/ Distant /

// तो आज हमें भी गुमशुदा होने की इजाजत दीजिये
तो आज फिर हमें ग़म के रुबाब में इस कदर डूब जाने दीजिये के
हर पल की चौखट पर उन यादों की लड़ियों से दो बातों की फुरसत हो सके
जिन यादों की यादें हमारी कब्र बिछाने में मशरूफ हैं //


The moon shines
Yet it shines in wavelengths that don't find home in my skin
Maybe, just maybe my share of moondust is baking itself in sediments
On the edges of a hopeful composition my lover is recording (for me ?)
In a vintage, silver, heartbroken casette
My car churns through the gravel,
and the river through my forlorn city - teal, and despair-driven, wishes on strayed hyacinths and the romantic semi-vermillion skyline
On my Walkman, Bob Marley marks nightfall
And as August peels me away with it, I write of distant things -
Of peace, of warmth, of the citylights
And i have become a mosaic - like a sunflower strained towards the light
I crawl unto you
Through the scent of stale coffee beans and skies bruised violet,
In my poems, in the wilderness of everything i do
I gently scream -
"So, look. Please do. And love me on purpose."
The universe is a sinusoidal tonight,
It twists itself around my grief and asks me
To taste the apologies that kiss my tongue as their burial ground
To drink from the spring of the hazy religion I have made of you,
To take a walk to the cathedral I have built you - on my blood, on outcast clouds and strangled letters of love
Hope is ravenous - as ravenous as wintertime
Yet it quivers in magnitudes that promise spring and
Even as Istanbul or Munich drowns in fireworks and wafts to sleep - groggy and drunk
I write of you
I write of you because I write of distant things



// तो आज रोशनी में ही हमें जलकर ढल जाने दीजिये
तो आज फ़िर आपके नाम, हमारे शब्दों को इस महफिल में शरीक हो जाने दीजिए
जहाँ हमारी बातों की लाशें दफ्न हैं,
उसी सरज़मीन के दामन में हमें भी सर झुकाने दीजिए //

गुमशुदा || 03.09.2021

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