That anniversary

Walking out the door
Was a rough sketch drawn on the canvas of time
A disheveled mane
A splitting headache driving her insane
Sleepless eyes seeking finality in the azure
A whiff brings along the intoxicating cologne he used to wear
A step forward, a pleading gaze back at the porch, her gait unsure
How life would have been if at all he cared
And just then she started to sob in despair
"If I walk today, he won't chase"
struggling a breath in midst of a teary farewell she bade
she added
"...but if I stay today, silence will set us ablaze"
It ain't that easy to shun make-beliefs that scream his name
What stands as a wall of strength for the world to behold happens to be solidified pain
The one that could never melt enough to rain
The same that she hugs each night wishing it were him.
She did wobble a little
But then was she so brittle
A deep breath, a fresh set of tears
Exactly today long back her veiled self reciprocated his I do
Wearing the same dress she sashayed in
Tugging the frills, today, she crossed the Rubicon.

An hour later or so
The door opened to yield a crestfallen guy staring in the night
Having realized what he had put her through
Having realized who just walked away was the girl he promised a beautiful life
As he started towards the shore
An aching heart, a numb, fearful core
At the front porch, by the lamppost
Lay a little box and a paper folded in square.
He could bear a hate note today
He would have understood her if she left without a word
What she left behind was a part of him she wore
and words that drew him to his knees and implore.

No one ever heard from her again.
No one ever heard from him again.

All that was ever found
by a friend who swung by
with flowers and wine
to wish them togetherness for a lifetime
were
Two rings
Intertwined
to form an infinite
A note
bearing a line in beautiful cursive
"I will always love you".
and hastily scribbled three words
"I do too".


© 2012 Neha Choudhry

Starry symphony

So I took to the roof

with the bedding and the bed

to hug the universe

before sleep closed on in.

Turns out somewhere up there

a party was being thrown

All I saw was cosmic fireworks

and in a fragrant waft, consciousness then drowned.

What followed was a gossamer of thoughts

set to a tune of a favorite interminable song

Mocking the fickle demeanor

for a fiery core burned just as strong.

A string of variegated dreams and might-have-beens

hopes, at first soliciting, and then toying with reality

playing the face of love on the loop

diverting away from the dagger set to slain objectivity.

All set to fly in the static hues of enigma

unfettering memories from the cage of my heart

I rather saw myself dive in an ocean of dilemma

A moment of déjà vu, another prick of cupid's dart.

All agog to see who and why

swaying to the sea hymn

tried to walk away and descry

Who, this time, would leave on with a good-bye.

As if clairvoyance was a friend

or melancholy was finally seeking remission

I opened my eyes to the sun

I opened doors to my life for this one.

© 2012 Neha Choudhry

Tongues of flame

Enshroud, I lay

in the resignation of it all

while a part of me wore a plumage

waiting to fly to you at dawn.

This crypticity I'll repudiate

as long as Andromeda shines my night sky

embracing memories and your resonating placid voice

I'll cross this labyrinth, making your farewell an ephemeral goodbye.

Stars I hold up in my eyes

they cascade down my face each time I blink

I tangle myself in ambiguous anecdotes to divert

yet there isn't a single second I let the grief out or let sink.

A laconic story of those loquacious summers

haunts my today, sobs hugging my tomorrows

wherein holding my little hand you walked me the world

I'm still standing at the very place you took a labyrinthine turn.

In this maelstrom I swim alone

free me from these sardonic chains

chime this dirge, play it to your favorite tune

I've had enough of the worldly ornate saccharin.

A petrichor-less monsoon awaits a perfume-less spring

while my vacuous self seeks solace

A fabricated smile everyone believes in

Each night I link the stars to draw your face.

Dubiously I ramble on

seeking answers, surviving tons of self-blame

Having lost vivacity to time's stratagem

and love to tongues of flame.

© 2012 Neha Choudhry

Mirage

Slow falling through mercuric skies
Shielding away from the reality
Every night I sleep hugging a million lies
Steeling myself for come what may
Waking up to a gray or sunshine day.

Turning a deaf ear to every word that mocks to tear me apart
Standing strong on the very piece of land they have tagged quicksand
Stubborn, for I trust my instincts more than what the universe might hold
With the positivity that you have instilled in my heart
I can pull out an oceanful of water from the very spot the world calls Mirage.

© 2012 Neha Choudhry

...

Breaking at a pace I cannot comprehend
Living in a hope I cannot let end
Scrolling through logs, looking for traces of you
Hating myself each second for not being around when I could
Calls I never took while you waited for me to pick up
How, today, I'd give away the world to hear you talk
So, here, I talk directly to the skies
Take everything you want, anything you like
Go ahead, take away my life
Leave him be
Help him recover to being perfectly fine
For there is no other
who I so dearly love.

