The Wanderer

Sticky feet 

Or sticky ground.

I cannot see.

I try to reason.

I need reason on my side.

I cannot see, of course.

It is dark. And cold.

No option to stop and check.

The darkness is such a place.

You keep walking. 

Or you don't get to.

I pray. That my feet be sticky.

Though I know where I am.

Exactly where I am.

I know the ground 

that sticks to one's feet.

It was a myth. Was.

Not anymore.

I've heard about it.

I've read about it.

I look around. Nonchalantly.

I keep walking.

I see darkness. All around me.

What else do you see,

when you walk in the dark?

And yet, there! A glint.

One more. And one more!

To my left, behind me.

Darker than dark.

That shine the dark alone possesses.

A shrine to the One we don't speak of.

I pray I see two of them. Or four.

Yet three there were.

As was written.

Three giant sections,

shining examples of the night -

each much wider than a house.

each much taller than our city gates.

The gates of Azzen.

Each with the unchanging glint

That consumed darkness

and perfectly reflected it.

It was an impossibility. Was.

The rumours were true then.

Three there were!

Three they were.

I counted again.

My last count. Three.

I drop my prayers.

The ground is stickier.

As is its nature.

I was one slip away

from joining the darkness.

For eons, if not forever.

One mistake away. Just one.

That is all they wait for.

Three there were,

the eyes of the Spider.

The ever attentive, ever focussed

black eyes of the Lord himself.

Focussed on me.

Far removed from logic,

My brethren would say.

Yet here he was.

Lord Spider, Warrior of Darkness.

And I'd wandered into his web.

-

Inspired by this line in the first Malazan book, 'Gardens of the Moon' by Steven Erikson.

"Somewhere in this strange place
a spider waits
for my panicked flight ..."

Totalement en mer.

Dreams...

They show you your own emotions.
Fear, Hope, Anger, Pride, Envy and most of all, Love.
Sadistic that you're shown what you lost...
even after you'd managed to find it.

So these dreams - they make the real world
your personal hell, mostly.
Or heaven perhaps... if you ain't me.

You used to think that dreams can but help you.
Like they could tell you things in advance!
So that the hurdles won't be out of the blue
and you might, after all, stand a chance.

...but wait, you couldn't have been all that right
coz' life, with all its bloody might,
ran you down with out so much of a shrug.

Perhaps, those days, it was on some drug.

She was but the central theme
around whom the dreams revolved...
around whom your world evolved.

and then, because of your belief in fate
that love is destined to succeed,
or simply because your tongue tied itself
and fingers typed zilch when she was involved,
She was there no more.

Oh, like she even knew what was going on.
She knew zilch and would only know zilch
about your love, devotion, adoration and worship...
about your world and how she is everything to it
...its very soul.

You dream only about her these days, I gather.
Hours and hours and hours of her smiling face.
Ta vie, mon ami, elle est totalement en mer...
Totalement en mer.

Ha, but life's cruel in a crazy way, coz
You, hereafter, can only dream about her!
...and dreams, despite being your personal hell
are your only sources of respite.

Ironic.

My life is not about me

This is a beautiful but sad world...
Sad because people are about themselves,
The self, the family and friends...
But I am not about myself and that seems wrong,
because people find me disturbingly different.

I find it hard to eat at big hotels
Or participate in treats and parties
When millions can't afford a grain of rice.
I don't like to buy suits and ties
Or new dresses for every passing festival,
When there are people who can't afford clothes.
I can't ignore the people on the road.
I can't stand to see people shoo off the strays
From their food, from their selves.

My mind revolts against me if I ignore all that, but
The haves, in general, they find the situation okay.
I think they are vaccinated against empathy.
Please tell me where to get one myself
I badly need it to live up to your expectations.

Some argue that tis the fate of the poor...
That they're too lazy to work for themselves.
The haves convince themselves that the poor can die hence.
The farmers die, the hungry die, the nameless die
and no one seems to even care about it.

I am not about myself, try to understand me.
I am not about myself and I'm sure I am right,
but the world around me finds it impractical.

It's not that I don't want to lead a comfortable life, heck I do!
I just want to take everyone else with me.
I don't see any point in 'progress', ye World
when you can stay nonchalant about deaths!
There's no difference between us and the Nazis
If we can coolly brush it off and stay selfish.

Yes, call me crazy and go on, world.
How else can you convince yourself?

The Five Minute Window

Detached from the world, I was in my very own shell;
I couldn't think of a future; Life and I didn't gel.
I was smiling time away; I couldn't care less.
I shut myself out from the whole worldly mess.

You! you lived in that galaxy far, far away,
Why would you care about this zero-watt soul?
But when it hit me that you could be in this city today,
Zap, zap, zap, zap! I was back in my role.

The single thought of meeting you found its way in,
even if only for five awesome minutes.
Not just a mistake, my abandon was sin.
Life is not giving up. Life is to win.

Soon, I realized that you couldn't be here,
An Ah, then an Oh, from this heart full of woe.
My mind struggled to re-adjust - it was a little weird.
For it was now filled with love and the deepest of low.

-
By someone who thinks he could also be a poet someday.

Hope against Hope

In my dream early this morning, in perhaps my best dream ever,
I was her every thought. I was her every thought.

I know it isn't possible in reality; she's in love with someone else...
No, no. Cruelly in love with the death of my soul without her own knowledge.

I have no hope. There is no hope,
but aren't these early morning dreams supposed to come true?

-
Aswin

Who am I?

The wall, once a pure shade of white,
Has slightly lost its colour with time. Or is it my eyes?

I feel out of sorts today,
as I wake up and see that I am alone.
The King of my own world,
The ruler of one.

I walk to the toothbrush,
O yes, I always start my day this way.
My steps aren't very coherent today, I see.
I don't care why.

As my face drowns in a handful of water,
A distant consciousness laughs at me.
Someone's having fun.

I pull myself back into this world,
I see myself now in the mirror in front of me.
Oh yes, there's a mirror in front of me.

This is not the tee I was wearing when I went to sleep.

Huh? This is not even mine.

Wait... This isn't even me.

-
Aswin