From the inbox: Letters from a self-confessed superhero

From someone who makes my world a whole lot nicer.

12.
...got in to a black cab after weeks. I flip a coin,an Indian one rupee coin. When I take monumental decisions,yes taking a black cab was a big decision. I'm the poor banker,remember?...

I've never used the word-strange,as many times I have this year,month,week.
I don't often find myself in a strange place. I adapt and become a part of the surroundings. Slip in,like I've always belonged there.

...I hear you say, "only when I see them,I'll believe you" well, perhaps you will someday. Else they might be john nash like. Who knows. :)...and pretend to play the perfect cover drive. One step,one stroke. Often hooking and cutting, with a straight back and somewhat stylish...7 pints of pimms and 2 pints of fosters. Did you proud.

...I leave you with a story. Its about a boy who inherits his grandfathers type writer. His deceased uncles ray ban glasses. And his dogs chain.

...People can doubt him all they want,he achieved his dream, in front of those that really mattered. those that stood by him, every single day.
Finally the prince, became the king at his own home ground. The Eden Gardens.

and my favourite:
...The gods were kind, the skies lit up too. The cast included,the Italian brothers who sang for us, the Lebanese soldiers went to war, they waltzed on screen. It was all part of the script...

July.

Subtext: "to float" is a good verb.

So I sit in a new space. sunlight and venetian blinds. and a google tasklist to keep me company.
apparently, when one turns the corner, there are no spotlights and no background music.

Aforementioned. the conscience implodes. for, does rational conversation with the Id ever override? is exhaustion excuse enough?

Of Habitual expression. blind attention-seeking syntax. and hollow tones.
warmth. blanketed and stored for the winter.

for structure and irony.
for, the hope and hopeful never did converge.

Of feeling.

She strummed. a Led Zeppelin and beer convert. We sat in a familiar balcony. Falling in love, she said. Been there, I thought. and then shut down.

.....

(O minutes ago)...

stoned. of nearer sorter. my soul stirred for a while again. my pores breathe REM and Led Zeppelin. Wondering if one "feels" all the time. Does one? Do you feel everything you do? everytime you do? Don't you wish you were someone who did? Wish I had the talent to create - in music, song and colour. I think I would feel more if I did.

Feeling love is a good feeling, you know It just is. Your soul does the talking.

"...So it is. Just like you said it would be. Life goes easy on me...so it is...a shorter story."

Hope your star trek sojourn was fun.

me.

Exhaustion. and a labyrinth.

For conversations that only take place in the head. For days crossed off the calender. For the football and the pints that have replaced the pink and giggles. For unending episodes of Sex and the City. For being tired of being the listener. undocumented trains of thought. Songs and nightly walks. Rediscovering fiction. and not labelling. for not caring. for empty musings at the end of long days. for mediocrity and songs over shisha. or is it shisha over song. For the ME that overshadows all rationale expectations of time and people. For lists that will never be made. For selfishness that never ceases to surprise. For Santa on the tube in a glitzy shop window. and for not being connected and loving it. For Sundays that are my own. For walks around canals and high streets. For being okay. For laptops piled up and hairballs appearing out of nowhere. For disliking dirty bathrooms and my own writing. For blank pink diaries and dark tunnelly vision. For shutting out and peering in. For tweed frills and self-pity. For decisions inexplicable and a picture window looking out onto a tree-lined street. For bootlegged walked through misty rain. For unexpected long emails and tears in the shower. For tickets that hurtled through bad finances, emails and a 62 minute phonecall. For the lack of straps and wine-bottle-ashtrays. For uncertainty that comes with geography. For security in the lack thereof. For fears of losing the self to the familiar. for the fear of drowning time in people. For boys and men and a conversation over a canape. For being fiercely guarded by red keychains, the Atlantic ocean and the ubiquitous phone credit. For being the insignificant spot on the white bridge. For blue lights and my fifth bench.
-----
Of the sent and received:
I am looking for validation - of my twisted syntax and vacuum-packed, bubble-wrapped brain...

This city is home. It spells ME on the sides of buses, smudges on glitzy shop windows and the little pink dress that I would've never have worn before...the kind of squeal-inside-my-head-randomly-coz-am-all-alone-on-my-own-me joy is inexplicable outside

"with love and a hot trench coat"

Who knew that inadequacy would creep in on a Thursday evening, jostling with rain-limp hair and an unfamiliar bus ride? Just when I thought I was coming to terms, with coming to terms with the present. Inching my way through finally knowing to work a newly cut-key and reading at the headboard, and sleeping at the footboard. Never barefeet. But restless. Nestling in the couch of pride of straying, and steering through lines drawn by me. My self-respect and ego fiercely guarded by instinct...

Love? She asked me. you wouldn't acknowledge it if it announced itself as the next President of the United States. For all the fear, ego and bravado you know where you stand. You are spirited and you suddenly squint your eyes when you think. You like striped socks and you like cooking at 1am...

where after 4 pints you could recite wordsworth, there are 5 seasons here..they all include rain..bus number 6 takes you home...almost every indian buffet in town would compete at 7 pounds per head, at 8 pints down, you enact shakespeare..9 is too late for dinner, its almost time to tune into the bbc (again)..and 10... is the number of times you will debate with yourself every day...whether you want to stay or go .

...Because you let me down. and you left me alone...
And I wait. because that is what I chose to do.

...enough to make me cry on a busy street...I love you.

Don't make mountains.

check.

i am...
a blog-reader
a grey question mark
a bare-backed turtle
a procrastinator
a black-scribble paper pile
a thought in an email. in five.
a rational idealist
a cry baby
a bad writer
a worse researcher
a user of fullstops
a left hand of faded mehendi.

a completely unnecessary post.

random writing.

i have lost a part of you. to you. that part has dissipated into fragments. fragments that have stuck to old clothes, new people and in the recesses of your mind.

through walks in grey rain. tube rides on the central line. a 2GB ipod playing a 'my' song. my fingers curl around memories of you that frost across the glass pane looking out onto central london. im the person who holds on tightly to a fist full of sand. i am melodrama. i am the once-walled, now razed to the ground.i am a proud egotistic mess of hopeful prayers and rational words.

and i should be working on my dissertation.

Draft 1.

here is the deepest secret nobody knows
(here is the root of the root and the bud of the bud
and the sky of the sky of a tree called life;which grows
higher than soul can hope or mind can hide)
and this is the wonder that's keeping the stars apart

i carry your heart(i carry it in my heart)

- e e cummings

I'm out of words tonight. Out of words that I churn out of my mind. Try them on for size, and see if they fit. I write for the audience of one - me.
Tonight, I am out of words. My audience sits waiting.