Sunday, November 30, 2008

To The People I Wish I Knew

Meet me at the outfall. Meet me near public toilets.
Meet me at the park hotel washroom,
barge in and say hello. Say- hello, I’m
not supposed to be here; and you'll be forgiven.
Say- hey! You look ugly but just a little and
that’s forgiven. You’re a fucked up kid even when you
smile at me and that’s forgiven. You eat up a piece of your day
everyday, do you want that forgiven? Ask me. Say, 

Hello! What were you thinking? The river always outfaces the ocean 
right before emptying itself into the latter, and the river is never a rapist, not even 

when it rushes- Meet me at the outfall as a river and be swift. Break
my stance on love affairs. To all the people that I’ve seen listening to 
their music with a smile, listening to their mother with a smile, looking at 
the world with a smile, looking their feet with
a smile looking at their feet whistling JESUS F. CHRIST DON’T WHISTLE.
Don’t whistle at the FEET- it makes ME feel worthless, and THAT is 
the red ribbon you cut at the entrance. Walk in, draw a chair, draw a 

breath and inhale my delusions of you. Bit by bit- not all at once like a 
shocking fall in the stock market, or the hair-fall issues making me bald 
and insecure, all at once. When you exhale, help me write a gist
of the mist that is your sadness, your pride, your disease. Make me sigh
and let it not return to me.


Today, I started writing you a poem and it read:

I wish you knew me and vice versa.
I wish you knew me and vice versa.
I wish you knew me and vice versa,
vice versa vice versa.

Today, I looked up the rules of writing to you-

spell out only synonyms of love, misspell them.
Never say fuck. Say 'this is not important',
mislead them. Work out your puzzles before
laying them out for others. Never make yourself the
subject, use vice versa vice versa

vice versa. And I swim through the dictionary looking
for words that don’t remind me of you. But I get
topsail, and I am Ship with mine pointing in your
direction. I get Macadamia, the nut of an Australian
tree that one of you is swallowing as I try
excreting your face out of my brain. I get quadriplegia
and I’ve already let it grow into me, settle in cozily,
helplessness et al. None of my other inconsistencies help me
get over this shizz so I give up trying to cover up, and

tell myself- well, this too is forgiven. Today, I hope to catch you
at that pathetic little corner of the street staring at
the madwoman like I do when my sighs return
to me. To you with eyes like anecdotes and antidotes
to reality, with the trench across your cheek changing
depth as you speak- meet me without your armors. Meet
me with your kitschy secrets. With your collarbones bare,
your shoulders just the way they are. Meet me near
the ruins and sit by me, wondering where we were
when it happened.



9 comments:

Jadis said...

this is one of your longLONG poems which are so achingly touching.

Sambit said...

I wish you knew me and vice versa.

sums something up.
in some way.
that's all.
no idea.

Saturnalia's Offspring said...

I wish you knew me and vice versa.

Strangers, always, some worth knowing some not. And sometimes when you do know them, you find that you always did anyway.
I love the last bit.

Meet me with
your kitschy secrets. With your collarbones bare,
with your shoulders just the way they are.Meet me near
the ruins and sit with me, wondering where we were
when it happened.

Debs said...

"And I'll dance with you in Vienna
I'll be wearing a river's disguise
The hyacinth wild on my shoulder,
My mouth on the dew of your thighs"

- Leonard Cohen.

Anonymous said...

I love it.

Doubletake, Doublethink. said...

*smile*


did it again, you.

Ishani Shambhobi Ghosh said...

hey... it was something like eliot... loads of incomprehensible mysteries... which made it very attractive. i always say i'm stupid abt poems but what ever i cud get was really gr8. gr8 goin gal.

Anonymous said...

your blog is rad!

Anoo. said...

Meet me without your armors. Meet me with
your kitschy secrets. With your collarbones bare,
your shoulders just the way they are. Meet me near
the ruins and sit by me, wondering where we were
when it happened.



-sigh-