Air (Version B)

'What does one want in any body but the world?'

1.

The other day,
I drove to the pond we grew up near.
I don't know how to drive
And the distance will always be too much or too little
For a drive,
But that day, I drove.

It was quiet, it always is.
When I say quiet, I don't mean silence, I don't mean peace,
I mean the stillness we knew to be palpable
To be so delicate that even whispering it would be
Acknowledging it
And acknowledging it would mean
Destroying
The silence which was truly that.

It's a safe space, not because it offers comfort,
But because it doesn't offer danger.

In the recent past, I've learnt that.
I've learnt that how are you is a question spilling over with potential
And doesn't necessarily formally inquire after your emotional state
I've learnt We exist in the spaces we create
Between our individual selves
And we can't breathe when we talk because
You can accept either the words or the air that existed in a body.

I'd rather take the air because there is something you can't control
And swerve and veer and stop and slam the door on
And there is no safety valve, no fire escape, no water to swallow pills
No first aid no punctuation no rehearsal
No moments of indecision over conversations and situations you handpicked
And stitched together in a patchwork of
Bad sentences, bad beginnings, terrible conclusions, a body that
I completely ignored because of the ringing in my ears.

No, I'd rather take your heavy breathing into my mouth
And your heavy breathing when you slam the door
And believe that both of them is love.

2.

I watched the light break open against
The surface of the pond
And ripple through the water into a somersault of fire.
Some part of me still believes
Everything I touch can burst into daggers of light.
That is the part I want introduced to the quiet
Because there is so much that is wrong about
Thinking of breaking open and thinking your fundamental state
Involves thousands of glinting daggers.

When I was really young, I read this story where
Somebody killed so-and-so and created mouths
That only spoke silence because that is what the dagger- god
Created them to be.
They did not need to speak betrayal to claim betrayal.

In my head, each mouth was purple and red and drinking in the air
Like tasting a slow, long drag of smoke
Before letting go.
Like each wound chose air because there was something
In the silence that the words would be interrupting.

3.

Interrupt me
With your silences.
Interrupt me
By your presence.
Interrupt me.
Break my silences with the sound
Of air.

I do not need your voice to twist around and form words
That let themselves into the receptacle of my senses
-My senses are vacant.

I need what comes naturally
The rise, the fall, the ebb, the rise again
That steady rhythm that is permanent
The constant presence that
I will find shadows of in every person I meet
That requires nothing of us
Except to simply be.

I need.
What comes naturally.

Consume me.
Drink in the silence I have to offer.
Accept the air I have drunk and let go of like the thousand
Words of love and hate whose meaning we've destroyed
Time and time again.
Teach me again
How is it that we breathe.

Air

'What does one want in any body but the world?'

The other day,
I drove to the pond we grew up near.
I don't know how to drive
And the distance will always be too much or too little
For a drive,
But that day, I drove.

It was quiet, it always is.
When I say quiet, I don't mean silence, I don't mean peace,
I mean the stillness we knew to be palpable
To be so delicate that even whispering it would be
Acknowledging it
And acknowledging it would mean
Destroying
The silence which was truly that.

It's a safe space, not because it offers comfort,
But because it doesn't offer danger.

*

In the recent past, I've learnt that.
I've learnt that how are you is a question spilling over with potential
And doesn't necessarily formally inquire after your emotional state
I've learnt We exist in the spaces we create
Between our individual selves
And we can't breathe when we talk because
You can accept either the words or the air that existed in a body.

I'd rather take the air because there is something you can't control
And swerve and veer and stop and slam the door on
And there is no safety valve, no fire escape, no water to swallow pills
No first aid no punctuation no rehearsal
No moments of indecision over conversations and situations you handpicked
And stitched together in a patchwork of
Bad sentences, bad beginnings, terrible conclusions, a body that
I completely ignored because of the ringing in my ears.

No, I'd rather take your heavy breathing into my mouth
And your heavy breathing when you slam the door
And believe that both of them is love.
*

The other day,
I drove into the pond we grew up near.
Because I don't know how to drive
Because the distance will always be too much or too little
For a drive,
So that day, I drove.

