Words

  Burn like an inferno—like hell, I care. Loving you so passionately was anything but fair. It was reckless. Consuming. A kind of madness that curled into my skin and made a home there. I gave in to you, not softly, not gracefully, but like a storm crashing against cliffs, knowing  I'd  break myself in the process. This thing between you and me—my words fall flat to define it. Are you the ocean  and  am I the shore? That sounds too poetic for something this violent, this unfinished.  We’re  so close we can hear each  other's  breathing across cities. And  yet  we never seem to  stay  in each  other’s  lives. It's  maddening. There are days I crave you like oxygen. I want you in my life, in my bed, your breath on my neck, your hands claiming every inch of me. And then there are days I want to run. I want you to vanish so I  don’t  have to feel this unbearable pull. And the worst part? Your love....

  I've watched you fall in love with another woman. I hugged you when you wallowed for your first girlfriend. I helped you select the perfect shirt for your first date. And I've endured the gut-wrenching pain of you choosing one woman after another while I've always been the one you come back to - not as a lover but as a friend. Then you have the audacity to call me your fallback plan. Fallback plan? Wh**e, f**k buddy or one-night stand command more respect in comparison. At least I'd be your first choice. Not a backup plan to a backup plan. So f**k you. I don't know who I am angry at now - you or me? You have always taken me for granted. And I felt privileged even for that. You felt the right to wake up at 3 am after your girlfriend treated you like sh*t. And I felt obliged to comfort you. You had the guts to nitpick fault in every man who asked me out. And I felt you were protecting me. You selfish bast**d. You kept me as an option all this while. And look at me s...

Music is my 19-year-old boyfriend who picked me up from college and took me to a different restaurant every Saturday - and - tucked my hair behind my ear as I ate sizzler. Music is also the sauve man I dated who listened to my 5-year plan - feeding my soul and body with a penetrating stare and his to-die-for smile. Music is also the man who betrayed me and left me in the lurch - and - made me fall every time I tried to take a step forward. Music is love, lust and betrayal all rolled into one. I have lived more in the songs I have listened to than through the highs and lows of life. In the dead of winter last January, I missed my bus and had to wait for another bus for 40 minutes in -15 degrees celsius. I shivered in sub-zero weather. With anger seething in my body, warmth was given by Ed Sheeran's Beautiful People . I wondered was Ed was singing for me? Because I don't fit in this world. Because, at that time, I could definitely use some help. Perhaps a ride. Perhaps enough mo...

If you told me at 22, I would be single and happy, I'd have shunned the thought right away. Happiness was always dependent on external factors - money, fame or lover. It was never something that stemmed from within. Betrayal, failure and being penniless has taught me -- of all the things in the world -- happiness is something that comes from within. It comes from who you are as a person. You have to be calm, confident and secure with who you are, what you have and most importantly, with what you can't have. I'm single, starting a career from the very bottom and discovering myself. The journey is not a fairy tale. It is a fucking Hollywood movie that gets nominated for an Oscar. It may not win one. But who the fuck cares! On weekends, after taking a long luxurious bath, I light bergamot candles and keep freshly-cut flowers on the desk where I slog 45 hours a week, my bedroom doesn't reek of loneliness, it looks sexy as fuck. I watch a travel video of Matera and dream of ...

There is a perpetual sadness that resides in the deep recesses of poets' hearts. Like a landmine, it explodes when someone walks on it. The anguish and destruction are enough to damage them all over again. And yet like a Phoenix they rise. Smeared in the ashes of only one mistake - why did they let anyone enter their lives knowing too well it will be catastrophic? But then poets are humans. Humans need love above anything else. If  Maslow's  Law of  Hierarchy  wer e to be written again, poets would start from the middle. The need for love is greater than the need for food for them. It has always been like that. It will always be like that. Because poets can live without food for a week. Without love, they will perish into oblivion. They like the volcanic eruption of love - grand gestures when their lovers express love, wild and long orgasms on the bed and the subsequent ocean of pain in which they eventually drown. Poets, of all people, celebrate love in all its form...

