It was only when M asked me this question that I realised how desperate my situation was: 'do you have anyone to talk to about this?'

As I waited for the comp to boot, I saw my own reflection in a glistening monitor screen. A portrait of failure. In fact, an embodiment of failure looked into the mirror basically. I asked myself 'how did it all come to this?' The crumbling of the establishment that was conjured and embraced as if it were a dream. The crumbling of meritocracy, and the rape of the ideal of fairness that while remains a wild possibility in the world, continues almost stubbornly to live in many minds that wish for it to be realised, but do not desire to work towards it.

I felt almost exasperated toward the end of our lunch. It was a good and candid talk, and I really loved M for that, but the candour impelled me to see the ugly face of truth, of failure as certain as the idealism that fairness is. The road is long and arduous, and my very existence closing the void of meaninglessness and plain inane barking. She was willing to listen and invited me to email or call her if I had to talk to someone. I can’t believe my life has to wither away after 24 years of roaming on this earth. It’s not like my life expectancy is coming to its end.

I felt that there was this huge machine that was trampling all over me, leaving ugly marks on a most vulnerable bit of me, imprints almost that would never go away. I need to turn somewhere. Somewhere that can grow the miserable whimper of light that flickers in an otherwise dark room. I am groping in the dark. I am just slouching into a desperate darkness, wasting away, waiting for death that does not come, but chooses to hover outside the shell that is my body, lurking, creeping, slithering all over. The bite does not come, the bite that will relieve me of the misery of miseries. I throw my head back, stretching the soft skin under my bristled chin, tempting it with life if it sinks its teeth into me, as it tempts me with a final conclusion, a beautiful release.

there is a poignant reminiscence when you spend hours anticipating the arrival of someone on MSN, recollecting the time when you did the same thing for a certain someone S, only to realise that the promise that S chose to come hours late and had nothing more than a sheepish 'i'm sorry' look on the face. it's desperately vacuous - any dolt can tell - and the vacuity of it all is precisely that shard that drives spears through any heart.

the silence of the wait is crushing, almost as if the air is coagulating in your lungs and you think that nothing can ever go in or come out again, and you wonder why you are keeping vigil for a person like that. the phone rings away, and you know you don't want to pick it up.

breathe ... breathe. maybe it's the heart that's broken. breathe. one needs to know the basics of life. my old heart brays away, like a donkey that is led to the slaughter, as it is about to be fed as feed to the fowl that once played with him when he was younger.

life preys on the unwitting, the discombobulated minds of the many. for life is a wicked wicked woman. Machiavelli said famously that Fortune is a woman, and now i think that poor Man is he who is chained by women of sorts. O Fortune, O Life, 'tis pity thou art women who thrash thine hair wildly about, for such women are accursed, and Man who hath been your prey art just as accursed. O bitter bitter Life, thou feedeth us with thine wine so sweet, that when we doth awake, our minds art so clouded we see nothing but thine evil heart.

I broke down today while waiting, partly from the waiting, and partly from the foolishness I had shown myself to be capable of as I waited. I was utterly disappointed with myself for believing that waiting would not be abortive. I am tired. Oh I am so so tired. The morning comes ... the wait ends.

God i am so tired i can fall into a bush of thorns and think i am in Your embrace.

Bathing with the Devil's Daughter


whitewashed, with hair
silvery in the snow, silence creaks
as dandelions walk the shadow
slowly, in sandals, broken, wilting, crushed.
feet sink into the desultory leaves
like two tiny pendants falling from the moon
sinking,
sinking and little shivers in the cold air
a faint needle falls on the moon too
so far it falls that a twinkle is heard
in desolation, like a withering girl clutching matchsticks quivering in the cold

the lights snuff out,
she sits still
the morning comes and goes
as jovial veneers break into the dam of silence like wild wolves hungry for a dove

there will be pillaging there will be plunder there will be tired broken bodies
arms dismembered legs spread apart
and then with
bitterness as green as summer,

the light is out
and nothing waits for a bloodied dove



*In the cold dank basement of the UN HQ in NYC, on the last day, when heavy-suited delegates take their leave and the shiny plastic tiles reflect only a silent row of typists glued to the screens before them, an occasional man in blue with baton and all, and a tired asian, jaded by the solitary and sonorous glamour of it all*