i'm the distant stare in a philosopher's eyes,
i'm the cold blood in a murderer's heart,
i'm the throne of a beheaded king,
i'm the womb of a banished widow,
and yet
i'm also the tear of a golden mermaid,
i'm also the octave of 'comfortably numb',
i'm also the bullet in Matilde's gun,
i'm also the yet-to-be-deciphered script of great Harappa:
...
impressions on a child
are like meteor craters,
they are like frozen lava
that destroy but also perfectly preserve
deep embedded inclinations and fears,
they are like dried up oases
whose sand still remain moist
no matter the years,
they are like currencies of a bygone era
whose metal never rust;
i was once of age six
and was beaten up so bad by mother
that i couldn't cry
any more than i already did,
and why,
because i had shared sweets
with a young boy
who i later found out
had been diagnosed with cancer,
and had died later that year;
that was the first time i had lost a friend,
that was the first time i got a glimpse of death:
...
back then,
home was a two six-by-eight roomed space
including kitchen
and a mini spinach garden in front of it,
school was just a jump away,
celebrations meant chicken meals
that lasted till the following afternoon,
and Sunday mornings meant father and i
filling up buckets of water
from the neighbourhood water tank
because we didn't have supply pipes
like our landlords;
(
i know, right!
)
yet,
there was abundance
and mother sported beautiful old-school salwars
and gave me repeated tours of Lady Hydri park,
and father worked his two jobs
and came home to a happy wife and a silly child
who could be stupid enough to swallow fish bones
and then run into walls in his frenzy;
until one winter
when our house was broken into and robbed,
and our black-and-white television was no more there
and our walls had been damaged
and our blankets were torn down,
and my prized collection of
Cheetostazoos and wrestling cards
was also missing;
that was the coldest winter night
of our lives:
...
dust clouds of time always leave a glacial erratic
on their way to tomorrow
and frowned eyebrows grow wisdom in them,
yet impressions never fade,
they become detached
but nevertheless existent:
father has since then
grown a moustache
and also his trademark long and deep smoke drags,
which also has left its impressions on me,
for,
i've always wanted to smoke like father;
and mother protects her territories
more than ever before,
like the bull that she is,
even if it means the ending of
extended familial ties,
and never lets go of her mind;
but i, well,
i am a different story,
i am that attached fruit to a dead tree
who fears falling and hurting,
i am that old bicycle
who fears being corroded and abandoned,
and yet,
i am that wild forest fire
that grows more and more insatiable,
i am that lust between newly weds
that never fade away
provided they are meant to be,
and i am that same old couple's melancholy
who have made a lifetime of love
and whose bodies are
too crooked to fit into one another anymore:
true story!