Gauravonomics Diary

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So, we are not to
See, hear, smell, touch, taste each other;
Not to meet, talk, write anymore.

All communication is to cease,
All contact is to end, from today.
Wonderful! Exactly what we needed!

Only that, without you,
My verse would die,
Not to say, I.

“Can you bear to hear me
Spoken of as someone else’s?”
You ask me.

“Can you see me
With someone else’s arm
Around my waist?”

“Can you think of
Someone else
Touching me, kissing me?”

“Fuck you!”
I shout,
“Stop it! Stop it now!”

“Can you let someone else
Violate my body,”
You continue, “Fuck me?”

“No, no, no, no”
I answer, almost inaudible,
A catch in my throat.

“Neither can I”, you whisper;
The ‘I’ dissolves away,
Drowns in your tears, dies.

Macabre, masochistic memories
Molest, masturbate my mind.

Dastardly demons of doubt
Haunt me, taunt me in my dreams.

Nocturnal, nemesis-casted notions
Snare me, scare me in sleep.

I wake up with a start, wet with sweat,
Your name on my lips…

I

You lie in your mother’s lap, lost in love,
Floundering in flesh and felicity,
Suckle on her nipple.
You little lips
Tease the tender tense tip,
Wage a wanton war against it,
Cause the brown circle to
Cower, melt away,
Cover, camouflage itself in milk.

II

You run out from the bathroom -
Wet, and wearing next to nothing -
To play hide and seek
In the hubbub of a stinking,
Sewage-strewn side-street
With the asexual abandon
Only a child is capable of.
Your boyish breasts peek out
Of your slip with startling regularity.

III

As you sleep next to me -
Your skin soft and serene against mine -
I imagine myself watching you,
Through twenty odd years, as you,
Not aware of it yet, move towards me,
Prepare yourself to become mine.
And then, I turn towards you
And, in calm curve of your cheek,
See a child who has forgotten her sex completely.

Hold me by my waist, you say,
As my hand wanders (wanders?) away
Up to the assertive thrust of your breast
Or down, down, down to the down on your nest.
As my fingers thus encroach
Upon your frame, you reproach:
‘Not here! Not now! Heavens! What haste!’
Chastened, my hand returns to your waist.

Honey, as I hold you here in rhyme,
You, Love incarnate, as an hourglass, hold Time;
You hold my past, present and future;
And this verse is a mere metaphor
For how tantalizingly near we are
And yet, alas! How far! How far!

May a verbal sot, a word-drunk bard -
Mad on you and verse and words -

Say that being with you is bliss
And offer you a verbal kiss?

May he - hesitant, cautious, chary -
On our second anniversary,

Woo you for the second time?
May he hew his heart in rhyme

And metre? May he lay it at your feet
As his modest anniversary gift?

May he thus express his love
And hope that, in your heart, he

Has a place as permanent as
The place you have in his?

There are days
When it seems that the only way
To stay sane
Is to read a poem or write one.

So I read until my eyes hurt
As much as my heart
Hurts and are so sore
That I can read not even one word more.

Or I come
All over the page and come some
More and continue to come until when
I can come no more and feel only emptiness within.

If all else fails I write your name,
Write it over and over again;
For your name is poetry to me
And panacea to all my pain.

I have always had
This tendency
To be intoxicated;

I have always been drunk
In one way
Or the other-

On words,
On verse,
And on you.

After all what is love
If not
Inebriation itself?

And isn’t my verse
A mere manifestation
Of my maudlin meanderings?

Today, for instance,
I am drunk
On your voice.

Red is the colour
Of our nuptial night-
Tonight, red reverberates
Between us.

The red of the roses
That decorate our bridal bed,
Fill our bridal chamber
With their fragrance.

The red of the vermilion
In the parting in your hair,
Now forming patterns
On your forehead.

The red of your bridal dress
Crushed by our caresses,
Drenched in the sweat and semen
Of our desire.

The red of your skin
As it blushes at my touch,
Assumes the same hue
As the henna on your hands.

The red of our tongues
Enmeshed together-
Sharp as swords,
Slithery as snakes having sex.

The red of the blood
Pulsating in our veins,
Pounding our minds,
Pouring out from our eyes.

Even the desire
That binds us
In bliss and blindness
Is red in colour.

Your letter lent me
A fresh lease of life -
And now, I die every day
Waiting for another word from you.

Practicality tells me
To try not to think of you -
My poems impatiently insist on
A quid pro quo.

However, not thinking of you
Is a punishment more severe
Than pining away
In your thoughts.

The pain of hurting you
Far outweighs
Any pain your indifference
Might inflict upon me.

And so, I fashion poetry
From my pain-
And pine for you,
And the postman.