Day 365: Goodbye Tomorrow

A friend of mine asked me a few months ago about what I had learned from the entire experience of writing this blog and I realized I said "nothing in particular". Though that's not true I guess that answer was a long one and I was just not willing to say what those things were. I guess I needed more time to think about the question and to perhaps simplify it in my mind. When I started this blog, the goal was simple. It was to write a year of poetry based on topics that others would provide either directly or indirectly.  Though it took a little more than a year it was an experience like no other. I have tried to capture every possible mood that I could in that time frame, the ups and downs of lives and the travels alike, the restless nature of writing and the bitter cold and warm summers. I have passed through much of my days hoping I will be able to write tomorrow. As I write my last one today I can't help but feel a sense of wonder that fills my mind, I don't know where I will go and hence goodbye tomorrow seemed apt to wish writing farewell for now. Thank you for being a part of an amazing experience, you have been encouraging, insightful and most of all my conversations without saying a single word. Thank you all for being a part of a great experience.

Goodbye Tomorrow
So here I am, have we written it all
Reached where we needed to be, broken every fall
Have we learned that which has mattered most
Or put sticky notes on yesterday, among things we lost

Goodbye tomorrow, my words let them remain
Let them give you company when the world seems insane
Our sketches on the walls  let them fill spaces in your mind
These memories we create let me always be easy to find

Pour out a glass just for you and me
Write even if there are no reasons to set these words free
While the tired ones they walk, quietly back home
Let them find meaning in times they are alone

Goodbye my obsessions , my inspired writings, my muse
You are my only address , this is all that I choose
Carry me with you in memories that may never fade
Goodbye tomorrow, you keep coming back, you never age.

Day 364: Yesterday

If you are ever staying with friends and family you are inclined to ask whether they make your travels sweeter than everything else. Whether they are reminders of things that we collect in the passing of time, or whether they are unscheduled stops we love to make. I keep imagining one of my favorite songs as I write this piece and dwell in bits and pieces of nostalgia. I wonder if we are collectors of time, if we choose to remember whatever we want and somehow pull them from our memories. Whatever be the case is it simpler, is it better. Are they cast in spans we call as days , as I keep writing this one as mine gets away.

Yesterday
For I have been caught in the start & end of songs
Finding places I call my own, or where I can belong
These restless hours that pass by my finger tips
While I talk to you, without a single word from my lips

These yesterdays in our minds that we seem to create
We fill them with memories with nostalgia we populate
While some may find these place marks silly at times
I collect them like a mad man, as though looking for rhymes

Come find me in warm companies of friends & family
Bound by thoughts that stay with you & yet you are set free
While some may look for solace in perfect yesterdays
I am looking for just a few that are here to stay

No we are not lyrics to a song that plays on repeat
We are lingering thoughts that haven't decided to leave
In the quiet spaces as I wait for wings to fly again
I wonder what yesterday wished to be & that which remains

Day 363: Simply Put

I think choosing a topic sometimes should be as simple as talking with a series of thought processes that bug you just the same way as when you sit down to actually write. Nonetheless it seems that what can be summarized in those brief moments leave a lot that we wished to include. Simply put explores the idea of what can be simply written down sometimes, about muses in life, about inspiration that are restless and somehow hard coded in our psyche and perhaps they are experiments of how we recreate something different every single time we try. These are versions of my very own nostalgia somewhere hoping to meet yours on a long walk somewhere.

Simply Put
Simply put things are rarely as simple as they seem
I am writing from afar and in between the moon beams
The night sky in my thoughts as simply as can be put
The wind footprints on the wet sand left barefoot

Simply put you are my favorite glass of wine
Poured out of an aged bottle held up in time
You are memories held close , nostalgia in a jar
Smiles I think about when I am afar

Simply put you are quiet conversations in my mind
Somewhere around and always easy to find
You are perfect walks in between the restless hours
While I look for time that is mine & yours, we exist in ours

I lose my sense of direction every single time
But simply put you are reasons that I sometimes forget to rhyme
These imperfections in an imperfect world ask for more
Simply put I am summer wind through the open door

Day 362: Let me Fly

Chances are if you have read me early onward by now you know that I like to write when I travel, especially about the travel. Not because I think it is liberating as always but because I think that there is something very special about a traveling heart and soul. Something that finds pause among a crowd of people, one who is listening to stories . These people gazers and the illusioned alike, these concerned ones and the ones aloof from the world, come together and it is in the companionship of a diary that I make these journeys as I write back to you.

Let me Fly
Let me be close to you and yet let me fly
Let me borrow these wings even if I know not why
Dream as though thoughts they form without a pause
Till I found what I am looking for , maybe just the right cause

Let me sail into the wind, the sea, or whatever way I may go
I will draw lines on deserts and beaches the only way I know
While these thoughts in my head like travelers diary today
Will choose to get filled almost written in its own way

I am looking for stories that are quiet for now
They are packed in my mind and in my suitcases somehow
I carry them with me from one end to the next
The traveler writes and his world never rests

Yet those who will come to me, I will ask them "let me fly"
Let me come back just after more time has passed, if only a while
I have roadmaps I don't look at and yet I will not get lost
I am traveler at heart, a storyteller at best, looking for a cause

Day 361: Bitter Sweet

I never had quite a dilemma writing a poem and then struggling for just the right words to include. It is one of those moments when an obvious contrast is not so obvious to your mind. I wonder if I am taking these long pauses for a reason, have I planned them in my head or am I slowly changing thoughts as they form in time as I write. Whatever the reason maybe, I know this one was a tough one where I had to decide the favorable or unfavorable taste that I want to leave with or maybe combine them into something simply bitter-sweet for you.

