REFUGEES AT HEART

Every apple pie, Christmas cake, rogan Josh, puttu kadala, spaghetti weekend, alu paratha and sushi salad that is ever described in a fictional universe found a way home. I cooked several meals in my head where friends were gathered round a table and did not judge each other except for being my friends.
I wondered then as I do now, even in my dreams, is this what home looks like?

Every shade of paint in existence found a way into the pallete,
Where the brush and I spent ourselves in a hurried frenzy
Making sense of the past and thumbing our noses at it
Painting self-adored and wholly private art on India tourism calender-backs.
Spiced tea lay witness to those nights and afternoons where Picasso and van Gogh vied for my mental health and insanity at the same time. Because at the pretext of art anything is possible. Five year old's scenery painted in tears, coffee stains and old school borrowed water colours with poetry scribbled in between.
I asked them that day, is this what home looks like for you?
The voices told me yeah it does, laughing and chiding.

My parents often recount their homes and memories, they sound good to hear for some parts and then there are silences and when I ask them, "is this what home looks like for you?",
They say, "No, you do." They leave their silences to me to fill with my colours.

For city dwellers like me, who have dreams of country vacation homes yet ambitious urban super sonic realities,
There is a particular pace of life and walking with our elbows tucked and heels clicking.
When we meet strangers we speak silence.
We do not make much eye contact,
Afraid of seeing the emotion
The depth of pain and it's recognition in the other pair of eyes.
No denial or anger can tarnish the exultation of possible happy endings to horror stories in human eyes.
Instead, we move on, just asking one question to every related stranger on the road:
"Is this what home looks like?

Stories on skin.

Flaky skin, darkened patches 

Translucent veins. Tattoos that hide pain within them and under them.
Ghosts of sorrows past and present.
Gift wrapped in soft flesh and softer souls.
Stories that are seldom told but when done right, become scars.
And how we like to pick them up in others, hiding our own.
Trading wound for wound and never counting the other person's battles.

My first was a crescent shaped burn mark. Not intentional.
A play thing. A mark of siblinghood and protection. Another a fall from grace splitting my knee open where my brother got to play doctor and then went on to become one. Another a slash from a broken wash basin when I overreached my attempt to be clean. That's my list.
But once I started noticing, I saw that they bloom everywhere.

In crooks of necks and curving elbows, in corners of eyebrows and squashed noses and chiseled cheekbones.
Things that were broken upon human skin leaving scars deeper. I can still feel the glass metal and wood that entered people and stayed hidden in the folds of trauma well beneath skin.
And then there are voices and images and words flashing back.
A horror film that became a silent movie.
Nothing to explain. Nothing to record.
Blood running cold, smiles fading.

ANOTHER DAY

I've got so much to say but all the words are trapped. I'm a message in a bottle that was never sent to anybody. I've always had an audience, even when there was no one sitting in front of me. I listen to poetry as emphatic exertions of those lost souls looking for a beacon, a light house. Those who can't go home or have one. I'm their audience, hidden in the shadows - not applauding, not interrupting. It's almost a crowd me by myself, And all the voices in my head. And when I listen, it feels as if a million of us were listening. Alone - together. And some music. It's a tango sometimes or some blues. A party. Made up of poetry and silence. Love unspoken. Untiring. Unconventional. Unrequited. Born of a schizophrenic heart


--- FROM mental health poetry collections

REBIRTH

So I am back to blogging after ages. Mostly into the void. Time scattered most of my purposes. So I let go of my own ideas.

Travel light

Snip snip snippety snip
Don't hold your breath
Let them cut away
There will be no pain
But people will see, you lost something
But the gain won't be noticed.

Hair is the biggest statement of all
An indicator of change
A radical rediscovery
The shape of your head as it was intended
Maybe a few brain cells here and there shifted their home.
Maybe you grew up a little.

The anger and defiance of youth, the new Bob or the refashioning of tastes in adolescence is known.
This is different. This is difficult. It's a scissoring away of identities.
A refusal to bow to suffering but embrace it.
An emphasis on me as me. And nothing more on the offering that is pleasing for the world to see.
Mostly it's a sign of recognition.
~
Arrival.

Don't hold your breath for change will happen
The most fearful and difficult journeys
Are taken alone.
The sadness is washed away
You emerge stronger.
You do unimaginable things
You also make mistakes
Fall down
Be imperfect
The cracks on your soul are beautiful
The wounds on your hands tell
How many times you tried to help someone and got hurt.
Your face is a map for people
To look for their lost treasure, so that they can trust you,
We met before souls were sent to inhabit the earth
Our love was not newly born here.
So when we roam the mazes,
And find each other - similar souls
Our eyes shouldn't forget to recognize.
That we always would have been around.
For we gave our word to the maker.
Send us to our homes on earth, and when we are done learning, take us back home.
Together.