WiNdOw, mE, tHe CoBwEbS…

The following piece was given to me by a friend some years ago. I admire her works; specially her poems. But this one remained with me all these years and its solitary existence came to light only a few weeks ago. I started to write much later and now knowing firsthand in what goes into writing I decided to publish it on my blog site. She agreed. I shall handover the original when I meet her.

Few things: It had no caption. So the above caption is subject to change if the author wishes to. I have left everything intact…. the dots, short form (though hers was a pretty &!), and the four lines she had scribbled on the other page. I just made little necessary punctuation that must have slipped unaware.

I sit next to the window-sill & before me a rusted iron grill. Some cobwebs still attached to its iron strips, those that survived the broom’s attack. The wind gently blows in & they softly try to reach out to me. I look at it or rather through it, round my lips & let out a weak breath of air to push them aside like a discarded thought. How oft have I done it?

It is a warm afternoon, a reason why I chose to sit in this shady corner. The light comes in with different shades reflecting on my face just as a calm surface of a pool reflects me as I am, but mind you a surface can only reflect the surface the rest unknown, unseen or should I say purposefully hidden from prying eyes?  Holding the guitar I start off a song… a soft number reminding me of the days to come, of how swift time travels, of how short this life & how still undone. I fumble with the cords & the tune melts softly with the fading lyrics. My lips ceased but somewhere my heart still sings.

“You…. You’ve got so teasing eyes” a friend had remarked me once; it’s now but dead cold. Listlessly like two graves laid side by side they just stare but fail to see. My senses are introverted into this bloody prison & all I do is explore within. No one else had before nor do I hope ever will. This treacherous me within.

I look into me for memories yet none I can recall, none I’d want to. Time has changed me. Some say I’ve put on weight, some comment I’ve reduced & some say this isn’t me. Well! My thoughts seem to have become weighty, I feel heavy sometimes but the ‘changed me’??... I guess I haven’t had time for a closer look at the mirror but then that’s me. I wonder how fast people notice & how easily they judge when I myself haven’t found the answers, the reasons, the realities…

Each new day brings me closer to myself & each afternoon leaves me hungry. The deeper I dwell I risk getting lost in the sea of confusion. Did I ever tell you that I’m afraid of the underworld; I mean depths? I find it very suffocating the way I’m feeling right now…. suffocated. My eyes are having this burning sensation & suddenly they burst out like a dark cloud on a grey evening. I wasn’t prepared for this but then whoever is.

I plunge out of me & what strikes me is the closed window. Of course I’d come to open it to let the smoke out since I haven’t saved enough for an exhaust fan, but the fresh gush of air from my window does help… at least for the time being. There certainly has to be a connection between the window & me &…the cobwebs. Every time I sit next to the sill I forget all else. Next Sunday…. Next Sunday my broom won’t spare them, not even the new ones; the black, nasty spider seems busy with right now.

Next Sunday I won’t even spare the spider.

I turn around & see what a mess I made out of my lunch. Even the lanky dog I’d been feeding for the past four months will turn its nose around in another direction. “Not today also” that’s what its comment would have been had I an understanding with animals. Ungrateful sniffer. But then one thing’s really for sure…. There certainly is a connection between the window, me, the cobwebs, that lanky sniffer, my everyday lunch & this hunger…..there certainly is.

                                                                                                                                        11^th of Jan’04

I am a writer of convictions, less of vocabulary

Yet it is through words you portray, even a line of a story

                                                somehow

But ^ under my heart’s torment my soul begins to write

A wordless epic unlike Homer; shattering conventions trite.