Bitter Sweet
Come take a walk with me into the unknown
Come dream of things we are yet to make our own
Feel these drops of flavor that stay with you
Telling a story if you choose to find or maybe write one too

What is bitter and what is sweet?
Are they the same to you and me?
Or are they transformed desired freshly plated
They are thoughts that are quiet, they are the unstated

Perhaps candy coated shells that hide
They are prelude to an aftertaste that survives
Yet reminders of things that for a brief moment stay
From sunrise to the end of hours this day

In time I will find, that from which I will learn
Where you could taste writings & thoughts you could discern
While the bitter and sweet will blend into just one
And I will leave you with words, perhaps recipes, only half done 

Day 360: Wandering Wanderers

Not all wanderers wander and it is the nature of travel. It is the nature of people to feel the need to roam and be lost and yet fall in love with nostalgia of just the same. I am amused by the need to travel, the notion of the wandering wanderers and while I look for no subtle hints of where to go next, I am fascinated by all. I am in the lost farewell at the airport you say, I am in the bus tickets you keep folded in your shirt pocket sometimes, I am maybe the directions you ask a stranger when lost and maybe maps  that you never use. In the wilderness of the world I pay an ode to you the wanderers who live in journeys every single day. While the whole worlds finds a place to be , you refuse to stay.

Wandering Wanderers
Why would I worry about tickets I am yet to buy?
Choose destinations before knowing if I could fly
I would wander without knowing I am a wanderer at heart
Just looking for places to go and waiting to start

For those who are lost among the familiar places
Who are forgotten and remembered in the everyday faces
Traveling home or far away from one
We have started to fade, but we have only begun

Am I a wandering wander at heart, are you one too?
If I follow no maps and directions, will you follow through?
For now I have no good answers; just questions on my mind
Why being lost is hard and yet is the easiest thing to find

In words that travel far and some that echo back
I am keeping notes of all the things of which I lost track
While we may all come and go, we will leave a trace
While the wanderers who wander, try to find their own place

Day 359: Words we Mean

For the next one week I will try to write perhaps the last week of writing before the project that ran a little over a year comes to 365 poems and a year or more of poetry writing. I have been asked by many about what I learned and though I cannot comprehend in the full complexity the nature of that, I have learned in bits and pieces. I have learned in good and bad times, in the best and worst possible of time and in hope and also in despair. I guess one thing I can say is that the ideas and things that keep moving me have never run out and maybe only slowed just a bit when I wasn't paying any attention. I guess it all comes down to doing something because you need to, and because these are the only way and words I can reach without knowing. These are the words I mean and for the last week they are with you hidden waiting to be seen.

Words we Mean

If either one of us knew
Time we collected & of moments so few
If all was written out into your heart
While we collected scratch space right from the start

Till the end of endless days were reached by just the two
We would walk endlessly and find places to go
I would wait till our writings like flavors of food
Would taste & feel different as much as they could

But these familiar spaces we walk between
The green grass and sunshine that grazes your knees
I will pick and choose the colors I need
I will follow no one and yet  I will let you lead

I pause just for a while and write the last 7 days
Because I have written for a year & yet I have much more to say
I pick and choose these things I write about
I am storyteller with last acts as the curtains draw

Day 358: Palettes

While I kept staring at the pencil sketches on the side of my notebook I kept looking outside at the rain outside my window. It smells of a memory that you can go to when you close your eyes. It reminds you of the first time you walked in the rain or maybe reminds you of paper boats that would go to no places. I think in the colors we mixed together in the palette we have painted with only a few while the rest are still waiting for brush strokes to spread them around. My color palette grows in my imagination for now, slowly as we sketch again, come paint with me.

Palettes
Come paint me like the outlines your draw
While you try to recall things that you saw
I will be the sketches in your handbook; for now
Keep drawing with no instructions, not knowing how

These palettes with dried out colors of mine
Have seen much that has passed in the passing of time
While some I have painted on canvases in the background
Important things that have refused to stick around

How do we capture a thought or a memory?
Is it fresh when it forms and nostalgia to be?
Or are we painting sketches from rough outlines
Things that we remember and the ones that we define

I am the restless boat on your wall, resting by the sea
I will be tied to nothing but the waves that are set free
While time will pass on and I will capture just today
In pictures and sketches and writings in my own way

Day 357: Sketches Here

I always feel that our notion of carrying memories are similar to when we travel to conferences with posters, locked in poster tubes. Wrapped somehow as we carry them in our mind. The idea was that the poster tubes they grow and we keep sketching and drawing new things onto the canvas. We trace walks we took, we think of moments we share and probably find inspiration scribbled somewhere. As I wrap up one of the conference here in Boulder, I keep thinking about this staring at my very own poster tube. In the hope of more things I keep writing, maybe adding a few thoughts of my own to the days that pass by. The airport windows loom with sunshine and yet it feels just a little cold as though the city waves goodbye.

Sketches Here

My poster in the tube it lay
I watched the sun flickering on and off
I kept wondering about things to say
And hoping some will get through to the top

I was moving around in bed sheets
Hoping a few more hours of the day I would cheat
While the sunlight grows stronger for now
It escapes outside my window somehow

These pencil sketches of people that I know
Some who remember me and some I will draw
As relentless as my travels may seem
I have yet to go these places where I may have once been

Rest for now my friend you have come home
Or maybe just places you don't feel alone
While the rest of us come and go
There are some who leave traces you don't even know 

Day 356: Chocolat

Some of the sweetest things in life are often indeed like chocolates sweet and bitter, blended and tempered and handled carefully. They are sweeter still in my hot chocolate mug and as they are in the pieces I unwrap one at a time. In whatever shape or way, in hope and in dismay I find them better than comfort food or maybe something I would eat everyday if I could. But why lie maybe I do get the steal the taste every now and then and may that's all I writing about, wishing I had hot chocolate instead of ink in my pen.

Chocolat
I am only in the sugar coated wraps of my mind
Sweet tastes and chocolates that I can find
While reminders that warm memories are tempered too
They are aftertastes some for me and some for you

Why make bets on things you cannot see
Why wish upon things and then set the thoughts free?
Keep the hope they are things that manage to stay
Some that are persistent even if they seem to slip away

These questions that I am sometimes asked to frame
The bigger ones that are different but not the same
Things that encompass everything I know and do for now
So I keep coming back to the drawing board somehow

My chocolate chip cookies or biscuits whatever may
They are things I keep in jars hoping they would stay
While some things they drip like hot chocolate drinks
On the edge of my tongue & my seat, while I wait for you to blink

Perfect reminders of sweet things maybe hard to come by
So I write them down anyways, in my words I try

Day 355: I am Rain

It started to rain in the evening as the day ended. The rain it passes by as reminder of things that had been and reminder of things to come.  It treats all equally,  it just pours without reason,  without judgments or without reservation.  It knows of no boundaries that control it,  it rides the free wind.  As you close your eyes it washes both tear and anguish while the lightning reaches a part of you that you hide from even yourself.  I am the relentless,  I am the cold and the warmth of the day.

