Time zones - Part 2

I even dream of you now
On the other end of the phone.
Do you know how many miles of submarine communication cables are there between us?
Do you know how many people are there between us?
Billions.
I would get tired even if they all carried me one-by-one to you.

P.S. Some drafts are meant to see the light of the day years after they were conceived. Oh well!

Chez moi!

Because I'll be leaving my own little haven. And because I love it so much that I need to document it.

Do you remember when we couldn't any more?

Do you remember when the turtles crawled up the ceiling , hanging upside down,

Milky Way gleaming on their shells?

Our own giant stars, they were.

And that one time when you placed a drop of rain on my osmotic throat,

You thought it'd quench my perennial thirst.

All it did was make my insides drier.

When, once, lilies grew in the tumultuous winds

Their petals spinning in spirals.

We were sucked into its vortex, floating in the low pressured center.

Or the time when the clouds caressed my body and you hated them for it?

When we walked carelessly on crunchy snails on the forest path

And the pitter-patter of the rain became an ominous growl.

Was it the snails getting back at us? Or the Gods?

I don't feel gods under my feet, 

I feel only snail squash, and it makes me jump.

I believe in snails, 

Soft and hard

Linear and curvy

Fallible, squashable - like me.

Who can believe in gods?

So infallible, so unsquashable.

So unreal, so unlike us!

Waiting in vain?

Sometimes happiness wears you out too. Some days, this inertia, borne out of satisfaction of mere existence, is (weirdly) just enough. I sleep well. I have almost forgotten how to be bluesy (much to the chagrin of my Flamenco teacher). On other occasions, I try to shake my insides for an ounce of any emotion other than glee, to feel something else. Not sadness. Longing, may be, for the summer rain, or for my father's arms. But, I seem to be fine with windy days, sunny skies and perpetual company of me. Then, one hour ago, I found her. I am still figuring if it's too early to be obsessing already. No I am not. I am dancing to her divine voice. It's past midnight. I'll be dipping my fingers in paints soon. I long to lay down on the wooden patio of the shack with him under a billion blinding stars, smelling cold air and thick coniferous cover. The lassitude ebbs away.

Oh Hindi Zahra, your wine-stained mouth is beautiful and, might I add, oddly inspiring.

And then I go and spoil it all by saying something stupid..

G: So A asked if we are doing something for Valentine's day.
M: And what did you say?
G: Like we've ever done anything for it.
M: You said that?
G: Umm.. So what should have I said? "We are too cool for it"?
M: Yeah. Too cheesy, this Valentine's business.
G: Have you seen our conversations on public forums? You are worried about cheesiness NOW?
M: At least we are not succumbing to social pressures. We do it on our own terms.
G: Dude, you realize our wedding's going to have the entire world and it's cousin, right? So much so for not giving into pressure.
M: Damn it. Fine, we'll do something for Valentine's. 
(May be you didn't really say that last line, I heard it. I like to believe ki tere dil ki baat main jaanun. Oh well!)

So, though it's the last hour of the day and you've maintained your un-cheesy stand the entire day, I am giving in. 

And while we met 

it still keeps growing (I mean love, not hair).

Me te amo :)

P.S. No antihistamines this time.

Disclaimer: Even though a lot of effort was put into keeping up the extra nonchalant stand, the silliest whim was given into even before I asked :) And who doesn't like lilies?

You and I

In this caffeinated world!

Heads we will, tails we'll try again

I never told you when it happened. It wasn't when we poured out every thought into each others’ ears till we ran out of night’s darkness or talk-time on our non-smart phones. It happened before that, bounded in hundred something bytes, when I was still convincing you to get back with her. I was being a good friend to her. I was being your closest friend. And in a moment of joy you said something most men of that age do not even fathom (most men of much mature age do not either).Right then was the moment. It’s been nine years today since the day I got googly-eyed for you, and you suddenly forgot how to “handle” my stubbornly soul-evaporating gaze.

A lot should have changed since, and may be has. What we were and what we became, by our own design or otherwise. Then, why do you still have the same fool’s smile when you set your eyes upon me? Why do I feel as peaceful, as stimulated, as tempted as I was that night? Why are, almost a decade later, those etches as deep, the scratched dust as fresh? Haven’t we evolved? Or grown old? Wiser, maybe? Fatter, surely. Haven’t we just seen and suffered enough of the world? I do not care about these answers, despite my hyper-skeptic disposition. With you, in you, I just believe. And even though it took us some lingering around, some running away, I am glad that right when I thought that I control my fate, you brought the faith back. Irrational gut proved to be more reliable than articulated thought yet again. But then, maybe it’s not the place of thought to meddle with the matters of the heart. With you all is simple, just as it should be. You don’t deconstruct me, or reconstruct, or decipher, or even analyze. You don’t even just love me. You LIKE me too. That must be hard!

So I don’t care that our children will laugh at our story. I’ll take care of them when they do mock us (you know what I mean), for I know you’d only spoil. It doesn't matter that you like to take pictures of food while I starve, till you feed me with your hands when I am too lazy to get out of covers to wash mine on cold winter nights. It is alright that all my friends like you more than they like me, because I do too. And sometime, maybe, I would cry for more sleep while you lie beside me watching, wanting to talk more. Sometimes, I wouldn't be sufficient for your geekiness, and may be you won’t get my humor. Right then, I’ll listen to these lyrics that remind me of you EVERY TIME (you probably haven’t even heard it, but oh well).

Koi mangda mera si samaa,

(Some sought my time)

Koi honda surat te fida,

(Others were besotted with my beauty)

Koi mangda meri si wafaa,

(Some sought my fidelity)

Na koi mangda meriyaan balan.

(No one wanted my demons)

Tere bin hor na kisse mangni meriyaan balan

(No one, other than you, asked for my demons)

(Did I need to translate this? Do I doubt your punjabiness more than I need to?)

I’ll re-realize that we are, indeed, destiny’s children. That there was a greater plan. That I am the Faithful now. And even though, you have finally found courage to look into my eyes, you shall still be “adored”. And when we jive through the sun-rinsed Golden Gate the next time, I'll tell you again that "You, my love, are my petrichor".

P.S. Do not make fun of the cheesiness or the bickering bitch will be back. Enjoy it while I am high on antihistamines and love. When IS the anniversary again?