I've walked on the eggshells for a decade. I have been choked so hard that I have collapsed many times, but not hard enough to kill me once and for all. At this point, I wish it happened. I wish I was dead rather than bearing the seething pain of not living a normal life. Life has taken my ability to form any relationship. Today, I let you go away. Barely a couple of months after tasting the real happiness. You know we are all fragile. Most of us should be handled with care. However, some like me warrant special treatment. Like a war-savaged artwork, people like me should be admired and loved from far away. We are too fragile to be held in arms. We tend to collapse. Then the saddest part is people who hold us are blamed to break us. Little do they know, we are a lost cause from the very beginning. We are unrepairable and unworthy of love. After saying the last goodbye, I went to my happy place. I filled the bathtub. I sat in it. I couldn't picture us in the bathtub listening to...

You don't evoke poetry in me. You don't give me the highs the wild lover inside of me crave. You do nothing to unleash the dirty side of a woman in bed. And yet every morning I desire no one else by my side but you. Every morning I think of your gentle words. They fall on the curves of my body and caress my parched soul. My half-opened eyes search for you in my empty bedroom. Maybe if I close them one more time with total devotion you will miraculously appear. And you will kiss me gently on my cheek. I will live a million lives in that single moment when your lips will touch the right cheek - I often think. I look at my phone and think of calling you. Perhaps one day I will. Perhaps one day the fucked up woman inside me will give up -- and -- the girl who has seen you transform into a man from a boy will win. I will dial your number which I remember by heart. I will ask you to take me away to a far-off wonderland where I will be me and you will be mine. I am waiting for that da...

I asked you to love me. Nothing else. Just love. I didn't desire marriage. I am miles away from the glitter of the designer trousseau, lavish weddings and rituals are suffocating for me. I didn't want a house, money or child from you. I've learnt this by a bad stroke of luck that as a woman I am capable of having all of them on my own. I can build a house and make it home. I can earn, invest and splurge money. I can have and raise a child as a single mother. Don't get me wrong, I am capable of loving myself as well. But I desired love. I wanted to lie on your shoulders as the paisley curtains blew in the cool summer breeze. I wanted to look into nothingness as we listened to Masoom songs on loop. I wanted to gently kiss you on the neck while you were getting ready for the gym. I wanted to share silence with you after our aggressive fight over politics. I wanted to share the lows of my life while I sulked in your lap. I wanted to sit on the carpet and read a book while y...

How melancholic it is that you are the only man I trust my life with and yet I can’t love you? Human emotions are weird. Or am I? Yet all those phone calls where I dial your number and don’t utter a word are proof love exists in all forms. You hear my breathing, silence and sadness. You call my name in between to check if I’m still there or WhatsApp disconnected the only connection we have. I don't call to talk. I want reassurance that you are always there for me. My heart is heavy with unsurmountable pain. If you roam in the darkest corners of my heart, you will see your name written there in bold letters. You are the man who pulls me from depths of despair. But I can’t love you. Not now at least. I don’t want to unburden my sorrows on your shoulders. When the time will come, I want to lie down on your chest and speak only of love. Only of us. Nothing else. I’m really scared. What if I will fall in love with someone else? I won’t have the guts to look into your eyes. I can’t betra...

  I vividly remember the day we became lovers from friends. I texted you a picture. I was wearing a new top. Of course, I looked sexy. Of course, you were aroused. But you didn't say anything more than 'fabulous' for the next 1 hour. You conveniently switched the topic. We talked about our trip which we had been planning since we first met. A plan to visit Italy in June and spend days together under the Tuscan sun. Getting tans lines and reminiscing about our youthful, vibrant days. We talked in length about flight tickets, Airbnbs and different trails we would hike. You were describing the joy of driving a bike on the narrow, serpentine roads of Amalfi. As you continued talking about zipping through roads from Sorrento to Positano, I gazed at WhatsApp. Haplessly looking at my picture and my full-blown attempt to seduce you. And then at your insipid 'fabulous'. 'Dang, let's concentrate on Italy, woman,' I told myself. 'So, are you in?' you asked....