I am Rain
I am pouring outside your window pane
Between the moments that you find me sane
While I wash away the moments you hide
And bits and pieces of me will somehow survive

I am making a sound outside your door
I am sticking to your roof and lying on your floor
I am still attached to the moving of the day
I am trickling down your back like a drop of rain

I am the puddles you cross over and some that splash
You are putting out fires and leaving behind ash
Yet some things you cannot leave & neither change
Some things as they must, they will simply rearrange

These cold drops on a warmer summer night
These lightning strikes as though putting up a fight
In between the restless days, the hours too will fall
I am rain, I am washing away all

Day 354: Sweet Biscuits

This one was a harder piece to write, I guess mostly because it was looking at something we get to make and yet as something more symbolic. I write this to the sweet biscuits we make, the memories we bake together in the oven. Even on a slow, gloomy and slightly warmer day, my thoughts escape right back to you in the month of May. I am writing this as though hoping that the room smells of that perfect batch we made, the little pieces of warmth I share at the beginning of the day. For all that is unanswered for now, I hope they remain just as they may. Here's hoping it reaches right where it needs to and the aftertaste lasts just a little longer.

Sweet Biscuits
So I packed them all, all that I could fit
And took it on travels; even if just for a bit
Reminded myself of a warmer place
And a smile that lit the day, right on your face

There are words on my footsteps, I write them down
I am hoping to be the familiar, in the box of lost & found
Come find me when you expect me; to be nearby
When you looking for a walk and yet wishing you could fly

I bake memories, as the warm oven it slowly cools
I am sweet biscuits that sit on the tray and on the stool
While the whole house it fills with maybe just your smile
You are thoughts that don't escape & aftertaste that lingers a while

My sweet dreams that I sometimes get to make
These perfect pieces of sweet biscuits that we bake
You lend me a hand and I lend one back to you
We are making memories and keeping them in jars too

Day 353: Funny How

I seem to be slowing down more as I keep writing and edging towards the last few pieces of the blog. I am not sure if this is something I planned for or something that is just triggered in the back of my head. I find a few things funny because of situations lately than anything else, funny how we wish for lost things, funny how we claim to remember dreams that we often forget. In the little things, I wish to write today, I am crawling just a bit and then somehow hoping I will have to leave this incomplete someway. It is funny how we struggle with life and learn from the contrasts at best. For the rest, I leave as though gossips that are untold and in stories that will unfold.

Funny How
Funny how the crescent moon still takes a peak
Looking out for the night, as though waiting for it to sleep
Or how it says goodbye in the middle of the dream
As you lie awake hoping to go right back to the scene

The moments that I climb up and down the stairs
As though looking for something and not knowing where
While the hours come together & the hourglass hits play
Our thoughts as they align, during the passing of a day

Funny how these songs that are stuck in our head
You whistle them time to time and I hum them instead
How life is more of passing that staying still
Holding on to dreams you don't remember at free will

Old friend on the side notes of paper diaries
Are you lost at times just like me?
Or have the crumpled pages and writings remained
Have they somehow refused to simply age

Day 352: Corners

"I guess we all have our own corners" I was thinking out loud. As I said those I felt how true it was in the reality of things, in the open nature of the world we live in. This is not to say that we live isolated in these corners, neither to imply that we close ourselves but to imply we have our own sides to take sometimes. That we are all in visible corners we can all see, we have thoughts we believe, arguments we understand and music we play in these spaces. While it might be a bit naive to try to understand the world as though fragmented when we rather wouldn't, I would like to think these corners are our closest selves that we share with one another.  So I write to the same, out and aloud, thought.

Corners
So we sat on the floor with invisible chaklines
You had your side and somehow I had mine
We each had corners we, even though we didn't decide
While I looked for the spaces that lay unassigned

These little moments that our memories keep
When we smile at random and maybe sometimes weep
These that have touched and formed who we are
Closer than a heartbeat and yet seemingly afar

These shades and colors of the outside sky
While I stare at the myriad, I feel time passing by
Corners that cut close & that are closer to the heart
That are simply reasons, whether close or worlds apart

I will meet you where your mind retreats & we will paint again
Draw sketches of an empty boat, and these we will frame
Why some thoughts that echo deep remain in still waters for now
While we all sit in our corners and figure out the world somehow

Day 351: Fading Light

So though the sun was setting at its own pace, the little glimmer of the light came into my room meant I was following it through the spaces between the window shutters. It was chasing the fading light as the day got longer and wishing for more hours every single day. I have not written for quite a few days now, trying hard but being pushed and pulled with to do lists every single day. I tell myself this should not feel like work, it should still feel like writing, as simple as that. Fading light discusses the idea of our love for contrast and the capability of finding something in all its aspects. As I slowly begin to feel a little better again, I want to capture the fading light as though trying the insane.

Fading Light
I have left the planning and telling of tales
Embraced the wind as I have sometimes set sail
Been clear as the day sky and cloudy too
Rained as the hours pass and sky turned back blue

For I have sailed these winds that blow

Seen parts of me that I do not show

For some things lie uncaptured as it must
I may have lost faith at times but not your trust

In the in between of things little known
I will learn from these pieces that help me grow
While the rest remains unplanned in my mind
Waiting for instructions that it hopes to find

Be just like this wind tonight
Not troubled by the fading light
So that these little things in the day remain
Like loose pages of a book on the floor as they lay

But embrace too; the dark

With its marching half,

The promise of a new light

An excuse to blaze a new path

Catch new winds and write new lines

Day 350: Mr Salesman

Think about being a Salesman for a day, collecting and selling memories back to yourself without charge. Just making the case to reflect back to the little things that you have left behind, maybe nostalgia somehow, maybe pieces you wrote that you don't remember anyone, doodles on the sides of pages or even pictures that speak to you without frames. They are pieces that are kept on displays only in your mind, and yet they are reminded by yourself, the salesman who sells memories back to himself. Who are you waiting for keep going back to the same door, I am just collecting memories scattered on the floor.

