~ shutdown.

Lights in my brain
Won't stop flickering
Voices in my head
Won't stop bickering
My blanket smells of 
Bedbug spray
"It'll go away," that's 
What they say,
It never goes away.
I cannot escape all my fears
And all my loves just end in tears,
And nightmares from when I was young
They haven't gone away.
My stomach is too acidic
Sometimes my tongue is acerbic,
I've hurt too many, said too much,
Too many parts to play
Nothing has gone away.
Why is my mind out of control?
Why can't it do just what it's old?
The sun is green, the nights not gold,
Winter warm, and summers cold,
Perhaps this is the price I'll pay
That never goes away.

~ V. S. Gupte, January 2018.

~ aciretosE.

As the New Year approaches,
I am optimistic.
I tell myself 
That (the things) I have hidden far too much
For far too long
Deep within metaphors and wordplay
In both poetry and prose

(it is time for me to change.  the first of january shall mark a new beginning.  i shall mark it on my calendar.  i shall mark it on all my calendars.  12am, january 1.  12:01am, january 1.  12:02am, january 1.  i shall mark it on all my calendars.  december 25th and december 31st)

(Are) just excuses
Small ones, bundled together
With strings of half-truths 
The water of guilt and fraudulence
Keeps them alive

(only for me to discard them later, usually.  the problem is - i now have no bin i can throw them in.  instead of letting them rot, why not use them?  my supply is endless, as is the number of arrows in my quiver - apologies; it is not mine, i have merely borrowed it; should i pass it on to someone more deserving?  no; that is entirely within my jurisdiction.  use excuses if not i, who will?  

.too backwards think to us for sense makes it - days these backwards is everything since

.excusation the, correctly more, or; justification the comes then, action the comes first)

As am I;
I will be optimistic -
(As was my optimistic optometrist, but never mind that)
Let me wrap these bouquets 
In newspapers
Upon which have been written all my inactions,
Reactions, redactions, conniving fractions
That work so hard to misrepresent,
That work even harder to force the reader to
Misinterpret
And news is not normally about interpretation.

(is mind my tangled quite a but mess nobody knows; hope people i do now; be quite it'll liberating

the of walls rattle words my brain; earlier of it out weren't getting they; are but they now!)

I must confess
I have not been entirely honest
No matter how hard I try 
To get rid of my mask,
It had always remained -
Maybe that will change.
Perhaps this will be my Christmas gift.
That would be nice.
If this will be my Christmas gift
Who is my Secret Santa?

Maybe it's me.


~ Vruta.

*

"Merry Christmas, and remember nothing is impossible - especially not good things."

~ imposter.

Alone on the roads
Silent night
All the streetlights
Flickering, all the crickets chirping
Unsteady steps -
Nobody notices
Maybe I'm
Invisible? Or perhaps
Nobody cares enough
To tell me I'm walking very-fast-the-wrong-way
If-I-walk-fast-enough-maybe-I'll-reach-somewhere
Even if it is only
Back where I came from, again.
Belief is
A dangerous thing
Belief is
Making yourself think
The waterfall is going up
When you're the one
Falling down.
To think!
I could've made it -
To think -
If only I hadn't faltered -
To think:
If only I would've stopped and looked around!
I could have gone where everyone else is going
Would've reached up to the tallest Ferris wheels
Instead of back down in the dumps;
Maybe I should just remember
Ferris wheels...don't stay up
Forever
But will the time in between
Be enough for me to reach
Before the last ticket for my ride is sold?
What if I
Am willing to pay a higher price?
Will they listen? What if I
Pack my bags and go somewhere
Nobody has gone before
Then I won't feel like an
Imposter anymore.

~ Vruta, November 2017.

~ hopeless.

