HEY ROSALINE

“We lived through scars this time,

But I’ve made up my mind

We can’t leave us behind anymore.”

-James Bay, Scars.

Photosource: Pinterest.

Hey Rosaline,

It is just as you have dreamed, or the dream that you’ve told me of what you always wanted. Rosaline, they found you by the river where you stayed awake looking at the ripples rushing away. Some said you were found hanging from a wire that looked like grape vine, some said your soul was sucked out till your last breath by chemicals that you forced in yourself. And then some said that you liberated yourself like a puff of vapor, an invisible puff of vapor. But we know what happened, don’t we? Your secret is safe with me.

The slow music is playing in the hall, with you lying peacefully in a casket filled with bed of roses. You hated roses, do this people even know you? Or they put you there because your name has ‘rose’ in it. There are so many unfamiliar faces in the crowd, smeared in red, black, gold; the palette all artist chose. But these people are the ugliest paintings, filled with pretension, masked with fake tears and frowns. They sneak in the casket to see you, and they murmur, “She was a nice girl”, “She didn’t deserve to die”, “Why did she kill herself anyway?”, “It must be a love failure”. Rosaline, don’t listen to their whispers and lies, these are the hymns that drove you to the riverside, choosing whatever you chose to open the cage, so that you could disappear into thin air. The wet tissues smeared with the lipstick lies beside your coffin, like the tissues that wiped away the life that trickled down your palm, embracing the scars. Those white papers had life. The ones lying next to you, they are dead; just like you. Listen to the playlist being played in the hall, for you handpicked them before you left. Rosaline, you deserve this beautiful funeral. You deserve all the beautiful things in the world.

They are wrapping you in a shiny white cloth, tying your legs, hands and face. They are trying to lock you again Rosaline, but fear not. I am here, I’ll be here till you come again; appear again somewhere in the universe. And when you come, I’ll be there by the riverside, my palm opened to embrace yours; the one filled with scars, pills and booze.

They lit the fire to your pyre, and you look like the most peaceful camp fire I have ever seen. They are contaminating the soil you are lying in with their snot, tears and existence. But fear not Rosaline, I’ll clean that up before you come again. For now, sway with the smoke rising towards the sky. You’ll form the densest cloud in the darkest sky, the darkest cloud called Rosaline. You’ll fall as the purest rain by the river side, and I’ll be there with open palms, feeling you again as you descend; this time for a better life and for a better time.

-Krishna J. Nair, Hey Rosaline

10^th December, 2017.

BROTHER

"Brother do you believe 

In an afterlife

Where our souls will both collide

Some great Elysium."

-Bear's Den, Elysium.

Photo: A scene from 'Elysium' Official Video by Bear's Den

We ran together all through our life. Maybe that was why we thought we were so fit for life, so fit to take challenges, face everything; even an alien invasion. Our imagination took care of us everyday as we ran around the world. Running away from spoons that had green peas, running towards dad’s arms at the end of the day, running behind the school bus with our eyes barely open, running away from responsibilities so that we could feel like we were children again. For me, running was the best exercise. And you, my best coach.

Now, as they take the bloodstained shoe covered in mud from the river bank and toss it in a plastic bag labelled ‘evidence’ I wonder with whom I was running with all along. Someone I thought was my knight in shining armor removes his treacherous mask as he reveals himself as the guardian of hell’s door. When we were running towards the edge of the cliff, smiling and tossing our hair back and panting, trying to grasp breath while shaking off the cold wind trying to smother us with his sweet little torture, I thought I was having another best day of my life. I swore to myself to enter that chapter in my diary and read it after ten years to feel young and reckless. Well I feel reckless, for I let go of your arm unintentionally, and you took the giant final leap without turning back. I am looking for your charted plans for you always planned anything, and everything.

For a second I was staring at my shoe, adoring the knot you made before we began running. I gazed up and saw you standing there at the edge, and I saw another shadow right beside you. I ran towards you, when you ever so gently pushed your leg towards earth to reach out to death. Maybe you hugged him while floating in air. It was not you who hung onto the ledge, it was me. You left me hanging, alone. As you left your final breath at the edge, I inhaled it. Guess you are not gone forever; I am still breathing yours, brother.

