Coffee with a stranger

She walked back two steps and peeked. Nothing. She could have sworn she had sensed someone there.

But then again, her mind had been playing tricks with her these days. All she could think of was him. Not that she was distracted. On the other hand, she was her most efficient self, churning out work faster than ever. The work actually was the distraction. From him. From the thought of having lost him.

The best part about her job was that it allowed her to pretend. She could always find numerous excuses to cover for her slightly puffy eyes. "Oh, it's probably from staring at the screen all day". She could always explain the quiet moods. "Well, there is so much work. Do you expect me to be chatty or to work?" Mustering up a made up smile was breeze on most days.

But the pain showed up in those few spare moments. It was burden of knowledge, knowledge that she could reach out to him, touch him, talk to him, but had lost him. He was always there in person, but for her, he was gone.

Then again, the ghost was with her. His ghost. Of course living beings could have ghosts. Every person you've met and left an impact on, you've left behind a ghost. And his ghost is what she saw that day too.

She went back to that spot the next day. There was surely something she could sense. There was a café just around the corner and she decided to grab a Cappuccino there. As she sat, staring into blank space, a tall guy, book in hand dashed into the chair next to her. It broke her reverie and she almost dropped her coffee.

He noticed that and highly apologetically, offered to get her something. She refused, but he sat down at the same table and started talking. "I'm so sorry. You see, I was actually looking at that little kid in the corner and didn't really watch whereI was going. I don't usually do that, but sometimes I get distracted. Ok very often. Is the coffee here good? I think I need coffee. Excuse me, can I please order!"

She wasn't really listening. She was watching. Him, his mannerisms. Oh gosh! The chair crasher reminded her of HIM. That did not happen much, because not many could meet those benchmarks he'd set. No one ever seemed to match what they had.  Yet somehow, in just less than two minutes though, chair crasher had managed to cross a few.

She forced herself to talk to him. The conversation wasn't bad. The laughter and wit was ample too. And just then, coffee was over. It was time to head back.

She got up and excused herself. "It was really nice to meet you". He grinned widely, sprung up and gave her a hug. "It indeed was ". And she walked away.

No. Numbers were not exchanged. Numbers were not asked. Names were not asked. And yet, this half an hour with a stranger liberated her. She knew she would never meet him again in all likelihood. She knew this wasn't a date or even a new friend. And she also knew, that it was this stranger who just broke her shackles.

She had just discovered, that the benchmarks she was bound by could be broken. That they were possible. She had lost him long ago, but today, she had lost his ghost too.

That 'what if'

It gnaws it claws it hides in crevices
It rustles up from beneath
It shadows from behind
It hovers above at all times
It seeps through like the sun

That thing that's been bothering you
That one hanging thought
That question hunting for its answer
That hope trying to find straws
That regret inching up through your veins

It sticks to your senses
It underlines all your thoughts
Shake it off, scratch it off, pull it away
It stays in the crumbs that don't go away
It lives in the darkness that will oft surface

That dream that finds nightmares as roommates
The wish that didn't find its genie
That one word spoken hanging in mid air
That turn of events unexpected and strange
That 'what if' which never leaves.

- Haem Roy,
29 March 2015.

An unknown world

A rainbow streak pierces through the grey

Monotones finding shades and hues

Windchimes breaking the clock’s steady rhythms

It is a world unbeknownst

It is a world not beckoned

A world untouched by the blacks and blues

Eyes squint as they adjust

Hands twitch as the wind brushes past

Feet unaware of the freedom found

A nostalgic sigh for the darkness once dear

A habit entwined, a habit weaned

A habit dissolved in a rainbow cloud.

- Haem Roy

October 2014. 

The everyday lover's 'rhetoric'

Another prompt by a colleague, and another attempt at writing something. The word this time was 'rhetoric'. Vague, ambiguous and very intangible, I initially struggled with how I could interpret it. And then I wondered - rhetoric is used so often in love, in courtship, in trying to impress and in trying to woo. Every lover has rhetoric and I wrote about this everyday lover's rhetoric.

The everyday lover’s rhetoric

The sun gets belittled with just a glance,

The moon finds nowhere to hide in shame,

The flowers seem devoid of their colour.

As the lover hand picks his praises,

And the lady finds her rose-tinted pedestal,

As nature transfers its glory to the whispers they exchange.

Adoration, persuasion, flattery, worship,

Blindfolds, apprehensions, hopes, dreams,

Wishes like whiffs of perfume.

Days of haze, eyes glazed with illusions,

Fantasies and fairytales seeping through drop by drop,

Promises pressed into clay by jittery hands.

The words have done their part

The verses have played the allurer

And they flutter forth, heart to heart, hope to hope.

- Haem Roy

20th Sep 2014.

Midnight

A little background: A colleague and I decided we needed a bit of creative exercise to get through the rest of the day. Around 3 in the afternoon, we came up with one word - midnight - and both of us had half an hour to come up with a verse around it.

Below is what I wrote.

Midnight

Short strokes painted across untiring eyes,

Engulfing a calm,

A scenery that knows no shades.

Black is black and all is dark.

She walks down the ascending road,

Piercing the silence with sharp heels,

Smoke filled in her mind,

Her breath clear as the night.

Crinkled memories of the path she walks,

Muffled voices behind curtains closed hours ago,

Stories swept under the carpets of quiet,

Don’t ask, don’t tell, just stack the mind.

Both hands entwine, the wind chimes,

The streets are hers now.

Seducing the suns away from their skies,

They nicknamed her ‘Midnight’.

- © Haem Roy

May 2014.

