Right before Harish comes home at 1 for lunch, I pleasure myself in the store room and call out my ex’s name.
It’s been 25 years since my wedding day.
And 3 since He ended it.
Must be off now, I can smell the food burning.
Harish likes his sambar hot and his rice sticky.
And that there is the
trapeze woman,
hurtling toward faux destiny;
Fault lines perched upon her lashes
downcast and flattened genetically.
An arm and she is swung,
the other grasping sheer veils
that reveal cruelly, vindictively, the
horrors of her future.
The past, it will not have her,
the present populated with too many
red couches;
Would you live in a moment you had to
share with crimson suede?
Mid-air tastes salty-sweet, it
crumbles around the edges
and when she streams down they
gasp
Oh look! No
safety
net.
Her smile is upside down, and wide,
the skull late autumn’s bloom,
A lifetime of couches is
supplied,
painted a bloody
red.
Lately, I am constantly aware of a feeling of spiraling doom. The city is converging on us, the times are fragmenting randomly, even coldly; it’s mayhem within and mayhem without and I’m up at nights, seeking that elusive ingredient that makes me believe it, the one abrasive incident, the cautionary tale, the warning of an impending apocalypse under a veneer of smooth normalcy, as people celebrate new bridges and governments and triumphs over parallel democracies.
I can’t shake it off, this sense of alarm, it bubbles in the pit of my core, and I am uneasy, jumpy and watching like a cornered hawk as the sensation rises to my throat and threatens to bring up howls of dark, viscous green at a pitch I cannot recognize as my own.
And in the midst of the mire, Yatra.com messages to tell me its rates are slashed and I should fly away. One-way tickets, my friends, couldn’t be better timed.
…slitting your wrists in the bathtub.
Though one may as well have the bai scrub her last pay packet’s worth.
Better sadistic than suicidal, I always say.
And cleanliness, even before Hell.
With the exception of my uber-careful mother and BFF, I’m the most particular person I know when it comes to taking care of personal belongings. Not an item gets misplaced and I could direct you to a book/CD/tee shirt with my eyes closed. Among other things, I’m called Madame Paranoid. So it’s a particularly sadistic joke life plays on you when the same phone gets stolen twice. From a relatively safe space, from among invitees at a party. I’m not angry, just disheartened. Methinks I’ll crawl into bed and sleep away the events of the day.
And Jeremy the Crow, he’ll caw tomorrow. Right now, he’ll just have to deal with being ignored. As will the rest of the world. Good night.
Because there are only six square inches of safe space left in the world.
And two pieces of chocolate.
Sometimes the toughest battle is the fight to be grateful when one receives less and less from life.
…..
Not the best way to acknowledge post # 100, but when you have 3 years and 550 posts behind you, one tends to grab the moment and spread one’s insides all over it. Like grape jelly on multigrain bread.
Take an extra pair of arms,
to wind ’round yourself,
on warm sea-smell nights
when life chills your bones.
Fortitude is a must.
3 packets, easily accessible,
right next to the cup
you’ll stir faith and cocoa in.
Strength, to haul up the skin and bones,
that carried you through babyhood,
brushed your teeth as you fell asleep
in a time when cavities appeared only in teeth.
Steel to solder the wavering will,
Anger at life’s brittleness,
Cream to soothe anguished spirits,
a broom to scoop up heartbreak,
love to pour into the sad, sore hollows,
and napkins to soak the role reversal in.
Before you run out of space,
you’ll run out of words,
and lurk in your own life
prayingly.
Hush, little dog,
There are terrorists about,
Maybe you’ll be exempt
Because they don’t kill their own kind.
Credits: OJ and her Canon Powershot in sepia mode. The result of much gadding about in happier times.
P.S. Tweets updated.
Ultra Violet
Wisdom Wears Neon Pyjamas 
Vox populi