My Crimson Love

Screaming shores of crimson blood
I’m drowning in the rising flood
Crimson light falls on my soul
The crimson hurt takes its toll.
Set ablaze a crimson sky
with a fire no one can pacify
When dusk falls on a crimson lie
my crimson soul will slowly die.
A crimson drop falls on my heart
of a crimson blood so sweet,
Slowly it fills my crimson eyes,
with crimson tears of deceit.
How crimson is your beauty now
in your crimson blood I see
No more crimson words or feelings
in you are left for me.
Crimson pain for my crimson soul
and a crimson wound for my heart
as I witness the death of a crimson love
when my crimson love departs.

The Thin Line

There's a very thin line between losing it and lost it and either side of the line is a comfortable zone to be in. When you're losing it, you don’t know what’s happening around you. People try to make you realize that it’s happening to you. They even point it out to you but it just doesn’t seem to settle in your head. The other side is when it has happened and you don’t even know what hit you and when. It just happens and you change. You change for the worst and it’s irreversible. You're not yourself anymore but a new phase of you. The previous you is history and all that’s left is mere memories of what you once were, sometimes not even that much.

The ugly part of life is when you're standing ON the thin line and all around you is the mess YOU have created and then the thoughts seem to go numb, feelings seem to have died. It feels like a bad hangover day and all the work in the world HAS to be done that very day, and your car breaks down on the way. Top it up with a cab strike.

This thin line in topic here is where you seem to feel the palpitation, the blood gushing through your nerves. You can feel your pulse at your temple, your wrists, and the back of your neck. You have done and caused enough shit. You had a chance to undo it but now it’s too late. You were given a second chance, then a third but you messed it up. Now what? You just stand there helpless. NOW WHAT? Nothing. Face it. Face the facts, wait for it to pass like all the other times it did. Wait till it hits you hard enough and you reach the other side. Wait till you lose it. It’s a rush, standing ON the line, waiting helplessly, thinking I shouldn’t have done this, done that. Thinking why I always make the same mistake again and again and again. And then I smile. I smile at what I am. I smile at all the mistakes I have made, time and again and learning zilch from it. I smile because there is nothing else left to do.

At The Crossroads Again

I am at the crossroads again. When I look to my left, I see a dull road fading away into a misty dusk. When I look to the right, I see a road with cracks so vast and deep, I’m afraid I might fall into one of them. When I look behind me, I see so much hurt and regret that I don’t want to go back to the ugliness and sorrow I once faced. When I try to see ahead, I am unable to figure out what awaits me. I can see the presence of a light, but my heart believes it’s just an illusion, a fatal trap to capture me. And so I just stand there wondering which road to take. Random thoughts keep springing up in my mind, thoughts that I can’t comprehend. My mind is in chaos and prevents me from thinking straight.  Suddenly the world is upside down and everything seems to go wrong. Everything seems so different, unpredictable. Sometimes I wonder if I should even care anymore. I feel I am so complicated at times that even I fail to understand myself. And then I wonder how, when and why I changed so much. I wonder what or who was responsible for this thick wall of indifference that I have built all around me. Sometimes I want to run away, take some other road that I can twist and turn according to my purpose.  Sometimes I feel like hurting myself, wondering how it would be to see myself bleed and die. From where I stand, I see myself as a pathetic broken person who is too confused, too weak to decide which road to take. Life is strange, love is stranger. I’ve had enough of both. Complications never cease and simplicity is so vague. I want neither.

I am at the crossroads again and I don’t know where to go.

Andhera (Darkness)

 

Raat ke andhere se haar kar chala tha main
socha tha raahon mein roshni to hogi
dhundla sa kahi savera to milega
Koi kiran badalon se ubhri to hogi.

Sab raahon ka ant ho gaya
ab tak gum wo savera hai
socha tha raahon me roshni to hogi
aur yahaan manzil par bhi andhera hai.

 

Translation :

I walked defeated from the darkness of the night
I thought there would be light on the way
hoping I would find a faint dawn
or maybe just a streak piercing the clouds.

Now all roads have come to an end
and yet there’s no sign of a dawn
I thought there would be light on the way
but even the destination is just as dark.

***

This is my first attempt at Hindi poetry. Please be frank if you don't like it as much as my English ones and this would be my last.

Good Deed Bad Deed

The two of us lay on the terrace on a clear night, both of us with a joint lit in our hand and stared at the sky. She suddenly broke the silence.

“People become stars when they die…”

I looked at her as her face reflected the orange glow of the lit joint. ‘Where did that come from?’ I thought. I figured being high on weed makes you philosophical so I put in my own two cents.

“They go to Heaven. The bad ones go to Hell.”

A trail of smoke emerged from my lips as I spoke and danced in the air, reaching for the stars.

“Who’s a good person and who’s a bad person?” she asked, her voice husky due to the weed, never taking her eyes off the stars.

I looked at her again. ‘Nope. She isn't kidding around.’ I thought. She was expecting an answer.

“Good people are good people and bad people are bad people…” That was all I could think of saying. “…you know what I mean?”

“I don’t.” she replied and took a deep breath. She really was high.

“Umm…good people are the ones who have done good deeds and bad people are the ones who have done bad deeds.” I explained and took a last long drag hoping the explanation was good enough.

“What is a good deed and what is a bad deed?”

“Can you stop the crap now? You are ruining the trip.” I said wiping off the sweat on my forehead and started rolling another joint.

She completely ignored my request. “Is smoking weed or having sex or fighting a sin?”

“Yeah, I guess so.”

“So we are going to Hell?”

I kept quiet. She looked at me. I looked back. Then she went back to staring at the stars. My silence must have told her I didn’t have an answer. She was quiet for a while. Just when I thought the conversation was finally over, she spoke again.

“If I kill a man and I think I’m not wrong, then I’m right. I haven’t done a bad deed.” She paused to look if I was listening, then to her finished joint which she replaced with a new one and took a deep drag.

“…and if I haven’t done a bad deed then it has to be a good deed. I think smoking weed isnt a bad deed either…”

She paused for a few seconds and looked at me smoking. It seemed as if she wanted me to somehow acknowledge what she said. I was thinking about it anyway.

She continued. “…so that means there is no such thing as a bad deed. Then there is no one who goes to Hell. If everything is a good deed then everyone goes to Heaven. That means we are living in Hell.”

The fact struck me hard as if someone had punched me in the stomach. It was the deepest thing I had ever heard. ‘I am in Hell smoking weed and going to Heaven for that.’ I thought.

“Okay. So you kill a man and you think it is right. So it is a good deed and you go to Heaven. This place is Hell, and everyone goes to Heaven. Agreed? But what happens if you feel guilty?”

The question made sense, I could make out by her expression. She twitched her eyes a little, then frowned. The question bothered her but only for a few seconds and then she looked up at the sky again, smiling.

“I think feeling guilty is a good deed.”