Tired...

I'm tired of saying, "It's okay"

Tired of pretending it doesn't matter

Tired of chasing love

Tired of living this life

Tired of it all.

Equal Intensity

Love and hate.
Equally intense.
Yet polar opposites.
Divided by a fine line
that doesn't take
long to cross.
A single sentence
can pull the trigger
of resentment
causing emotions
to spill over
the other side.

Her Little Life

Sunlight slashed through the blinds sending a bar code of rays onto her pale, slumberous face. They caressed her, tickled her awake, till he eyes were fully open, reflecting the golden flecks. The white cotton sheets, the satin of her fantasies, rustled as she freed herself of them. The bed creaked with relief as she stood to support her own weight; it wouldn’t be long before it gave way, hopefully she wouldn’t be in it when it did. She dreamed of making it big one day, becoming larger than life. But that would have to wait, right now the leaky faucet beckoned.

Life

Life
Is
For
Eternity

The Boston Sunset

The leaves start their gossip,

As the wind passes them.

The mist is unsettled

as the feet swarm the area.

Figures in black,

with downcast eyes,

Keepers of a dark secret.

The stony silence.

The stifled sobs;

The tears mixing with the rain.

The dirt is leveled

and the mourners pay

their last respects

to the Boston sunset.

Uncertainty is Nothing New

Upward, downward

Forward, backward

I'm at the crossroads of my life

Don't know where to turn

Don't know where to head

It all seems the same at the start

but who knows what's ahead!

Ways of the World

The old man told him not to run after perfection but find contentment in what he gets otherwise; and never regret anything because everything happens for a reason. But the youthful lad had yet to see the trials that led to conclusions; and the course of life showed the young man how true the sage was after all. Years after, the tombstone of the youth read, "Here lies the one who didn't strive for perfection and never regretted anything and lived a peaceful life." Strange are the ways of the world.

The Journey Ahead

She tries to smile but can't hide the tumult of feelings that inhabit her being.

She watches her step carefully, wanting to make mistakes no more.

The ground is hard, the journey long, destination unknown.

She looks around, her eyes meet nothing but endless stretches of untrodden land.

With eyes closed, faith in her heart; she fights away the advancing fears.

She draws a deep breath and plunges head-first into her future.

Clash Of Their Egos

PROLOGUE:
He was a simple man with simple needs; content with life and
the way it treated him. He didn’t ask for much from people, just
that they respect him and the relationship they had. He was an
introvert and the only person who knew him front to back was
the woman he loved, the woman he wanted to marry and
grow old with. The woman who was his and his alone. He
wanted nothing else from life. Just a little assistance from fate
to make his world complete.
She was really sporty, but while others usually played with balls,
she played with hearts. She juggled them, her position strong
and concentration on the mark. Why have one man when you
could have another in line, better yet, a third one on stand-by?
Deception was the name of the game, lies were the rules and
she was a champion at it. But juggling is a difficult stunt; balls
fall but bounce back, hearts fall and turn to dust. And then she
searched for more.
************

