Impressions

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!