The Difference

Often
The difference 
Between pretend friendship
And actual affection
Isn’t a bubbling river
Of effusive promises,
It is a steady stream
Of unwavering support.

It’s the difference
between
“You will be missed”
and 
“I’m here with you”

between
“You will be okay”
and
“You’re amazing, I will 
say it until you believe it”

between
“I wish I could be there”
and
“Coming over, ready or not”

between
“I’ve been busy,
Hope you understand”
and 
“Call me every day, or I will!”

between
“How many times will you revisit this trauma?”
and 
“Don’t apologise, your wound is valid”

between
“Forget about them, will you?”
and
“Let’s plot revenge!”

between
“Let me know if I can help”
and 
“Bringing pastries, all the colours!”

Often, the difference 
Between being there for someone
and not — for them —
Is the difference between 
Sudden thunderclaps 
and enduring rainbows
Deep sea flailing 
and a swim in the pool

It’s the difference
between
“I can’t do this anymore”
and
“At least, I’m not alone”

The Asymmetry of Loss

It doesn’t take complex math
To compute a simple truth:
In the autumn of parting—
fading of life or limerence—
Loss mars one more than the other.

And lose, you must.
For forever is a lie
Told by the brilliant sun
To the flower that must bloom
Only to wilt and wither
In the darkness of absence
So another can thrive
In the glow of its immortal flame.

Yet, when the lovers meet
In the spring of their romance
And the colours of love unfurl
All is forgotten—
All the ends that came before
And the one fated to come.

The blooming is the beginning.
And the blooming is the end.
The only moment that matters
In the eternal ennui of existence.

~ Sumeet

The Inconvenience of Grief

Dear stranger who mourns the past,

Memory is at once both beautiful and terrible. Sometimes, it is terrible because it is beautiful. Even the happiest one reminds you of losing something, and the saddest one makes you relive the despair it preserves. It’s no wonder then that memory and melancholy are so close in the dictionary.

There are many carefully preserved memories in you, stranger. Some more potent than others. And they all make up the wonderful, if complicated, collage of experiences that is your life (so far). If you do choose to grieve a memory, that is your choice and your choice alone. Never let anyone tell you what shape your grief must take. Never let anyone tell you how you must mourn a loss, no matter how old or because “it happened for your own good.” And, if ever, you must choose between an old wound and a new one, know that you shouldn’t have to make such a choice. Those who love you know that your grief is an indispensable part of your being. It is what makes you the beautiful mishmash of emotions you are—that they claim to love.

Know that empathy is not selective. It does not elect whose shoes you occupy at what time. Sometimes, it will be the homeless boy with broken chappals and scavenged food; sometimes, it will be the old lady next door with no kids to dote on; sometimes, it will be children blown up in war zones and dismissed as collateral damage; and sometimes, in the weakest of moments, you will find yourself in your own shoes—the old, worn-out ones you left behind on abandoned doorsteps years ago. And you will look at your life then, faced with the enormous sense of loss you once scraped through, all over again. Not because you choose to relive the trauma, but because it chooses to possess you.

Grief has the shape of water, stranger, slipping into the tiniest recesses of a fragile, broken mind. And years later, when you’re tidying up, looking for lost change or precious gems tucked away safely, you inadvertently scratch the scab of an old wound—presumed healed. And it is grief that oozes out, unannounced and uninvited, as painful as the first time it made home in you.

This grief, ironically, can feel good. For it takes you back to a simpler time, a simpler you: younger, vulnerable, optimistic, full of life and light. It is not the memory of loss or a person or a thing, that you enjoy so much as it is the memory of you. The saddest part is: the only people who know this version of you have long left your shores. And there is no one left to share the confusing delirium of this memory. It is okay to linger here, stranger, to soak in the sorrow (or joy) of reacquainting with yourself of yesteryear. But I do not recommend that you keep scratching. For grief never runs out, stranger. And people do not return. Not as the same people, anyway.

When a wound festers, it begins to reek. And nobody likes the foul smell of sickness. Know this, stranger, that most will scamper away from this stink. But to place this inconvenience of others above your own healing is a grave injustice you must not inflict upon yourself. Allow yourself the strength of solitude (or the aid of true friendship or brave love) to wade through this storm. Grieve, until there is no more sorrow oozing out. Until all the scabs have dropped off your skin and there is but a scar where once thrived a painful lesson in falling.

