Yesterday

"That era has passed.

Nothing that belonged to it exists any more.

He remembers those vanished years.

As though looking through a dusty window pane,

The past is something he could see, but not touch.

And everything he sees is blurred and indistinct."

- from 'In the Mood for Love'

Fragmented

Saying goodbye wasn’t easy

Knowing that

I didn’t want to leave,

And that you didn’t want me to...

But also knowing that

I couldn’t stay...

Shouldn’t stay any longer.

I kept the moments

And let you keep the memories...

So that if you should ever wonder

If I’ll come back,

You know, that

In these memories, I will...

Whenever you think

Of me.

Hmph!

My cell phone rings. I check. Unknown number. I pick anyways.

Here’s how the conversation with someone I figure is a telemarketer pushing god-knows-what, goes.

Me (in deadpan monotone) : Hello.

She (chirpy, nasal voiced) : Yeh Mr I.B. (the husband) ka number hai, kya?

Me (repeat deadpan monotone) : No

She (in same chirpy, nasal voice) : Aap mujhe unka number de sakte hain?

Me (same deadpan monotone) : No

She (amazingly, still chirpy) : OK! Thank you!

*click*

She hung up? She hung up!

Me (left holding dead phone) : ???


(Someone should complain to her boss! Telemarketers shouldn't give up that easily! Or sound so happy, for that matter...)
Bah!

Untangling the Knots

Dreams are a kite

That dances with the wind...

Love is a fetter,

Held down and pinned.

Hope is a paper boat

Braving a stormy sea,

But thoughts are a bird

Rising skywards,

Unencumbered and free...

    source: XKCD

Turn the Page

I open the heavy album and look into my paper memories. Highlighted life looks back at me…content, happy, full. Bright colours, special moments, white grins…all captured in a frame, so that someday I might look back into each picture and glow in the warmth of its recollections. These photos, the legacies of the life I have led so far, speak of my experiences, my friends, the travels, the adventures and more. Each, a window into a moment, telling a story of the person that I am, of all that I’ve valued through time.

But there are spaces between each vibrant picture in its tidy white frame…spaces filled with invisible moments that do not want to be remembered, that carry too much hurt to be remembered. The prizes that couldn’t be won, the love that promised and then went away, the friendships that destiny cruelly discarded, and the wounds that each loss seared across the heart.

Maybe good times aren’t meant to last forever. Maybe that’s why we save them in the recesses of our minds, sometimes, on paper; proof that we have lived these moments, and enjoyed the offerings of those special times. Our memories recall the vivid shape of joy, whenever happiness seems hard to imagine.

Yes, remembering is important, and yet, forgetting, even more so. Because in a world where pain outweighs happiness, it’s easy to get stuck in a moment. And forgetting is the only way we can let go and move on.

I turn another page.

Mental Floss

Cleaning out last year’s junk and making space for the clutter that 2011 will undoubtedly fetch.

Bring it on, I say! :D

Amends to Myself

Let’s play a game
Of “Let’s Pretend”
And pretend
We’re not pretending.
Let’s pretend
We’re free...
Unbound by limitations,
Time and pain.
That the walls we layer
Around us
Are the bridges that
Lead to rainbows...
That the demons
Which ravage and destroy
Are gentle spirits that
Restore and heal...
Let’s pretend that
Solitude and silence
Are the keepers of our soul
That the darkness
That we walk with
Will surrender us to the
First light of day...
Let’s pretend
We’re still together
Before we choose
To forget who we are...
Let’s play this game
Of “Let’s Pretend”
And pretend
We’re not pretending.

Stain

I gaze at the canvas; clean, white, new. I imagine the colours that will fill its vast emptiness, line it from end to end, top to bottom, and the textures that my painting knife will create and enhance. I think of bright yellows, happy oranges and fiery reds as I gather my brushes, bring out an old palette and remove the covers from the paints. There is anticipation in my deft movements and a beauty that can be seen only in my mind; one that will be translated onto this canvas, soon.

I close my eyes for a moment, to capture, to affix the forms and hues in memory, but instead, I remember the way the rain had fallen, the day we first met...that day in August, with its defeated, grey skies and crystal tears. I hadn’t seen you then, yet I had conjured your image in thought, defined it in my imagination. I had painted the rainbow-arched bridges that we built so fast between us, and textured the crumbling walls between two people locked within themselves for a long time. I used a lime yellow to tell of the freshness in our friendship, your favourite colour, and complemented it with the palest pink, for me.

I lift my brush to the whiteness now, but the bright colours I have chosen seem to dissolve into murky browns and pallid greys; colours of irrevocable change, of inevitable endings. I blink, once, twice, in the light, but the hues continue to deceive. But I go on, stroke after stroke, slathering the creamy paints onto the stark, white canvas, altering its appearance forever.

I step back to take in the collective tone. My knife has carved jagged patterns in the thick hues of an evening sky, mingling swirls of yellow with vast quantities of red, the colour of passion, the colour of beginnings. An orange sun sinks into a violet sea, its bed, the colour of pearls. I realize I am no longer wistful over doomed, silver friendships and their fragile, gossamer memories. I have honoured, preserved what remains, in a place where colours do not bleed and salt water cannot corrode or wash away...

There’s just one last thing to do. I have saved a little puddle of pink on the palette for last. The colours clash, but I still dip a determined, fine brush into it, and sign my name in simple, unassuming curls at the bottom of my dream.