He entered the diner and was hit by a cloud of grease; he walked towards
the back and slid into the last red vinyl booth. A woman with a voice like
heartbreak was belting out a song about love while a mini-skirt clad waitress
went about fueling customers with caffeine.
He had agreed to meet her one last time, to hear her version of the story of
his heart's murder. She would probably come up with a thousand excuses and
explanations about the accusation he had thrown at her. She hadn't realized
that she had permanently scarred him; she was too self-absorbed for that.
He wasn't ready to let her in again; he just wanted to see her cry, one last
time.
A smug smile covered her face as she spotted his car at the end of the parking
lot; she made her way inside ready with apologies and counter accusations.
She was glad for the thick greasy diner air, it would make the tears come
quick; she had chosen the setting well. He was sitting at the far end, his
black shirt screaming character and good taste, paired with old money; she
couldn't afford to let him go. She changed her expression to grim and slid
into the booth, facing him. His expression blank he stared at her face,
probably searching for a give-away that the remorse in her eyes was fake, but
she was too good an actress, she covered all grounds. She smiled inwardly,
this wouldn't take long, and after all, he was head over heels in love with
her.
He watched her dab at her eyes, the plastic bitch, faking tears just so he
would melt like a sugar cube in her mug of black coffee. He'd wanted to see
tears, but these just sent a wave of revulsion through him. She seemed to
think she had layers, that it was hard to know who she really was, what she
didn't realize was that after all these years of knowing her he knew her
better than his own self. She was transparent as a glass to him, albeit a
cheap one that distorts reality for the untrained eye.He could predict what she wanted. She expected him to
comfort her, to tell her he was wrong to doubt her faithfulness, and he did
just that. He wanted to lure her to the peak, just to push her off.
He was falling for her fake tears; she had triumphed again. She put her
fingers into his offered hand and let him stroke them lightly, an attempt to
stop the waterworks but she willed more tears into her eyes to hang on her
lashes; pearl drops of sorrow. She wanted more than comfort, she wanted an
apology for doubting her, she wanted an admission of his unrequited love
and then she'd give one back, so what if she didn't mean it, he would lap it
up like a thirsty dog. He would believe her. She just wanted a 180° turn on
the road towards their break up, she'd play some more, teach him new tricks,
get him even more dependent on her and then she'd turn another 180° and
dump him. She had never been dumped, it was always the other way round
and he wouldn't be an exception.
He had loved her like crazy and that was his biggest mistake, the other was
that he had trusted her with his heart. She still thought she had a
stronghold on that poor thing and she was using her tears to make sure of
that; was she wrong or what. He was going to play along for a while, be the
old him who was mesmerized by her charm, and then he would drop the
bomb. He ordered them more coffee and sat back with a lazy smile and eyes
half closed,drinking his. She was too busy with her tissue and scheming mind to notice his sudden nonchalance. He cleared his throat to get her attention, then
leaned forward, looked straight into her eyes and apologized for doubting
her, the sinister gleam in her eyes left as quickly as it had come; but he had
seen what he wanted, everything was going according to plan.

EPILOGUE
A month later....
He was still a simple man and she was still sporty. Besides that,
they were changed people. He turned to granite, trust and
love for the female species completely gone. She became
careful, her previous escapades having left her severely
bruised and feeble. Juggling is after all a difficult stunt, once the balls fall its
the juggler who gets thrown out of the ring. The same fate
awaits the juggler of hearts.

Against All Odds, I Will Survive.

She lost her hair, she lost her confidence. She lost her husband, she lost her support. Yet she didn’t lose hope. ‘ I will survive’ was the mantra she kept on chanting, when all others who knew her knew she just had a few more weeks. Her doctors had stopped trying. To them, she was a lost cause. They thought it was wastage of valuable time and resources to carry on with her treatment, which wasn’t getting her any better. Her husband thought she was more trouble than she was worth and left her on her own. And yet she didn’t lose hope.

She was in the throes of the end stages of chronic lymphocytic leukemia. And she had less than a month to live. But she was putting up every form of resistance she could muster because she knew there was more to life than she had experienced. At twenty- seven, she was too young to die. There were lots of things she hadn’t experienced yet. Like the joys of motherhood, like living the life of an independent woman. But the doctors had already started counting her days. And with everyday she lived, she received a new blow on her consciousness, trying to arouse her from the false sense of well being she seemed to be in.

“I will survive”, she answered plainly to any one who asked her how she felt about her impending death. She still believed that, even when she contracted graft versus host disease after her bone marrow transplant. It was as if her body was rebelling against the very notion she was striving for. Her health was waning, but her spirit was not.

And then her body couldn’t take it anymore. It was battered and broken beyond repair, but her soul was as resilient as ever. Her friends told her she was being unjust to herself. She shouldn’t keep her hopes so high, ready to be dashed by the slightest miscalculation. And after going into relapse after relapse, she should know better than to pin her hopes on the unlikely. The doctors gave her a week. Maximum. They said anything beyond that would be a miracle.

She lived. For three more years. Long enough to prove her doctors, and her fellow patients and friends, wrong. And when she died she did so with a smile on her face and a gloating voice, proclaiming, “I told you I had more time. In the true sense of the word, I have survived.”

Life's Like That

Total numbness

and then a sudden gush of excruciating pain.

Numb again, followed by searing pain.

One moment here, another there.

A sharp climax

and then there is the anticlimax

Life says expect constant change.