tumbleweed

There was ice on the ground
When we gathered around ourselves
Sam Adams in hand
I watched your palm cup her cheek
First one side, then the other

The smell of something so pungent, like onions and vinegar
Lingered on my mint green sweater.
And I didn't think,
I'd be this bitter
Like a strong drink gone wrong
Like wrinkled ginger peels
I didn't think

The first time you met
That the inevitable magnetism would manifest
So strongly, so late
It fills the muddied water between you and me and
My nose accidentally inhales

And now
All I can smell
Is that stupid pungent odor filling
My eye sockets.
I didn't think I'd see
But I could still see
The tumbleweed rolling in.

**

before winter

When the arc of the night wanes
You descended with it
Came down with a generic name
That tells of you or anyone

It was as though
You were the sweet dusk of fall
Saturated browns and faded greens
With a piercing cold here
Or there

Your leaves whipped upwards
To a lukewarm sun
Scratched skins and tree trunks
And I couldn't tell if I
Welcomed you or not
Or anyone

The crumpled and second-hand colors
And the lonely curbsides
Could not deter your coming
Nor skip you altogether
To hibernation, to snow blankets
And wintry silence.

You, who carry a punishing presence
With the chill of the season and
The sickle and
The last of the wilting fruits,

Were inescapable.


**

monotonous firsts

I had my first kiss at a college party. And 24 hours after that, I was in bed with a different boy. So it goes in college.

In Greek myths, Cupid shot arrows into the hearts of young lovers. Today, we take Tequila shots instead. And believe me, the patrons of Patron got a lot further than those of Cupid. Emboldened by jello shots, readings of de Beauvoir, and the pure invincibility of youth, I dove into the age of non-definitions with an abandon that bordered on cliché.

I remember experiencing something like a minor existential crisis after my first kiss. It was with a boy I didn’t know terribly well. Swaying under the doorway, we did the deed under the careful watch of a cohort from the living room. He used too much tongue, I used too little discretion. The best part was only the denouement. No awkward goodbye, just a laugh with the head thrown back, and a skip down the stairs. Whatever my inexperience, I had gotten one thing right. The pretense of ‘casual’. Of ‘whatever’.

A trail of escapades later, I now come face to face with a new kind of peers—those for whom happily-ever-afters exist after all. Tiffany rings and family planning, they threaten to burst into my life. Spearheaded by the annoying tendency of human nature to compare one’s life with others.

The ‘whatever’ I had nailed so perfectly a few years ago, swaying under that doorway, I don't know if I can ever replicate it without pretense. Unlike written drafts, sex, and most other things in life, 'whatever' is best achieved the first time around. After that, the Patron, the swaying under strange roofs, they look hopelessly the same. Fuzzy on the cure, I wake up hungover from the last few years, and find myself yearning not for de Beauvoir, but Greek myths instead.

**

gamble

For the first time in a long time, I'm on the verge of excess, feeling reckless enough to afford the most unnecessary of emotional luxuries. Is there anything to be said for actively whipping up an infatuation? Of all the silly things to waste your emotional capital on, it's the equivalent of buying anything from williams and sonoma. A sign that all other emotional needs are met. Still, the vulnerability of having a crush--a most risky venture. What is it about having excess that makes us want to gamble? Even though the house has literally always won, I walk into the casino confidently. Odds be damned, I just want the thrill, not the jackpot.

**

city

City that never wakes or sleeps,
City in which your fortune keeps,
City that made you exchange for youth,
Worship for some elusive muse.

City that blinks night and day,
While finest hours slip away,
Shall blink years onwards too,
When cruel Time reaches you.

So march and skip on so long,
In a frenzy till next dawn,
On towards youth’s end, so breezily,
Pour into City’s hands, your mortality.

**

lucifer

I remember when I fell
I think I stained the sky
A stroke towards the bottom

Drank up the raindrops
The snowy mountain caps
The grassy dew
I think I stained them all.

There was no light,
No sound,
No brethren nor their song

Look at my hair!
Golden as nectar
See my feet and my knees
Purer than the mountaintops
I was once with wings
Now see my feathers fall
Faster than pebbles, weighted with sin
I think I spoiled the whole world.
They think so too.

Will they say--
That I may love still, or again?
Or will they--
Forget my fall
As I do now?

**

stranger

I walked with you to the coast
We sat on a bench and watched the city on the other side
It caught on fire
One house at a time
You weren't alarmed though.

I walked with you to the coast
There were purple wildflowers on the sidewalks
I bent to pick them up and my eyes made pitiful demands
So you plucked them too and gave them to me
Your heart wasn't in it though.

I walked with you to the coast
We sat silently in front of the burning
The fiery stroked a line across the river
Its tongues licked up the horizon
I might have left then
You kept on asking questions though.

**