Hey you

A desperation in this denial.
A quiet hunger. A wretched want.

Wish you were here.

​Sixty minutes

To you with love

Wonderwall 

3:00 am: You promise me of a life we will never live, ‘I love you, you know?’

3:03 am: You aren’t sure when or how but, ‘I will leave her’

3:05 am: I know you will never choose me, ‘I did and I do everyday’

Petrichor

3:10 am: We stay two streets away from each other and the smell of earth seeps through our window, ‘did you hear the rain?’

3:15 am: I am trying to climb out of bed. I realise I haven’t moved at all for 32 hours straight, ‘sorry I couldn’t talk to you today, she needed me’

3:20 am: My fingers are numb, I try to open the balcony door and I need help, ‘she is not strong like you, you don’t need anyone’

Lacuna

3:24 am: My parched lips ache more for a drag, not your lips, ‘will you say something, please?’

3:35 am: I read something today which reminded me of you, ‘she will never leave me’

3:39 am: I am tired, exhausted, ‘what do you want from me?’

‘Ala Rasi

3:42 am: Maybe you are not ready for someone like me, ‘leave me’

3:51 am: I am coming to terms with the fact that the person I loved no longer existed in your body, ‘I will love you, always’

3:55 am: It’s quiet now, maybe that is what you deserve, ‘sweetheart, do you understand’

White crayon 

3:57 am: There are no cigarettes left, ‘I imagined spending my life with you’

3:59 am: I crawl back into bed, ‘it hurts’

4:00 am: I don’t care anymore.

How to screw up a job interview – a definitive guide!

Tags

jobs work interviews

‘It may have happened, it may not have happened but it could have happened.’

It was a fine morning.  A hopeful morning, if my unreliable memory was right. After slogging 5 years in a job I had no interest in, I had got a lucky break to attend an interview for a role that was close to my heart at the same UK bank I worked with. The job description, among other things said I had to write everyday on the job and I was sold. ‘Finally’, I remember thinking, all those efforts sneaking in R.K. Narayan and Gabriel Garcia Marquez between physics and chemistry text books during high school have paid off.

My heart with a degree in literature looked upon this moment as a harbinger to greatness. My mom had to wake me up from my reverie of course to remind me that I was getting late.

Well, to say I was nervous about the interview was an understatement. But I was determined to give it my all. Now, the first and only rule to remember while attending a job interview is: you do not talk about the said interview – at all, to anyone. But no. I had made sure the handful of people I had in my life knew about this monumental event. The only advice I got from them was to act and be professional as my prospective boss was quite senior in the organization itself!

If only I had known that the team that was hiring really wanted to pick someone quickly and had not been interviewing many, my nerves would have been much calmer, and my stuttering would have diminished to an inconsequential level. But I did not know this vital piece of information then. ‘Be professional’, I kept reminding myself and decided to wear a full sleeved shirt to hide my tattoo. No one would want a tattooed 24 year old with questionable and unsuitable previous job experiences I told myself.

On the way, I thought up all possible scenarios on how the day will turn out to be. From immediate rejection to the image of me receiving the job offer on the spot among rousing applause and confetti’s – I had played it all out. And to my horror the interview went suspiciously well. The more I recalled the conversation with my prospective boss the more confident I was that I had nailed it. This was confusing. I never nail anything! I was pretty sure I will screw this up one way or another.

After the interview, the waiting period was too much to bear. I kept going over what I spoke for an hour in that closed cold cubicle. An hour is not enough to know someone; yes, we spoke about our favorite authors, the last book I had read, aspirations and dreams but I wanted to know more about this person in front of me. What was I getting into? What was the takeaway? Indeed, the excitement was palpable and these questions kept me awake all night. And, in that moment of craziness I had found the perfect solution.

Facebook.

Why did I not think of this sooner? People STALK other people on social media, all the time. I cranked open my laptop and started to type her name fervently. Lo and behold, there she was hiding conspicuously behind all the privacy settings. My fingers lingered on the ‘Friend Request’ tab for a few seconds before I accidentally clicked on it. Ping! I let the horror of what I had done sink into me. Now, there are only two ways how this can play out, isn’t. One, she ignores my request, or two she has no idea who the request was from and the notification will sink in the quagmire of her spam folder. And so I hoped against all odds that we will laugh this off when I joined her team.