© 2012 Neha Choudhry

Speaking Silences

Maybe today every word I'd say
Won't make anything okay
For what, a second ago, seemed like a forest fire to me
graduated to the first spell of acid leak down her cheek
When the pain became too unbearable to contain
With those pleading eyes looking into mine, she took my name
"Will it ever be...", she broke off mid-sentence
Rephrased and uttered the words which shattered me, broke the spell
"Was I ever what you needed? Was I ever loved?"
By this time I was trembling in grief, her question was too sincere
How do you make the woman you love realize
That it's always been her, that you've chosen her for life
In a fix, I stood there, trying to contemplate
How to make her hear the words I've never said
Still gazing in her eyes, I envy her today
How she never ran out of the perfect thing to say
While I always got stuck up in a two-syllable maze
I felt her grip on my hand ease
I couldn't even muster out a Please
My world was losing it's sheen
the skies were darkening
Head still held high
Crumbling inside yet on the face I couldn't muster a cry
She walked out the door
Closing it behind her
I crashed to the floor
Watching the promised forever turn forlorn
Watching the girl I love, gone.

With so much as a whimper, I finally cried
With her face behind my closed eyes, a little each moment, I died
Broken to bits, writhing, I screamed, "I need you, STAY"
The door swung open
On my face she sprung a cushion
Hugged me and said,
"When the silences speak, you don't really have to say."

© 2012 Neha Choudhry

Te he encontrado en el infinito

written on: May 18, 2012

I've differentiated the world to integrate a life together
Even if I don't fit in your permutation
Or our life's vectors take different directions
The probability of us being apart falls in the null-set
For this story runs in an infinite loop.

You run, I chase
I walk away, you trace
All in all it has been a crazy ride
We walk the edges as if prepared to challenge gravity.

Sparks fly
When we look eye to eye
Love flows inside at what seems like the speed of light
At an empowering, sometimes overpowering, pressure that even Bernoulli's principle stands defied
It's as smooth sailing as a sine wave
Yet as complex as the neural maze.

Sometimes the kind of close we stumble
erases the coordinates, the lines, the world blurs
Sometimes the kind of far we fall
Even the irksome Mars-Venus thing starts to seem believable.

If I am an electron
You're my home orbital
No matter what colors of life I see
It's my nature to come back to thee.

If love was an art
I'd be Shakespeare's ghost in Mozart
If love was all numbers
Baby I do calculus in slumber.

But this love undoubtedly is science
Where we take turns to be Newton and Einstein
Fighting it out every now and then
Yet staying soldered, never breaking away.

You derive at something
I laugh on it being a foregone conclusion
I redefine, rephrase it
You make fun of it being your hypothesis' reflection.

That's the way it has been
That's the way it'll always be
In challenges, we respire
In the dark, we celebrate
In rain, camera ready, we wait for lightning to strike
In the eye of a cyclone, tejimos una historia del amor.

© 2012 Neha Choudhry

Ripples, Bubbles, Thunderstorms

Be the rose I choose in a million that lay strewn down the aisle
Be the star I smile at before closing my eyes and saying my wish
Be the breeze I run to breathe in when the world pollutes my core
Be the hug that envelopes and hides me in a castle wherein I reign
Be the ripple in ocean of my eyes each time I contemplate a goodbye
Be the bubble, fragile, I keep safe in my smile
Be the dream I rewind and play each night over and over again
Be the flash of lightning rushing to my rescue before I rain
Be the man you are, stay my craze
Be the recklessly running tornado I tirelessly forever chase.

© 2012 Neha Choudhry

...just breathe.

Unblinkingly
Lay gazing
so inexplicably quiet
Breathing in, Breathing out.

Tarnished
Life waited
hanging by moments
Searching in, Searching out.

Frozen
Set ablaze
the satanic dreams
Crawling in, Crawling out.

Chained
Made peace
with the pain
Bleeding in, Bleeding out.

Smiled
Compressed why's
let hurt fade
Breathing in, Breathing out.

© 2012 Neha Choudhry

To YOU, my Pretty Woman :)

If I wasn't this wordless
If I could just somehow know where to begin
You would find a sorry note every morning in my hand
For I know I've never been what you dreamed.

Sometimes they say I look like you
Other times I resemble dad more
With indifference in my voice, I run around all day
But there still flames a fire of love, somewhere in my core.

While everyone is all poetry and prose
Reaching out with a gift, a cake or so
And here I am, sitting a few paces from you
Trying to comprehend what to say, what to do.

All you asked me today was a little white flower
And I was too busy to get you one
And still there you are, in the kitchen, preparing something
For no matter how ungrateful I come along
Mom is Mom.

P.S. Where words end
Where ends meet
Somewhere in there
I close my eyes
Let angst, anger fall through
And hugging, I whisper 'I love you'.

© 2012 Neha Choudhry

After I finished writing this one, we went for a walk and I wished her giving the very white flowers she loves.