Everyone around me 

Has some hand in their own glory
Some build bridges
Some watch them wash away
Most are burnt down
By those who think they have no use for them
I collect
Their eroded bricks
And pelted stones
Use them to build my house by the sea
But the waves lashing out on the shore
Lost me my house
My pride and honour
All the sandcastles we made
When I was a child,
Still filled with wonder;
I would look at the stars and
Question the cold, unforgiving wind -
"Why do you make my eyes water?"
Except, back then,
The white diamonds amidst
The searing, complete blackness
Would fill me with hope;
Everybody around me
Knows what they want to do
And I sit here
On my lonely chair on the sand,
Watching my bridges crumble
Alone, wondering -
When will my time come?

Then a hand taps my shoulder,
"Who is it?" I ask,
I do not look up; there is no need to,
I recognize the touch
Warm, careful.

"I know what you're thinking."
"Really? What?"
"That you won't be able to make anything of your life."
"Right you are."
"It doesn't have to be this way."
"I don't know how to fix anything,
I have lost myself,
I do not know where to go,
Who to meet,
How to talk,
Silence is my only solace - "
"We both know that's not true."
"It is, now, for me."

Then suddenly a hand takes mine,
Flips a switch on the other side of the universe
And shows me the future
I live in an apartment
I have friends over, today
And we laugh and relive the old days
When we were freer
There are trees lining the road
And the sun lights up the dust and smoke between them.
I realize
All is not lost.

~ Vruta, October 2017.

~ the last question.

will i find myself 
at your doorstep again?
will i drag myself
always almost falling asleep
smell the daffodils growing
in spurts and silly shrubs
next to your sunny sidewalk
no honeybees here - 
just the way i've liked it
and just the way you have, too?
will i slow time
to spend a few more moments with you?
i should, and i must;
will we hum our favourite songs
turn the dial up on the radio
listen to the crackling sounds?
now, will we
laugh perhaps rather derisively
because both of us know
all this will never happen - 
let us retreat to our caves
spill ink and stain our fingers
writing late into the dark 
and dreary night,
separated by distance;
united by our words.

~ vruta gupte, october 2017.

~ today is poetry day.

today is poetry day
the day when you notice
the warm shafts of sunlight
cutting through the gaps between
autumn's leaves
as they spiral slowly towards the grass
carried by the wind
and sometimes the dust
we so abhor
settles on them
and makes them sparkle

the weather in this town
almost never follows
the charts they talk verily about
and so when it rains
the golden-red-orange bits of trees
are plastered to the asphalt
sometimes bicycles flatten them out
and turn them brown
muddy water from the gutters
swirls around their last lost freshness
soon they will be gone
and the winter shall come
the whole lot of us will be left wondering
why every day couldn't be poetry day.

but this thought will be forgotten
the merciless cold will force
the strongest of us into our rather weak strongholds
all branches will be bare
photographs will celebrate
white roads peppered with black branches
rising from their roots like phoenixes
hot chocolate with marshmallows
and syrup will be sold on the sidewalks
until the blizzards and hurricanes
reduce all our homes
to broken sticks and broken bricks
and cement that doesn't cement anything anymore
ravaged to the ground

after a long while
of suffering and anguish
and much grief and angst
stepping carefully around the power lines
so you aren't shocked to your core
all the snowmen will melt
their carrot noses will rot into oblivion
(or into fertilizer)
the tar will crunch underneath your sneakers
every sunday the ice cream truck
shall jingle its bells from off your street
but by the time you reach
all the vanilla's finished
so you trot along the line the aligned doors make,
your red-and-white sweater bunched up
in a bouquet of sadness
and stay home
and never come back out again
until one day
a friend taps on your window
with a bag of crackers
and a pack of cheese slices
from the supermarket, saying,
"step lively, it's summer!"
so you do
and you forget you were ever unhappy
and the sadness melts away just like the snowman
out in the back of your yard.

~ vruta gupte.

Enigma.

