Bleeding Moon

The moon is bleeding like

 the weeping tumor beyond chemo

when the night's  purplish green,

stabs of pain like the lashings of a cane

on a parabola back screaming in vain,

pure spite and storm that fogs the brain,

 You looked out to see the stars

feebly winking with no solace

like a lightning bolt that

can char and scar for life.

Prayers are the face of an angel or child

when you feel defiled. 

Everything passes like the pageant,

the Samba parade in a carnival.

Curated  Stories

At every corner of the house a story stepped out of its wrapping. When the injured raven visited, it blessed us with miracles for the care it got and Uncle became cancer free. The window that crashed on its own was  mourning the passing of grandpa. It was a sign, but his passing  spirit ensured our well being, so no one was hurt. The pillars that supported the house stood tall even when Aunt fell off the terrace and embraced her seizures and trauma, both physical and mental. Schizophrenia’s better than premature death when you’re just twenty. Its many doors and windows opened onto the veranda. These brought  fresh scents from all over and the whole house was fragrant with hope and healing even for Aunt.

So when the house was euthanized, as they do to old sick dogs, a lot in us died with our stories tattooed on our souls. Now we carry the ink wherever we go because we have the house no more.

Few summers back one morning as I was getting to work, I heard  a weak human whimper coming from inside the dumpster, So I had to peep. And sure a bundle of miracle greeted me. I didn’t have to know his religion, ethnicity, or color to hug him to my breast and cradle him cooing to calm him. The motherless, rootless baby had no story of his own, except one of rejection and hunger.  So I gave him one. He is part of the stories we have been writing together for when his children come. Our shared stories are curated with love in a home full of truth for what is truth but tender love? We keep making stories and homes as we float along.

Dead End

Tonight he was going to follow her. He hadn’t as yet. But tonight was different. It was their first anniversary. And she was going to sleepwalk again because he had heard her get up. She had showered and was now standing before the mirror  applying makeup, though she didn’t need any. She looked hotter than Jessica Alba in her stunning sea green evening gown with the pearls he’d gifted her for their anniversary. He was mystified that she could doll herself up like this with eyes tightly closed while she sleepwalked. It cast a spell on him.

As her gown trailed over the stairs and she opened the front door, he tiptoed after her in his pajamas keeping a safe distance. She didn’t lock the door. He knew she meant to return soon.

It was past midnight. Being a weeknight and this late, there wasn’t a soul on the street. She had always struck him as bold but this could be scary for any woman being alone on a dark secluded street leading up to the state highway in a couple of miles. He hadn’t been keen on this property but she had fallen in love with this seclusion. Privacy was sacred to her. She had said  that when they were dating two years back.

She had turned left and he knew it led to a cul - de - sac. He tried to take cover behind the tall cypress trees that stood guard to shut off the white mansion. She climbed the steps leading to the entrance and rang the bell. He couldn’t see much from his hiding spot, so he now hid  behind the bushes next to the ten flights of steps to get a better view.

He wanted to call her back, and take her in his arms with all the tenderness of his heart. He longed to take her home and break her spell with a long thirsty kiss. But someone was already opening the door. He now realized it was her friend Nicole, who lived alone after her boyfriend died last year in a tragic drowning accident in their own swimming pool. Andy used to have seizures, and must have had one that evening, he learnt later from Stephanie.

Nicole embraced Steph and was leading her inside. Perhaps she knew about Steph’s sleepwalking. But why was she awake and waiting for Steph this late? Maybe Steph would now awaken and retrace her steps. But he saw her kissing Nicole and their bodies entangled in a hungry embrace. Steph and Nicole let their dresses fall around their feet and their lips met as they closed the front door to shut him out.

Was there quicksand around because he felt sucked in? He couldn’t lift himself up as he crumpled in a heap next to the steps. All he could feel was a loud banging in his head that was more deafening than the IED exploding right next him when he was serving in Afghanistan.

The Fog

The fog was sitting on the grounds, cozy on a sofa, as though it were its home. As she kept trying to pierce it for better visibility, she was getting tired, also scared. She might be hit or hit someone. And the fog was steadily getting stronger and rendering her blinder. She was a combination of nerves, annoyance and impatience .

Two days back she was combating sleet and ice rain driving back home from work. She was driving for what seemed an eternity of plodding moving at a snail’s pace to avoid skidding on the slick unploughed roads with a two inch accumulation of wet ice. Besides, the heating coils on the rear windshield of her Corolla weren’t working. It was getting old like her. So she had no rear vision of  cars behind her. She drove out of habit and hoped for the best.

