So What

 What does it mean to me?

Even when it feels the whole world to you

It can't be you, you can't be 

We can't see the world with the same eyes 

Unless I poke yours 

The Eff Up Artist

I knead headaches like a seasoned chef

I marinate disappointment as if it was chicken

I serve cocktails of frustrations

Because, somehow, I have learnt the art

Of not giving a damn

And when history of ‘effing’ is finally written

All my names shall occupy the first four places

Because, when you serve me my poison

I become an artiste –

An ‘effing’ greatest ‘eff’ up artistes

I just can’t help – I have tried a thousand times

The artiste in me looms like a colossus

I can’t ignore him 

Disjointed

 And, 

for the love of things, 

frowned upon things, 

things of the world, 

a man smiles at oblivion 

And, 

for the price of dreaming is too high, 

and the lazy bones creak under its weight, 

dreams demand more than one can give

the slow ebb of time passes by. 

before you bring me a cup of poison 

look at the disjointed bones 

disjointed dreams, 

and worry not about why I am who I am 

The Bleak Existence

 the essence of life wanes 

as the clock ticks - 

a silent diabolic tick. 

A signal to an impending doom 

Where are the crevices, 

nooks and crannies 

to hide a weary soul 

from the vagaries of living

The toils. 

The frustrations. 

The debauchery. 

and bars set set too high 

let me sit on the sina taabu 

and ruminate, one more time, 

for the thousandth time, 

of this bleak existence  

Exquisite Pains

 I have grown accustomed to these pains, 

these exquisite pains, 

pains that glitter inside my bones 

For in feeling them

I am filled with dread, 

the ever-numbing dread that 

I am still alive 

The Toil

 the sun unwraps darkness 

revealing a gift to mankind 

a gift of endless toils 

for it is the price we pay 

if only to stay alive 

the gift of light is fine 

a fine for our desire for exquisite 

or unrefined living 

or for survival - it does not matter 

That Night

And when you smiled 

bathing the night sky with an alluring gleam 

I knew there was much more to it 

than mere infatuation 

There was more to those pearly white teeth 

revealed to me under the night sky 

You asked me to hug you

God, you asked me to hug you 

Like I did not know what a man was supposed to 

Because I did not know what to feel then 

I wasn't sure how to act 

But then we lived through the awkwardness 

The awkwardness thawed 

and warmth slipped into our hearts 

melting every fibre of resistance