slate,
Detour from fate has just begun to fade,
Make your moments promise worth all this wait.

Thirtieth

Take my dark
And fight with the light,
I'll be sleeping
My dreams held tight.
I hide my flaws in the deepest colours,
Fabricating those perfections
For the sake of being praised;
But I am hiding deep down,
I'm hiding the best of me;
Fearing the feeling
Of being taken for granted.
I am nothing different,
I am one among the many;
In my heart I aim for the stars,
But fear all places unlit and shady.
I have a heartbeat that defines me though,
Strong enough to bear the brunt
Of every damaging incompassionate flow.

Twenty ninth

No revenge for the hurts,
No regret for the follies,
Unload every feeling that feeds on the past.
Let the only dark thing left behind be your shadow,
Rest all life be a burning halo.
Blur the bygones, trust each of your nerve,
Gone are the days of making it better,
Await only for the best you deserve.

Twenty eighth

I'll write a song that starts with you,
Words that matter are the unspoken few;
My melodies love the beats of your heart,
And everything else that sets you apart.

Tortuous turns that life feigns,
Be the warmth when my crescendo wanes;
However difficult the symphony gets,
We'll make the music sound right always.

Twenty seventh.

     She was seeing a patient who had come for a follow up. Follow ups gave her jitters sometimes. A failure wasn't something she could manage. It feels better not to choose than to try and fail.
     She told the patient to sit straight and dangle her leg mid-air. Mid-air, the worst position for all possible affairs in life. She was going to test her for the knee jerk reflex. The patient's Gullian Barre syndrome had been almost cured, the jerk should be present there now. Autoimmune diseases seem to be so funny, she thought. It is one thing not to recognize oneself, and another thing to allow our white cells to launch an attack. Against a  supposedly foreign object. Its difficult to realise that some things don't belong to us; and even more difficult to accept all those that sure do.
     She was about to strike the hammer end on her knee. Absence of an unconditioned reflex will decide her failure. He always cringed his eyes in a certain lovely way when she tried to kiss him right between his nose and eyes. The only reason for his not trusting her will be an unconditioned reflex, like this one, she thought. She should admit the truth and be ready to give it her best. Her life won't be based upon reflexes and responses anymore. She was ready to strike the hammer. Henceforth, it was going to be more about the efforts.

Twenty sixth.

     She had found it cute, the way he covered his phone with his hand, the moment she walked in to sit besides her. She smiled. He knew she already knew. His plans for her birthday next month. Next month, till when they would have fought a thousand times more. And realised how much more she had wanted him every single time. She wondered whether he felt the same for her. He made her want to live this same life over and over again.
     The terrace cafe was giving out a great ambience. She looked up at the night sky. It was darker. On every fifteenth day the moon doesn't show up, and yet, the sun doesn't hurt itself. It is only the heart that feels forlorn. But even in its absence, the sun is aware of the moon. It always knows when its time to rise. And ensure a bright day. Mistakes can be very much relative. What matters is being ready to resolve all the issues. It always felt very much secure with him. The way the sun must now be feeling about the moon. She asked for his hand in hers.
     He was looking into her eyes. Maybe he wanted to be seeing her forever. She looked down. He wasn't hiding his phone and his birthday plans from her. But her name written on his hand. In black ink. Probably at some insane, unconscious moment. He smiled. She knew he already knew. About his daydreams that were being woven around her love. At this moment and till the end of the times.

Twenty fifth.

