take more pictures

pause for a minute,
picture the face of someone you love

think of drawing them, describing them
to an artist, a policeman

what words would you use?
how reconstruct them?

what describes their particular softness?
how portray their individual grace?

what did they look like

when they looked at you?

can you reduce them precisely, perfectly,
to skin, eye, hair?

trace the line of their jaw?
shape of their smile?

ever seen the way
the light touches their skin?

pictures in our heads
so fragile, fleeing things

and faces,
faces, far too easy to forget.

(In memory of grandfather who, knowing this, marched us off to a studio for a family portrait. He died in an accident soon afterwards.)

for Rajeewa

if you went to death,

how much grief

did your body hold?

if death came to you,

how much courage?

let us not speak

of regret.

notes to self

1.
you are not the first person
to have had your heart broken

2.
you are not the first
to be cheated on

3.
you are not the first
to wake up with glass inside you

4.
you are not the first
to be paralysed by grief

5.
you are not the first
to be unloved.

pandemic poem

this noose of corona despair
ever-present, like dust in the air,
it sometimes threatens

to drop like a familiar snake, or 
an acquaintance visiting, with
bags and baggage in tow, but I

slip away, quietly, slowly;
pretend there is no one home, I
walk quietly into the garden; I

look around hopefully -
see time greening to life around me; I
sense the clouds moving away

the ground, it stays still; I
stay still with it; ever so slowly, I
grow in gratitude

when I come back in, I
do not touch my face; I
step into the shower, singing.

submerged - III

yesterday
I was paralysed by grief again
I found myself holding on 
to the edge of the sink
staggering, shaken,
when I came to

later,
peeling potatoes,
I found myself with my hands 
submerged in the hot water
I had slipped them in,
then held them there,
unthinking

I, 
who have always been 
so careful with my hands, 
now I don't even flinch 
when they are burning

I don't even know.

submerged - II

my limbs
get so heavy sometimes

I have to picture myself
picking me up in parts

                           this hand
                           with this other hand

                           these legs
                           with both these hands

                           this head
                           takes so much to hold up

before I can make myself lurch
through this landslide of grief

submerged - I

from "you are my world"
to "you were my world"

there is a space so vast
I can't navigate it yet -

not through the ocean
of our endless tears

if we can stop crying
I might stop drowning.

salt in water

I wanted you to hold me
until the sadness disappeared 

it did -
like salt in water

no one can see it now
but it is all I can taste

there is a fire burning inside me still

I'll just keep on
saving up these knives -
use them to stab myself again.
you think you hurt me with words?

you will never know
how I hurt myself.

I take them out each night
look at all these weapons you tried
and here I am bloody and broken and yet
not begging, not so fallen as to let you feed me.

do you know nothing?
I know how to stay hungry.

look in the mirror for this one

don't tell me to
drop the fucking knife
after you made me feel unsafe

this.

to never

have to bury

anyone I love.

leave

why didn't you leave?

how do you answer that?

only by leaving 

repeat offender

to think
that you think
I traced only one transgression
you forget how fast
I read

for Lasantha

do you know what a bomb

does to a body?

an embalmer tells me

they do what they can

with the parts they get

but sometimes

it just isn’t enough

I’ve been carrying your body

around for far too long

parts of you are

falling into dinner 

conversations, drying up

the laughter

when they remember 

how they have forgotten 

other presses are state-of-the-art

the men at their helm fearless

for they rarely speak truth to power

or challenge the might of the State

your press has fallen silent

and soon your legacy 

will be silenced too 

even as your life’s work

is slowly being erased

not all presses test their strength 

against State machinery 

not all papers push up

against the State’s perversions 

not all people are prepared

to be pulverised

were you?

what you are

some people
bite the hand that feeds

you poured poison into mine
held it to my mouth

and mauled me
to bits

shredding every part
that bleeds

then,

shedding all decency
insult to injury

you came begging
armed with balm that only burns

you cannot help
what you are

some people
bite the hand that feeds

                    pity them -
                    they know no other ways to eat

unloving

go, my love.

search for

what you think you want -
someone who loves you like I do

know you will succeed.

it is no fool's errand -
each day I love you less,
each day you move closer to your goal

that place where old and new cross.

when I am almost at the end
scraping the barrel 

for the dregs of this love, 

you will find the love you seek - 

someone who loves you 
like I do.

the unloving 

begins now -

go, my love.

hallucinate

let me live
in those seconds
between awakening
and awareness

when I don't remember 
what I have lost

before the ache begins
and I feel like the target
at the gathering 
of archers

before it feels like
all the knife throwers
are practicing 
on me

before the storm hits
and I find myself
fighting to breathe
underwater

let me live
in that place
between sleep
and awake

tell myself
we are still ours

always

if you ever wonder why
even after all this time
remember, we said 'always'

grief

moving heavily through grief
my sights on grace

trying to learn how to forget
after letting go

I left, I know -
leaving's easy;

living?
no.

black grief

on some days I am brought to my knees
on the cold tiles by this harsh grief

black light spilling on the floor

it slams in like a freight train
swept off-track by a tsunami

I stand in its path, eager, willing

it breaks my bones brutally
meat on the butcher's block

I surrender to the knife, kneeling

it shreds me apart slowly
paper boat in a storm

I cannot swim yet I walk into the sea

I ask myself angrily,
how can someone can cry so much?

I am 60% water, how can I not?

bloodshed

I watch
blood drop
into the water

hypnotised 
it opens out 
like tendrils

whisper
'my god, my god
what have we done?'

accident scene

slowly becoming an accident

I hold myself
in my hands
slice into me
sweet, sharp
each night
let the dark in
and taste it 
in my veins

memory a blade shredding me

after the loving

the taste of blood

in my mouth

from your mouth