Shadows

Setting the mug down with a crash yet again

I wonder why we even bother buying coasters

Why we’ve fine-tuned our eyes to smile a lot lately

When inside all we harbor are these sad picture posters.

While things around continue to settle

the dust storms have more or less ceased

Some of us are still standing on the shores

Summoning the wrath of the seas.

Over-thinkers they’ve called us

Headless nomads, they tease

While the world stage still sees this circus with wonder in their eyes

To us, it’s pretty much autopiloting, such ease.

I too was an artist back in my time

A hundred stories still live in the walls of my home

When the candle flame flickered during those summertime blackouts

my shadow puppets danced; in chorus cheered my brother and mom.

Darkness walks along like the old friend that she is

enshrouds me in the protective shadows

While the keys jingle in deadbolt at 3 AM in the cold as I return back

the door opens to a silent house, and the emptiness grows.

Some years ask questions and some years answer

Some throw curveballs at you while you stand there in your own little pretense

It’s a relief that winter numbs you down enough

To not know or feel what happens while it ends.

These rainy Decembers are gonna take a little time getting used to

The frost on the car is as tough as my skin

While I scrape off this while blanket and fire the engines up

Take a backseat, sip some coffee. Fin.

© 2017 Neha Choudhry

Picture Source: http://www.sara-herranz.com/

Muse

You search here,
I will look there.
Holler if you find something.
Anything.
Just traces would do too.
Or so these mindless mind conversations go on.

The aftermath of a crime scene
Disheveled, almost ransacked it looks.
This brain space sees old places, travels time
And walks hand in hand with someone
Who now isn’t even mine.

The sun rises and eventually, the days draw to a close.
How much I long for an inspiration
the crossed out crumpled sheets in the trash know.
I’ve exhausted playlists and instrumentals alike,
None has helped me so much to even create a tiny prose.

Years it has been
Since I looked you up & close,
When your chin rested on my head
And you drew me in your warm core.
And still today, you stop mid sentence
and your voice breaks at my ‘Hi’.
For the world, you have conveniently forgotten me,
But the person inside you refuses to even whisper a goodbye.

Life will change some more
Days will still start and end the same,
Cities may be different, time zones may be a challenge;
Ignorance, silences, our inflated egos we will manage.
Only to come back and confess the longings,
Only to stand at the very place our hands last met and drifted.

To so many questions and confusion in my life,
The sound of your name is nectar to my pain.
Why even in the most happening places, I am a recluse.
Why no hope is lost when the world is upside down, obtuse.
Someday you will be someone else’s man,
but forever stay in this parallel of my imagination
as my muse.

© 2017 Neha Choudhry

'Fuimos los mejores, fuimos los peores' by Sara Herranz

White Noise

It rained today.
And I slept with that same smile plastered on my face, the one you said you loved.
The one I coyly smiled when you offered a hug when I said I was so cold.
Who knew being all drenched and shivering would spark open a fire between us, the one that would warm my tomorrows, perhaps long after you are gone.
I've moved away. It's been years. Continents apart we are. You, hating my guts more than ever. Me, ablaze.
Still.
Still.

I wear my hair longer. Gray hasn't reached my roots.
Last week I met someone new. He said I had beautiful eyes. I looked away. Memories.
I've grown up. Or so I thought.
Until I found myself at a crossroad, turning around and following a stranger.
A whiff of perfume. A too familiar tornado of yesterdays. Was it you?
Maybe.
Maybe.

Waking up is tough these days. Maybe because I haven't ever been at rest.
I left my carefree self in your arms. I miss her but it's comforting to be hugging you still, in some way.
Just the way I interpret some of my actions so as to survive each day. Without you.
And you wondered why was there a distance between you and your girl? Why could you never be hers completely?
On my end of the line, I smiled because I knew. My silence, my alibi.
Hopefully.
Hopefully.

He cupped my face in his hands, curled a stray strand in his finger and kissed my eyes.
I kept my eyes closed. Letting him do things I wanted you to.
Sometimes I think I am sleep walking through these years. Vivid though.
Someday I would wake up and your shirt would still be ruffled on my dresser.
And to my right would be your messy-head, snoring away into the night.
Peacefully.
Peacefully.

No matter how much it kills me to see you, I never will close this distance between us.
I court the devil each night. I'm digging my way up from hell.
If sin is what might drain the goodness of you that runs in my blood,
I don't even bat an eyelash when he marks me as his.
Or so he thinks.
Wishfully.
Wishfully.

It rained today. And my pillow was drenched too.
Of moments we lived, dreamed of. The two splitting images of us running with their baby feet in the backyard.
Of so many tomorrows that will never be.
You're the white noise that no one knows about.
The one that I want, I need each night, year after year, to sleep.
Reassuringly.
Reassuringly.

© 2017 Neha Choudhry

Image Source: http://www.sara-herranz.com/