Today was no different. The fog didn’t need to be waiting for her now.  Wasn’t the stubborn ice enough of a bother already? But there she was having a dialogue with nature yet again and doing her best. Winter came with so much baggage if you had to navigate and drive at the same time. She would have loved to have been comfortably seated on her fireside recliner reading Maya Angelou with a steaming cup of hazelnut coffee. No complaints about that. But life was full of dodging the odds out in the open instead.

Suddenly her reverie was shattered. The impact was loud and painful. She couldn’t understand at first what the pain was, but gradually the fog in her mind cleared. A car had hit her from behind and her head had hit  the wheel. She could feel the numbness creeping in her hands and a searing pain like an electric shock all the way from the left side of the head down to the left shoulders. She could sense a wet trickle from the gash on the forehead now. Smelled of raw blood. Must be the fog that blinded the other driver.

Goodness! She hated all the fuss that would follow:  all the phone calls, the cops, the insurance details. She just wanted to be home in bed.

She saw a form emerge from the other car. As it approached the driver’s seat, she could see he was a lanky man walking a little unsteadily towards her.  Must be this awful fog that wasn’t helping him see clearly. And then she was struck by a lightning bolt. She could now see his face through the fog. How could you not?

“Neil, my sweetheart, it’s you?” She tried to stretch her hands out the window to touch his face. A blast of cold air assaulted her numb hands.

“ Oh my God, Mom, I’m so sorry. Are you hurt? You’re bleeding!”

“ Neil, I’ve always warned you about this, haven’t I?. Thank Goodness it was me.” She could smell his drunk breath. So familiar.

“Now listen to me sweetie. Just leave. Immediately. Go home to your girlfriend. She’s right round the corner. I know you always have the keys. Remember nothing happened this evening. Absolutely nothing happened. You and Amanda were home grooming the dogs.”

“ But Mom I need to take you to the ER.”

“No, you don’t need to do nothing of the sort unless you want your license revoked. Go to Amanda and sleep it off my darling.” Situations could notoriously cascade someplace remote way beyond control.

She shuddered at the thought of a DUI as she saw him recede in the fog and head out. It isn’t fair for a mother to be worrying so much all the time. It did something to your heart. She dreamed of her fireside comfort as she headed back, the pain now blinding her, not so much the fog.

She would have to touch base with Amanda once she was home. There was always so much on her plate.

Back of beyond

I didn’t mean to be so late. It was all Aunt Bela’s fault. She kept adding to the menu, so the spread would look impressive. But I really didn’t want to be impressed. She knew it. I suspect she wanted to ensure she hadn’t forgotten to cook all the exotic dishes that Grandma Noni had taught her when she was being brainwashed to marry the only suitor around who was obsessed about  eating outlandish dishes that challenged the culinary skills of the most celebrated chefs. Well, she didn’t marry him, in fact didn’t marry anyone, but hadn’t forgotten the extraordinary recipes either. And today she wanted me to certify that she was still the best chef on the entire planet. I wished I didn’t have to eat so much. But I know she made everything out of love for me and I am quite fond of her too.

Sunday evenings are scary if you have to take the train from the god forsaken Acton station to Victoria and then further on to Croydon where you took the bus to East Croydon. It’s always deserted and things happen. I hoped I’d stayed with Aunt Bela instead of staying with my dad’s cousin’s family in East Croydon. I could go see the orchids at Kew Gardens and visit the Windsor Castle most days with Aunt Bela then. But that wasn’t  the plan sadly. It’s a long route to Croydon  and we both knew it. This was my first English vacation alone and really hoped it wouldn’t be my last one.

 And now the stoned fellow who had no clue where he was and where he was going was badgering me for dollars, pounds whatever I had because he needed tickets. Of course he didn’t need train tickets. Everyone knew it and even he knew it. All he needed was a ticket to a spell of ecstasy and I was his best bet. It wasn’t a very happy thought because we were the only two passengers on a late Sunday evening train ride leaving from the darkest, shadiest and scariest train stations in the whole world. But I assumed having him for company was better than being alone. Half a loaf is better than none, right? So I gave him a few bucks so he’d be happy to have me as a fellow traveler. But he disappeared and never came back. I should have known that I never take smart decisions and this wasn’t an exception.

I waited alone on the dark deserted platform and prayed. I learnt that I could pray hard because I had never been a praying kind ever before. I had also never seen so many trains whoosh past without thinking about stopping for people like me praying hard for them to say, “Hey! come on in. We’d love to have you aboard.”I realized trains don’t think unfortunately. They just keep going. I kept waiting hearing my heart thump louder and louder till it was almost ready to burst. I decided that I was dead and thankfully didn’t have to plan my next move. That’s when the train stopped for me to hop on.

