Hide & Seek

It plays out better like this always

You run away from me

I chase you forever

There is more meaning in seeking you

Than being sought by you

Ode To Love Making

Wood

dissolves

into

fire

Both

reduced

to

aaashes…

Astonishment!

I astonish myself

Quite often

When I find myself speaking to you

All alone

In the most silent hours of the night

Do you astonish yourself too?

What Happened That Day?

You remember that day

You came home crying

Really upset

Went to your room

Pulled a blanket

Curled yourself up like a baby

And without speaking even a word to me

Went to sleep

I know

It has been many years now

And I was too afraid to ask…

But I still want to know

What happened that day, my love?

Five Years And A Half

I aged a decade within

When you announced

Arrogantly

One evening

“I don’t like the way you love me.”

Today

When we met

Accidentally

After half a decade

You whispered

Selfishly

“No one loved me the way you loved me…ever.”

I aged a decade more within…

Rabt

Jis tarah

Jism ke kissi aek hisse pe

Choot lag jaye to

Dard ki shiddat se

Poora badan kaanp uthta hai

Theek ussi tarah

Tumhara dard mehsoos hota hai mujhe

Happy Diwali

Not all the eyes are lit

Neither all the hearts are happy

Dreams don’t burst like crackers

Life isn’t a box of sweets

Hope cannot be giftwrapped

Yet when I see

Many unlit, unhappy hearts

Shoot the crackers up into the sky

As if their dreams would burst

And light up the whole sky

I feel hopeful about next few days

Recipe For Lovers

Like Sun comes every morning

To have his breakfast

An omelet of darkness

Sprinkled with the chilies of stars

Like Moon works tirelessly

Whole night

As an unnamed chef

I want you to come too

To have your breakfast with me

An omelet of my dreams

Sprinkled with the chilies of fantasies

I’ll work tirelessly

Whole night
As an unnamed lover

Polymorphously Perverse

The leaves of your lips haven’t fallen yet

Your beauty has come of its age

I stand in a queue of your kisses

Waiting like all other lovers

For the autumn to come

And your lips to fall upon mine

Don't Ask Me...

If

Love

Is

The

Answer

Please

Don’t ask me what the question is!

He Should Be Dead By Now

He is a poet

What more can prove to you

That he is dying in each moment

And every other moment

Brings more suffering to him

Poets come with their own death certificate

Hidden in their nocturnal muse

If you ask me

It’s a miracle he’s still alive

All other poets are dead

Buried under the gravity of their own memories

Midnight Wisdom

It’s not tree’s fault

Neither is it bird’s

If there is no nest on the tree

To My Ophelia

To be yours or not to be yours?

That is not the question at all

You are mine or you are not mine?

That is the question

World Mental Health Day (October 10)

When world becomes too small

And time is too confining

I find an oven for my sadness

An asylum for peace

I hang my dreams naked

From my indifferent ceiling

And shoot the voice in my head

I find a river bed for my sleep

Or my last beaten drink

Yet at times

Accidentally

Before I find all this

I manage to write my last note
To be delivered posthumously 

Ever Ending Season

I lay lifeless

Like a scarf hanging from your balcony

An echo of your laughter

Makes me smile

As if I know you’re happy without me

I think of passing seasons

To convince myself reluctantly

That you don’t love me anymore

And our season of love has long gone

But then time plays its trick once more

Winter comes back as winter

Like spring finds its way back too

No season ever ends

There is no ending to us

Jihad-e-Akbar (The Greater Struggle)

If

Today

Right now

At this very moment

Everyone in this whole world

Who is in love

Tells the one they love

In real

I wonder…

Wouldn’t that be actual “love jihad”?

The greatest tragedy of love is love unexpressed

It’s Eid, Mother said so

She covers her fast greying hairs

With her favorite scarf

Her body pains

Inside a beautifully tailored cotton suit

She hides her grief

Behind

Well practiced

Well-polished smile

For this Eid

She behaves like God

In her many humanly ways

She calls me

Speaks in her usual joyful tone

To reassure me

It’s Eid

And that I shouldn’t be sad

It Only Happens in Fairy tales?

“I might not live longer, my love!”

…

“Don’t you dare say such a thing!

I’ll even bribe God for you

If that is the way it has to work…”

…

“It does…

That’s why I am going

To bribe Him for you.”

Happy Dussehra

Ye anokha jihad bhi dekha hai maine

Ki Ravan ki shakal mai

Kai Ram jalte hain

P.S.: The best way to destroy evil is to create goodness within first.

Ibtida

Love is always a new beginning

Much like the birth of a child

Painful yet promising