Just as once upon a time...

Just as once upon a time 

the eyes of marvel 

you used to see through 

the dark abysses,

when your age was a one digit 

illusion,

when they let you dance to your own tunes.

Just as once upon that time 

you consumed all that fire

in the hope that it would 

light your insides up,

but all it did was leave ashes

covering your soul in grey

but you let your eyes flow

and saw color for the first time in the rainbow your smile was.

Awaken those unpracticed powers 

and feed them belief 

-breakfast, lunch and dinner 

and watch them grow.

Erupting out the layers of doubt 

you are clad in

Love your contradictions 

as you see them

throw your self into her lap

swing as she cradles you 

side to side,

yes the universe wants to know 

herself through you.

~ Ray

Movement

As I sit on this aircraft flying back to Mumbai after my short work trip to Uganda sipping on some cola with water (learnt from a man in Kampala to mix water to regular coke to reduce the sweetness of it) it hits me that I have been constantly moving since the end of December. What could possibly be so constant about being on the move? Nothing I suppose. No wait! There is a pattern. I see it slowly emerge and make sense to me. There is something happening silently in the background as I pack, unpack, pack and then unpack again from the journey waiting for the next to start. I feel myself less attached to the things that bothered me. Something that brought tears to my eyes before I took off to Kampala from Mumbai , now seems like a fading impression on sand. As if all this movement just comes as wind blowing and changes how some things seem. First I don't believe it. I try wearing that emotion on like the dress I tried at the national theatre market this morning. I wear it on top of the clothes of emotion present in the here and now - for lack of a place to totally strip myself off and try it on my bare body. And I don't feel the intensity of it on me, I can see it but it doesn't touch me anymore.

I suddenly feel like I have just been hit by what has been taking place under my nose all this while. This is not new to just this trip to Kampala. I remember feeling different about so many things after a round of traveling and letting myself soak in a new city , it's people, culture, food, weather and language.

I also realize that I cannot confuse this sudden change in perspective to becoming indifferent. I think it is a natural process of getting clarity for what something really is. Something that movement and opening up oneself to the unknown brings.

As I slowly learn to travel light - something I never could few years ago- I see with every trip I leave behind what is not wanted - and my bag is only full of essentials- the absolute essentials I know I will need. I feel the baggage of my soul slowly getting lighter... until I feel so light I am ready to fly , again.

~ Ray

Dear Inner Child

Spill out

This little girl of 12 her name is Red,

who sees her mother sell her body

in digits she can count in her little fingers

draws stick figures of them in a house

with better clothes and a man 

she can call a father.

As she spills over her colors

dripping in her tears

she wants to spill out

The young boy only 14 is Pink,

who is not aroused by breasts

but loves chest hair

and dreams of cuddling with Tom

does not want his mother

sending him on play dates with pretty girls

As he shuts himself indoors

and shudders at the weight of the word “gay"

and how it will crush his family

he wants to spill out

A girl in sweet sixteen is Yellow,

whose feet are the wheels of her chair

cannot run for prom queen

because she does not fit the picture perfect frame

of having two legs to stand on

she hates the words ‘special’ and ‘different'

and runs away from the sight of charities and do gooders

who have drawn a circle of enforced normalcy 

and developed theories around her existence

she wants to spill out.

A woman of 25 is Grey,

has loved a man

has loved a woman

she has slept with the man

and kissed the woman

and is asked to choose one specie of human beings

because the world is black or white

but she is true to her name,

away from making these choices

away from fitting in

she wants to spill out.

When Mir was born

he heard the Azan from the mosque

he also drank water with holy basil from the temples

he grew up holding his hands

in two different ways to pray

one with both hands held up like reading a book, open

one with both hands joined seeking mercy, closed

in the mosque he was called a kafir

and in temples the silence around him was enough

Enough to make him wonder who he was

beyond the labels of enforced religion

and why he should even choose just one color

to spill out in?

Coming out

is only a choice for those

who can come out into 

a place as safe as the closet

they were in.

Look around

ask your self

Are you in a closet too?

Do you want to come out?

What color are you?