HIGHWAY TO HEAVEN

I am back to the yellow blinking lights again. Every day I pass them by foot, and yet I feel drawn to them every single day. I always thought the yellow blinking lights had a story to tell, like every star in the universe as told by Eliot in his poem. But the story I am expecting from this yellow light is different, for I believe they have witnessed every single accident on this lonely road. There is a broken sign board right next to me with a sign that says ‘Accident Prone Zone, Go Slow’ and I laugh at the irony. I laugh at the irony like my life which is also a joke.

I am sitting inside my car with the AC on at twenty three degree Celsius, the temperature I am in love with. My playlist is on shuffle and it is playing a random song I fell in love with many years back. I try to remember the song, but I am spaced out; and on the road where the accident took place. I am a floating balloon: not tethered to the ground but not strong enough to fly far, far away. I am still apologising to the person who rode shot gun with me on that strange night filled with music and laughter.

I check the time on the clock. 21:50pm. Five minutes before the time the accident took place. Thirteen hours and fifty four seconds after the ride started. Me looking for the serenity in the earth and she with a destination that she had in mind before she got stranded at a fuel station. No booze, no strings. Just few lame jokes, untold stories and happy music playing in the stereo; and a flickering streetlight at the end of the road that engulfed us and expelled us in the very next junction like a black hole kissing a white hole.

I never gave ride to the hitch-hikers, and that was my very first time; maybe even the very last. I was cleaning the dirt out of my glasses when she waved her hand and asked me to stop by just for a second, her car’s engine steaming with smoke. I offered her the shot-gun seat which was always unattended except for my usual backpack which I tossed in the trunk of the car. So we drove into the night, yelling lyrics out to the strange wind that played with our hair and our finger oh-so-fearlessly, giving us the promise that the night was ours and ours was the night.

Then, the corner of a street and a junction arrived, and all hell broke loose. Death granted me his power; and I was blinded by the sight of the yellow lights that I took it graciously and gifted him with the life of her. A beam passed by us, and us into the hood of a truck. Shocked, yelling yet calm because we knew nothing could happen and that this was all meant to be. The love of my life dented and crashed across a beast with the rope of death, and me with death’s loving hands. My love totalled on the road, and a stranger on the seat, eyes wide open and blood gushing out of her forehead and neck; and me spotless except for a slight scar that shall remain forever like the kiss of death.

21:55pm. The car had crashed, a stranger had died; and I had cried for all the tragic happenings. Helpless, I ran for help like a child lost in a supermarket. Mindless, like a junkie high on drugs. But nothing was never enough to please God, for he took everything from me. Patience, confidence, and the fear of death. The only thing I gained was the realisation that a stranger would mean so much to me, that a stranger could change so much of your life.

Tonight, I keep the danger lights on and stand under the streetlight where it all happened. Stay away, people; I am touched by the beautiful curse of Death, but the truth is no matter how much I try, I cannot die. Such is the love of Death, such is the game of Death.

WHEN THE CHILDREN CRY 

Tears of blood, they are beautiful to bleed. O mighty Albatross! Fly away, to breathe. 

If only humans had wings, or do we? Sure, we do have flights of imagination, but can we stay there forever? No one knows, for those who have flown away have never bothered to look back. When the children cry, they are not a beautiful bleed. All we can say is, just breathe. Your city of angels will dawn on you some day, till then; tie your wounds of misery with the rags of hope that you clung onto. For there are no hopeless dreams, no hopeless expectations, no hopeless desires as long as you breathe, so as long as you live and so as long as you strive. And the blood you shed then, dear, they are beautiful to bleed. Because they are not just the red that runs through your veins day in and day out, they are the proof of your very existence. The worthwhile existence that will leave a mark in this beautiful world before you plunge into an alternative universe where days are nights and nights are days. A place where your dreams are miseries and your misery, a dream. Until then, weep away child. Weep till you bleed the mark of your existence, your worthwhile existence. And dearest Albatross, fly far away. Flap your wings high, for your flight might cause a miracle or a cyclone; or what we call as ‘The Butterfly Effect’.