A dance between minds
A meeting of the senses
In the foreign dark streets of the previously inhabited
That have since been deserted for want of
Better lives
A dash of black illuminating the recesses of the cold, damp city
Or perhaps by the side of a stream
Somewhere deep in the forest
Far away from either of our homes
Or a quiet library where no one dares to disturb
And piles of books lie undisturbed for weeks
Perhaps it is there that we find salvation
For the world will soon tire of us,
We are but one of its many puzzles
And so we must flee
To someplace no one will find us
Hidden forever
Until the dawn comes and we wake in our own beds.

~ Vruta Gupte, 2017.

~ rain.

The rain
Has forced me to contemplate 
Upon myself, my deeds, and my shortcomings.
My inherent hesitation
Whose roots I do not remember
Premature apprehensive misgivings
Flow like rivulets outside
My mind -
A prison with layers and layers 
Of locks and latches
On doors made out of dishcloth
The rain
Does not touch me;
I am insulated
Inside my oddly shaped bubble of metal contraptions, trapping myself,
Sealing myself from
The inevitable truth
That one day I will have to breathe 
Water into my lungs;
That day I will be free, 
But is freedom worth the price of drowning?
I wonder -

~ the distance between stars.

Let me walk to someplace quiet
Where there are no streetlights,
No lamps to obstruct my shifting gaze
My meandering meditations
I do not know much of constellations
It is only the inky blackness
Between the flaming orbs of the night
That matters;
Because yesterday I thought
That darkness is much like
The distance between us -
One star is brighter than the other,
Yesterday I thought
About how if both of us
Were standing still in a crowd
Of unsmiling, unfamiliar faces,
Maybe we would notice each other.
Maybe the starts would come closer
And closer
And burn brighter
And brighter
Then maybe there would be a blinding flash
Of brilliant white light -
A collision, of sorts.
If stars can collide, why can't we?
For the darkness is impermanent, my darling.
Our lives are not filled by it
It does not encase us, envelope, or suffocate.
Let us walk to someplace quiet
So that I can look at you.

Memory Lane.

Made on Fresh Paint

I won’t say the cold is piercing because

I have known what needles feel like

Although

I haven’t been stabbed before,

I won’t say candies are sweet

For sometimes beginnings can be sweeter

Apples aren’t delicious because

Once I almost choked on a slice

Lights aren’t pretty

They might burn my eyes

Sometimes some music is noisy

All dark alleys aren’t poetic and beautiful

Neither are hearts, because they break

Nor are people, for they leave.

Separation.

A differential distance slyly separates 

The dark day from the nimble night

The ocean from the sky

The shivering sun from the monstrous moon

The nest from the branch

The writer from the pen

The nocturne from the canvas

The black bracelet from the wrist

The henna from the palm

The dancer from the stage

The musician from the flute

And me from you.

~ Vruta Gupte, 2017.

Static.

Staring, unseeing
Off into space
No care in the world
Far away, a flutter
Of a butterfly’s wing,
Harmonics bounce off 
The walls, rise up
Like smoke from the sea
A glass of pink lemonade
Shatters, and shards
Eclipse shadows and refine sunlight
To paint colours onto the grey walls
And reflect onto the television
But the television is blank,
The sounds, wordless; far away,
An accordion falls, breaks, its owner
Had stolen it from a musician
When he fled through
A dark alley, five years ago
Its notes are dead now, much like
The flower that fell 
Outside my window.  Far away,
Rays of sunlight stream through curtains,
Nobody is there to watch the stardust, though:
Everyone was too busy in their own contrived bubbles
To notice all the beautiful things, and they
Went on and on with their mundanities, until
One day, the roses all die, the butterflies do, too,
The accordion lies buried beneath
A pile of sooty blankets,
The curtains are drawn,
And the television flaunts only
Static.

Glue.

Doors locked 

Seatbelts fastened

Key turned

Radio played

Smiles exchanged

Gears changed

Brakes screeched

Silent scream

Silence screamed

Glass shattered

Smoke rose

Smoked rose

Flowers burned

Overturned

"'Til death do us part,"

Someone give him glue to fix

His broken heart.

