maybe: an endless loop of lost sanity

and you feel the push
from the base of your throat
the temporary rise
of your self esteem.
The YES expands
your self, your world,
into several hundred can-s.

may precede dejection.
Or secret relief.
For a NO
has several hundred versions
of debrief.
A NO is tricky,
A NO can deescalate
the beginnings of hope
with an end that’s stained.

But in both YES and NO
a box is checked.
It’s the MAYBE-s that block
the base of your throat
and make your self worth swing
across a murky jigsaw…
that may piece
or nothing
and reflect an ambiguity
that almost kills
your self, and your world.



What if

You aren’t my crush?

What if you’re just


A product of reciprocity

“I’m obsessed with you

Because you care a tiny bit about me.”

Or better yet, White Noise

To bury myself in

Because the silence, it was deafening.

What if, you’re little more than Preoccupation

Because right now,

I need something

To fill the void

Or better yet, a mindless adrenaline rush

Vague, heady, romanticized

Because you dared to get closer

When the lights turned orange.

What if, you’re just a Filler

A forgettable note

Clogging the empty pages

In between chapters

Or worse, some creepy Idealisation

Of what you actually are.

What if you’re nothing like the you

That lives in my head

And eats my thoughts?

What if your sole function

Is making me feel Wanted?

To fill gaps in conversation,

To have something to do.

What if you aren’t my crush?


Walking up the stage
It’s not a long walk
My head is in my heart
My heart is in my mouth.

Feel nerves rearrange
Tell myself it’s time to talk
My head is in my heart
My heart is in my mouth.

Struggle with the page
Sound like board un’ chalk
My head is in my heart
My heart is in my mouth.

Tightening of the ribcage
I’m Jack on shaky beanstalk
My heart is in my mouth
My mouth is drying up.

Tell myself to calm down
The words fly out
But it takes time
For them to float about
And settle down.

The people in the hall
They are already gone
Mind is finally unblocked
But they are already gone.

Bring me back on stage
Repeat the awkward walk
And there will be the speeding of my heart
The need to run south

But still.

I’ll remember the last phase
The final turn of clock
And I’ll follow the quickening of the heart
The urge to overcome the verbal drought.

of sweet .somethings.

Your eyes glow
Mine reflect it in slow-mo
We gesture wildly
In sync with our voices
That ring with the electricity of a child’s-
Loud, uncouth, yet so real.
This is more intimate than the slowest slow dance
The sexiest kiss
Coz it’s a snapshot
Of who we are;
And who we will be
In the long shot.
We will grow old and gray together
My breasts will sag, your belly will expand
But that spark-
The sparkle in your eye-
Will outlast the norms, the mores
And mine will reflect it in slow-mo.

I haven’t been in love. Ever. But this is how I imagine it will be.

The nameless, faceless poem I’d dreamed of.


Man with a funny accent says,
“One of you will be dead-
shot in the head,
before the  day is spent,”
and then invites himself to dinner.

We get ready,
paying attention to the trinkets,
but keeping a tighter hold on the money.
The crumpled hundreds and tens greet me-
as I open the bag of savings-
I’d had since I was a little kid.
I’d spent a lot of it-
but lately I felt the pinch…
Preferring, now, to borrow from the parents,
and merely looking at these bills in its pristine form.

My mother joins me
and smiles.
You could call it a moment.

Over plates of rice
and plates of naan
and buttery side dishes-
the dinner conversation grows,
man with the funny accent included.
It tastes like five hundred bucks.

Outside, a chocolate store
comes into view.
I am still laughing and keeping pace
with The Man With The Funny Accent.
For if he does control my fate
I want to control him.
So why does he suddenly disappear?


I felt a bit of my soul recede,
as I looked around,
trying to spot the Man.
Trying to ignore the pangs
of emptiness that suddenly seemed to surround
Like a dust covered ring.

My thoughts shifted to Saturn,
as I giggled and giggled,
I cracked myself up
Till tears leaked down my cheeks
and the wounds though unseen
did bleed.

Where was he?
I needed his words
that felt like the warm hugs
I’d never got.

I felt a chill
as I looked ahead
and all I saw
was the candy shop.
The colourful chocolate bars rippled in the sun,
Dairy Milk next to Mars,
Lindt next to Hershey bars.
My serotonin levels rose,
as a gunshot tore through the wind-
and emerged from the core of my skull-
putting an end to my last thought.

NOTE: I had this dream a year back… which involved a weird man and my own death near a chocolate shop. When I woke up, the dream was still in my head (and I could remember every detail of it)… mainly because I’d died in my own dream.  Something I’d thought was impossible. I googled it and according to several sites, such dreams indicate an “emotional transformation”.

Either way, what I’d really wanted to do that day was write down my dream, and as I began to write it down, it seemed to flow better when I wrote it in verse form (I guess that was probably because we were studying S.T. Coleridge’s Kubla Khan, at that time).

I found the notebook in which I’d written it down today. I hadn’t finished writing the entire poem that day (what I’d written that day was the whole of I), but I could still remember the rest of the dream sequence (probably coz I’d told almost everyone I knew about the dream)… making me want to finish the poem and post it here (which I finally did).