Do feelings have a title?

Ashtami. A very bright day. I had no plans for that day, except for being forced to go to a Dandia thing at a friend's place. I needed to get out of the house. Panchami, Shoshti, and Saptami went eventless...with the usual pandal hopping the entire day. That kept me busy. But I asked myself, what next? After all this is over?

What? Nothing. The same days, and the same nights, alone. Though I shouldn't be missing him much, but it does take time.

While I was walking down,barricaded between two rows of bamboo fences that have always been put up specially during the pujas in Calcutta, to "maintain discipline", as is said, waiting for the crowd to turn so that we could enter the telengabagan route to the mandap. It seemed, that day, as if there were just people madly in love with each other, all around me. Was it just a projection of what I was missing in life? Or am I really the one alone?

I have good friends to help me walk through, and they've always been with me. But do friends always fill that space that was once(it would be dishonest to say not now), filled by somebody else?

I dont know.I have no idea. How do I trust?How do I believe in you? Not again, or yet again?

The cars drove past me, I was standing on the edge of the road, waiting for my bus. I was thinking, I missed mine.After 20 minutes of more waiting, with the gauging eyes of people down and up, really disgusting me, his words blurring my mind, I somehow managed a bus, got myself a seat, and again, started dreaming. Of what? Of all the good times. A tear dropped to my cheek, and the woman beside me looked at me worriedly. I am fine, and I managed a bleak smile.

The ride was excessively long, maybe because time seemed to go slow motion for me that day. Each instance was painful. Re-remembering you, on every little thought, and that day, seemed to be just us, like the year before. They were doing all that you had done. How was it that way? They didn't even know you.

But they all reminded me of so many things. Was this a new beginning? Or was I losing out on something? On you.?

I've stopped looking for them.I talk to you everyday, but yes, without wasting your time.

I feel you everyday, but without you having to touch.

That's how life has turned for me. From that Ashtami.

Near Madness

A time when lights could not be shut off
even with their cords pulled from the wall
Harsh and bright and made of nameless stuff
The hidden facet of my every wish and fear
shining for friends and enemies alike to see

A time when every word spoken low and softly
rang amplified a thousand times and more
Shouted from rooftops and silent streets
My every thought a known thing, naked
No secret too submerged for common view

A time of weariness and wariness combined
Close to madness, yet not so well defined
Transparency of soul if soul I even have
Where's the madness to be seen through glass
A life better lived with uncurtained windows

Comfort to be had, a settlement of all disputes
where those for and those against can come
to see well lit, amplified, diaphanous displays
of every treasured love and art I hold
No longer covered and withheld but spent

Flickering Images

Illusion makes a mockery of reality
and we have thrown in with it
Suspending lives in hopes and dreams
as etherial as disappearing mist

Hungering for there instead of here
Thirst that turns away from inward wells
The hunt for a light that never flickers
Forgetting the romance of wavering candles

The chase its own game, never ending
No pause at the top of darkened hills
to gaze at waves of grass that roll away
toward a horizon of self discovery

Human doings, disguised as human beings
flashing false credentials at the borders
Searching continents with outdated maps
Forward, always forward, damn the sideroads

A destination finally achieved, left wondering
why the streets are empty, no friendly face
at the end of all that troubled journey
The miles winding down to spaces emptied

Never savoring the steps along the way

Going Away

Walking to-day on the Common,
I heard a stranger say
To a friend who was standing near him,
'Do you know I am going away? '
I had never seen their faces,
May never see them again;
Yet the words the stranger uttered,
Stirred me with nameless pain.

For I knew some heart would miss him,
Would ache at his going away!
And the earth would seem all cheerless
For many and many a day.
No matter how light my spirits,
No matter how glad my heart,
If I hear those two words spoken,
The teardrops always start.

They are so sad and solemn,
So full of a lonely sound;
Like dead leaves rustling downward,
And dropping upon the ground,
Oh, I pity the naked branches,
When the skies are dull and gray,
And the last leaf whispers softly,
'Good-bye, I am going away.'

In the dreary, dripping autumn,
The wings of the flying birds,
As they soar away to the south land,
Seem always to say those words.
Wherever they may be spoken,
They fall with a sob and a sigh;
And heartaches follow the sentence,
'I am going away, Good-bye.'

Miles

Miles and miles and miles apart.
Although so far you've touched my heart.
Your laugh, your voice, your adoring smile,
Seem to shorten every mile.

I wake every morning and rest at night,

my thoughts and dreams filled with your sight.
Oh how I wish, even for one night,
I could lay in your arms and you hold me tight.

Not just a little briused or battered,

When I think of the distance it's completely shattered.
We'll never give up or say goodbye.
Remember together, the moon in the sky.
Your heart's a part of me and mine of you.
With that alone, we shall not be blue.