THE WEATHER SHOULD NOT BE WASTED

I woke up dry,
Between the damp sheets
Wiped the fog off my window panes
And looked at a face
That was stuck at a corner
It said-
‘this weather should not be wasted’
So we sat
Among the multicolored walls
In synthesis-
smoked
sequined
stitched
unlaced
mixed
like milk in caramel
till the sky was murky
‘this weather should not be wasted’
We chanted.
we smelt the scent off the bodies
and melted the unperturbed wax
and scraped the layers of consciousness
till the haze of smoke had risen
and started dripping from the ceiling
and slept till the moon swayed
and stayed awake till the sun was ablaze
and rusted off the gold dust
from our bodies
with tender kisses
we measured the length and breath
of nothingness
and tasted the oceans
that splashed through time
we stayed together
all day
two strangers
never to meet again

and the weather was saved.

Ankush Gupta 7/11/13

Sometimes I wonder,
How did we fall in love?
You and I
So different
Yet so dangerously alike
And that’s the funny part
I wanted to talk
And you wanted to be
But you could never be
And I could never talk
And the silences turned into distances
And distances
Into a void.
And here we are
Chatting like old friends
About films, and people and art
About what places to eat at,
Where to shop
But never ‘really’ talking
Of things that matter
Between us.
Never really ‘being’
Together.
Sometimes,
I really wonder
How ‘did’ we fall in love?
You and I?
Ankush, 5/6/13

untitled

My lovers have a strange habit
of leaving things behind as they go
And I,
longing for their touch,
believe them to be gifts
left for me
purposely
between the sheets,
in the cupboard,
on the table,
filling my room
with the aroma
of their sweat,
the touch
of their skin,
the taste
of their tongue:
There is a black nepali cap
which, on a drunken night
shuttled between our heads
till they became one;
A t-shirt
that I borrowed and wore
to work
when mine was too crumpled,
more crumpled than my body;
a pair of shorts,
warmly slipped over my thighs
next to a pool;
an ash tray
which looks like a turtle
as compensation
for the one
that I had made with my own hands,
and which was broken
‘by accident;’
a book
with an old family postcard
when we got submerged in a conversation
and left it on the corner of the night
to find it hanging from the moon
the next morning…

Green Slippers/Black Slippers

One fine morning
He came to my room
Hurriedly
Slipped his feet into my black slippers
Lying around,
Carelessly.
As I watched
Half awake
Half asleep
And in a fraction of second
Vanished.

As I woke up
expecting
A hard stony floor under my feet
I stepped on
Green grass
Soft and lush

It was his green slippers
That he had quietly left
While I was sleeping.

Ankush, 27/5/13

To Love...

To love is to die
One way or the other
Through pain and pangs and sorrow
Or through the bursting gust of pleasure
In the hands of the heart
To choke
To dream
To fear
To waste
To cry
To laugh
To hold a gun to the head
And stand at a mountain top
And wait…