The poetry of abandon

Her breath moved in a lilting rhythm,

Her skin jumped up to reach out to his touch,

Goosebumps that spread to her beating heart.

He didn't need to see her to revere. 

She didn't need to touch him to feel.

His fingers like satin, wrapped around her,

The world was bolted out,

The covers were out in the open.

His eyes covered her in silky glory,

She was the queen of the world they lived in.

They were discoverers - every moment a quest,

They found the hidden art in seduction,

Never more than an inch away from breathlessness.

Her curves were now his altar,

His warm breath was her drug.

Levitating above the world they lived in,

Creating pure poetry with their bodies,

Sculpting pleasure into their memories.

Wild abandon seeped in their senses,

Attachments found no space to survive.

- © Haem Roy

8th March, 2014.

Wedding blurs part 2: Erasing the blurs

This is my attempt at a sequel for a story I had earlier written. You can find the original story (Wedding Blurs) here.

The story continues:

The music was loud. That's a good thing. She wouldn't have to indulge in small talk. It's not like she didn't like talking. Oh no! She loved it. But now was not the time. This was not the place. And these were not the people.

She was here for a reason. And she was determined to return only once her purpose was achieved.

She walked up to the bar, carefully evading the spots with bright light. She was wearing a simple, elegant navy blue dress, short enough to show off her shapely legs, but long enough to differentiate her from the teenage girls who had just found freedom from their uniforms and were leaving no stones unturned to enjoy it. She smirked a little. She'd been there, and she knew that feeling. But that was another time. Seemed almost like another life to her.

He was with her then.

They had just met, and were still a little formal with each other, but his infectious company was not something anyone could ignore. She would glance at him from the corner of her eyes, and smirk shyly at his quips to the other friends. He would chat up the server like he was a regular, and he even managed to get a free round of drinks for everyone. No one knew how. He just did.

She shook her head to clear these thoughts. No. This wasn't a time to get nostalgic. It would make things even more difficult. She ordered a drink - strong scotch on the rocks. That was her new poison. She was far from her Cosmo and Mojito days. With a swirl of the glass, her gaze swirled, and then stopped. Yes. That one. In the corner. He was quiet, but looked eager. He was young, yet not so young that he would be impressionable. She picked up her glass, and started walking towards him. Her hands were steady, but the same could not be said of her knees.

The knees were always a dead giveaway with her. It is how he would catch her fibbing. When they fought (oh yes they fought!), she would try to be stubborn and stand her ground. She feared losing him, and while her face never showed it, her knees would just not stop quivering. Of course he knew, and of course he let her win, with a little knowing grin. He hated that she feared so much. He would always tell her, 'You cannot stop what may or may not happen. Instead of fearing the possibilities, just experience the present.' Preachy. But then again, it is exactly how he lived.

She walked up to the young man at the club, and struck up a conversation. Mindless small talk. She was an expert at it now. Relatives, in-laws, friends of the husband, even with the husband, practice was aplenty. The husband was on a business trip, and in a way so was she. With the husband and other relatives around, the mindless housework would aid in drowning the screams in her head. For them she was the ideal daughter in law. Always the first to volunteer for any chore, always busy with keeping everything in order, and even assisting her husband with office work. But only she knew how important it was to her that she stay busy all the time. And then, there were days like these. When no amount of work would be enough, when the screams leaped out of her head and surrounded her like a numbing reality. And here she was, finding another way to drown them.

She laughed and drank with the young man and his friends. An hour later, she whispered to him, 'Tell me you have a place', and smiled. A practiced smile. And expressionless eyes. He on the other hand, could not believe his luck. He stuttered a yes, and fumbled in his pocket for the car keys. She lead the way out of the club as he followed, quite shocked.

She was going to do it. She was going to have another one night stand. Maybe it will work eventually. These empty, meaningless encounters would eventually forge an empty meaningless hole in her soul. So that she could finally live without him, and could finally bear to live with his memory.

Some Old Poetry

Found these on an old blog. I was quite a fan of free verse!

UNKNOWINGLY

A sharp knife you hold
Unknowingly, a threat more to the self
Invisible though it seems
solid it is, dangerous as it should be.
As you skip along
taking in the wind, imitating it
trying to lighten all else
blow away all the burdens.

But,
unknowingly, as you went about
A gash in the atmosphere!

The knife has done its job,
made you unwelcome,
carved out a bias!

- Haem Roy. 19th September, 2006. 8:12 pm

WHEN THERE’S NOTHING ELSE TO DREAM

Fantasy worlds
Kings have queens
A quest for rescue
Love blooming with the everlasting flowers
Colours splashing away evil
Imaginations running wild
Optimistic ends
I call these ‘happy dreams’.

But akin to a writer’s block
the dream-flow pipe gets clogged
you can sigh, get nostalgic,
remember the dreams that were,
wait for new ones to come
and revel in the joy of the gone;
‘cos though you wish for dreams more
Nightmares you want none
and are happy at the clogging
for you wont get carried away any more.

And such are the times
you look at the real
Distort, manipulate, add on
make smiling dreams
take them for illusion
or create one
from unreachable realities.
Momentary joys, forced excitement,
smiles that come, not linger.

It is the fun of taking joy
in a pseudo-dream,
when there’s nothing else to dream.


- Haem Roy. 23rd September, 2006. 7:34 pm.

WINDOWS

A peep, a view
letting in a lot
allowing a lot of free flow.

Something hidden
without the boundaries
whats surrounding, the sight does not know.

An aberration to the walled interiors
a relief some say?
Whetting the desire
yet restricting,
an invitation
to gates that are closed tight
just letting the minds of within take flight.

- Haem Roy. 15th September, 2006. 2:04 am.