I took it in, I took it all in. No! I am taking it in. These clouds, and how I swim amidst the smoke that rises from a distant villa in the sky. Down there, people call it the moon. Up here, it is a house that emits a halo. I have been trying for a long time now to reach it. How long have I been trying? Damn I forgot my watch. But the more I hasten, the more it fades. Till what it remains now -- a crescent. Here, I float. It is a beautiful place. Someday, you might visit it too. There are strings of strawberries lined on either side, and flowery fences around which naughty fishes find each other. Like down there, in movies. Fish finding fish. Aw fish. Am I in my senses, you would think. Are you thinking? Great. We are together in it then. I am floating because I am full. I am floating because I am filled with emptiness. Hasn't emptiness ever filled you? Delusion.
The silence here is instrumental. Instrumental in touching chords of a moist place I did not know existed. Deep in the boots, or in the pockets. I left them behind. But the silence has evoked them. Silence looks like a talk stalked white lily bunch, amidst a chaos of intertwined wires, no longer awaiting rust. There is a boat, they say, which could bring in more people like me up here. No one knows how to board it. No one knows how to reach it. They say, the boat finds you. It did find me, yes. I passed through dense backwaters, dark, and opened out to the suddenness of the sea. It has never been enough to contain anything. Or, has it? The little boat did sail me across to the sky. I remember I was taking in the infused smell of roses, and vetyver.
Looking back, there was no looking back. As they say I followed blindly. This time though, my eyes were all open. Sometimes, I saw known faces trying to lurk out from behind the bushes and reach out for me, they did cry. Far away I could hear a mother snapping at her daughter for the wrong answer. It faded faster than the lines of a song I did liked. Who would say love smelled like herbs, or seaweed? Does any of this make sense? I did not mean to. Make sense, that is. Tell me, don't we have too much happening with all the senses working, anyway? I took in the switch off. My senses slept. Faces drifted away, I fell on the boat and flew away. Their tears built a river. Roads looked red, bridges were built on sand and everything seemed as if it were long meant to be, away. Far off.
Am I really dead or all this is just a lapse? I will just roll over and hold the silence of the lilies and sleep instead. Perhaps I could find out if the dead had dreams too.
-- Submission on "Were I High on a Holiday".
Maanvi Pathak.
If I only drafted some. Dreams.
The silence here is instrumental. Instrumental in touching chords of a moist place I did not know existed. Deep in the boots, or in the pockets. I left them behind. But the silence has evoked them. Silence looks like a talk stalked white lily bunch, amidst a chaos of intertwined wires, no longer awaiting rust. There is a boat, they say, which could bring in more people like me up here. No one knows how to board it. No one knows how to reach it. They say, the boat finds you. It did find me, yes. I passed through dense backwaters, dark, and opened out to the suddenness of the sea. It has never been enough to contain anything. Or, has it? The little boat did sail me across to the sky. I remember I was taking in the infused smell of roses, and vetyver.
Looking back, there was no looking back. As they say I followed blindly. This time though, my eyes were all open. Sometimes, I saw known faces trying to lurk out from behind the bushes and reach out for me, they did cry. Far away I could hear a mother snapping at her daughter for the wrong answer. It faded faster than the lines of a song I did liked. Who would say love smelled like herbs, or seaweed? Does any of this make sense? I did not mean to. Make sense, that is. Tell me, don't we have too much happening with all the senses working, anyway? I took in the switch off. My senses slept. Faces drifted away, I fell on the boat and flew away. Their tears built a river. Roads looked red, bridges were built on sand and everything seemed as if it were long meant to be, away. Far off.
Am I really dead or all this is just a lapse? I will just roll over and hold the silence of the lilies and sleep instead. Perhaps I could find out if the dead had dreams too.
-- Submission on "Were I High on a Holiday".
Maanvi Pathak.
If I only drafted some. Dreams.
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