I waited. Days passed. Weeks passed. Folks had started to enquire – ‘whatever happened to that interview you attended?’ I had run out of yarns to spin. And then I get a call – she wanted to meet me again. My head was spinning as I raced there. No one will call someone to meet just to inform them they did not get the job, right? I walked in and she looked me straight in the eye and asked – ‘Did you give me a friend request on Facebook?’ I froze. Now it was time to panic. As I sat there tongue tied trying to come up with a witty, intelligent answer, she explained how important this job was and how there will be many instances where I will have to interact with seniors in the organization and how I cannot give a friend request to each and everyone I meet. This went on for at least half an hour. The longest thirty minutes of my life. She enquired and wondered aloud if I was this impulsive about all the decisions I take in my life. She wanted to know my zodiac sign. Apparently some signs are inherently impulsive!

I came away laughing at the insane way I had screwed up this interview. I told my friends I wasn’t embarrassed at all at the turn of events. I found it quite funny even though I was disappointed at myself  I told them. But, hey! I am disappointed at myself all the time and it wasn’t my fault – my zodiac sign acted impulsive and stupid!

Months passed, I had completely forgotten about this incident (lie) and went about with my routine boring job when out of the blue I received a call from a polite Human Resource personnel stating that I was selected for the role I had applied months back and wanted to know if I am still interested. ‘YES’ I told her calmly and now apart from the occasional instances where a new employee joins our team (I promptly warn them about the usage of social media at work, particularly about whom they can give friend requests to and whom they cannot) we do not talk about this incident – at all.

Why ‘Everything We Do’ by Peter Meinke, struck a very familiar chord.

Tags

#love #hold on #wait #suffering #stay

Years go by; we discover and lose ourselves all at once. We decide we have suffered enough and leave. What makes us stay is when you know they haven’t given up on you just yet. When they are holding on to any shimmer of hope that they can be yours, how do you leave? When you are asked to wait, how do you leave?

Yes, we lose ourselves before we lose to love.  And when you do leave, have you wondered what becomes of them?

“Everything we do is for our first loves
whom we have lost irrevocably
who have married insurance salesmen
and moved to Topeka
and never think of us at all.

We fly planes & design buildings
and write poems
that all say Sally I love you
I’ll never love anyone else
Why didn’t you know I was going to be a poet?

The walks to school, the kisses in the snow
gather as we dream backwards, sweetness with age:
our legs are young again, our voices
strong and happy, we’re not afraid.
We don’t know enough to be afraid.

And now
we hold (hidden, hopeless) the hope
that some day
she may fly in our plane
enter our building read our poem

And that night, deep in her dream,
Sally, far in darkness, in Topeka,
with the salesman lying beside her,
will cry out
our unfamiliar name.”

– Everything We Do by Peter Meinke

You.

Tags

love want breathe

It’s sweltering.

This uncomfortable silence smothers me.

 

Nothing has changed,

And yet, I am being reckless.

 

“I will follow you to the moon”, I once said.

Follow your every move,

And pretend you are enough to save myself,

From myself.

 

Forgive me. Will you?

I have changed into that someone,

I said I will never become,

Never ever.

 

My heart is in splinters.

I want you, all of you;

Your moles, your scars; I envy them,

For they have a place in you, all over you.

 

Nothing has changed,

There is nothing to mourn.

 

I am here; waiting for you to find your way,

I am always here.

The girl with the ordinary tattoo

Tags

curious, lives, meh, personal, tattoo

‘Carpe Diem’ just looks cool on her wrist now. It’s not serving the purpose it was meant to do. Did she think getting a tattoo will give her super natural powers to seize every day? Oh well, if only.

Some still find it sacrilegious that she could violate her body by inking it permanently with a phrase they could hardly understand. She usually takes the high road and goes, ‘Oh, it’s in Latin’, meaning, you really don’t want to know what it means and end up asking her how many days she has seized since getting it or give her perplexed looks on why on earth she would choose that, as, ‘a cute butterfly would have looked good, no?’, and ‘No’, she would want to yell at their faces.