Where is the canvas

for Yellow, Pink, Red, Grey and the colorless yet

to spill out on?

Where is the canvas?

His tryst with water

To Kashmir

Inspired by Basharat

He was never afraid of water,

water is where he came from. 

When his Ummi's water broke 

and he lunged himself out 

into a burning land. 

He was never afraid of water 

water was very useful, he knew 

it could wipe the soiled clothes

freshen him up after a long day of play 

and wipe blood from small wounds.

He was never afraid of water 

people came from far and wide

to sit on toy like boats 

and watch his home town in awe 

he never forgot the look in their eyes. 

He was never afraid of water 

he would jump into the lake

a secret get-away awaited him 

9 feet deep, silence and the fishes 

were better than stones and howls.

He was never afraid of water

Until it started to rain down

Like it was here to stay 

Until it started to make it's presence 

felt - every where. 

He prays the sun would come closer 

and slowly take the water away 

secretly- one sip at a time

Revealing what is left 

He wishes the water would 

rain itself heavy back up into the skies 

right where they belong,

So he can stop being afraid of water 

again. 

~ Ray 

She (part 2)

She blows the smoke from her lips bruised hard from the process The process of pursuing  and being pursued Every bone aching to be loved she threw her self as a canvas Some were artists some were otherwise Strokes of blood red and black across her body  Like contours of a world slowly crumbling She blows the smoke from her nose that slowly has lost track of smells Smells of ~ Strangers she had had in unknown lands Leftover remnants left behind by women who gave up too soon She ashes the burning cigarette into the night, this night This night truth revealed itself in his snores She was a pencil stroke fighting to make her mark on- before the fore play  and after the aftermath But she wasnt dark enough to be noticed She stubs the dying light into the pores of her skin This mark will stay. ~ Ray

Writing - an addiction

I have been on a writing high in the past two months. Like all highs, there will come a low at some point. Like what goes up must come down, eventually. I left my comfort zone of being around family and familiarity and moved again to a fairly new city on work. I have come here four days ago but have not been able to write a single poem or thought. Usually they start brewing in my head, but this time all I see is blank walls - no color, no light, no images, nothing. I wonder, maybe this too shall pass in a day. But it does not. It trickles into everything I do. This emptiness. It worries me. I try writing a few words, hoping maybe if I try they shall burst out of me again. To my dismay, it does not happen. 

Then I decide I will write about how I am unable to write. The words ‘writers block’ comes to my head and I quickly push them away because somehow I still am not convinced this is actually a block. I think this is something else. The universe has a hidden agenda and is testing me (as usual). So I do not give up. I give in. Give in to this feeling. This inability, this helplessness, this worry, this state of mind, this state of being. I question myself. Is this really emptiness? Or am I too full to contain anything else now? Is there nothing that seems like a muse anymore? Do I always need an external muse to write? Will I always need to wait on that highway for a stranger in a car to come along, jump in and take me where I want to go - into the arms of this high that writing is. What if no one came? Will I wait or will I keep walking. 

The tears are rolling down my face now. I do not want to feel so helpless. I fight it. I feel like something is choking me. I keep breathing deep. I dont stop staring at this screen and continue to let this flow. So it flows. I silence my self for a while. 

And this comes to me:

Everything exists in duality. Without the dark you would never feel the intensity that light brings. Without leaving home and wandering the streets in that wanderlust you would never really feel the beauty of a family and the love that binds those walls together. Without letting go of things, you would never be able to embrace things and hold them tight like you never want to let go. Just the same way, without a spell of not-writing I would never know with such intensity how integral writing is to me. I would never know I could feel so miserable and crave for words to come out. I have only ever craved for human beings this way. Never craved for something within me or the power to create. 

And the difference here is, when something you are looking for all around is inside of you - you will always find it. Maybe it will take time but you most definitely will source it , hunt it down, embrace it, make love to it, make magic with it.

Just like I did now. I thought I could not write. The words were hiding and waiting to be discovered. So even if it seems like you have lost your magic, don't give up. Don't run away from it in denial. The magic lurks around in the darkness. The magic knows when to reveal itself. The magic is seeking you. 

Ray Iyer