Day 111: Close to Home :Nepal

In the past couple of days something close to home has been on my mind. The earthquakes that have shaken up parts of the Nepal and the trysts that have fallen upon the people who are both close and dear to me . It is in great pain and anguish sometimes that the stronger side of the human spirits are united by a goal. And in this time of need I hope we are able to give something back , if not share in the compassion I wish to extend to others. I write to you

Close to Home :Nepal
Storytellers in this world, we have taken in a whole lot,
We have cared for nothing less , and with some we have lost touch
Weep this time my world, we have lost sons and daughters in time again,
You have been shaken up,as havoc has reigned

Listeners of the late night stories tonight, hear echoes that resonate to you,
And a restless heart from a thousand miles, stands in silence too
In the helplessness find a reason for yourself, we unite in causes big and small,
We may have fallen down from time to time, but we have always learned to stand tall

Whisperers of stories tonight, dim the lights just a bit, let the tired ones come home,
Who have lost much in the crazy world, tell stories to those who will sleep alone
We are strengthened by tests of faith you say,
And yet I have seen worried eyes and withered hopes in dismay

How much is enough I ask myself, do we rise from ashes in desperate times,
Do we build but walls of hope , and I get to keep that memory of a places so mine.
Brothers, father, daughters and mothers and many with relation undefined,
I hope you find a place to rest the fallen ones, and a little peace in your mind.

Day 110: Time

I have always been fascinated with the idea of time. A few days ago I was watching the "Theory of Everything" at a friend's place and though the movie captures the subtle complexities of relationships. it also works well to capture the moment of discovery. For me personally the fascination of time didn't come with the first copy of "A Brief History of Time", it came with understanding that time in it's own way is the surpassing dimension that is untethered, and yet in our own minds we have learned how to weigh time differently. We have not come far from relating to a definition of time that is both personal as well as universal and yet we have aspired for just the same. In the long lasting notion of momentarity, I wonder if we look at the passing away of such a time, and we will call the phenomenon as "memory"

Time
A time will come when the written things have been all written about,
When the thoughts walk slowly back to me, instead of running in my head
And when the passing away of things comes from a journey you have been in and around,
But someplace where you wouldn't stop, and you wouldn't rest instead

There are only so many minutes a day, you will count them but with no regret,
You have written them all down, every minute of them, so that you will never forget
So tell me know what you value more, the time itself or your memory?
Because one flows in a direction we find, and the other lets you go on past retreats.

We many not find the perfect journey still, the best time travelers travel in their minds,
They recreate what could not have been captured perfectly & yet they are but one of a kind
I speak off course of memories, of faded pages, telephone books & pictures in a box,
Of things that have traveled with our without you, the ones we know we have never lost

I am challenged by time, I seek to understand what drives the constant ticking of the clock?
Where does the nature of time run out, is it just in the moment when & where we decide to stop?
I have not placed bets with the future me, I have hardly begun to hit rewind,
For now my memory serves me still, where I can travel in lost things and forgotten time.   

Day 109: Of Travels to Nowhere

There are nights when all the wishes of a long day, is about laying on a tired pillow somewhere in the middle of the night. It is about dreaming of a long adventure we take without informing many people and sending back postcards to yourself. We have all written to different things from time to time, and in the past couple of days I was looking for a topic as I was surrounded by a sea of people. It is true that inspiration must strike when you least expect it, and whether it is between the end of semester week or between crazy exam schedules, the definition and meaning of the writing must hold true no matter when. There have been many who have been disappointed in the last couple of weeks with outcomes from life that no matter how far they have come they feel they need to disappear for a while. Here's to that feeling of adventure that excites and haunts us, keep you bags packed my friend. 

Of Travels to Nowhere 

Some nights I feel I am losing touch,
I am wreck less with those who have lost much.
I have been closed in between, take long breaks at time,
And yet I have kept coming back to what I call mine

I sometimes feel that in hopeless despair,
When my night seems like a lost cause and beyond repair,
When the quiet footsteps on the door outside,
Reminds me of nothing more my hearts desire

I say travel my friend, till the roads seem unknown & heart feels lost,
You were never meant to be cast aside , never meant to be distraught
Till the mocking bird sits on the tree branch and sings to me,
Till I write of long tales tonight & sometimes late poetry

We all deserve diaries with adventures still, of motorcycle rides to no man's land,

The number plates have faded away, and the whole world seems small from where you stand,

From travels to nowhere, wherever the roads may take, I hope you come back to endless retreats.

You are unsigned,unwritten , and an unposted note, you are missed from wherever you used to be.