Mr Salesman
Mr Salesman and the keeper of dreams
You seem to be selling the world within
Things that aren't on catalog pages for now
They are just on sale from you somehow

Dear philosopher of ages and doodler in my diaries
You are words and sketches that are set free
You are on walls of my mind , like museum pieces on display
Moments where I haven't grown & still get to play

Mr Salesman you are different, like this other side of me
You are my collection of vintage & black and white memories
So you sell them back without price tags in place
Just reminders some rainy days and across some nights

Are you still collecting things to keep
While I count the hours of the day that I dream or even sleep
May intermittent at best you come to my door
While I keep looking back at the things for sale & some on the floor

Mr Salesman you are in the old and the new
You are simple things I try to remember & piece together too

Day 349: By Now

The idea of shared time is unique in some ways, it is independent of planned attempts at being together since these can be moments in your thoughts. While we all get to experience this and wish for it, it is in fiction that is often inspired by real life, that we get to experience it. We get to blur the lines between these notions of fiction and fact and get to relive a few in our heads. Whether we change our comprehensions of things as they are right now, these times that I do not possess are yet alive just like me and written like the rest.

By Now
By now you and I must know
That some things must move & flow
Like ripples in a lake in still waters too
These are things that change for me & you

I seem to be able to hear the dog whistles for now
I am listening intently to unspoken things somehow
They are written in my diaries as I turn the page
They are living free of time and age

By now you must know that I write these songs
Keeping alive the memory of lyrics that are gone
I find solace in humming them during the day
As do you somehow, in the back of your head

You and I on some mornings at home
Will share a cup of coffee together, while being alone
While some will say these are fictions we write
Sharing space and time but only in our mind

Day 348: Smiles at Random

We seem to smile at random sometimes and no matter how inclined we are to think that these are always planned and situational, some of the most memorable ones are the ones you don't think about. Is is the sunshine on a cold day or maybe a memory that came loose and found their own way, maybe a song that came in the back of your head or just a tired mind smiling as you lie in bed? I am amused and amazed and as I find myself watching cartoon reruns on my screen I am smiling perhaps remembering how amusing things were and have been. I like the idea of being able to dig for nostalgia and I also value the randomness when it finds us and makes us smile. So this one is for the smiles at random that have made it to your and my face

Smiles at Random
As we pick and choose hours of this day
I lay claim to a few that come our way
These lines and edges that are in your & my hand
Maybe our roadmaps to familiar places where we land

Why do we smile at random, as we travel alone?
Or stare at the blank screens on our phone
Why things that flee are the ones we wish for to stay?
Our hopes and dreams and stories that come our way

I tell myself that in the back of my head
You are my best of chapters that I have read
So I write a few drafts of my own just in case
Maybe become a few characters or find my own place

These mystery machines and cartoons I never forget
I still keep them as sweet nostalgia in the back of my head
As the little bits & pieces of me travels back in time
I look for a smile, without reason or even rhyme

Day 347: Parking Lots

Probably one of the most random places we miss while going through our day are parking lots. These vast array and spaces with parked cars , some that leave and a few that come in to replace their space. No better example of transitivity among the non living , and yet something that is purely tied to the idea of being calm, being at rest, being parked even if for a bit. Something more permanent even if momentary within that changing nature of these places. Such as some thoughts that come and stay a little longer, that have been known to reserve places and some that like the unclaimed ones collect tickets and refuse to move. For now inspiration truly comes from the strangest places, probably the quieter ones, probably the empty ones at best.

Parking Lots
You are still in my head, like a parked car
Unchanging even if for a little bit, right where you are
These sides of the car door I hold open for you
I am wishing for these thoughts that you have let through

I am puddles of rain that you splash as you slow down
You wait for a while or maybe you sometime turn around
Drive around tirelessly till the end of this day
Without road maps in your heads, without a place to stay

You are still the paint on the sides, the details I rarely miss
While I am the wind on your windshield trying to steal a kiss
Wishful thinking as the song on the radio get loud
You are whispering to me, while I hear the whole world shout

You are still in my head and parked in a parking lot
You are thoughts I remember, even if chances were I forgot
Still places on land , just places to lay down and sleep
Maybe nostalgia that is too sweet and yet the only thing you keep

Day 346: Just Listening

There is a weird connection between those who listen and talk. There are those who feel compelled to do either of the two and then those who are put in situations. I have been late in choosing the last few writings as the year draws to a close at least in a blog and I have no excuse but that I have been trying to listen to things that often do not speak. Whether they are the mood of the day, the rain outside or the often long stretches of hours sitting on a chair. In the quiet moments, I am trying to make sense of the things I claim to know for sure and some that in time become fonder and more expressed. Maybe I am on repeat like the records on a loop but I am listening to you as I write a few, tell me you are talking back too?

Just Listening
To me, you are among the only things I know for sure
You are waves that I can touch and feel on the shore
These things that want me to slow the day down
Not knowing how to keep them for long or even around

So I listen to you like old records on a gramophone
When I am in a crowd but maybe feeling alone
While the lyrics and the music they blend in the rain
We figure out our own address or from where we came.