~

I can't write a poem.

I can’t write a poem tonight,

I went outside and took some pictures,

And my right shoulder is aching.

I can’t write a poem tonight,

My brain is too full: I’d rather

Write something really really (really) long,

So that people know what I’m thinking about—

Not that that’s interesting; who I’m thinking about

Would be more enticing to read

And to know, quite frankly.

I can’t write a poem tonight

Because pouring myself out would be so much easier

Than freezing myself into short lines

(They read like stubble, not a long, flowing beard.)

You should know that you’re the one

Who made me want to capture in prose again

You’re almost like a plucked marigold flower—

It hurts a lot, but you still love helping people;

And sometimes it hurts me that you’re hurting.

I can’t write a poem tonight,

I’m thinking about you:

Not that I mind.

~Vruta Gupte.

As You Like It.

How paradoxical it is that we are ambitious but also find anonymity appealing, my friend said to me as she gazed nonchalantly at the black ceiling, again, and again.  She had stared at the ceiling yesterday, too.  And the day before that.  And the day before the day before...

He tapped his forehead with his pen; seldom had he found it so difficult to put his thoughts into words.  Although he had observed that putting thoughts into words had become a little more cumbersome for him, of late, mostly because he was doing other things.

Thinking about other things.  And people.
Person, actually.

Was he fooling himself?  He would probably never know.

It was two in the morning, yet here he was (idly twiddling his thumbs to match the beat of the song that played in his head, as ever), imagining another life, in which anything was or could have been possible.

Possibilities--the word was as scary as it was exciting.  But isn't that what life was all about?  Scariness and excitement?  Of course, he could be wrong, but that wasn't the point.  The point was that he could be.

The past year had gone by pretty uneventfully (pretty--what an oxymoronic word to use), oh, except for one thing.  He would rather not be reminded of it.  The past month, however, had been, quite contrarily to the general trend (graph) of his life (versus time), extremely eventful.  The past month had been an enigma he was still trying to make sense of.  

She was someone he was still trying to make sense of.  How could someone who looked so small and wonder-less (but somebody would surely find her wonderful, no doubt) write something that stirred within him such unimaginable feelings of kinship, and regret, and admiration, and emptiness?  So much to feel, and so little time!  She was a rollercoaster, and he was a slow-moving horse-coach that, instead of horses, was being pulled by donkeys, of all beings.  Not a perfect match (not even to be friends, much--or so he thought.  Of course, there were other, more important things, that he held dearer to his heart, that beckoned him to talk to her every day).  

But friendship and love is seldom about matching.  Friendship is about staying even when you don't match.  Friendship is about tearing your paper heart in half, and giving one half to your friend if his heart is broken.  Friendship is about crusading silently, caped; masquerading as the Dark Knight for this one person in your life, because...because they are special.  Special, and no more, no less.  Friendship is about being the unlikely superhero for an irreplaceable person.  True friendship, and true love: both of these do not pull you down.  You grow with them.  

You might stay away from the other person for a couple of days, weeks, months, or maybe even many years, but when you see them again--it feels like you've come home.  Because you are home.  Those moments, those times you shared together--they are unforgettable, as if you only lived them yesterday.  And this is what friends are for, isn't it?

She smiled, and ran her hand through his hair.  He had fallen asleep on his diary, and his pen lay besides the window, almost invisibly, as if it held the night to be of no consequence whatsoever...again.

~

Little by little, inch by inch
We built a yard with a garden in the middle of it
It ain't much but it's a start
You got me swaying right along to the song in your heart
And a face to call home
A face to call home
You got a face to call home.

Of the Lost and Forgotten.

I give you parts

Of a broken self

Whose these fragments are

I do not know

They may be mine

They might be yours

I give you lost pieces

Of a jigsaw puzzle

Someone once

Threw away

Whose pieces they are

I do not know

They might be mine

They may be yours

I give you a paper

With a story of heartbreak

Whose story it is

I would not know

It may be mine

I know it's yours

I give you sunshine

I saved for the darker times

Whose sparkle this is

I cannot know

I think it is mine

Because of yours

I give you a poem

I found crumpled near

A lonely curb of thought

Whose words these are

I think I know

They were once mine

Now they are yours.

