Ideal Citizens

I am the one you saw writhing on the road that night.

You passed me by without a single crinkle on your forehead.

I was hemorrhaging.

I had injuries.

Few boys who thought speed was fun, had hit me and fled.

Left me without remorse or any knowledge of my death.

Odd things flash when you draw those last weak breaths.

I wish I had that last cup of tea that morning.

I wish I had looked at my home one last time.

But I was on my way to being brain-dead.

When my dazed wife called my son he went a little mad.

(and grew a lot lonely and old in that one moment.)

You didn’t stop, and I didn’t get the chance to tell my grandchildren stories as old as me.

The stories were bleeding out of my head when you passed me by.

I was a teacher. A poor man’s ideal teacher.

You saw me writhing on that road that night.

Actually, all that blood had numbed me and washed away all the memories

and most of my pain.

I didn’t notice the indifference that you showed.

I was quite dead on that road.

But so were you.

 

 

 

 

 

Fifty Lashes

 

Raped. Taped. Whacked. Slashed.

Stalked. Locked. Leered. Hacked.

 

Berated. Negated. Gawked. Mocked.

Trolled. Mauled. Pinched. Knocked.

 

Sold. Bought. Left to rot. Minus a few body parts.

 

We still rise and rise from the ashes.

Go, and clean your bloody lashes.

 

Red Scarf

“The effect of water on light is a distortion.

But if you look long enough,

eventually you will see me.” ~ Margaret Atwood *This is a photograph of me*

 

 

Last chapters. Lost chapters.

And one day, he said, I will see you in a car at a signal with your children,

probably causing a mayhem like you do.

Through the crowd and noise and heat, I will almost breathe you.

Will you smile tentatively, and forget the sadness that I gave?

Will you nod and raise hesitant fingers in a gentle wave?

Will you hold the tiny hand of your youngest and point towards me?

Will you? He asked with an already dead wish in his eyes. So I can see?

So I can see how you lived your dream,

Don’t stop, drive on, when it happens.

Remember, I left you too. It is a fitting end, it seems.

Write to me.

Secrets were passed in the whispers of the night.

Like a loose eyelash.

From one fingertip to another.

Only one wish.

 

(Medium: Watercolor)

Bottled Fragrance.

 

The sound of your green glass bangles was the first thing I heard in the morning.

The rolling pin making your wrist an instrument. The music swirled in a bowl of milk.

You would wave with fear neatly swept by your radiant face.

I was the third child, why did you share your sadness with me?

 

The sunbeams would shoot rainbows whenever they collided with your nose-pin.

I thought that’s how rainbows were made.

But I also thought the sound of crickets were the cries of the stars.

Why did you make me promises, but never kept them?

 

Stories were your voice on a rainy day. That, till letters and words could make sense.

You have grey eyes that can smell lies on my breath – my earliest lesson.

Your palms are made of musk, your neck – of all the secrets we share.

Why don’t you send me a bottle of your dreams?

 

Grim fairytale.

Ex Rapunzel.

Hungry and battered.

Hunger of many kinds.

Wounds of numerous colors.

Fate dragged her with her hair.

She cut them off.

 

Before the darkness came,

teeth snapping, smoky, stalking silently-

to gobble her whole,

She freed herself.

 

She cut them off.

and threw them at his feet.

She was the lock.

She was the key.

 

Defiance tasted sweet.

And freedom was delicious.

 

 

 

 

(Medium:  Acrylics.)

 

 

 

 

The chains

“For though they know,

the rattle of bound ankles;

they have never heard,

such sorrow before,

This pounding, this beating down the floor,

this pliant,

All night, of feet in chains.” ~ Agha Shahid Ali

 

 

(Medium: Acrylics)

The brush.

 

 

 

 

 

 

He was the painter for the night,

his canvas – her spine.

Too blank, too bright,

all of her – to define.

 

 

 

(Medium : Acrylics)

 

The Veil.

The body is a mask.

An illusion.

A dry briar.

A mere path.

Something is hidden behind it.

Everything is.

But the shell is shiny-

so it dazzles the eye.

You only see what is visible.

It isn’t everything.

It is nothing.

 

 

Medium – Watercolor