trepidation

love letters in my mind
are all for you, i find.

i don't mail them or tweet them:
quite like secrets, i treat them.

i push them into pink envelopes
patterned with blue hearts and empty hopes.

pages and pages of length comes easy
(but the same for work would make me queasy).

what would we do, if we were lovers -
kiss, flirt and give each other flowers?

true, while i don't care for you -
in my mind, i write to you.

i wonder if you know
that i write to you so.


**

(this came out of a bet with A who wanted me to write something rhyming "flowers" and "lovers".)

stationery

i'll carry around a
little yellow scribble pad
when i'm with you.

when you're not looking,
i'll make little notes about
things i ought to remember:

'bites nails when bored'
'hair curly when drunk'
'sings stupidly while driving'

i'll commit to memory
little details about you
that even you don't notice:

'eats left over cake crumbs with fork'
'holds down right corners of pages of books'
'thinks dinosaurs still exist'

but if i forget the bigger things:
like when your birthday is
or what you do for a living,

please know that i'll have
enough even without this
to blackmail you with.

**

"A poet never takes notes. You never take notes in a love affair."
- Robert Frost.

shelving

i couldn't tell you
what it is like
to finish a book.

do you forget people
whose thoughts have been closer
to you than yours
(for mere hours sometimes,
whole years, sometimes)?

do you leave behind lives
whose moments you have stretched
into your life from theirs
(fall in love with their ears, perhaps,
find counsel in their fears, perhaps)?

don't you have nostalgia
set aside for old friends
in your life and theirs
(beers, (cheers!), leering at similar rears,
tears, peers, wearing similar brassieres)?

i couldn't tell you
what it is like
to finish a book.

butterflies

it's been a long time

since you've given me
butterflies.
(i miss them.
they miss you.)

bookends

corners of streets don't see
more than beggars and coins
and homeless people's blankets;
children playing hide and seek
lovers waiting patiently or
people walking mindlessly by.

don't be fooled by sounds
of haggling over peas
of chatter at bus stops, footsteps at subways.
don't be fooled by smells
of cigarettes and chai
of rush hour traffic or sunday afternoons.

they don't see hope
or love or people moving on;
they don't see day,
routine or people holding on;
they don't see night
or sleep or people giving up.

in spite of this, i write
- a fool for smells and sounds,
romantic by day
and idiot by night -
about love and hope
and people stuck routinely
in corners.

blanket

you're not laughing
at my freezing toes
or the pink hearts
on my purple socks.

you're not witness
to romantic nights
with ginger tea
and tomorrow's reading.

you're not asking me
which song is next
beatles or p'njaabi
on your playlist or mine.

i'm stuck in a cold wave
but i doubt that has
anything to do
with the weather.

**

for me, because my proxy winter now includes a brand new pair of old socks and a third purple sweater. bring on the cold wave, i say!
also for m, because her winter apparently includes a scarf. tsk.

101

walk away, now.

leave behind your memories
in trinkets on the fridge -

a chocolate wrapper, long forgotten
a photograph, worn at the edges
a bill, for coffee and a book
a parking ticket, and its unfinished song.

but whatever you do, don't forget
to take your smells with you -

some beer, some whiskey
some food, some mint.
old books, cinnamon tea
is that you, or is that me?