Oh endless fairy tales of the day or night,
You have been whispered in my ears , you have always been in sight
The mystery that shrouds my thoughts tonight,
Must permeate to you, in words I choose to write

Day 108: Above the Sky

I have missed out on writing for an entire week, I was in Chicago attending the AAG while the things I wanted to talk most about everyday was lost in the tiredness that overtook most of my nights. In between all of the chaos I was invited for dinner to a old friend's place and it felt as thought no time had passed as we caught up. It was while sitting at the window sill and staring outside to the city lights I felt both the warmth glow of the lights and the cold winds that sheers across them. There is often a feeling we call home, and it is found with the familiar ones who have not changed.

Above the Sky
We were lost in the roads as we stared into the city light,
Where the day ended and the night walked by our side,
The cold nights that lay itself on my numbed out face,
And the part of reality we get to keep, the part we never erase

We write our own stories sometimes, we think of them from time to time,
We are bound in recipe books we draw from, and the things you add and some that are mine
I have moved around in spaces of our head, figuring out what it all means for a while,
Why is it any different to find a lost friend, and find that you have not moved on but were frozen in time

The morning outside your window sill, the glimpses from floors above the sky,
Were about things being written somewhere, somehow and wrapped in time till the next time we fly
You were right about things remaining the same, they might change on the outside,
But there will always be warm reminders of the things we kept, we didn't let slide by

Above the sky my wings take rest, I am just home on a cold night,
I am everything that keeps simplicity a term that I get to often define.
We are wanderers together, we are understated facts, we are true to ourselves always,
We are moments in time, we are bookmarks to classics we read again at days end.

Day 107: Fifteen minutes

I write this with about 15 minutes before I head out of the door to take a test. They will tell you that it is with a great need that something greater finds solitude in your head, the little nooks and crannies of your mind are revisited. And it is with this period of lives when we are tested not just on pen and paper , but in moments that we choose to be different. For me I think those fifteen minutes mean a whole lot more when you take a step back, take a deep breath and just believe that you have done the work. It is often the decision to do something that makes a difference, not the actual thing in itself.  Good luck

Fifteen minutes
Fifteen minutes is all that is takes,
To turn something upside down, to mend some mistakes,
To go through it all over again, till there is nothing to revise,
Till you are ready when the pressure over your head, you need no more advise

All the time in the world that can fix things,
In between a song that we all murmur but never sing.
Fifteen minutes to the endless retreat of things you that lie unseen.
It is all it takes to make up your mind to win.

Perfect beginnings are fiction most days,
You do your best with whatever you came with today,
The HB pencils and sheets of papers on your desk,
And the moving hands of a watch that makes you a wreck

Fifteen minutes is all you need, to be brave for a while,
To turn whatever comes your away, to somehow keep a smile.
We are all tested from time to time, we take the exams anyway
Fifteen minutes are all we need, to remind ourselves of the choices we made

Day 106: Plans we Make

There are times when the best of plans will fall apart, even the mostly perfectly composed melody doesn't sound too well. I have been thinking about the plans we make in life, and the unplanned things in life too. We are often perplexed by the changing nature of these plans,the things that do and don't vary, sometimes when it changes without warning and sometimes all we could do is wish that it would change tracks. We all want something different, some of us are in love with the music that plays in our head, and then there are few who find the same track playing again and again and want to change. Whatever be the reason, whatever story you wish to tell yourself and to others, we all unpack our bags tonight as we travel back home. Here's hoping we get to keep some of the plans we make

Plans we Make
And here's to the planner, the engineer, the scientist in my head,
The writer , the poet, and the photographers stuck in pictures instead.
To the thoughts in your head, that come alive in day dreams,
Here to the strokes of brushes that you paint, with colors that the world hasn't seen

To the plans we make, when no body's watching , some in secrets we hide,
And some that are stern , like promises we make and the ones we choose to abide.
The breaks we take sometimes, we end up nowhere else but in the back of our head,
The plans that follow you around, that are the filled with your thoughts instead.