     The black ghost fish looks like it dons a cover over itself. She, too, for a multiple times, had wished for the same. A cover, that hid all the inner weaknesses, giving the fish its chance at hiding everything that isn't to be shown.
     It swam different than any other fishes kept in the entire aquarium, she noticed. It wriggled its way into one of the dark tunnels the corals had made. She had drifted apart. From his care and his longings that he never showed, his desires that she might have never even realised. She almost expected it to come out the next second, out of somewhere else. Even from no-where, if it needs to be. But there wasn't the slightest of movement in the water. She had lost all her attention to that one thing, the one that had once been.
     She had accepted that love wasn't the right choice always. Some compromises have to be done. He looked like he could make her feel right in every possible way. She had said yes to someone else. Even without getting her heart into his story. Without taking it off from where it seemed to be stuck, since an eternity. It did find its way out of an another coral, but she had realised the futility of chasing a phantom. Happiness has to be pursued, but only from where it can be sought. The time might not be right, but choices have to be made, to suit situations in the wake of a corrected time.
       A blue fluroscent stripe, laced upon orange, with the most promising fins, they felt alluring in this broken state of mind. She knew her decision was right, her heart would understand, sooner or later. She let the black ghost swim out of her eyesight. For ever.

Twenty fourth

Slips away the sand from where it isn't meant to be,

Buried under the dunes of time are things for no one to see.

With the days too hot and the nights too cold,

The vastness of all void lures promises untold.

The winds have been shaping it since ages long,

They have been whistling in your ears..

To keep hidden the desert's true song.

Twenty third.

     Confabulations. She was lying wondering on the hospital bed, to fill in gaps in memory. By fabrication. No, but she was sure she had felt that strong emotional surge just before they hit the barricade. Was it for real? Or was it really a confabulation?
     However hard she tried to remember what he was saying or was going to say, she couldnt think of anything. Not even enough to fabricate the rest. When you are put into a fix, you start loving your original dull life. She never realised she had wanted him, because she never wanted to realise it.  But now, if he was about to confess his love, she was sure of her decision. It would be something she was since long been waiting for. It was enough to turn her world upside down.
     Usually there's a nurse standing near the patient when she regains consciousness, but that happens only in movies, she thought. She was desperately waiting for someone to enter. Someone who could tell her that he was as fine as she was. Even if the thing he was talking about before the crash was his dead dog. Even if it was about the bad weather. Even if it was about the recession. Even if she wasn't the girl he had fallen for. She would let him walk out of her life.
     She wanted the surge to be true. But there was so much risk in it. Risk, if she wasn't the one. Risk, even if she was the one. The one with no courage to take the risk. She rather wished he would walk back, smile at her and say it was nothing. Just a confabulation.

Twenty second.

     She watched the magician pull out exactly the same card he had told he will. There was that obvious smirk, the usual one, the one that cannot be forgotten.
     It was amazing to her, seeing how surprised people were, even when they already knew that the magician was going to be right. We are so accustomed to our ideas of happiness, she thought. We are able to surprise ourselves, even with the most expected of all things. And when it comes to pain, we don't know, for most of the times, the exact cause of all the hurt. And it feels good to know that others, at some point of time, have been through that too. As if it was just equally and justly distributed. As if you loved seeing people hurt. As if you have understood the mechanism of how the universe plays with you. You never will.
     You never will understand how and why things hurt. You will then keep on chasing 'things that last forever'. And eventually realise, that nothing ever might. It dwells upon you, to revel in today. As for the things left out here, the Afghanis rightly say, zendagi migzara.

Twenty first

You walk through the darkest of my secrets,
And say you've stumbled upon a beautiful heart;
You put up a bargain like never before,
When you ask for a smile, to hide all my flaws.
Meeting me in these entangled turns of life,
You change love enough, to fit in those knots.
You strike me first with the differences we share,
But you melt in me like we are meant to be;
The way it rains over the sea.

Twentieth.

     They could have easily crossed over. But she let one more cab zip past. She was incapable of denying herself those few more seconds of holding his hand on this side of the road. This side, where the sun shined. This side, where at some point of time, it will set too.
     His eyes stole her breath everytime she wanted to let him know how weak and strongly devastating love could be. He would have believed in his integrity even if she did so, and promised her with a love for lifetime. She no more wanted that. To base the beauty of her world on the dreams of those promises being true. It felt good to know that her happiness depended solely on the momentary truth, on the pleasant and undeniable present.
     It was important to gather her heart one more time, even if it was to be broken again. She hoped he will wait as long as it took to do so. With that charm hooked up his sleeve, he seemed to be an end to the indefinite search. The sun might set. But he had already started meaning so much to her. She thought she'll trick the daylight. Trap his love, in the need of darker days, if they ever are meant to come.