Just listening for now, to whoever needs to talk
Trying the long road home, with more time to walk
As I mellow just a little bit, trying to pour my thoughts
Strong drinks that stay on the sides of a paper cup

I am dog-eared chapters, folded up in a magazine
The ones you get to read when you find time in between
While the world may need to talk, I listen for now
Writing more chapters, wishing to be bookmarked somehow

Day 345: Memories of a Dream

Sometimes the most comfortable thing to do is to not make plans. It is in accepting that there is something beautiful about finding things as they happen. In the moment of these quiet and restless inspirations, we are able to write, draw, sing and sometimes simply be. All I sometimes need is the feeling that the lines between dreams are blurry at best, maybe these are memories of things that are yet to happen. Maybe wishing for things or maybe sometimes accepting time as it comes to you, in perfect packages of 24 hours and yet feeling they are never enough. For now memories of a dream is what I wake up with, maybe even act upon. After all, we are storytellers as we write stories everyday.
Keep dreaming and tonight enjoy just an extra hour of sleep if you may :)

Memories of a Dream
The alto and the tenors that in my head they play
While we sing some songs, that in our memories stay
We are doing our best, dreaming what we need
Finding our winnings and never accepting defeat

The paintings on a napkin page or writings we exchange
As though codes in a hidden language that only we can create
While the cold days refuse to let go of us; for now
You are still the month of May, I am stuck in April somehow

Memories of a dream we remember so clear
Things that feel so true and the ones we hold dear
Then again, we are day dreamers & realist alike
We are singing as though on stage but without a mic

These days that are somewhere in between transitions
Between thoughts and some restless inspirations
We are unplanned at best, we are somehow at ease
Hoping for more memories, in dreams when we sleep

Day 344: Unwinding Down

These periods of warmth and cooling down seems confusing at best, when all you want to do is crawl back into bed, sit with a cup of hot choclate and maybe read. If that picture is making you hungry enough, think of the smell of coco filling up the corners of your face, and your glasses they fog up. Imagine sharing something warm in the cold outside, whether they maybe nothing more than simple thoughts that I may write about. They maybe inspiration over the fading sunlight, they maybe a long walk home waving goodbye. You are tired too I know, waiting for instructions from your heart your mind, come rest for a bit, maybe just for a little Unwind.

Unwinding Down
These flowers in the winter days, they refuse to bloom
So I write all morning and into the passing afternoon
I grab another slice of life that comes in a box
Instructions not included so I easily get lost

I am wishing for a warmer place and you are somewhere too
Keeping at the things both you and I need to do
Staring up from the faint glow of my white and blue screen
Asking the hours as the day it fades, no matter where I have been

I stare at my phone and then quickly back to work I go
Maybe you have written to me, I am curious to know
But in the wind she blows and "Chicago" plays in my head
I am sleepy in bits and pieces and my eyes are quietly tired red

I am time periods we listen to, stuck in maybe the "Holocene"
It is present day after all, right here where we have been
Listen to the wind outside and keep coming back as you need
In imperfect ways write something only you and I can read

Day 343: Our Stories in the Wind

Once in a while, you will have a walk that hits you as more than meaningful. Maybe it will be something about the idea of getting lost , not knowing where to go or even the notion of watching the lights fade across the sky. These are inspiring no matter how close you get to putting them down and scheduling them , these will be the random ones when you don't decide the when and where.  I like to believe on this windy day that there are ideas that come and go, and as it gets louder outside I think of songs we hum in our heads. To some of the most perfect evenings that we can find, and moments when all you want to do is simply hit rewind :) Find a windy city of your own

Our Stories in the Wind
Come build me a story, let me stay
In your thoughts & memories let me remain
You are held close to me as I am inspired
I keep coming back to you when you are not tired

To see what I may have missed in days & night
What has but gently slipped our sight
When we have walked to places & found them new
These moments that flee and the ones that are few

I tell my obsessive self, that obsession is in short supply
So I keep collecting feelings, hoping they will always survive
I am rationed thoughts maybe few that do change
While I find my ride along and my life it seems rearranged

In the housekeeping this weekend I smile without reason
I keep wishing for Spring at the end of winter season
For in the wind outside they may come and go as they please
Let me just write to you, knowing in time you will read

Day 342: As Needed

Ever felt nervous because you planned something or thought about it too many times in your head? I will be honest, that for now that seems to be the state of my mind. While getting into the specific nature of the problem is irrelevant it makes me write more connected to reality than ever, describing these anxieties that keep me on my toes for today. I think of these moments as reality that comes to me as needed, it does not announce itself, neither does it feel the need to be validated. For now I am in the quiet that surrounds me and you as I keep writing

As Needed
These moments of quiet anticipation
I am unplanned plans in your imagination
I am nervous about things I do not know
But for now, I will be confident or so I will show

Have I written down things I need, I will learn and unlearn
In the hours of the night, I hope I keep walking without turns
For I am easily distracted but not with you
I am listening in the quiet as the night, it mellows

As though stories of the book that comes alive
I am hoping to fall short of nothing that the night writes
I am fact looking for fiction, I am reality if you need
Just wishing for an endless conversation, to listen & pay heed

These moments that flee, they are much too shy
They are just like me, learning how to be human sometimes
Uncomplicated, undefined , you bring me to ease
I am learning to find comfort in just "you" and "me"

Day 341: Parts of my Mind

Sometimes the hardest thing to do is to find out where to step and in which direction. I like to think that some of the best things in life come as a result of taking a bold step, one that is untethered and yet brave. While we may be surrounded by eggshells, for now; we have to believe that we will get through somehow. While I count and collect these days of the week, I look for these bits of mine which for now play hide and seek. Parts of my mind are on loan to you, or maybe in the lost and found finding a way back for now. While I hope you find meaning today, I cannot help myself from counting days.

Parts of my Mind
Parts of my mind and part of my heart
Seem lost in thoughts, wherever it is at
While I walk as though with eggshells around
Finding out what to say, just for now

These days of mine, that I count for you
Some are here to stay and some too slow to go
While there are a few that I count in between
To reach to the other side of what lies unseen

Part of my mind seems to be on a holiday
It seems to have wandered out and found an escape
In the meantime, I try to be just as honest as I can be
And still make it to your thoughts, as myself & me

These things that are hard to say or even do
They are moments that connects me back to you
While you may read in between these lines
I wait for Friday and the lost part of my mind

Day 340: Come Write me a Song

How hard can it be to write a song? Is is the lyrics that make it complicated, the ones that are supposed to fit and rhyme or is the music or tune that we hope to find. Maybe I am kidding myself, maybe it is really challenging to write one to begin with but then I think some of the best songs have been written over nothing at 3 am in the morning. Even if these never go off the sheets and into reality, why wouldn't we try to write one and set it free. So come write me a song, something borrowed from everything around.

