Skip to main content

Spontaneous condensation

I inhale slow and deep
Imagining the oxygen in the air
grow heavy
Heavy enough to dampen
like a single lonely rain cloud
Then lay a generous drop on my parched tongue

Making waves with my arms
every time I decide it's too cold 
Or too hot
Or when my own pulse is too loud in my ears

Thinking about counting how long it would have been since I last saw sand
Felt it beneath greedy soles succumbing into the gravity of the low tide

158 days 
If my math is right 

Since I wore shoes
with socks
Or heels with straps

Held my hair to my ears
during a windy morning
auto rickshaw ride

Sipped cheap, overly sweet tea
from styrofoam cups
Out of a whim
From just finding a 10 rupee note from the bum pocket

Rode an elevator with perfume and body odour both wafting
Scents I can never place
but were familiar as the wind itself

Walked on a busy footpath
on the side of incoming traffic
Just for the thrill of it
And get much more than I would like to seek

158 days since I crossed any road
Seen the lazy yet loving stray dogs
Sat in an Uber
Used my trusty green umbrella

I hold on for too long in this thought canopy
I will will sleep
to barge into this insomniac mind
Despite the thirsty throat plus swelling bladder

But then I give up
Pry open unwilling lids tightly squeezed out of stubbornness
Drink that damn glass of water and empty my bladder

Get back under the covers
And the cycle, at my behest, begins again 
Labels:

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

New Quotes

For people who believe strongly in the illusiveness of life, to doubt would be more correct than to bear full conviction about anything at all. But then again that questions their primary belief in illusions. - Aditi A world without faith in a higher power or a god is a better world where we can be responsible for our own actions; where we can be kind to one another because we want to and because it is the right thing to do instead of being frightened into behaving by the threat of divine punishment. Many events may have defied your ability to explain, events that seem like miracles, but if you are convinced that you failed to understand them because you're still woefully ignorant about the universe and the learning will never stop, then, you cannot and will not believe that a deity altered the workings of nature. Don't ignore reality in order to comfort yourself, for once you do, you make it easy for others to deceive you. Understanding breeds empathy. We do not writ...
46 comments
Read more

ChAI

I used AI to make my chai this morning.   Why? Because I wanted to see if I’d still get that dopamine hit from something I didn’t even make.   I wanted to know if, by outsourcing an experience whose only purpose was my own consumption, it would take away from it.   By removing the act of boiling water, steeping tea—by only keeping the intent to make it—would I still feel the satisfaction when I took the first sip?   I read somewhere that you should aim to do hard things. That when you push yourself, when you fight resistance, and break through the boundaries of what you thought you could do, the dopamine hit is bigger.   But what happens when everything can be done by AI?   What happens when AI whispers, "I got you," and we stop doing anything at all?   The dopamine hit then wouldn’t come from the effort, but from the discovery that AI can do more, so we do less.   But here’s the catch—AI will do more, and w...
Post a Comment
Read more

Kept / Wept / Slept

For a while now, I've been wearing house slippers that are way too big for me. Firsthand experiencing the dangers of seeking (and knowing) too much, and finding out, rudely, unceremoniously, curiosity can kill more than just the cat. While exciting to taste the fruity slurps of seemingly full-knowledge, the satisfying crunch of acknowledgement, like punching holes through a thick stack of warm copy paper, the thrill of cliff jumps can culminate into bum-first crashing into the deceptive deep. Nobody warns you. That the water is always shallower; swallowing life too fragile to keep. No one explains that the depth is a trick. That the more that you dig, the less it will stick. Hunger loud from the tum; buns left in the breadbasket: none. And thread count of those slightly expensive sheets? No reliable guarantee of sleep. Long story short, if worry is the thief of joy; self awareness is the enemy of miracles. And so the slippers go into that unopened shoe cupboard, unused, where their...
1 comment
Read more