Here's to careful nature of it all, when the little things have been thought about,
When you know what the world wants of you, you keep looking for yourself inside out
The planned reasons of the day, you may close your eyes or wake up in middle in the night,
The best thing of all that you get to keep, are the trophies you never show, your own fight

We are all planners in our own ways, we have just made too many plans at times,
We have checklist that we keep, we rewrite and then there are few we choose to revise
Here's to the plans we make, we may not live with or through each and everyone,
We are lost spirits in the making, we are aged in our bottles still,we are essence of a taste never gone 

Day 105: How far

There are moments in our life where we would push ourselves, rather than slowing down anywhere. Rather than being confined within what can be achieved, we are more interested to learn how far we would go. In the last few months and through many of my weekend writings I see this part of me pour out, part of me which differentiates this reality I relate to and write about. We are all haunted by our own limitations, we are often scared of the things we can and cannot say when we need to. And sometimes we are tempted just a little bit to know how far we would go to find that extraordinary ourselves within small moments of realization. It maybe that those who have been saddened and broken beyond repair will someday find a way to fix things, and some who have wandered , who have been lost will simply start drawing maps back home. Whatever be the case I wish the spirit would keep pushing us just not knowing "how far"

How far
How far would it go my heart my soul?
How far would you travel before the evening is young again; as the day grows old?
We are tea cups on shelves we have been sipped as time flies by,
And held the warmth of a company or the last cup of tea inside

Old friendships are like pages of a classic we read everyday to ourselves,
We familiarize our favorite quotes, and in the phrases we some days dwell
We are like points on a map , we have been linked somehow only in our mind,
We are end markers, we are symbols that we once knew how to read, we are legends no one can find.

How far must the yearning go, before you make something reality?
Before everything that must turn inside out, is still locked away in your head, as a mystery.
We have all written letters in time, and we have kept away from posting letters still,
Filled our boxes with postage stamps, and ink pen I hated to refill

How far would the lover go, would the love travel just as far?
We are all looking for guarantees, we are looking for happy endings before we even start
You may choose to be lenient just for while, you may choose for once to overlook what you are,
You may choose to be brave and face whatever comes, choose to just go and not question "how far"

Day 104: Everybody Knows no One

The past couple of days have been fairly busy trying to get things done and it is at times like these when you tend to stay away from writing, trying to get everything else in order. We had our department gala today, an annual event honoring people and an occasion for many to come together and to share good food and warm company. It is while sitting at this event that I kept thinking about it for a brief moment when we are introduced, everybody knows everyone and as the night progresses nobody knows no one just for a little bit. So I write to this gradual, momentary phase this knowing and forgetting and the remembering that follows.

Everybody knows no one
Take me to places where no one knows my name,
Where everyone is everybody and where we could all play the game.
Take me to some places and to people we remember as somebody,
When I would wander the walls, and feel unwound and free

Everybody knows somebody tonight, and everybody knows no one,
We keep coming back again to the places where it all begun
In warm companies or conversations still, we will remember the rainfall outside,
And in the wind that gets caught up as the day brushes by my side

We are raiders of the lost night, we are story tellers when we want to be,
We are quiet as the night that sleeps outside, and myself as I am reminded of "me"
We are forgetful of the little things we get to see and feel sometimes,
We are  busy meeting the world , and in my memory I seem to somewhere hit rewind

We are everybody and nobodies, we are standing still somewhere,
We are floating around in our safety vests hoping to reach you there.
Where the surface feels like solid ground, when you have known someone inside and out,
For now everybody seems to know everyone, and nobody knows no one 

Day 103: Shelter from the Storm

Over the last couple of days I have seen a couple of my friends struggle with situations in their personal lives, working on not making a fool out of themselves and sometimes just hoping they won't regret the choices they make. They are brave though for taking the first step and taking the risk we all wish we could sometimes in life, and even if things don't always end up the way you liked it, at least you took the chance. It is in this great anticipation and anxious selves that I would like to offer this poetry as a way of telling them to take things easier sometimes and to comfort them when they need it. I hope we all find our shelters from the storms we face, and we keep taking chances anyways

Shelter from the Storm
We are all finding solid ground, our own shelter from the storm,
We are all finding a place to be, in places we hope we belong
Our choices some days are harder to make, and yet we are not weakened in mind and soul,
We are story tellers, and day dreamers and often born of a free will, as a story untold

And yet in the end of it all let me offer you a shelter from the storm,
Let me bring you home, to the "you" where you belong
Rest easy my friend some nights, sleep as though you have won,
You have made the choice today, the winnings and losses of the day are for none.

I was told there are no records, of the mistakes we think we made,
We are not given promises in life, no firm handshakes.
And yet tomorrow when I fly out to you, will my heart be the same?
Cause I will keep coming back over and over and make the same mistakes again.