Like that cigarette slowly burning between your fingers, I burn too. Because you are addicted to Gold Flake and I am addicted to you. The only difference - you can buy your addiction - but I can't win over you in a million years. The only similarity - you crush both cigarette butts and my hopes multiple times a day under your feet. You are one cruel b*****d. Oh man, why I still love you so very much? I think about that a lot sober. There has to be a reason for this unwavering, almost God-like devotion towards you. For the life of me, I can't find an answer to that question. I don't know why I want to walk barefoot on a black beach with you. Watch the sunset - and - watch your features turn into a beautiful silhouette. As the evening would sink into darkness and we will lay on the beach to watch the stars and crescent moon - I want to smell the salty ocean on your skin. Then when you will try to light that f*****g Goldflake and put it between your lips, I will th...

Sometimes I want to scream at the top of my lungs in a crowded place out of sheer loneliness. And sink on the concrete floor with my head tucked between my knees. I want someone to look into my empty eyes and read my story. Then comfort me with a hug. But I stand quietly in the corner of this posh restaurant smiling politely at the couples walking into it with their fingers interlocked. They wait for their table. I wait for mine. In the meantime, I stand there alone, a thousand thoughts run a marathon inside my tiny head. What have I done to deserve it -- is one such thought. Sometimes I talk to others. Those who appear to have it all. After 15 minutes of easing into the conversation, I find they are no less miserable. If I'm a Siberian desert - cold and barren, they are Sahara - few people come to visit them - a very few walk with them under the scorching circumstances. Deep down, we are all lonely. Terribly lonely. We all seek one person with whom we can share that ...

'Let's f**k on the dining table and eat dinner on the bed tonight,' I said between sips. 'She is gonna make me an offer I can't refuse,' you said while swirling ice cubes in your glass. 'Are we quoting Godfather now?' I replied in my clever, sarcastic tone. You smiled still looking at your glass, not at me. The lady in me took offence. But I'm too proud to beg for attention. I don't beg, I command attention. I caressed my wounded ego with those words. 'It would be nice to have a man run his tongue from my neck to cleavage and spend good 15-20 minutes there. I yearn for that kind of wetness on my boobs,' I buttoned up my coat pretending it suddenly became cold. As if the mercury dipped below freezing while I was setting the mood on fire. You looked at me. 'And he looks into my eyes when he is f*****g me,' I finished my sentence and sat straight crossing my ankles in perfect Duchess Slant. You looked into my eyes. You...

Let me begin by saying - I understand human relationships are complex. I also understand one-night stands, flings, excitement those flings bring, sexual desires, desire to be wanted by men other than your own husband. What I don't understand - why you had no respect for me? Why you demeaned me, mocked my looks, made remarks about my intelligence? And why you chose to do all that for not one day but for years? Even when I was going through one miscarriage after another. Now let me tell you how your actions ruined one woman's life beyond repair. When you did all that my husband came home and repeated the same words and actions to deal with his own guilt. He objectified me - he inserted in me when you were not available. He mocked my looks - his exact words - I look like a chimpanzee when I wear a bright-coloured lipstick. You know, I can't look at any man now. He insulted my intelligence. He said I was good enough only to bag groceries at a supermarket. The list of in...

One morning my 21-year-old boyfriend asked me to bunk college. He was too sad after listening to a ghazal. 'Bunk!' I thought. I would elope with a guy who loves music like this. I even proposed how our life would be - we would pack our clothes in 2 suitcases, he would take his dad's Maruti 800, we would take tuitions to earn money, live in a small one-room-first-floor house somewhere in Himachal on rent, and listen to music till 4 am. 'You idiot, my dad wouldn't care if I am lost, but his car. Let's not take the car,' he said with a straight face. It was decided then and there, we would elope and not take his dad's car in which he lost his virginity. I met him at our favourite spot in Sector 36, Chandigarh. 'Where to?' he asked. 'Anywhere. Just drive,' I said. He turned on the music and drove. The roads were empty. We passed Manimajra. We didn't talk. We listened to the music. That was our bond. We loved the same songs, in t...