“ Don’t ever get  into an empty carriage sweetheart. It’s dangerous. Safety in number, remember.” Aunt Bela was thrusting some delicious  homemade crepes with coconut jaggery filling wrapped in a neat package for the long ride back home. She kissed my forehead saying” Food can make you think smart. So eat whenever you want to think.”

What an odd thought. I would become a humongous hippo at this rate because I needed to think always, and particularly now about how to reach my dad’s cousin’s home before they started calling the authorities thinking I was traceless. It was probably by some sinister design that the public phone at the station was not working either. What an odd coincidence.

The train was largely empty but one of the carriages had a group of people. Great. I hopped on. Finally I had embarked on my homeward ride.

But I had never seen so many pink, orange, purple, green and yellow colors on people’s hair all at once and so many tattoos of dinosaurs on their hands and necks. I could smell extinct. They were happy to see me and wanted me to dance with them before becoming extinct. They were playing on improvised instruments and were completely euphoric. They were  in front of  me but also someplace else which I didn’t know of course. Instead of joining them I  dug out the crepes so I could think. And as Aunt Bela had said, the jaggeried coconut helped me  think. I realized they were just happy people who had a right to be happy, so I sat and clapped in solidarity while they continued to be euphoric.

My dad’s cousin was waiting at Victoria. He wasn’t taking any chances with my thinking I guessed . Boy ! Was I glad to see him because I could now talk to someone finally about the orchids and the castle. He looked anxious but happy and relieved and gave me a Belgian chocolate for deciding to reach Victoria and not land on another planet.

“Your dad would be proud of you,” he said. I agreed with him wholeheartedly.

Necky and Neck less

He had never fancied his neck. It was way too long, had always been long, giraffe like or like a crane’s. Only he wasn’t as gorgeous as an elegant crane. And the giraffe’s neck was functional at least  helping him to reach heights impossible for others to conceive. But being a human, that wasn’t any help. You couldn’t reach great heights only with your super long, stretchy, bendy neck. It was at once an embarrassment and an impediment.

In elementary school, they called him ‘necky’ and in middle school it became ‘hoopy’ because the boys thought he looked quite like  a basketball hoop. But that didn’t make him a good basketball player since he could never get the hang of coordinating his hands and legs which were at such a mighty distance from his neck and head. In his sophomore year in high school, the girls giggled when he passed by and high fived yelling “Here’s O2B”,  and it took him a whole year to figure out that it meant Out of Bounds. He was mortified at the discovery and ended up without a girlfriend.

He couldn’t actively look for girlfriends even now because he knew they had  to be acrobats to reach him. For them to plant a kiss  was fraught with challenges. So it was lonely.

Coworkers, especially the women thought he was always craning his neck to snoop and invade their privacy. Sometimes he’d overheard them murmuring in the break room ‘here’s snoopy’ and snicker. In defence he had to quit most jobs. Prospective employers believed he would be very successful in a circus, and so convincing them that he had no such intention was a continuous battle.

 The only person who didn’t seem to have any issues with his neck, as a matter of fact loved it and showered it with kisses, was his mom. She had no second thoughts about it unlike him. She doted on him. He was grateful but was looking for more out of life.

So when he met her for the first time,  he didn’t have any illusions. The only thing that struck him as singularly obvious was the complete absence of a neck on her. It appeared as if she had been absolutely deprived of a key body part. There was hardly anything between her head and shoulders. Perhaps that is why she continued to inhabit her shell for the greater part of the day. Maybe she didn’t like the others calling her Lady Turtle. How rude to draw attention to a decent woman’s physical inadequacy. For heaven’s sake what’s happening to decency among the common folk? She was his most recent coworker in his newest workplace and he decided to make up for all the meanness around. So he asked her out for a lunch date and was rather surprised when she accepted it taking one long respectful look at his neck.

Life has started unfolding differently ever since But he has realized he would never woo her with a necklace. A ring perhaps? This was out of respect for someone who deeply admired his neckiness and wasn’t ashamed to show it. As for him he’s grown quite fond of her lately.

Snow dunes

The wind outside howls at work carving

snow dunes floating asymmetrical shapes 

unshrouding the lifeless swallow trapped in the folds

freezing my breath to icicles hanging,

moments away from shattering to bits. 

Quieting other sounds.

Can this frosty silence freeze my feeling of

numbness not from the ultra cold but all the

hurt of those who professed love of sorts

from what seems now like another world and time?

I don’t need sleep but a state of stupor to still

the whispers I hear.

Short days with listless light and a brooding lull 

a cue for me to retire early into those 

dark recesses to wage a battle. 

Kill it or sign a covenant to be deaf

if they persist since they’re just half dead

Because I am not a good killer, never was.