Jam-jar Butterflies

'Touch has memory'
-



'I, know it.'

Whatta hazy, pretty movie to curl up upon,
when a lost December noon seeps into your

skin. 

...

Angus And Julia Stone.
Because Baba taught me to
read songs.
:)

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Nh1NlXky9D0

Go Slow, *Bump* Ahead. :|

Okay so there isn't even a font dramatic enough for this one!!
No *cue drumroll* or remarkably-rad emoticon can prepare you
this!
What do you know, what do you know, 
Nikita's having a babyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyy!! :O :o
Calming down (a wee bit), 
to the uninitiated, this erratic font swap could possibly 
lead to the assumption that the girl in question 
is a either teen addict, or a clinical kid-hater, someone 
who'd been declared well past baby-age, or 
simply an undercover-alien, at the very least. :\
Just NOT someone who I saw as remotely likely to
have a baby, right?
Wrong. (mostly)
Nikita is a friend, more importantly, 
a classmate, (horrible as that sounds, 
I'll get to the significance in a minute)
who'd gotten hitched a couple of years back 
while we were in the last year of our Undergrads.
One and a half years into our Masters, there is arguably no reason 
why she shouldn't walk us to the canteen benches 
one fine November and tell us that there is 
a tiny little human being inside her, 
like that's the most natural thing. 
No, that makes perfect sense. Until
you realize that her's was one of the many 
highschool-hungover faces 
that had looked up at your own incurably-awkward one 
on the first day of college, 
as your eighteen year old naivete panicked 
to spill through that half-rehearsed 
oh-look-I-got-through-to-Presi cool. 
This is the same girl, who'd stayed back after hours 
to go full retard on college fests, celebrated a dozen group-people's 
birthdays with you over the last 
five years (whoaa. whoaa. FIVE?),
mulled over serious matters like 
marks, men, Marlowe and Mc Donalds 
with the whole lot of you -
in short, this is one of the few people who'd been 
not just a bystander, but a 
participant in that highstrung period drama called
*Growing Up*.
You see why this is all so strange now, don't you?
Someone, please, looooook.
We ARE kids. We aren't supposed to MAKE kids (yet)
:|
Moving on from my early-set existential crisis, 
it goes without saying I am happpppy, amazed,
scared, happy-again, for Nikita. Overwhelmed,
if you will. :)
I don't think I can even begin to explain 
just why this is turning out to be SUCH a big deal
for me. Mane, it's not like this is cue for me to take
a call on my now-warbled thoughts on marriage and motherhood, 
unheeding of my crusading-journalism dreams. (The only clear picture at the moment.)
No, that'd have sucked. But still, this little thing about a friend, 
my age, (hence, the classmate ref) being prepared to take on 
responsibility of another little life, moved me to extremes I'd
figured I had left behind. 
How strange it is, how breathtakingly beautiful,
that she should suddenly stop worrying over the
blandness of the lunch aunty had packed her, or the 
cracked screen of her Lumia, and feel, for the first time,
the calm awareness of a second pulse, a different
rhythm of being, right in the depths of her 
own. It'd make her gush,
ache and love, all at once. Without quite realizing,
without meaning to, she'd look back at all those times
she'd cribbed about not being grown-up-enough, or
that one time she'd had her heart broken, and almost
given up on miracles, and smile. Not in disregard or
contempt, but in happy wisdom. Now she knows,
she really really knows, I guess. :)
I suppose it is the sheer enormity of it, of 
having a tiny nose, a forehead, a chin 
painted in your image, that makes this so
astonishing. Adorable too. :)
I'd never forget the stars in her eyes when we screamed
like manic rioters around her, 
hugging the proud little (not anymore ;) ) thing. :D
The future-daddy looked on, greatly amused, whether
over our wild amazement or over his own contribution in
triggering a reaction of this magnitude, 
I am not sure. Hehe :)
So as the happy two filled us in about baby-themed
bedspreads and suction-pad-wala food bowls, Namrata and
Shalomi rushed to share the news with their respective 
best men. (My less-cheesy synonym for 'boyfriend'. Learn it by heart :P)
In that moment, semi-hit by the absolute necessity of 
sharing 
such remarkable news, I dialed up Maa, who, obviously, could
not hear me over her class of thirty-three hormonal Ninth-graders.
So the *news* just lay there, awkward and pretty, 
at the pit of my stomach, and for once in months,
I did not mind. :)
Happy feeling beautiful, Nikita.