Never let anyone tell you how long it must take to get there.

With love from,
No stranger to grief

The Voyage

The sea is a calm canvas today,

Meeting its cloud-speckled lover

With a pursed-lips smile halfway

He stands firm on the prow of the ship:

Captain, deck hand, pirate, lookout;

King of the waves, master with a whip.

Yesterday the ground swelled with a kraken’s howl;

The vessel wrestled—to keep on its rogue course,

And the stowaway cowered with the fowl.

Sometimes the wind whistles away his fears,

Sends giggles through the virgin open sea,

And urges the sails to kiss new frontiers.

He has been at sea for eternity, only of late 

In company; she knows not the destination:

Eternal north star, lifeboat, chief mate.

Together, they will make the final port of call,

Or sail forevermore this infinite world of blues,

Finding isles of respite from its violent thrall.

And tomorrow, the sky may yet weep again,

And the ocean shall spill over with despair,

But the voyage – together – will not be in vain.

Roadkill

They were a litter of four,
Now they’re three—savages.
Soon there will be two, 
                                         one, 
                                                and if lucky,
                                                                     none
Left to suffer the street’s ravages.

The car halts with remorse—
A moment suspended in silence—
Before the mother’s wails confirm the end
And the journey can again commence.

She whimpers, helpless
Against a slow death; 
Gives a fierce chase, dauntless
In the face of motor mammoths.

(Now I know why maternal teeth
Froth at screeching rubber—
The steel smells of spilled blood,
Of generational murder.)

She licks his upturned ear clean
Of vehicle grime, prolonged pain;
Months of delicate preening
Snuffed under two tonnes of disdain.

Now brothers and sisters,
Gentle playmates with fragile teeth,
Tuck into sibling skin—
It hiccups with life, delays the meal.

“Not his fault!” 
Humans are quick to acquit their own.
The dogs are held culpable,
They occupy a world they do not own.

They were a starving litter of three
Tonight they slumber, full of the fourth; 
Guts grumbling with an adult feast,
Feet aflutter with dreams of Tarmac Bridge.

Recipe for Farewell

Two drops of fragrant oil,
Pregnant with the breath of lush green woods,
Add to water glimmering
With shadows of who you used to be.

Light a fire beneath memories,
The absurd delirium of an alien town.
Careful now,
You don’t want to burn this house down.

Love mildly, love gently,
Take this vow,
Follow the recipe, measure the proportions:
Never too much, not too little now!

The room fills with the ghost of a forest,
Damp with vague sorrows
That sing from brittle trees;
The rot has taken root underneath your home.

‘Maybe you should brew some tea,
They say it heals a broken heart.’
Oh, what a farce! Does it fix a fractured mind?
‘Only if it’s made like art.’

Two seeds of cardamom scent,
Three beads of black-pepper sting,
A clove of pipli pungency—
Add to a mortar and beat with the pestle,

Until one is the other
And the spice smells of sentiment in battle.
‘Tough love. That’s what I offer.
I can’t stay here forever.’

Drop a slice of ginger
(size according to taste for bittersweet);
Boil the potion to the point of madness.
‘Remember me. Preserve us in word and verse.’

Add milk for effect,
A distant certainty of thunderstorms, now imminent.
‘I’m a cloud of sadness, don’t you see?
I have to leave.’

Brew your farewell now
Beneath the diaphanous skin it grows to heal,
The colour of antiseptic swallowed,
Regurgitated.

Blow out the dying candle beneath forest oil—
Memories diffuse quicker than smoke.
Sip your tea, the shade of her auburn skin.

Careful now,
You don’t want to singe this tongue.
It might not speak, but it still sings

Of those who die young.

An Abundance of Apathy

Picture courtesy @krisroller on Unsplash

i.
Privilege runs naked
In these shimmering gold halls
(sanctum sanctorum in a past life)

Unabashed, 
thumping its bare, white, 
majoritarian chest, 

With a conviction 
that comes with numbers
and a number of blindfolds.

Grant me some of that vanity, 
a bit of your bravado, that pomposity, 
those big, beautiful words

Soaked overnight in apathy,
so that I, too,
can sleep at night

The way children 
(in your houses)
do. 

ii.
Chutzpah struts through this sanatorium,
a maze of high streets, 
pinstriped, petty, flashing de die in diem 
its clickbait credentials.

Not once does it suffer doubt, 
or hesitate
in selling its mouth
to the highest bidder. 