It was quiet, it always is.
When I say quiet, I don't mean silence, I don't mean peace,
I mean the stillness we knew to be palpable
To be so delicate that even whispering it would be
Acknowledging it
And acknowledging it would mean
Destroying
The silence which was truly that.

It's a safe space, not because it offers comfort,
But because it doesn't offer danger.

'Of course it is happening inside your head. But why on earth should that mean that it is not real?'

Carcass Regions

For Aylan Kurdi

You smell like disaster.

Imagine something beautiful
Something sea green unfurling like a baby bird
In your hands imagine baby birds falling out of falling trees
Falling nests
Imagine baby birds confusing identities so baby birds flapping their wings
Because you tried to teach baby birds
But baby birds flap their wings
And nothing happens

Imagine spray painting GONADS and believing it is art
Imagine spray painting GONADS and believing you could make everyone believe it is art
If you know, you said it often enough
It's art it's art it's art it's art

STAND BEFORE THE GODDAMN MIRROR
It's art it's art it's art it's art it's art
Wake up hungover on the sleep you wanted but couldn't get
It's art it's art it's art it's art it's art
Draw a baby bird with arms and teeth and
No not teeth fangs really
Draw blood for it to feed on
It's art.

If you repeat it often enough
If you repeat flapping your wings often enough
If you run fast enough
If you honestly solemnly seriously get high enough
If you definitely sincerely absolutely let it touch you enough
If you don't
It's art.

You disaster like smell.

In water I could lay down and pretend that it is more than this second this half-submerging this quietness this senseless this
In water I could stand having drunk water washed water renewed water
In water I could wash out sounds of narrartives
In water I could be flapping and maybe
In water I could be a penguin
Black and white
Art.
In water if I could breathe enough long enough if I could recall enough to know I am enough
Art.

I don't remember the water
The water has washed enough to wash away sediments of memories
And set it down on banks to choke empty seashells
To cling on to someone else's finger prints
To leave the disaster smell of the sea and all the empty carcasses it carries with itself
To be washed down with boiled bland tea
To create a carcass region in the skin of every man it seas
To create a miniature island, one sediment-sized memory deep
And goddamn it, it will touch you.
definately. sincrely. absoultely

Just don't call it art.

Pillow Talk (Sequel to Small Talk)

I see you in epic proportions
Like you stripped open the earth
And emerged in a cloud of dust
And raised your arms
And rain happened.    

I told everbody everywhere
-The every body I knew
The every where I knew
(Which was a lot
But not enough)-
That where ever you went
They would be asking the self  
They knew a nanosecond before you
Became more them than they  
'Who the fuck are you, anyway?'


I imagine you naked more times than
I'd like to admit
But not because that is arousing
And not because you were always an absolutist                  
But because
I think (and you'd agree),
That you were born too natural to be anything
But self-explanatory.
 
There is only one way to end
And there are just so many kinds of death
But then, you'd never buy the idea of something that obvious
And end up leaving yourself in everything
(The every thing
I see
Smell
Hear
Taste
Feel
Be)
Else instead.

See, I don't even know you yet.
But I don't hold that against myself
Because I have learnt all the steps of
The dance sequence that's
Set to the tune of when
Rain happens
So that when rain ends,
It will end with me screaming into the  
Rough edges you left when you
Split open my skin
Like the earth
Time and again                          And rain became:

'You are the most acceptable kind of madness'

Three Verses for a Rupee Each and One for Free

My language settles more comfortably on my tongue
Like thick bhaat that breaks into pasty starch
Whose sweet is countered by kali daal's
Jolting old-world flavour    
When my language wears words like rice and lentils.    
 
Science textbooks taught me a counterpart to
Everything that reminded me of going home
So that alien words became more
Familiar-
I was asked to put various lentils
In air-tight ziplock plastic packets
And label them using their other names.

I don't know what the point of that was
Because my daal settles thick in my mouth and
Its searing heat burns my insides every time I walk down an aisle
Instead of an alley
And look for a placard titled 'Black lentils'
Instead of saying 'Kaali daal'.  

