'PREFACE' to a story I never wrote...

There was no Earth and no sky, only interminable darkness stretching on ahead of me for eternity, and I was steadily walking into it.She kept calling me, begging me to stop, her voice breaking with pain and desperation, but I walked on. The darkness came closer with each step and the voice grew faint.My heart was breaking into a thousand tiny bits. I wanted nothing more than to turn around and go back to her, but I knew that I must not.I must walk on and embrace the darkness. Every fiber of me cried out in protest; my vision was blinded with tears and my feet grew heavy.I realized I could not do it; I realized that in walking away from her I was walking away from my life.I stopped and turned around....

I woke up with tears in my eyes and her name on my lips.For a while I could not understand what had happened... where was she? Then I slowly looked around the room; at the crumpled sheets, at the naked body of the man lying beside me. I laid back on the pillow, a flimsy blanket provided by the hotel covering my nudity, as the events of the previous night came tumbling back.

There is often a very thin line between agony and ecstasy; perhaps only a difference of perspective.As I lay there then, I wasn't sure of what I felt.Agony for what I had done last night, or ecstasy for having proved my point; agony for what I had done to myself, or ecstasy for what I had done to her. A tear slid down the corner of my eye. 'Forgive me', I murmured, 'perhaps it wasn't meant to be'....

The one song that says everything I felt that night....

Iris, Goo Goo Dolls....

And I'd give up forever to touch you
Cause I know that you'll feel me somehow
You're the closest to heaven that I'll ever be
And I don't want to go home right now

And all I can taste is this moment
And all I can breathe is your life
Cause sooner or later it's over
I just don't want to miss you tonight

And I don't want the world to see me
Cause I don't think that they'd understand
When everything's made to be broken
I just want you to know who I am

And you can't fight the tears that ain't coming
Or the moment of truth in your lies
When everything seems like the movies
Yeah you bleed just to know your alive

And I don't want the world to see me
Cause I don't think that they'd understand
When everything's made to be broken
I just want you to know who I am

Getting Back

Everyone comes across a phase in their life when so much is happening around you that all you want to do is escape. It happened to me too, but I was lucky enough that someone actually gave me a chance to disappear for a week and leave everything behind. It felt like someone had turned the volume on the stereo down and everything was fading away in the background, the only reality that remained was the dream I was escaping into. So I let go of all pain, all qualms, irritating relatives and infuriating rules and rituals and took his hand and went away. Not everyone gets a chance like I did, I lived my fairytale week, felt my heart swell with love, felt the sunshine and indulged in an emotion that I thought I would never feel again. I guess a part of me was always aware that it would end, that I would have to come back and take charge of my mundane everyday life again, but I was too happy to pay attention to pending reality.

The week passed, my dream ended, and there I was, once again on the threshold of my bedroom. And for the first time in my life, I was not glad at the sight of it. Instead it felt so stifling. I wanted to rewind time and go back to Delhi again. I didn't want to be alone anymore, I wanted that week to last forever.Getting back had never been so difficult. I know wishful thinking gives no results, but I don't feel I have the strength to handle reality right now. I'll cling on to my memories, I'll live in my cocoon, I'll survive on those conversations we had, I'll smile to myself remembering the time we spent together. Don't ask me to open my eyes, don't ask me to stop feeling what I feel, for emotions never had a 'stop' button. I willingly drank from the poisoned chalice, and I'll have to suffer this exquisite agony.

A Poem of Love

You talk of the beauty of unrequited love,
and hold my gaze with those seductive eyes..
burning me, scorching me
'Stop', I cry, 'not again'!
But its too late
I'm already in love.

Plunged into a sea of agony and ecstasy,
nothing to hold onto except uncertainty,
burning in the heat of your voice..
drowning in the black of your hair..
'Stop', I cry, 'not again'!
But its too late
I'm already in love.

What magic did you work?
that altered me so much!
I feel myself shiver
even without your touch.
I feel like reaching out
and I feel like holding back,
the intensity heightens...
my heart, 'tis poisoned,
'Not again...please!'
But I'm already in love....