Nineteenth.

     She found the dried rose in her eight standard history textbook. History was never a dry subject and roses never really symbolised love of any kind for her, but they were just kids back then. Kids, so much in love. Since then, there had been multiple lifes lived, for she had learnt that no two worlds existed simultaneously. You have to constantly choose. She learnt to adjust and accomodate a huge world- when her dad transferred and shifted, when school got over the second and the last time, when medical school started. Phew, huge part of life has been lived it seems, like almost twenty years done right.
     The rose had yellowed to the lowest petal hanging by it. Having loved and lost many times ever since, probably the rose was kept so that he would stir her memory even years later. It brought only a smile onto her lips, he is in some other part of the country now, living his dream, she thought. She was serious with yet someone else a while back, but it had all ended the way she never had thought it will. She never had thought it will end, actually. But the thorns were almost the same brown when she had kept it;  according to what she remembered.  The good things leave our minds and go away in our process of moving on, but the bad things, they stay there always. Teaching you all that shouldn't be done. Because maybe not doing the wrong has become even more important than doing the right. The world looks into how you shouldn't be, always. She was happy with the way she was. People around her loved her, and she loved herself too. She wondered whether she would have been the same, if she wouldn't have broken or been broken all these many times. Every reconstruction needs a destruction. Theres a reason for why things happen. Its impossible for the river to change its course on its own. Bigger rivers require earthquakes for doing what obstructions could do for smaller rivers. There is a creation hidden in every calamity that befalls. Destroying us is life's way of helping us better itself. There cannot be a new unless the old is wiped clean. Perhaps she'll continue keeping the dried rose in there. It won't hurt ;)

Eighteenth.

     The night falls in, and the sky steals the show. The quiet all around beautifies its eeriness. The darkest things are also the most beautiful always, in which you can empty your heart into; no one dares to explore. They remain there, untouched. You can think of any innumerable whys and ifs about such things, because somewhere you know that these are the times when questions don't matter at all. They just allow you the freedom of imagining choices you wouldn't have otherwise made.
     The lights go off one by one, you know they always will. But you still trust them with all your life. You let yourself break. And then, somehow, as time passes by, you realize there are more stars in the sky than all those lights that studded the city's skyline. It was all about the brightness, and so be it. Right ways always exist, you just need to let go when the time is right. If love is about being happy, then that is what you should get. Love, or no love. Theres' no place for things that don't work the right way. The lights stay till it is 'night' ; but it is the stars that will stay right there even during the day,and shine when it gets dark.

Seventeenth.

     It was a windy day, not according to the weather forecast department, but she had sensed the chill that morning, the one which only cold winds from a far off place could blow into the city. There was always something about things that have felt distant before they happen. They are predictable, and yet unmanageable. They sweep you unexpectedly into rains, but they eventually bribe you with a rainbow. She tried to gauge the weight of her backpack, though the last time she checked there was a small hole in it,she was glad her umbrella was somewhere in. ' I' m prepared for everything', she thought. She was walking towards the bridge, she knew it would be a perfect picture to take when the sun is midway through the sky. As always, it was going to be a long wait.
     It is supposed to grow brighter as afternoon approaches; but things seldom go your way. And the pain goes away only after you have well accepted that it will. But the problem is you never accept it will before it has gone. The clouds were fast crossing over to her side of the sky. But she now knew she had all that was needed. He had walked in her life and seemed to be made of every bits and pieces she had seperately, and secretly designed in her dreams. Such people are not meant to be lost. They will be in the tones of your life, in the tunes of your voice. They will become your umbrella against every heat. Against every rain and the shattering wind. Just as it began pouring,she looked up at the hole on the black strip. The sky, with the dark clouds, was black too, and it almost melted in. Though there is nothing like perfection, she realised that it was all about the faults being in right places. Where they disappeared into the greater picture. It is about their not mattering. And even with the hole there, the rest of her umbrella's fabric was something that didn't compromise. Something that she couldn't throw away. It would be always there for her. Against every heat. Against every rain and the shattering wind.