My poetry is not for foreplay. It's for after sex. When you'll light the Marlboro and move to your side of the bed, my poems will be the breath of fresh air in a room filled with smoke. But do not underestimate me. My poems won't be sweet, gentle or mellow. They will be brazen, brutal and bold. I will present them on a sharply-edged knife. The blood on the knife will be hot. Fresh from the wounds I don't allow to heal. You will take a drag from Marlboro - but served with my sinful words - you will feel as if you've snorted cocaine. You will not get high, though. You will see the world in a different light. Murky lanes leading to posh hotels, board rooms and high-rise apartment buildings. In one of those aesthetically decorated rooms, you will see a man f*****g someone's life just for a little pleasure. You will see him getting hard on someone's misery. A woman pleasuring herself while watching a wrecked home that she takes all credit for. To watch ...

I was so lonely. Nearly suicidal. I needed someone to unravel the stagnancy, unearth the source of my pain and disperse it into the Ganges. I wanted salvation. And God gave me you. 'Will you talk to me today?' I texted. 'Of course. Call me after 11,' you replied. I wanted to talk to you as a woman, not as a friend. I have a dark-shameful past which I needed to share before I could reclaim the woman in me. I took out the cheapest wine from the refrigerator. $16 bottle from Costco. I took out the tallest glass from the cupboard and filled it to the brim. One-third of the bottle was gone. I drank it in 5 minutes. Another glass in 15. The whole bottle under 45 minutes. Before 11, I was drunk, foggy and free. You called. 'Can I speak freely to you today?' I asked. 'Have you ever not talked freely to me, but anyway, go ahead,' pat came your reply. In my drunken state, I don't remember where I started, I emptied all that I had i...

It was February. It was Friday. It was late at night. I had just emptied half-a-bottle of Blue Label. There was a musk-scented candle burning on the side table. Coke Studio music filled the room and my senses with intrigue. I picked up my phone and started scrolling Instagram randomly. The universe conspired to entrap me in the mystical world of unchaste desires. And I stumbled upon your picture. I froze. Oh-f**k-wow! While my eyes stared at your picture shamelessly, my mind said those words and my body was in a whirlpool of emotions. I've seen men. And I've seen men. You know what I mean. But you - oh man! You were a perfect concoction of handsome features, sublime sensuality and tranquillity dipped in fine scotch. 5 minutes before landing at your picture, I was tipsy. But then I was f*****g drunk on you. You were the magic poets create in words. You were the visual orgasm painters draw on a canvas. You were that risque undertone musicians try to create in ...

His 1000-watt smile under the dim light of the car made him sexier than he actually was. His 5 feet 11-inch lethal body, almond-shaped eyes and perfect manners made a posh exterior every girl fell for. But I fell for the animal he was. He was honest with me. And I was real with him. 'I missed you,' he said. 'Did you miss me?' he glanced at me while racing the car on Ambala-Chandigarh highway. 'No . I didn't.' I lied. He pressed the accelerator harder only to stop on a secluded road. It was dark already, but his intentions were darker. 'So,' he said while leaping onto my side. 'You didn't miss me.' I looked straight into his eyes but before any word could come out of my mouth, he was inside it. Then he came on top of me. He kissed my neck and inhaled on it. 'You wear the best of perfumes. You know when I led my troop to that village last week, I was buttoning up my shirt and thought of how you smell. Oh, you make me so hard!'...

I unzipped my dress. It fell on the floor revealing my breast with peaked desire. 'Take me to the bed,' I whispered. My inaudible words were clear enough for him to get up from the couch and lift me. I sunk my face into his chest. I heard loud thumpings. Was it my heart beating or his - I'm not sure. I'm not sure of very many things about that evening - I was in a trance - I was f****g high on him. There are a few things I do remember, though. I remember, he tucked my hair behind my ear before running the tip of his tongue between my lips and diving into my mouth. Havoc followed next. I won't call it hungry passion - it's just too lame. It was an aggressive tug-of-war. Most of the times, he was winning. For the rest, he let me. Damn, he was a gentleman! I remember looking into his eyes, placing my hand on his stubble and for that brief moment, there was enough fire in our eyes to burn the city down. Did we burn the city down? No. But the heat i...