Dear Husband

We got married. Because our stars favored us. And they favored us too, about whom, we don’t talk anymore. The characters in our story that meant so much back then; we don’t hear of them now

They exist still. They enter only when they’re not needed. You know what I mean, right?

We got married. And it was all that was expected of us. A grand wedding. We spent so much. And we enjoyed so much. Oh so many pictures of us smiling and posing. So many people wanting to capture us and save us soigneusly into their smartphone galleries. We made way to some home screen wallpapers too. Little achievements, you know. The prince and the princess of the night, we knew nothing. Just that we were getting married. And that it was something sacred everyone goes through. Sometimes to attest their love or to attest their identities in a society that recognizes husbands and wives and doesn’t understand other relationships. You were a man of fortune. I, a girl of beauty we got married and life began.

We got married, but honestly, we didn’t have. No, it’s not your fault. But it’s just the education you received. And the education I received. You saw your mother folding your fathers’ clothes, cooking all day long in the kitchen, taking afternoon naps, arranging stuff and doing the same old stuff all-round the year you in the meanwhile, received a doctor’s degree and made your parents proud but the things that you learnt back then could not be overwritten or erased by any degree of intellectual stimulation. You had a wife now, as if, it was natural to have one around and not care about what she does, why she does. You didn’t know what to do with her. I had a husband, and I didn’t know what to do with him either except for the stuff that is necessary to have babies; you know.

I’d browse the nights off on social networks and you, on your laptop watching your favorite series. For us, it was never a collective social network or a collective TV series. Have you ever heard of a play within a play? Our lives were exactly like that. We had a larger story in which we were a couple and we were linked to common people, and there was another story within this story which was our individual night-time story where we were two individuals living two separate lives inside the four walls of our bedroom.

Do you know that rain makes me want to go to and have an ice cream?
Do you know that I want people to gift me a lot of books on my birthday?
Do you know that I use the word ‘ouch’ way too often?
Do you know that I use a raspberry flavored hand cream?

Do you know about a dream I often see?

Do you my last nightmare?

Do you know, given a chance, I would like to pick up a dance?

Do you know how I smell like when I wake up in the morning?

Do you know I sometimes shake a clutch the pillow tight at night?

No, you don’t. I don’t know these details about you either. But details are important you know?
Details when stitched together form a bigger picture. We don’t have those bigger pictures.

Now when everyone is putting pressure on us about having a kid, it’s time that I tell you something. I want my baby to look at her parents and see how much they love. I want her to learn all good things about love and sharing. I want her to grow up thinking that fairy tales and magical love exists. I want her to be simply loved by two people madly in love.

The decision is your’s and mine – either we start afresh or we start afresh, you know what I mean, right?

Poetry Trails: #2 Then and Now

Poetry Trails is a “collective poetry movement” that I and a dear friend started a week back. It’s all about taking a poem forward or simply starting a new one with a similar theme, that is in some way related to the original one. In other words, if I write something, the other person can either continue with the same poem or write a quick response to it, or he/she can even give it an all new context and perspective. 

So last week, Sneha* updated Stars and I written by both of us, on her blog. And this week it’s my turn. If the poem moves anything inside you and gives you a motivation to add, invent, or experiment, go ahead and put it in the comments section. We’ll then add it to the original post. ;)

As of now, it’s I and Sneha. We don’t really need to know who wrote what, do we? ;-) 

That blank paper stares at me from a distance

With a pen in hand, I try to form the words

I still remember how easy it was once,

when I would write prose,

for you, for us,

I still remember how lovingly you'd read through

each line holding my hands tight giving a peck on my cheeks

We'd read all day long forgetting the time

absorbed in my words we'd dose off heads on shoulders..

But now…

the muse seems to have disappeared,

I don’t blame you for anything,

It’s not you, it’s actually us,
we’re forgetting something, I guess.

May be, just may be.

We’re forgetting to touch?

I think that’s what triggered the muse for me.
Remember the very first time

I cooked a meal for you,
I was all sweaty in the kitchen,

and you just stood by my side,

Occasionally tucking the strand of a stray lock behind my ear

and telling me stories,

I wrote about us that night,

and you spent the whole night reading and re-reading it,
Back then we were a different us

*Sneha is a super active fellow blogger who's blog you must check-out because she writes on a variety of topics. Check-out Indelible Musings. You must get familiar with her blog because the next Poetry Trail will be published there!