Sixteenth

You shine like the sunshine bright, 

But the summer is already here;

You touch me like the cool wind so light;

But it already was an icy cold night.

 

You walk back in when its no more in me,

I have left those memories to stay alone;

They'll get tired of all the waiting,

It won't be long before they'll be gone.

You were a warm spring that went its own way,

With each passing autumn I have lesser to say;

I won't be able to tear off your page away,

But I'll have a new story..some another day.

Fifteenth

It stays right there always,
To make you stare into your past,
It is one thing that never will change,
It takes up your thoughts fierce and fast.
You paint this world in the colours of your choice,
And leave me stranded in a place so familiar,
'Cause this is how love had always sounded,
 It had felt so strong just before it had ended.
Need to be steady before I melt in your directions,
Before I realize the truth in your confessions.

Fourteenth

I tell you to walk me till the road seems right,
But you follow me into my dreams tonight.
You feel like a promise I may never know,
Like the one that light owes the shadow.
You talk about the prom that's been on my mind,
And I think of leaving all my past behind.
The stars come out for a studded evening,
I look at my feet, 'cause my thoughts start flying.
You tell me to let my hair down,
They'll go well you say with my gown.
That is when our eyes actually meet,
You begin this song,
 And I am already complete.        

Thirteenth

     She clenched the stethoscope tighter in her hands. It was supposed to be the last patient for this shift. An hospital O.P.D. can be the most tiring place on earth. When she asked what brought him here, "Cold and slight fever," he said. Just cold. And slight fever. Paracetamol, amox, and maybe a couple of painkillers; and then she'll be done today , she thought. But her mind was wondering somewhere else. The way he had promised she would never be able to lose him even if she wanted to, she had thought it was true. There was something about him that made her think about a forever together. But no one knows how short some forevers can turn out to be. She inquired for any relevant negative history; of course she wasn't expecting anything substantial out of it. She never expected much. Ever.
     She told him sit straight, told him to take deep breaths. She could hear the air move in and out of his lungs. It was his recently updated picture that made him cross her mind. He was looking even more better since the last time they had met. But it was no reason. She had not left him because he didn't look good enough. Vesicular, normal, as expected, the patients' lungs sounded. She was thinking of seeing someone else. Someone else who had already swept her feet off the ground. But he was so much good at convincing everyone everytime he tried, it was even more difficult to get him right. Everytime she looked into his eyes, she drew a complete blank. Complicated to understand, he was a paradox of life itself.
     She realised she was searching for the patient's heartbeat, since a tad bit longer than usual. Even a tiny impulse would have sufficed. But she could find none. People lie when they say their trust is lost, she thought. And it struck her like lightning, she placed the stethoscope on the left, same distance from his sternum. She heard his heart lubb-dubb in peace. She had got it. Dextrocardia. She couldn't remember the exact numbers, she didn't know how many people among millions were born this way. But she knew now for sure, trust is just misplaced. But things work just fine even if u don't understand them. His heart had lied on the wrong side, since years. But there were no complaints, just cold. And fever..      

Twelfth.

A flame flickers, but tells the night;
Her darkness isn't anymore a fright.
But it fears its plight in the daylight bright,
As to whom it'll prove however hard its might.

Nothing is itself without the being of an opposite,
So its not about the wrongs and nor their rights;
We fight for the side that we belong to,
But exist in the grey between the blacks and their whites.

Eleventh

Find words for me to say,
I'm moving past my days of grey;
Find words for me to say,
Lighter my heart feels on this way.

You are in the sound of falling drops of rain,
The ones that never miss my window pane;
You are in the pattern that the stars never forget,
Against the sky always the same they set.

Its not about the butterflies that in my stomach fly,
They are there to deceive with a sugarcoated lie.
But when i finally see u,
Making your way through the crowd,
I understand now,
Love lies in this, this spontaneous sigh.