In Different Directions

It's always in the parting of ways. Suddenly, the phone line gets cut off and the nights of deep conversations end. All this for the unnerving aim to be separate - to be no longer involved.

It's like saying goodbye at the crossroads where one takes off North and the other East. There is no more chance of meeting. The embrace that was once home to you becomes alien and the laugh you once loved becomes inexplicably cold and hauntingly sad.

There are so many crossroads in this world and thus, there are many farewells to be bid. So when do the crossroads end and when do roads meet and go on an endless journey as one? I always imagine a road travelling in no specific direction - a road in which trajectory does not matter. All that matters is that this road travels all the way up to the end. And when it hits that end, it fades into the sea and is lost in its blue.

"I don't think this is too difficult a dream," I say, but yet, I'm sat alone in this park.

Vignette #6

What keeps me up at night?

You, because I care so much.

The Words We Write

Words are stranded on a page
blank,
leprous white.
We write so much
only to leave them
on crumpled sheets
torn at the corners
nibbled by age and time.

In a day far away
when ink fades
and churns no coherence
we will look back and wish
we remembered more;
on a day like this
we will wish for memory
only to find that it is gone,
only to find there's nothing left.

Best Not

Best not to know
tied up to worries
beyond our control
and people who
don't care about us.

Best not to fuss
over commitments and
love when reciprocation
is null in
the eyes of the other.

Best not to love at all
when life turns
its ugly head and bares
all teeth
at your innocent soul.

Best not to live
when the world is empty
and you're alone
with no one for you
to love and to love you.

I Stand Roadside

I stand roadside
holding paper and rhymes
reading for you and me.
I jeer at drivers,
sneer at children
glare at elders.
Post-it notes
crumpled in my pocket
been through the wash
a dozen times;
ink runs down my fingers
words washed and bleached;
your photo torn
on the floor
pen stabbed through your eyes.
See me now. See me now!
You run away. You run
so fucking far away,
and I stand roadside
holding paper and rhymes
reading for you and me.

Dogs

Dogs - they shit everywhere
and leave their masters to pick up after them.

To be with

I'm in the park. There are people basking in the sun, sat on picnic blankets.

I? I'm sitting on a bench under a willow tree. Carved on the bench is 'George Pope 1910-1988'. I'm alone today with just George to keep me company.

Children totter by with their parents and company in tow, oblivious to me watching them from under the tree - oblivious to how much I wish I could have the company of loved ones that they had.

The sun is out but I'm getting chilly. The people and their miniature counterparts are leaving - and I think it's time I did too.

Lost in love and inevitably, in loneliness.

My Room

My room harbours
possessions and thoughts
and me; dark at night
it swells like nightmares
and thunders like hell.

Vignette #5

Waiting for delayed trains on a sweltering day is never fun - it's a subjected neccessity. A neccessity because I need to get home, regardless (I'm tired and feeling unwell) and subjected because I never asked for this.

As the day progresses beyond the specified time in which the train was meant to come, I become more lethargic and I find myself slumped limply on the station bench. I just want to go home.

In my idleness, my mind wanders off. I think about where I am now (a graduate, unemployed and still living off someone else's income); I think about what I am going to do (more years of training to become only half of what I want to be); I think about who I am (a frustrated train passenger waiting for her delayed train to arrive); I think about you.

My mind's whirring now, intoxicated by insecurities and worries. I take a deep breath amd find my chest tightening - all this just at the thought of you. I think about how loneliness was once my subjected neccessity.

I had been abandoned by someone I thought I could depend on and in my loneliness, had to nurse the wounds this person left me with.

Subjected because I never asked for this. A neccessity because it was a valuable life lesson I needed to learn.

I feel sick. The insecurities of abandonment and rejection is making my head swim. So much so that I almost didn't notice the train that whizzed by at full speed. I look up, startled. I can see the many faces of the passengers it contained but I couldn't focus - eveything blurred and swayed as I tried to look at the train - but then it passes...and the train disappears into the distance.

I kept looking at the point in which the train last left the platform - it was gone now, no doubt still continuing it's journey through Surrey, through a route which I wasn't taking and I thought about where those many faces I saw were going.

When my train pulls up (twenty minutes later and an hour late), I have almost forgotten about that fast train which made me jump. But when I did finally remember it as my train began to depart, I spared it a thought...and then I thought about you, about how you came not at the right time, but at a time after a life-jerking startle and how you could have to bear the burden of someone else's past. I don't want that.

