Lights Out: Letters I am Still Trying to Pen

O mind, do not cry, do not beat

Your chest off with rage and angst

We can bide the tumultuous tides

And leaning still rise, rise and rise

It’s darker than ever, I learn

And heavier than yestreen

The burden of misfortune

Thoughts and figures of memory

Ringing stinging, pulls the curtains

Of sanity de-forming the view

Yet there’s some light

At the end of the tunnel

Let us tread by

Assuming the like, ensemble

Mustering courage, strive

O mind, do not ache, do not cry.

It stands before me stark naked,

In giant bold resolution;

Two faces, two bodies:

A woman and a man.

One I touched and the other I dreamed

To shut myself into

Until my last breath

Lights out!

I hear his name and all that

Followed in my feverish mind;

Setting my delicate heart surreally ablaze!

From the day he wore full-sleeved grey

And gleamed walking towards me,

Along the dark alleys,

Before the Santa Claus in snowy red,

Did flung us delicious cakes and chocolates.

At the pious pre-Christmas evening in November,

“Jeez, you looked crisp and dapper neat

So irresistibly drawn, I caught

You in the loop of my bewitched iris.

Still, I blush turning back,

Lurking in the pristine pages of my secret diary;

Where your puzzled brow anxious

Hangs framed in demure corners,

Smudged in crimson pink,

Lipstick tint: ah, why we never kissed!”

His “How is everything?” froze my frame!

Stirring the slumberous chambers of femininity,

That I had deliberately dumped under in abysses deep,

Until I met his eye that curtly gleamed.

With utmost grace, endearingly, I poetized

A myriad range of amorous verses;

Day and night, pausing over then and there

To stare at the shrinking purpureal twilight sky.

I dreamed to romantically tie:

An eternal life with him,

Just as exciting as the disco lights that cut

Scintillating through my disconcerted eyes,

At one boisterous cultural night,

Where all helluva roared and howled,

Clapping their hands, stamping their foot.

I missed him galore and cursed myself underneath

For not being there when he needed me

In trivial moments to cheer him up,

At events and festivals where he showed up.

Alone, without me by his shoulder.

I desired to touch and grab and hold

And leap and fly and land

With him in his highs and lows.

Ride above his thighs

And grope my hands over his torso,

Pluck his broader brow

And slouch a little below,

Gently clinging,

Sensuously smooch,

Imprinting upon him the magical whiff;

Laced with marital promises

Diffusing the odour of my full-blossomed love.

“No pearls glowed in red!

Upset, I turned away.”

It is the Superego, the villain, who stopped me

From being true to my bestial drives,

Barricading a cornucopia of delicacies

From spilling all that

I had passionately fantasized.

So, I decided to script a happy ending,

Consummating a lover’s luxuriant wish

That roved helter-skelter wild

In my delusional head all the time.

Neither of us confessed,

For the utter fear of rejection haunted

So much unsaid, dullness and silence fell.

Then I gave up when in May, he left

Without even bidding me adieu.

Bereft our paths and thoughts cleft,

Then my friend fixed me back;

Picking up my heap of broken images,

Wiped my tears and offered me solace.

Her sweetening sorority appeased

The flames of my love-sick heat.