request:

long shiny silver acupuncture needle

punched through the forehead
pointy bits poking out the base of the neck

lancing through eyes
sticking out from back of skull

shoved under fingernails
protuding from broken knuckles

hammered into knee joints
shoved through hip points

puncturing walls of stressed balled guts
out through titanium spine

i take all of that silently
just please give me the right to whine

it hurts
again
just to breathe
again
walls closing in
again

cowering in the bed
again
fighting the choking lonliness
again

trying not to pick up the phone
again
spiraling back to stupidity
again

a mothers concern
just holding back the madness
for a little while
till i wake up
again

why?

our lives are like gossamer smoke
diaphanous
speading in nooks and crannies we never know about
reaching people far and wide

people who inhale our smoke

acquire a shade of our hue

get tainted by our existance without us knowing

i have lost all color .. faded to that one distant hue that i picked up those small instances

how can the death of that boy haunt me so much?
how can the tragedy make my soul ache
when i have so much trouble feeling
in day to day jaded existance

what will happen when the few people i do let in these walls leave me?
i can't get hurt again
i'll break and shatter
like the last time

and i won't be able to put myself back together
i won't

death of the day

maghrib just happened. i've always hated the twilight, the fading sunset reminding me of one more day where i didn't really do anything. i used to love it when i was little, it flagged the moment to end the exhaustive breathless childhood games we all played in the street, where it indicated the beginning of the end of the fun art of playing outside, after which mosquitos would come out, after which hunger, crankiness and resulting spats would set in. it means nothing anymore. it singals the emptiness of our adult lives, the lonliness as the azaan echoes through empty rooms.

today was my last day on the job. packing up one stupid pencil holder and one fake plant felt more momentous than my final day after 12 years with the same school and the same people, after four years of intese college, or even the first day i walked after three months of lying flat on my bed unable to walk from my bloody orthopedic mattress to the pot and back without getting so out of breath that i would see black spots before my eyes and have to sleep four hours after that to regain the strength to keep breathing. for some reason, it was much more than that.

maybe because today is also coincedently the janaza and soyem of the 19 yr old kid who died in that car accident. the kid who i saw incedental glimpses of in those 12 years of school, the younger brother of the girl who's face i practically saw everyday in those 12 years and who i actively disliked in every instance of it. maybe because in packing up the stupid pencil holder and in the process of walking from desk to desk saying bye and getting into the lift; the chain of events that would lead me to be delayed those 15 minutes that would make me catch bumper to bumper traffic that would make me hear the first strains of maghrib singalling the end of the janaza as i drove past the last green light and neared home, 10 minutes too far away to join everyone at the janaza.

there are echo's of sadness in this sunset. and tragedy. and guilt. and tears of the people i love. tears of my mother who fed him cerelac with he and my own brother were babies. my best friend who danced with him this summer, who spent the last two days crying. tears for myself, because of those damn fifteen minutes where i could have left the damn pencil holder and just done what was important, not been side tracked by stupid maningless insginificance and lost the chance to feel like i did something to assauge the huge weight of momentous tragedy so i can get back to my empty empty life hoping to never feel.

Superman (It's Not Easy) - Five for Fighting

I can't stand to fly
I'm not that naive
I'm just out to find
The better part of me

I'm more than a bird:I'm more than a plane
More than some pretty face beside a train
It's not easy to be me

Wish that I could cry
Fall upon my knees
Find a way to lie
About a home I'll never see

It may sound absurd:but don't be naive
Even Heroes have the right to bleed
I may be disturbed:but won't you conceed
Even Heroes have the right to dream
It's not easy to be me

Up, up and away:away from me
It's all right:You can all sleep sound tonight
I'm not crazy:or anything:

I can't stand to fly
I'm not that naive
Men weren't meant to ride
With clouds between their knees

I'm only a man in a silly red sheet
Digging for kryptonite on this one way street
Only a man in a funny red sheet
Looking for special things inside of me

I'm only a man in a phony red sheet
I'm only a man looking for a dream
I'm only a man in a phony red sheet
and its not easy

It's not easy
to be
me.