As I get off the train, I feel better and make my way home. I leave the train which was bound for Central London and think no more of its contents. I am finally back in my flat; I can now relax and forget about today...and plan my tomorrow.

Battle Scars (in the Form of Memories)

Nights like this are plagued with unwanted memories and wandering minds. I think about...

What I think about isn't important actually. I should be focusing on reality. In reality, I'm lying in bed embellished with the clean sheets straight from the wash - I can smell the fragrance of chemicals which so harshly attacks my olfactories (that's 'nose' to those of you who failed Biology in school). It's.comforting to know that they are sterile.

To my left, in this reality, is an open window which, in the height of summer, serves neither to cool nor to let the light in (because my room faces south). So 75% of the time, I am plunged into a stiflingly hot darkness.

To my right is, well, a wall which is just as blank as my imagination. It holds no photographs or memories of anything good or bad. All of these pictures and memories obly exist in my head, rightly so, because some of these memories should never be visualised or discussed.

In reality, I am a beaten individual who, by no stretch of the imagination, can be fixed. In reality, I bear the scars from other individuals and the scars I give myself. In your reality, however, I am okay, fine, doing alright etc. But in my reality, I can see how I am broken inside.

Rain

The rain brings a heaviness;

it's tropical and torrential

breaking new light in the wake of its leave

relieving and refreshing

bringing new life to young eyes

Airports

Lines in airports
double up with people
and inpatience.

This Place

Knowing that I was leaving, I put on a façade...and I disowned it. By 'it' I mean this place - this place which was home to me for four years; that's almost half a decade may I just point out. When you've only lived for twenty years or so, that almost-half-a-decade takes up a significant percentage of your life. And yet, I was still able to disown it. Not without some tears and heartache if I may add, because, this was the place where I grew up (in four years) and watched people change as I changed. These streets, I knew them all, and the people, I knew how they worked. I knew everything about this place - but I disowned it, to save me from homesickness and loss. I disowned it because I knew, in leaving, I'd love it too much.

Funny

Funny
you never mentioned
how you were hurt
or angry.
Funny
how it all came out now.
Words unspent
on understanding
or expressing
become weapons
in time
and it's just funny
how you chose to
say them all now;
even funnier
that you think
you've said it all before.

Cobbled Streets

These cobbled streets

I know

have been left behind

on a whim

in pursuit

of somewhere else.

These cobbled streets

I loved

have been abandoned

by me

but adopted 

by others.

These cobbled streets

will form new memories

for others

but not for me

because I left them behind

in my pursuit

for somewhere else.

Running Out

Running out of lines

we dance under chandeliers

prolonging what's left;

we notice the months go by

and here we are

hand-in-hand

and speechless.

Running out of time

we watch the lights fall

and we dim into 'The End';

'Happily ever after'

was not to be

and we part

without looking back.

Find

Songs beautiful

short and sweet

like rain in summer

brief and intense

warm like you.

I remember something 

in the night

nothing like anything

I can

hold. It dies

living me

in the dark

and I wonder:

where have you gone?

I feel the tune;

it hums at me

telling me

to find you.

Where do you lie?

I grope in the dark

and you're

nowhere. Nowhere

to be seen or found;

you lie...you lie...

Come closer

so that I can feel you

hand on hand

on elsewhere 

for songs

to drag us away

and you can
find me too.

To be Taken Away

A train speeds by Clapham Junction on its way to Haslemere and I remain here. It is cold - winter's air was whipped up by the speeding train and an overwhelming cold front bears down on the platform I'm standing on. As the train disappears, I feel the anti-climatic silence it left in its wake.

I want to go home.

The next train will be mine. 20.52, the sign reads. It is now 20.32. I'm waiting patiently. I desperately want to get out of this cold. London feels so alien to me and nothing here feels real enough for me to grasp - the place, the people - the workings of Greater London is a mystery to me.

I can't wait to be home.

It's now 20.39. I wonder about time and how its brought me here. Four years ago, I was living with family and now I am on my own - not completely; I am with friends - well, not exactly; they're in Surrey and I'm waiting to get on that train which will bring me through the winding train lines of the London-Surrey border so that I can go home. 

I wish I never left home.

It's 20.50. They just announced the train for Portsmouth is pulling into the station - this is my train. It pulls in front of me exactly at 20.52 and the doors open. As people disembark onto the platform, I leave it, taking my bag with me. It is a small bag with just enough clothes for one night because that's all I'll be needing. The train begins to pull away from Clapham Junction, and within seconds, we pick up speed and the view outside becomes a mass of incomprehensible colours and forms. I'm very excited.

I'm almost home.