*
3 rupees.
3 rupees multiplied by 28.
84 multiplied into 7.5 million.
What do you think when you walk back home
With no change, and only change?
Do you toss it up in the air and catch it?
Do you ball it into a fist and use it to wipe sweat?
Do you simply stare at nine lion heads?  
Do you calculate how many days until you eat again?
Do you tuck it away like a secret aspiration    
In the lines of your wrinkles,
The folds of your skin,
The cracks in your feet
And the hollows of your cheeks;
In your earthern ware
And save enough to buy a rope
Or fertilizer maybe
And drink it like the kali daal
You sold for a profit of 3 rupees?

Small Talk

When they came up with words, I wonder how they assigned meaning to them. 
Did they hold it up and feel it in their palms,
Get weighed down by the words 
And divide it up into categories 
Based on how similar they were?

*
You sat there, one leg over the other,
One arm splayed across the head of the armchair 
And I noticed that your shirt had a spot of yellow
And your stubble seemed more intentional than
An active attempt at passivity.

I didn't say anything, but 
A cigarette in between your fingers would have seemed perfect-
Typical, actually.

*
The Type of Word That Means Sad
The Type of Word That Means Happy         
The Type of Word That Means Love
The Type of Word That Means Hate
All The Words That Are Extensions and in-betweens 

 
The Words You Will Look For In Your Mouth But Which Will Make You Feel Like Your Mouth Is an Abyss And You Could Say Everything But It Would Still Not Be

The Words That Will Come Naturally To Your Mouth Because They Were Fed To You From Mouth to Mouth Because Your Mouth Is a Clock Repeating Itself Daily

*

I could imagine you dressing up for a party
And putting in effort if you didn't like the other invitees 
And laughing and making small talk

And laughing at yourself (because that's small talk as well) 
And going back home to shave that pretentious goatee
And washing your blade with an extra intensity
And twisting your tongue in your mouth like
If you could, you would slice it clean.

*

I wonder what they were thinking when they were thinking about 
Speech. 
Did they know they were the original creators- the pioneers, the real Old Masters
The Founding Fathers, the Invaders, the Everyone Who Would Make Everything Be?

Did they know that shouldered that kind of responsibility? 
Or did they throw around terms like

absolute, temporary, definitely, always, never, depression, ecstacy
Arbitarily? 

*

I can imagine 
You tying your shoelaces with extra care
And people calling you pedantic,
You walking down the road with your fists in your pockets
And people calling you nonchalant,
You knocking on the door once
And pausing deliberately.

         
And opening the door 
And staring at you blankly
Because though I've imagined it so often
It will be unexpected.

I can imagine
You tying your shoelaces with extra care 
Because you needed extra time of not looking into anyone's eyes
You walking down the road with your fists in your pockets
Because your defense-type is 'Constant Crises'    
You knocking on the door once
And pausing deliberately
Because you aren't even sure you are wanted. 

And opening the door
And saying 
'This is unexpected'
Though we both always knew that you would land at my doorstep anyway
And you responding with 
'Is this a good time?'
Though we both always knew that every other moment besides this
Was irrelevant
And making small talk with each other  
Even though we both know

You came to my door, looking for an escape
A comment on how you look like shit and how you haven't changed
Because God knows you were only going one way.

And you'll not tell me how you

Never cleaned that shirt, but stopped sitting 
Leg over Leg 
And I won't tell you that that was because you stopped being an invitation 
And started being a 'No Parking' sign instead.            
And we'll talk about Important Things-
Using words that are should mean everything to us-
Which hold no meaning really- 
And we'll exchange a handshake as the only admission

That we wanted to know each other through more than words.

And I'll say it was a pleasure you came 
And ignore the desperation in your eyes
And out of courtesy, you’ll ignore the hopelessness in mine

And respond with 
'Likewise'.

From a Teenager's Diary

                 I have ached for you
    From bone to skin
                 I have ached for you
  With an ache that defies gravity                                                                        
                Every movement of mine
     Is halved by your absence                                                                    
                And doubled with the hope that the distance is
Breaking

                Every so often when I speak out a word
                 It lies
            Ringing in the air like it     needs  
               To be stilled in your mouth    

And every so often I
Ache for you
Heart to vein to vein
Like every new pump of life
Is flowing life into  
You    

                   And sometimes
        I swear I look into the mirror
                     And whisper  
                         'Appear'.