I can put away the pill;
I haven’t put away my pain;
But sleep is lured to me,
As fatigue strives again.
The draining of the heart
Is a gruelling process –
a rigmarole of feeling
That affords no recess.
Four words from someone
Can tear you down;
Four words can also freely
Send in the clowns.
I want to try and see
If I can earn some sleep
Without its torturing –
Or its rest being deep.
If I can be let go,
Despite love and living,
It’s time to take heed
And start a self forgiving.
I remember the gold hair in your beard,
As the loss descends, much as I feared.
The eyes grandmother warned me to avoid
Have bored, into my heart, an endless void.
I remember how hair curled on your neck,
How, when you fought, a tiny spittle-speck,
Frothed, and formed strings, between your soft lips –
The void shifts. Tears threaten. My breath dips.
I haven’t eaten a mango this season –
Will strawberries hold you back for treason?
I would look for you when you’d gone too far,
How I would instruct you to drive the car,
I pick up the phone to wish you good night –
But you’ve kept your silence and killed this right.
I remember your leg‘s weight when we slept,
I remember the promises we kept.
I remember your warm hand holding mine,
Through each movie, every single time.
I remember you wiping my tears dry
And I wonder how you have let me cry…
The kids miss you. (Remember my daughter?)
They have passed for you, like dirty water.
I’m mad at you. I’m pining. I am lost.
If I’ve hurt you, is this truly the cost?
Because I loved the way you felt and thought,
I‘ll always remember, but you forgot.
Though, through this caravan of memory,
I‘ve seen us through paths you will never see,
You’ve forsaken me in a place I know,
Love will hold fast; but I must let you go.
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…
Hearts Still Care 
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