Now, saying it’s in Latin with a stern smile will end some conversations. However, the more persistent ones will go on, ‘did it hurt?’, ‘how much did you pay for it?’, ‘was the needle as big as your butt?’ and it will go on until they are convinced that they have convinced her in letting her know what a fruitless exercise it was to get a tattoo.

For her getting a tattoo was some sort of catharsis. When the needle poked her she didn’t feel any pain. (‘Like seriously, no pain. You should try’, she would say!) She felt accomplished about something. A step in chasing her dreams and damn seize that one day, and live her life with no rules. She decided she would leave it to her kids to do all the mockery as they know best, when she has them. Until then she is not going to be deterred and is already planning on getting two more.

Something in Greek or Hebrew maybe this time?

?

Tags

#happy #personal #runaway

‘

Are you happy?’

Out of the blue, she asks me. This is her way of asking me how I am. I stare. I blink. ‘Are you happy?’ she repeats. I mumble something and she is not convinced. ‘Say you are and I don’t want to hear anything else.’ ‘Yes, I guess’ I say and she smiles and vanishes into the crowd, with her one year old kid nestling in her chest.

‘Are you happy?’

The words echoed in my ears long after she was gone. I couldn’t give an honest answer to those simple words. The moment she said those words, my whole world flashed in front of me. My job, my relationships, my plans, but was I truthful when I said yes? This wasn’t something strange to me that I could lie and say I was. To the people I meet I am this cheerful, boisterous and well, a happy person. I lie most of the time. I can hide my emotions, bottle up my feelings, be cruel and uptight to the people around, until one day I crash and cry my heart out under my blanket and between my pillows. This routine has somehow become a ritual now.

‘Are you happy?’

These words haunt me now. It’s like being haunted by something alive and it is driving me insane. Write. I tell myself. Write about it and get over with it. Everything’s better when it is in black and white. This constant nagging in the heart to run away, will it ever stop? I need a distraction. There is this ache to leave all things and when I mean things I invariably mean people behind and travel. Should I ignore this urge and wait for my life to begin? I am aware; waiting would just be the end of the life I know. Waiting is like the leech stuck to you and killing without you realizing it. It will drain you. It gives you no warning. You fall down too spent to get back up.

‘Are you happy?’

STOP.

Blame

Tags

#love #blame #want #cherish

 

It has been a while.

 

It has been a while, i touched these keys and meant something,

It has been a while, when all i ever thought was not about you,

It has been a while, since all the letters dancing in my head formed a word and bled in front of me,

It has been a while, the air i breathe made any sense,

It has been a while, i did things i wanted to do.

 

It has fucking been a while.

 

I place my head on your side of the bed,

I see you left no secrets underneath.

You left as quietly as you came,

Into the darkness and into the wild.

 

Now I am trying to remember,

Your moonlit smile, your uni-brow;

I blame you,

For cherishing me the way you do.

 

I blame you now,

For the sleepless nights;

I blame you now,

For wanting you the way only i can do.

 

I blame you.

Wait.

Tags

endless, forever, love, marry me?, wait, you and me

I want to lose you as much as I want you.

Waiting,

I am consuming all of you;

 

What stops me from running away?

Why can’t I just leave, instead of waiting for the inevitable to happen?

Not everything is about you, I keep telling myself.

But it is. Isn’t it?

 

While I wait,                                                                                    

Your confusion comforts me.

You, my baby,

You are starting to define me.

 

Wait,

While I kill myself with my own words;

Wait,

And see me drown in my own madness.

 

Wait.

Jealous. Jealous. Jealous.

Tags

jealous, lives, love, words

And so it happened again last night.

I was jealous.

I read your words again; the way it free falls line after line. You write these words or the keys do it for you, i wonder. Do you sit quietly in a corner of a long forgotten Coffee shop and write these words? Or in a crowded alley, where you spy on the conversations and get inspired?

Tell me, will you?

I am jealous.

Jealous of all the lives you write about.

Jealous of all the conversations you have had.

Jealous of all the things you care enough to write.

Jealous of all the eyes that read your words;

Write to me, will you?

Write me things you were too shy to say.

Write me things that will make me blush.

Write me words that are irresistible.

Write to me the way you write about her.

Will you?