~Vruta Gupte (2016).

Tell Me.

Tell me how

Your day was today.

Tell me how

You felt when you walked

Barefoot in the grass

After the thunderous rainfall.

Tell me how

The blades pierced your feet, but

You were still happy about

Merely being.

Tell me how you

And your friends

Played ten guitars and

Sang a song together,

Tell me whenever

You want to talk to me,

I will always be there;

Tell me how

You spent the last

Five minutes, tell me

Something about yourself

That nobody else knows,

Tell me what

Time you wake up

Every morning, tell me

Why you have been so

Quiet lately but words

Rush through you

Like drops of water

On a leaf

Tell me

Everything

And I will

Tell you.

~Vruta Gupte (2016).

Astra

 I walk through
 The cloud of stars
 Red yellow blue white
 And I wish that
 You were here, because I 
 Know that when you
 Look at stars you 
 Lose yourself and
 Why would you not want 
 Me to see in your eyes
 Reflections of your hope and
 Fears, when I
 Asked you what you were afraid of,
 You said nothing, did you 
 Mean it, or were you 
 Afraid of reaching for the
 Stars and landing on 
 The moon; know this 
 That one day you will be
 Far out into the deepest space and please
 Remember me and what I wished for,
 Know this, that I do not
 Trade one wish for another, 
 And remember that even
 If we are not together, you will find
 What you have been looking for
 Ages past and ages hence we will
 Spend side by side
 Remember me and your stars and
 The time we had,
 When you walk through
 The cloud of stardust
 I will wait for time to stand still
 And so will you. 

~Vruta Gupte (2016).

Blackdust.

BLACKDUST.

Darkness,

Black.

Unyielding.

Look around,

What do you see?

No floodlights

To save you this time

As you put your hand

Out over the edge of

The cliff; no candles

To burn the letters from me

You wish to hide.

No mist to

Lose yourself in,

Vanish, with a

Flourish of your cape, from

Time.

There is nothing

You can lean on,

Nothing to

Set you free;

No clouds to scream at,

No storms but 

The one within yourself, are you

Sure you will not listen

To me?  I will tell you tales

Of a land not far away from

Here, that you will go to one day—so

Keep walking, even if there are

No floodlights

To save you this time

No candles 

To burn my letters

No mist

To hide away in;

A land where you can wish

For the orange sunrise and you will see it,

You can wish for yellow cornfields and 

Run past them 

You can build your own

House in the sunlight,

You can rub your eyes in the morning, and say,

“I have arrived,”

Go on, my friend, there are

Many doors you have not yet opened,

Many people you have not met,

Many things you have not seen;

There is far more to life, far more to

Believing

Than this moment in Time when you

Want to run away

From this smoke in the air that you

Would rather not breathe,

You must lead—for only

Then I will follow you

Out of the dust and 

Into space; finally

We will be free.

~Vruta Gupte (2016).

Vision.

VISION.

When

We are old will you

Stay with me?

Guide me with the light of

My fading eyes whitened

With age, will you

Show space to me?

The stars, the moon,

The galaxies,

Jupiter and Saturn

Andromeda and Regulus, will you

Watch me as I fiddle

Uneasily with my pen when I

Can’t see what I’m writing, when I

Knock my favourite vase down,

Can’t I see?

I can’t see, will you

Walk me down the aisles of the

Library we will go to, as I ask

You where I can

Find Fountainhead and Macbeth, will you

Hold my hand when

We are alone and I want to go out but I

Can’t find the doorknob, will you

Sing with me when I remember suddenly

The words to a nursery rhyme from

Long ago when I was smaller?

When

We are old will you

See with me?

~Vruta Gupte (2016).