Mouthful Of Forevers

I am not the first person you loved.
You are not the first person I looked at
with a mouthful of forevers. We
have both known loss like the sharp edges
of a knife. We have both lived with lips
more scar tissue than skin. Our love came
unannounced in the middle of the night.
Our love came when we’d given up
on asking love to come. I think
that has to be part
of its miracle.
This is how we heal.
I will kiss you like forgiveness. You
will hold me like I’m hope. Our arms
will bandage and we will press promises
between us like flowers in a book.
I will write sonnets to the salt of sweat
on your skin. I will write novels to the scar
of your nose. I will write a dictionary
of all the words I have used trying
to describe the way it feels to have finally,
finally found you.

And I will not be afraid
of your scars.

I know sometimes
it’s still hard to let me see you
in all your cracked perfection,
but please know:
whether it’s the days you burn
more brilliant than the sun
or the nights you collapse into my lap
your body broken into a thousand questions,
you are the most beautiful thing I’ve ever seen.
I will love you when you are a still day.
I will love you when you are a hurricane.”

- Clementine von Radics

My Angel

When I was down in every way
You saved me a little everyday.
The answer to all my prayers
My little Angel you were there.

The good times are great
The bad ones not that bad
My Angel when you are here

Even when you annoy the hell out of me
I love you
At that very moment, I'm getting annoyed
And loving you to pieces
Because my Angel you are here.
Stressing and loving me
My Angel you are here.

You have redeemed this world for me
Just when I had given up on it
I have forgiven its cruelties and little disappointments
Life is worth living again
My little Angel now that you are here

I'm writing you this disjointed poem
To show you I do care
That you are here
My little Angel you are here.

Us

How are you, my love?
My first, my only
Are you happy, my True?
I've been so lost, so lonely

But once a year you are mine, in a dream
When I can taste the winter-cream
On my lips, as if it was yesterday
Let me pour my heart out today...

Your big brown eyes,
I remember them so
The warmth in your embrace,
A promise to never let go.

Why to I do this every year?
Write you a poem and shed a tear
For the memory of us
When 'Us' ceased to be so long ago

That age of innocence and wonder
When we were young and the world, younger
I have to hold on to it, come what may
So I write you a poem every year in May.

How much longer can I carry this on?
My stubborn heart knows only one song
The song of 'Us' and our togetherness
Of perfect love and dreams of foreveness.

This stubborn, childish heart of mine
Does not know of surrender to time
Ah, time! Look how it passes
In rusty clocks and broken hourglasses

I am a different 'Me'
And your 'You' must be
Quite different too.

Did you find love or do you still
Look for the one who will
Sweep you off your feet
And give you kisses sweet?

I wish I could hold you,
Be there for you
Look in your beautiful eyes
And see that love again
A return to innocence

There is so much I have to say
But you are so far away
And it has been so, so long
People have come and people have gone

But you somehow remained.
Like a little warmth retained
From the dying embers of my life's spring
To give me hope in this world so cold
So unforgiving, so bitter, so old.
No telling what the future might bring

So this time of year I think of you
Those blossoming days, those 'tickets for two'.
Though grow up we must
I can wistfully dream
Of the old you and me
And a whole new 'Us'.

i carry your heart

i carry your heart with me
(i carry it in my heart)
i am never without it
(anywhere i go you go, my dear;
and whatever is done by me
is only your doing, my darling)

i fear no fate
(for you are my fate, my sweet)
i want no world
(for beautiful you are my world, my true)
and you are whatever a moon has always meant
and whatever a sun will always sing is you

here is the deepest secret nobody knows
(here is the root of the root
and the bud of the bud
and the sky of the sky
of a tree called life; which grows
higher than the soul can hope
or mind can hide)

and this is the wonder
that's keeping the stars apart

i carry your heart
(i carry it in my heart)

-- e e cummings

On missing you...

