It was supposed to be about going back and trying to understand this city again. But for some reason, everything seemed different and less… colorful. This city has become strange. All of a sudden, it’s full of boundaries and locks, and I am a trespasser in a stranger’s home.
But the thing about colors, I’ve learned, is that they come and go. And for every utterance of never and forever, the punishment comes with another stroke of gray. And as that paintbrush pushes you forward, your back bleeding against the rough canvas, maybe- just maybe- you’ll be the one adding that bit of color.
I wish You had kept her happiness and not just the shape of her smile, that excitement and not just the tinted colors, and that rainbow in its wholeness, and that sorrow, that joy, that anger, that pain, that optimism.. I wish You, my lens, would keep something more than mere shreds of a world much too big for today and much too small to hold tomorrow.
.
What ever happens to twitters after one dies?
Can one still tweet from heaven?
Would God allow that much?
The last tweet remains frozen in time,
“I’m on my way there.”
She was on her way, it’s true,
but it simply wasn’t there.
.
I wish You had kept the way she talked and the reason for the sparkle in her eyes. I wish You could retain that warmth, in every one of her hugs. I wish You had treasured that feeling in our stomachs as we screamed our way down that roller coaster. And the taste of that Dippin’ Dots from that stall below the tracks.
.
Would facebooks be stored in time?
Or would They go through and say,
“She’s dead, let’s
close
her account.”
How about her phone number?
And the blog she once had?
.
I wish You could feel and take pictures of her person and not just her face. I wish I could touch this screen and hear her voice. That laugh and brilliant disposition- couldn’t You keep those too? But You didn’t and will not. You will never understand. This makes no difference to You, whether the smile is real or fake, whether the subject is dead or alive, whether that’s excitement or fear. You only trap saturated colors on salted plastics, layered in compounds but never in emotions. Merely shreds.
But I- I want the world.
.
A saved voicemail,
“Call me when you get this.
I need to ask you a question.
i Miss you!”
I said yes to her question but
it doesn’t know.
it simply doesn’t Understand.
How long will it be saved?
.
“A voice with bells- you’ll get the solo,”
I told her that first.
The video shows her singing,
but it doesn’t know that I pushed her
onto the stage.
How long will it remain in a black case?
How long will life remain rolled-up?
Round, round, round it goes. Where it stops,
nobody Knows.
Once upon a time, a little girl would take long walks with her Appachen in this little town called Tiruvalla, where people spoke this crazed-out language called Malayalam and heat was actually hot. And on the way (to nowhere in particular), they’d stop at this little tiny store that sold random yet necessary things (sambranis, bar soaps, chewing gum & neelam). And this little girl would sit on top of the counter and drink a fizzy carbonated drink called Thums Up while her Appachen and the storekeeper discussed the INC (kaipathi!), CPI (‘M’ may or may not be added) and white-white kerala politics (Munshi and Asianet News at 7!).
And then, somewhere in between, the little girl grew out of that adjective and forgot the ease in language, the strength of the heat, the name of that shopkeeper and of course, the taste of Thums Up.
Then, somewhere further down, asian supermarkets came into the picture and at least one of the aforementioned was turned right. True loves reunited ♥
In the reflection of that dirty glass bottle remains everything that truly matters.
——————————-
“What we remember from childhood we remember forever – permanent ghosts, stamped, inked, imprinted, eternally seen.”
ariyathe. 