Bent

Love begins with such tenderness –

Even the tears are made of joy!

What wonder it holds in that time,

Oh, what magic it does employ!

The many things that irks love now

Were what held away all its fears.

Who could truly know that sadness

Would supercede past joy in tears?

Each twist in the body was seen,

As some Grecian statue of old;

Now twists are seen with angst and pain

And addressed with manners so cold.

Love glimmered like burnished gold,

When it was young and fresh and new;

But gold doesn’t oxidise with time

And take on shades of green and blue.

Carpe diem, the poets implored,

They chased love and it chased them, too,

This chase has gods fall weary,

Then what the poet, or me or you!

Hubris is a part of all love,

Love declares it rules no ego;

But most of love fades over time,

Under pride and lust’s undertow.

Love, they say, shows its truer form

As it grows with time, some say years,

Some say it lengthens slow or fast

And rebounds truest when death appears.

Love distorts due to other loves,

Experiences are benchmarks here;

Doubt’s a seed people love to sow,

Watered by your own unseasoned fear.

Needless to say, love confuses

All its promises, in the end,

It isn’t love, if fate and time ask

And the imposter agrees to bend.

That Guy

I’m the guy who sees the first star
In the night sky
and thinks of wishes to be made.
I’m the guy who collects each card
That he receives:
Cards carry thought in writing,
colours carry emotion.
I’m the guy who will love a book
As a gift,
But loves the inscription more;
Those few words are the reason
For all the rest of the words
Printed within.
I’m the guy who forgives easy,
Millennia of letting go
Is carried in my unconscious.
I’m the guy who cries
When watching a sad movie –
(Yep, i’m that guy,
So beware.)
I’m also the guy who doesn’t expect less,
Though there is more understanding derived from each facet of new experience.
I’m the guy who doesn’t regret
Much.
I’m the guy who loves easy but long.
Love tends to last
Over money, life and even time.
I’m the guy who recognises,
The inevitability of loss,
Yet chooses to return
To what appears fragile.

I’m the guy who has learnt a lot
But isn’t done with learning.
I’m the guy who wants to give up hope
But isn’t done with yearning.

Done

If I had the guts
I’d take a razor to my vein,
Or jump. Or walk before
A western railways train.
Nothing grand to meet death.
He would be the only friend
That I could trust
To meet me at the very end.
There is nothing really about life
That makes me want to live.
All it does is take,
All I do is give.
Well, not you, perhaps.
Perhaps it’s just me.
That would be the reason
To die, you see.
Life isn’t hard.
It teaches you to stop lying.
I wonder why then
They prevent you to stop trying.
Maybe it’s for selfish reasons.
But i’m not living to live,
Or to view the change in seasons.
If there is nothing left
To look forward to,
And you are done,
With all you had to say and do,
There’s no need to live on,
And marvel at the setting sun,
Or think of age and sex and love,
And pay for a treadmill to run.
There will be tomorrows,
There will be new beginnings,
There will be joy,
There will be sorrows.
I won’t begrudge that;
But I’ve had my share of fun;
And I feel it’s time.
I feel I am done.