I miss you in parts. Never as a whole. I miss your hair. Coarse and wild and golden, a lion's mane. Miss how it split the morning sun into a thousand shimmering sparkles. I miss waking up to your sea-green eyes looking at me. Those sea-eyes that had drowned so much sorrow that I could see my love in them, floating helplessly on the surface.

I miss your smell, that used to linger on the sheets long after you went into the shower. I miss the texture of your calves, the shape of your back , the back of your neck, the soft skin behind your ears and I miss kissing them. I miss your long, tapering fingers(you used to say you got them from your father) and the way they used to feel on my lips. I miss being. Just being, existing, in your arms. Those mornings were so warm. The world is so cold, now.

I know it wasn't perfect. Except my love for you. So unwavering in its stubbornness, its vanity. What went wrong I do not know. Those are the parts I do not remember. Or maybe I choose not to. It is there still, stubborn and vain. My perfect love.

I miss our mornings and I miss you and I miss loving you. In parts. Always in parts.

Merry Christmas, Love

Since I am totally broke, my girl asked me to write her a poem as a Christmas gift. This is what I came up with. I'm not used to writing on request and my style usually involves a lot of tributes(read copyright infringement). Inspiration is hard to come by these days but Rabbi Shergill came to my rescue. He is like the Bruce Springsteen of India, and I am like the Quentin Tarantino of Poetry :)


Had I come some other time,
Would we have still met the same way?

Had I been a better thief,
Would the moon have been so full?

Had I known how to lie,
Would the veil have still remained?

O Veiled One.

Who knows? Not me
A different time, a different sea

Would it have been harder? Easier?

Was there a better cure?
We could never be sure

Your touch was warm.

You had built such a high wall
I laid a siege all through the fall

Could I have been more persistent? Or less?

I scrambled up and met my demise
By coarse, yellow hair and sea-green eyes

You had coarse hair.

As you lie beside me now
with your yellow hair on my brow

Splitting the sun. Light? Or Shade?

I close my eyes and try to breathe
For soon it will be time to leave

And I am glad.

I'm glad that this happened
The way it happened
Because it happened

You are in my arms today
And I wouldn't have it any other way.

This coarse hair. This warm touch. I'm glad.

of Tears and Rain...

Raining in Cebu, raining in Mumbai - pathetic fallacy. Can never tell when someone is crying. Raindrops or teardrops. We humans are already so good with hiding emotions(even from ourselves). Rain is just another handy tool. Mummy Nature is soooo clever!

Thanks for making emo look cool.....

HAPPY MOTHERS' DAY!!!
Thank you soooo much for this wonderful life that you have given me, ma. I'm really loving it and I can do the things I really want to do.
I am happy and very satisfied the way things have gone so far. No regrets. Thanks for bearing with me all those 'growing up' years and helping me out when times were tough. Thanks for indulging my tantrums and giving me everything I ever asked for. Because of you I can never get disheartened by the difficulties and challenges that life throws at me. If I take a wrong step, if I falter and lose my way for a bit, I know that you are always there for me.

As a mother, you make me believe that there is still goodness and innocence in this world, and the pure selflessness that you exude is something that I could never do. Nonetheless, because of you, I can still tell stories about good, selfless people and believe in those stories myself knowing that even if they don't exist elsewhere, those values exist in you. Believing in the values of one's stories is very important to an honest storyteller and that's where you inspire me, ma. I can be confident that no matter how much evil and cruelty propagate in this world, the sanctuary given by a mere hug with the slightest whisper of assurance from you can take all that misery away. Warmth. There is still hope. Everything will be fine. Good triumphs over evil. I start believing again.

As a human being, you have taught me how to love. Anyone. The love you have for me is the purest form of love anyone can, and ought to, have for anyone. I can only aspire to love someone so unconditionally as you love me.

You are my little piece of heaven, ma. Thanks for being my best buddy, my best pain relief and my best cheerleader eva!!! I know the only way I can pay you back is by living a good life myself and I will leave no stone unturned in making your creation a success!


Love you, miss you
Bettu.