Come Write me a Song
These buttercup lyrics up and about
Songs that are stuck in your head for now
I sing and you whistle & we may write in between
Lyrics to a song no one has read or even seen

Come loudly if you may, like tunes of a saxophone
Come quietly if you can, in your mind when alone
Just know that it is easy to write sometimes & somedays
They are just random thoughts that somehow got away

Come write me a song one which somehow even rhymes
We will sing a phrase or two and then we will hit rewind
Make adjustments and fine tune whatever needs to be
Just write a chorus if you must, and just put it on repeat

These choices of words I make, I scribble them all down
On the back of a napkin somewhere lost for now
While we draw labels of the unreleased albums in our head
Come write me a song or just sing along with me instead

Day 339: Drunk with Words

Think of it this way, if writing was an obsessions, if it was a glass of tall drink you couldn't keep down,what would you do. I think of this as getting drunk with words, finding something in things we read, listen or even write. These meaningful snippets of what makes sense and how we pour these words out into glasses retaining bits of memories and nostalgia for the few. I am fascinated with the human interaction as I keep drinking and getting drunk on words. I find myself scribbling often to every surface possible as I keep digging for more, I keep writing for now albeit running a little late.  

Drunk with Words
So have we played well? Are we all done, 
Drunk with words and finding out what we have become
So have we kept our feet grounded? and somehow found escape
In the middle of the night find our escapades

Have we told stories as close to truth as we can be
Or are we writing versions of what we believe is reality
They are things that fit nice, that may somehow make sense
Yet the best of things we recollect, when we don't have to pretend

So we are drunk with words, we choose to be
Because we look for rhyme and yet wish to be free
We write day in and day out, whereever we can
We write more than we can read but in a life span

We are question on the loose and in the answers that we chase
We are in memories that we desperately hope never gets erased
While the forgetful few will look for nostalgia in a verse
I keep drinking more and more & getting drunk on these words

Day 338: Come Dance

"Would you like to go try out dancing?", quite an unusual request I might add considering it was 10 in the night and like every other thing in my life I pursue with pure curiosity, I didn't plan on thinking about it too much. Imagine dancing in a studio with no one , just a glass window by your side and the night sky with the moon slowly peeking inside. You move and learn and sway, and in time, all these actions slowly become a dance. Take the story as simply as they come sometimes, there are no better examples of transformations of random steps to dances. I find solace in the wonder and surprise in just that much for now.

Come Dance

Come carry me into the night the evening it sways
It asks me for things I don't want to give away
In some decisions, that was never ours to make
I will find just this much, whatever I can take

Come dance with me in the middle of the night
Turn off your phone, put it out of your sight
Some stories are better told in the rhythms of how we move
I look for what is instead of what can be and what could

Come into the night maybe sometimes unannounced

I am refusing to make plans just for now

These rainy days or winter days that don't leave

While you wait with your sketchbook for spring to begin

Come as you may, take these steps to and fro

We are dancing alone into the night in a dance studio,

While the lights outside they change with the passing of cars

Nothing remains constant, except this nostalgia of who we are

Day 337: Instance Life

I think at the end of the day when I slide that key and unlock my door, there are a few thoughts that come to my tired mind. Some which are just summaries and list of things to do, some about pauses I forgot to take and some about the last bit of things that are yet to be completed. I think of life as instances sometimes, the random ones no one cares about, the ones that happen unannounced. As I stitch a few of these together I find an instance life, some that are about the mundane captured bit by bit. I like to believe sometimes the hardest thing to capture are the simple ones. So I share these instances in writing

Instance Life
The grocery bag on the floor they lay
I had much to do, much more to say
Too much to text to you, too much to write
A little too much to fit over a coffee cup fight

I am drinking alone among crowds I don't know
Hoping to write life as though plots of a show
The picture frames on the bar they are but inclined
So it bothers me just a little among sanity I hope to find

I am cold things kept and forgotten in the microwave
Maybe reminders to tell me if I just ate
I am still organized but it seems, only in my head
Writings stories to myself from the other side of my bed

I am these instances, I remember in every paragraph
I am painting pictures and writing books on someone else's behalf
While the twist and turns in which the storyteller hides
Becomes reality as I face it every day and in my own true life

Day 336: Write with Me

Come write with me, it should be simple and easy. It should be about words that stitch together in your mind trying to find places where just a few words can find. Writing is easy they say or maybe it is just the hard to come by , but I have learned that we are all used to some form of it, in our head. On one of the coldest Spring days today I am taken by surprise experiencing one of the quietest Saturdays for a long time. I am not used to making plans about people, and neither about what I write about. For some things are better left for the moment to find.

Write with Me
Come write with me, as the day it passes by
Just scribble somewhere and maybe give it a try
In search of better things that are yet to come
Find a story that has yet to become

These evening hours that dissapear
While some that stay over days, months or year
The quiet light of the evening sky
Lets me write thoughts , some yours & some mine

Come write, with me as though this day will never end
Find happiness in places where you don't need to pretend
The best versions of our lives are yet to come
For now, we are what we are,  whatever we have become

Didn't we find the heart, that dreams in restless imagination
As I dig thoughts,try to recollect every sensation
So I jot down these memories and I try to write them down
As the day fades into the night, outside my window pane for now

Day 335: Any Road

I wonder what it feels like to just get into a car and drive away, truly without plans and truly without a destination in your head. Does it take time before something in your head kicks in, do you start to wonder why or how it ends. They are like stories you often sit down to write without themes or plans, without rough sketches here and there and without notes you scribbled on the back of a napkin somewhere. They are stories you find on any roads as you move and as things add-on. They are without roadmaps sometimes, without markers and landmarks and reminders of where you are. So any road you take just gets you somewhere, and everything else at least for that time doesn't feel important at all. Here's to such road trips I wish we take

Any Road
For I have travelled along the squiggly lines
I have managed to do so and still feel fine
Any road that keeps going back in time
Moving forward and yet somehow finding rewind

