Tag: loneliness

You, in Mid-air

Published on by Harpreet ChhachhiaLeave a comment

Love has a way of becoming comfortable. When it becomes comfortable, it gets lazy. It rests on the couch and it watches movies. It feeds you pastries and chocolates. It shields you from the world outside. Friends either follow you into this haven, or they shun you to maintain their independent lifestyles. No one can really say which friend is doing the right thing.

Life is a series of phases. You get the sad phases, the happy phases, the quiet phases, the combustive phases. Love can bring in an amalgamation of all. Though eventually love becomes comfortable. But I have already said that. Of course, as I also said that life is a phase and with it, love adapts, too.

Isn’t it rich?
Are we a pair?
Me here at last on the ground,
You in mid-air,
Where are the clowns?

Sometimes, the dynamic of the relationship changes. Someone in love realizes his sense of duty. Sometimes, it so happens that being comfortable isn’t what a lover wants. Like the independent friends, the mind exerts control over the heart and one wants to hit the gym, pursue further studies, spend more time on himself or herself, regain a certain independence, appreciate the inner spirit.

Isn’t it bliss?
Don’t you approve?
One who keeps tearing around,
One who can’t move,
Where are the clowns?
There ought to be clowns…

So love is shaken off from the couch. The movies end. The parties become strictly a weekend thing. Food, duty, studies, jobs, family and the independent friends are looked on with greater priority. It all varies naturally. Lifestyles don’t necessarily remain the same. Promises cannot always follow a strict path (a fact which is again highly debatable: people make vows before what they consider to be God and then they go and get the messiest divorces).

Just when I’d stopped opening doors,
Finally knowing the one that I wanted was yours
Making my entrance again with my usual flair
Sure of my lines
No one is there

Everything is fair. It happens. Everyone should be given their space to be. Definitions of ‘I love you’ and ‘I am no longer in love with you’ and ‘I love you but I do not like you’ and ‘I love you, but…’ begin to take shape. The tragedy happens when there used to be two on a couch and then there is just one.

Don’t you love farce?
My fault, I fear
I thought that you’d want what I want
Sorry, my dear!
But where are the clowns?
Send in the clowns…
Don’t bother, they’re here.

Life doesn’t follow the same speed for everyone involved in relationships. The other is then supposed to be supportive. Supposed to understand. Supposed to be as mature as the other has now become. Growing up and out should happen simultaneously – in an ideal world. But we do not live in an ideal world now, do we? Ergo, one gets left behind. One changes the rules of the game. One breaks the pact. One says he will return, but he never does and the other chooses the path of least resistance. At times, both resist and the link shatters.

Isn’t it rich?
Isn’t it queer?
Losing my timing this late in my career
But where are the clowns?
There ought to be clowns…
Well, maybe next year…

 

Due

Published on by Harpreet Chhachhia1 Comment

The seasons have left,
there are none for my future.
My measure stands bereft,
old wounds know no suture.

The leaves have crumbled
into a crypt filled with dust,
all of love lies jumbled
with loss, lies and lust.

It’s a mire of confusion.
What has life led me to?
It all seems like an illusion.
Who am I? Who are you?

The wind is still, the heat is here,
Hands take what they can.
I am left with what I think is fear
And no real measure of man.

My dogs die, like the seasons do,
Though I enjoy each most.
All that seems to remain true
Are the illnesses I guiltily host.

Regrets I have borrowed,
When I prided myself on having none.
And everything I followed,
Seems to in infinite circles run.

The sun now holds one promise,
maybe I yearn for him to be true:
somewhere, I will find my share of bliss,
sometime, I will be given my due.

The Fan’s Woe

Published on by Harpreet ChhachhiaLeave a comment

The night has lain down, once more, on my tiny bed;
The silence is broken, by a fan overhead;
Darkness is lit, by flutterings of windowed light;
Images from the day still burn into my sight.
Your hands on my body still leave tendrils of fire;
Yet it was never just a matter of desire –
There was that bittersweet yearning I thought had gone:
Something that had no hope of being reborn.
I surmised wisdom made sure it was left behind –
A few lessons, growing older had taught the mind;
But here it lies, near night, yearning for touch again;
No matter that it comes with the sure price of pain.

The fan creaks, speaking, it tells me, it knows it all,
It has been technical witness to each shortfall.
It blusters the air doing its job as always,
It has seen all that leaves and felt who stays.
So now it addresses me, like a parent dear,
While the darkness addresses all of my fear.
There is not very much to say or do but write;
Maybe this is how I regain clarity of sight.
My eyes droop and I think of his bright, tawny stare,
His head bent over my body, his tousled hair,
My fingers in it, as he tastes a part of me,
Which has been savoured by, oh, so many,
And, I must say, if pain is the sole attraction,
This just goes to speak of my sad heart’s detraction,
And Loneliness that never, truly, left my bed,
Unless you include the groaning fan overhead.