I am your shelter from the storm , on a wet rainy day,
Your recluse from the things that have been there and some that got away.
You will always find a friend in between the thunder that speaks its mind
For now let me be the shelter from the storm, when you need a place to find

Day 102: Fiction of Figments

It was late Saturday night and a conversation with an old friend, lead me to believe how little credence we give to the sum of ourselves as a whole rather than the parts that we are. And yet I feel we are fascinated with just that much, we are drawn to people for bits and pieces of them. I have been inclined to think we are fiction of our own figments, we are unreal because we make and break ourselves many times in our imagination. And it is the fictitious persona (the figment) that designs the fiction we get to write about and live in from time to time. Hence I write to fiction of figments that master their way in our lives, we are more than story tellers

Fiction of Figments
And there were just the story tellers, we were only two,
When the day seems shorter than the stories I told you.
We were cooped up in anxious selves , when the week would come to an end,
We would silently reminisce the passing week as though losing a welcome friend

The Sunday blues would come and go,
And in the mellow evening it leaves your mind at places you don't know.
Coming home was just the excuse of the day we kept,
In letting some things stay the same, just the way we had left

We are fiction of our own figments, we are written by no one still,
We are pallets of our own colors, we are just waiting to paint, for spaces to fill
We are words that don't need to be written down, we have imagined real world many a times,
And yet today all I can think of is a restless heart, and the solace it wants to find

For those who been brave at times, we applaud the moments notice as you handle you blues,
We are cared for by the stories we write, ourselves at our best as we make the choices we choose
We are fictions of figments we are created for a while to indulge whatever it may,
We are wishing to be written down somewhere, and finding a place to be unchanged, as we stay.

Sunshine outside my window sill, creeps slowly into the room I live,
In between the shutters that closes you out sometimes, I hope you always find a way to sneak in. 

Day 101: Tell me anyway

In the last two days the chaos of workplace and the semester highs have been keeping me away from reminiscing about things. The idea of reminiscing over the things people tell you is fascinating, though we learn to listen we absorb and learn in the process. We tend to dilute as we get overly selective with what we want to hear in those conversation but we have them anyways. It is in between these moments when I feel we like the idea of sharing that we grow fond of from time to time. It is in the irrelevant things our friendships are renewed and even small things that we get to keep the memories we keep. Tell me anyways ,with or without words

Tell me anyway
Tell me that the restless city lights sleep from time to time,
That it may rain outside my windows while it's sunny on your side.
That the quite hours of the night, still listens closely to you,
Tell me I can change the things we wouldn't change a bit, whenever I wanted to

Tell me anyways and anyhow about forever that we can never see,
And stand on shoulder of giants and with dwarfs alike, when we would recollect memories.
The choices some days are about the easiest things we know,
The little things in the back of our head, and some that we keep but will never show

Without words when the conversations are loud enough, when a smile warms a day,
When the talks we didn't have, and all the things we couldn't say
Tell me about the fair things in life, things that make sense to you most times,
That are better than the stories we once shared, and the ones that are now hard to find

Tell me with no remorse over things in the past, some things that changed your day,
And in the corners of our mind we don't visit anymore, I play the music we played.
I write to you, as you to me , we share words that make us fonder at times,
Tell me anyways about the memories you claim as yours and the ones I keep as mine.

Day 100: Tomorrow Night

I thought a lot about what I should write for the 100th piece and though it may not make a lot of sense it had to be a collection of many things. Among times we can't place ourselves anywhere, in between families away from home, in between the complaining and the angry nights. And sometimes in between the patient hollow and empty ones, there was a lot that rushed back to me. I absorbed a lot from others, whether it is the warmth from few and cynicism from the rest, whether it is the music I heard at the back seat or the fights I see in between people who don't say a word, whether is the people who disappear from your lives and then there are those who will never let you know when they are found. When I first started writing this blog the idea was simply to be able to relate to people who read, share and are a part of an experience I try to capture in words every night. Hence I write to the mystery, the hopefulness of tomorrow night and those who have encouraged me to keep writing.

Tomorrow Night
Tomorrow let my troubled day, find the warm embrace of the night,
When we have been cast away like spells, like magic and charms for whatever we fight
Tomorrow night let my heart my soul,
Wait on a sunny day outside, and for a tight lipped secret you hold

Tomorrow night when I have learned from all that my past my hold,
When I find your footsteps, that haven't washed away in my mind yet but grows old
Will you ever remember the things we wrote, day in and day out,
When the panic stricken mind would find sleep , it would find peace in your shout.

And tomorrow night, when I look for the last reminder, the last call you make,
When all that is written in between the pages of a book, who can tell reality from a fake?
When the painter paints not losing hope, you sit sometimes starting all from scratch,
But here's to taking a step one at a time and sometimes even taking a step back

Tomorrow night, when I find you in worlds I haven't written about quite yet,
That have kept me far away from the comfort of my own bed,
Just when the whole world translates, and I look for your meaning in messages
Among the stary night, and promises and somethings we wish would mean more tonight.