Numbers! Numbers! Numbers!
the higher you gather,
the better your blunders;
this is no place to stop and ponder.

If this is our might
I’d rather not wield it.
If this is our fight,
I’d rather not win it.

Years later,
when everyone’s pain weighs the same
if this is our history,
I hope nobody tells it.

Sielunmaisema

I turned 32 today. It sounds unreal even as I type it. The math is simple, the physics even simpler. I was born on this day in 1988; the Earth has revolved around the Sun 32 times since that fateful March day. That’s how we humans measure our lives, by the revolutions we make around a cosmic body that perpetually burns hydrogen atoms. Of course, if you simplify it to its bare bones, all that anxiety about turning 30 or older makes absolutely no sense. But we are a peculiar species. Simplicity is not our strong suit. We create trends and hashtags and pop culture notions that only birth anxiety for those that do not fall in the right bracket. No six-pack? Above 30? Dark-skinned and female? Virgin? Can’t do a plank? “YOU’RE CANCELLED!”

And so it has been with me. Since time immemorial, I have planned my life, and all of its milestones. Graduating, falling in love, my first job, the 25^th birthday, promotions, my beach wedding, getting a pet, etc. All of my milestones evolved into projects of passion, not mere conformations to societal expectations of a life well-lived. So, once I graduated in a course I didn’t like, I had to find my “true calling”. Falling in love happened quickly and, after the first heartbreak, often. It also came with its share of mawkish delusions of forever—every single time. The desire for promotions turned into a need to find fulfilling work—with frequent travel that involved life-altering experiences all over the world. And I achieved each one of my goals.

The only problem—I had my life mapped out only till the age of 27 or so. The aforementioned goals took a wee bit longer, taking me to the cusp of 30 revolutions. And before the big O sneaked up on me, I had everything I wanted (thanks, Billie)! So, when the clock struck 12 two revolutions ago, I no longer knew what to do with myself. There was nothing to strive for, nothing to keep me up at night. There was no impossible goal on the horizon. I had succeeded in life! And spectacularly failed to live in the moment.

Today, the pale blue dot completes 32 revolutions around its blazing star since my first squeaks filled the air at a decrepit hospital in a remote arid town in western India. I have spent my birthday playing UNO with friends till 4 am and dueling with them on a Playstation 4, a gift from my partner who knows all too well how much I miss being 13, the age I most identify with. It’s funny how much you can remember from two decades ago and how little from the last one year of your life. There are plenty of age jokes doing the rounds today, coupled with jabs at my well-established denial of being ‘over the hill’. I am unapologetic about being a teenager in my head, looking for the next big impossible dream to chase down, while also basking in the contentment of my present.

After all, your life is not decided by the world you inhabit, but by the one that lives within you. Mine is one from the turn of this millennium. The Finns have a word for ‘the landscape that you carry within your heart’. And that world full of possibilities from 19 years ago is my sielunmaisema.

The Burial

I carry four books in my backpack
(Always three too many),
Never sure which story will comfort
My notebook of failures.

They call me a romantic stuck
In an era with no romance,
Just a few broken relics
That can only birth disfigured verse.

A thought on child abuse
Takes the shape of a nursery lyric,
And socio-economic commentary
Sings like a children’s book.

As ashamed of my rhymes
As Plath was perhaps
Of the absence of words,
I drive down a thunderstorm freeway.

They sway and swerve
Out of my way,
Dodging a plague
Of the worst memories.

Someone releases a rat
From its overnight prison—
Freedom at last!—
Before I mow it down

With my speeding trainwreck.
The rain falls a bit harder,
I drift a bit faster
Towards Despair Junction: Platform Stop-Me-Not.

Some day—
When they all say I’m gone too soon—
Dig out my fifth book,
And bury my story with me.

Let them judge the man by his cover.

— Sumeet Keswani

Statutary Republic

Mine is bigger than yours,
said every man
vying to be head of the clan.

In serpentine queues,
the promise of growth was flung,
to privilege and riches it clung,

Beneath diaphanous skin
the farmer’s bones rose like pilgrim hills
maps caught a flu of names, forests turned to mills.

Unity remained a theory in school,
a word reserved for rote,
the free quill was crushed if otherwise it wrote.

On stolen land, bronze watched in vain,
by a river dammed, it stood tall, ‘tallest of all’–
Iron Man, by the irony appalled.

– Sumeet Keswani