I tell myself that there may be roadblocks ahead
Places we pay tolls and take a different way instead
Where troubled times and happy ones manage to stay
But I; don't stop, I keep moving on the road anyway

I don't have a map to follow no trails that I know
Just a little bit of me that I manage to show
The honest self that knows not of any other way
It just likes to ride along and finding places instead

Any road that I take, I hope I will get to summarise
How we are as we are, to everyone's surprise
And the little bit of you and me, that gets written down
As though finding something new in places I have been around

I am road maps that are paper still, and as the day, it folds
I am songs on repeat and some calls that are on hold
And then when you have given up you might just get through
We will share conversation on both ends, just me and you

These stories we write wherever and however they may be
Lie unthought of and perhaps, in the only way they can be free

Day 334: Just This

I think I am fascinated by the feeling of transition with every season whether they are in the rain just before spring or whether they are in the drops of water that cling to branches of a tree. I am both lost and found as I try to put them in words. These things that I wish would change and they seem to stay. I think it takes a little bit of courage to be yourself in the ever changing, in the idea that stationary things are nostalgia put in candy wrappers. They are things I remember and wish to remember, they are just this much of simplicity, I am writing it down, maybe just for me.

Just This
Just trickle down on my shoulder but somehow stay
You are raindrops I hold onto just for today
Reminders of the clouds that paint the sky
They change the canvas every day before I even try

Just stay in the things that we get to keep
For a little while,  as I daydream without any sleep
I write of stories and complete list of things to do
Such are the unplanned writings that are from me & you

I am inspired by the closely knit and yet that which slips away
This wind, the sunlight and the little warmth in the shade
I will read to myself, some things over and over again
Till I am but pouring down in words, just like this rain

Just a little courage that colors my mind and heart
Till I keep looking for new beginnings & a place to start
I write these to you and this much for now
Just trickle down on my shoulder & yet stay somehow

Day 333: Me & More

Me and more explores the concept of saying that we are inclined to find versions of ourselves in others. Things we perceive to be true about ourselves though we cannot be fair observers to that. So you are me and more, you are the known and unknown among the unexplored, as I danced slowly into the night yesterday. I looked at things that might have gotten away, learning about people as I met them and realizing there is more to learn from not just the version I see. So this writing explores the "you" as something that is me and more, someone with whom I dance and sway and some who in my memories are there to stay.

Me & More
You are simply me and more
Walking out that closed door
Telling stories, of some other day
Hoping and wishing for things that may

You are simply this, you cannot stay
You dance, you move & sometimes sway
In the arms of the night you dissolve
As I look for clues in puzzles I can't solve

You are two steps I take one back and forth
We have no limit on this time we sought
We borrowed some hours into the night
Still dancing to the tune, not losing sight

I see good things & great things as they unfurl
Looking at things that make up our world
For some of this are things I write about
I am somewhere right here, in between the crowd

You are and will always be simply me & more
You are paintings on the wall & steps on the dance floor
For I must learn how to keep that which comes & goes
Captured in writing is the only way for now that I know 

Day 332: Such Is

Once in a while I feel that the greatest distances aren't on the outside or even in the world that we see but on the inside somewhere in the back of the mind. It is the ones we often cannot seem to quantify or measure, one we cannot explain. They are divides and yet they seem to connect more people than we know, they are inspirations lost somewhere. In time as I fly back and forth again and again I keep thinking of these distances that keeps us connected even thousands of miles away and some that keeps us apart even in the same room. Here's to the perfect start to the irrational and the things we cannot explain, some that have moved in our lives and some that have in time remained. Take a trip today

Such Is
Such is the divide between you and I
Between all we could keep & some that are left behind
Such are the memories, in secrets they conspire
They are nostalgia, imperfect but always admired

Such is the impatient pace of my thoughts in my mind
That these questions I cannot seem to leave trailing behind
They are footprints that seem to follow me home
They are things that don't quite seem to leave me alone

Such is the way in which things move on even if we stay
When we are troubled looking for our very own way
How we have found the normal and yet in our mind feel insane
Loosing sleep as we keep traveling over & over again

Such is the plight of the often misunderstood
Who claim to be a part of the world and remain aloof
They are tired by all measure of the heart & the mind
Waiting to be lost in all the craziness of the world you find 

Day 331: Lost in Bangalore

Every time I travel, I like to write a piece which fits into a series of poems I write. They are called "Lost in " and explore the age old idea of just walking randomly in a city you barely know till you find yourself lost. You keep finding connections and directions and slowly you find your way back home. You find the reason why you go on these adventures to begin with, is to explore new places to eat, or are they about the facade that wraps and covers everything. Is it about the idea that meeting someone for the first time is exciting, someone who has no idea of who you are. Though many will claim that we have lost the last bit of luxury and that in the world where almost everyone is googlable it is hard to meet someone for the first time and then for the second. I still believe that we are creating these pockets where to want to find that escape even if for a little bit. Whether it is waiting in a taxi forever or at the edge of a table sitting with close friends and taking pictures. I think the charmed stories are the ones we like to keep but only in our mind

Lost in Bangalore
So these ice cream places that you talk about
Tell me there are scoops for me, waiting to be found
They are sweet things in life that we get to keep
An aftertaste in my mouth, that I wish never leaves

Why think about one song wonders tonight
Have we sung just a few that fade into the night
As I stitch together these memories, some yours & mine
Some that are left on napkins & some harder to find

Lost in this city that slowly takes a brief pause
Where we need no reason to come together, need no cause
So I sip coffee in coffee shops in paper cups
I write stories of you & me & of what we have become

The world changes just this much, have we noticed just yet
Are we wishing to be right always are we placing safe bets
We are risk takers and story writers and memories all in one
Are we lost this time again? or simply looking, for where it had begun

Day 330: Unburdened

Someone told me there is a rule of thumb, if you are friends for more than 7 years, you are friends for life. While I know how arbitrary that sounds, I wonder how that is different from everything else that might be arbitrary. Why we value somethings over other when we meet people, why we feel the need to share stories on phones and conversations alike, why we feel that connection we cannot completely understand. In every waking hour once in a while I do know that we are unburdened by these acts, though they may sound selfish from time to time. But then I tell myself this is what friends are for and in time this is what we must all become. For now come unburden my friend, we have nothing to keep behind these door and not much of which we need to pretend.

Unburdened
These are the things I will let go,  atleast a few of them in time
They are my burdens, unburdened in my mind
Conversations at a secret place, we will share much of life
And built sand castles out of hope as time passes us by

These silly things that you say, some that haunts you for a while
While you look for just a hint and a glimpse of a smile
While for a few of those in life, who will come and go,
They will hold on to things, but they may never show.

These are the hours that I need to recollect
Where I know I have grown over and over, even with my regrets
I have been both weak and sometimes unexpectedly strong
I have learned to be just right and sometimes accept what is wrong

You are slowdowns in life I need, but cannot comprehend
You are pauses; I support and truly recommend
For most fond things in life come unannounced some days
While we look for the unattached, and lost strings in dismay

Day 329: Don't Spend Me

Don't spend me all, we are things that rise and fall in each other's life, in time as we make things right or maybe we make more mistakes. Maybe we will rectify the things that need fixing for now, we are scattered brain and maybe we are figuring out how. This one is written with just that thought in time, as I keep moving, I see things I move away from and things I move towards. Maybe I am too attached to things I lay claim, I keep making the same mistakes. You read the prelude in the hope of a clue and I keep trying to not rhyme. It isn't funny anymore till we have grown out of space, while I like for a new white board , somethings even time can't erase. Don't spend me I say, keep me wrapped some days, as I heal hoping never to be the same. I am looking for solace in the places I can still be, just imperfect at best, changing just enough of "me".

Don't Spend Me
Don't spend me all; now, I am not easy to come by
I am in every attempt that you make & every time I try
And the doors and windows are silent witnesses to me
While I try to crack the walls to somehow break free

Don't listen to me, but just try if you can
I am lines you draw and erase on wet and dry sand
Follow through to places, where ever you need to be
You are right where you started, with or without me

Don't keep me too close, like the last bits of things you hold
I am worth something to you, till the point I am sold
I am loose change in your pocket, in the sounds that I make
Writing about right from wrong, about my own mistakes

I am just a phase if you are ready to believe,
Just a moment in your life, getting ready to leave
Paper boats they never travel back home
Spend me just enough, lest maybe I am all gone

Day 328: Lie Here

Sometimes being incomplete has it's own perks. Whether it is the necessary pause that is needed before starting again. Whether it is the push we need to reset and restart, they are helpful in a odd way. Lie here , right here talks of a pause in time and space kept secret from each other. We don't know when we need the break and neither where. So the endless rooting of the night that lies thousands of miles away comes to my mind, and from a warm place I write to a cold winter night. Hoping something, lies still and somethings get by.

Lie Here
Lie here on the cold and icy floor
There are no carpets for now, just an open door
And the cracked windows don't help either way
To capture that warmth that gets away

Lie here huddled & cuddled just a bit
Painting with your breath on the air beneath
I am not cold, just colder inside still
So I write to no one who is listening of his own will

Lie here covered in colors that drapes the wall
Drops that fight with gravity, refusing to take the fall
So I am not reminded of the easy things,
Just tell me where it ends or where it all begins

Let me inside for heaven's sake
Lie with me, stop me from making mistakes
Just read with me what I take time to write
Lie with me, lie here, even if just for a while

Day 327: With You

The idea for this one was from group chats and collectives alike, It is about decision making when it is set free without any instructions. In the chaos with you my friend the bitter and better things of life become clearer to me. As kids we seem to trail these tails of kites that have been set loose and we are getting the ground running. For now I hear the knocks and footsteps on my phone, these little escapes on a 5 inch screen that locks and unlocks, that changes and keeps adding on. With you these things that are easy from time to time, they are as simple as writing poetry, sometimes with or without a rhyme

With You
With you I have stayed through the night wide awake
Sleep by the side of the day, thinking of thoughts I cannot shake
As bit by bit, you were carried onto fiction as you fade
Warm charcoal sketches on the sides of canvases, one I cannot erase

Without the end of this varied hours, the chances are we don't count
Lost in just the simplicity of planning for infinity, not knowing how
Why buy tickets to shows, we may never ever get to see
Why count the days, this Thursday, Friday or whatever they may be

My dear friends, my WhatsApp groups, my after hour pings
For you I will sometimes write and in the quiet nights I will sing
I will correct the things that you feel are wrong, they are parts of me
They are best attempts of myself with me & some thoughts set free

With you this too will change, whether they will be about yesterday
Whether we have climbed together these walls we left behind someways
Choose only this much for now, the rest of things will fall into place
While with you, we will run like kids, these trails of dreams we will chase

Day 326: Tell Me

Sometimes the easiest thing to do , if you have the time, the money and the inclination is to stare at a big board of destinations and fly out. I know this sounds like a plot from a movie but once in a while this notion of thinking something afterwards seems far too interesting to pass by. Whether it is after I reach that I tell you where I went. Tell me that the important things, whatever they are will still be in these moments of whimsy, tell me you will look at clues I leave behind, maybe you will find me. Sometimes the only reason to take these trips are to build your own maps, to and from places as we enter and exit familiarity, and find a little quiet time for a piece of our mind. For now tell me just what is needed as it changes in the blink of an eye.

Tell Me
Tell me I will find what is needed
That no matter what, it won't seem conceded
The hand that raises and lays you somewhere down
Tell me I will be hungry for more things to be found

I have packed up and moved away, changed my address
So that your maps keeps rerouting but can no longer redirect
The new places, where I have yet to settle down for now
Don't exist in the maps you own, I keep them secret somehow

Tell me that you have known me, even if just for a while
That I have left with a sweet aftertaste and maybe even a smile
To those who have knocked at some of these closed door
In places where I would find you or where you would look for me before

Tell me I will find writing in places that are uninspired
That you won't complain and that you will never be too tired
I will pack my bags and leave in the wee hours of the day
Tell me you will wish for more, hoping some things had stayed