This one's for you, and for the future fashion-critic who's on 
her (I just know)
way to judge me for my hopeless 
baggy tee.
Eee  :D

Sullen

Airlove voices
clutch at
words
you'd sing to bed
on grinning birthdays. Cool, pick them
apart, like a rag picker's
fist
'round a wreath of
stars.

And now
straddle
the letters in
turns. Gee, save
one for
December - what's
winter
supposed to be - but
nostalgia.? And nostalgia,
tourniquet scars?

Words
are just words, (don't mind them)

a luckless thread
at the back of your shirt. Some days
the wind dusts it off, some days
the wait. Oh

the wielding and the
bending. The honest
underspending. (Hug your
wooly violets by the
sun
when he

blots the pretty
'u', blurs
them 'i's and 'l's),
hey and

let your eyes smart

then
drink, his sullen
ink, for a

spelling you'd
kill

to get wrong again.

When the Rain Starts to Pour

Then there are the days when you're sure you'd dissolve into a thousand homeless atoms if the clueless stranger
at the bus stop so much as brushed against your skin.
Days when you just won't be touched, held,
told of all things happy and head-bobbing.
Days when the three thirty sun you'd always loved
seems to bounce off your cells without a ghost of a shine.
When all you need is 'All I Need' (Oh look, funny)
and a crumpled bed sheet to swim under.
For every other day though, hyper huggy friends who
agree to laugh at your terrible jokes
help.
A lot. :)
This one's to you lot, for sticking around
through my blues and my banter,
for the head-patting and the street-singing, for looking my spasticness (there you go, that's not even a word. :| )  in the eye and going
'aww, she's toh the kid. Let her be',
all the while patiently feeding me little scraps of
Cheetos and wisewords.


Here's to loving you, the only way I know how,
losers.
Do stay. :)

Echoes

And then it hit us - (like morning hits the shadows of leaves hanging over sidewalks)
The world 's always just dealing us another hand of
Echoes. 


Say the world is made up of echoes - .
Echoes that are laughter, echoes that are gooseflesh, echoes that are
streets, strumchords, verses, vines, carwipes, curtains,places,
people. Especially people.
Like the stars that are their own memories 
suspended 

in a fuddletime space, say
we too, are 

an everdrfting, everarriving, almostcolliding 
bunch of echoes - .
Would that make us unpresent? Yes.
Would that make us unreal? Yes and 

No.
Think of all the times Mumma had a shine in her eyes
telling you how you'd laugh when she peeled
oranges, bottomway up, for you. You'd draw a blank, give her
a watery smile to escape the moment of obvious 

disconnect.
Please, I was a kid! Why does she still remember that?
She doesn't remember it, 
she lives it.
The toothless boy she could get to grin
by peeling an orange bottomway up,
is her personal echo.
It no longer has anything to do with you. Think of it like
an alternate version of you, one you wouldn't speak to
at parties -
anymore. But
he's as much you as you are
yourself. (Some days may be even a teeny
bit more.)
So don't grudge Ma. She's not confused.
Nor is the girl from the days when you'd swear
that Cha-Kaku's biscuits kick Britannia's ass. 

The rains would hardly make you stop at

a shady blue cha-bench anymore.
But don't mock her. Not even when she stops
talking to you, apparently without

a reason. If you look carefully
among them slipping

echoes, you'd find that
she's only still hopelessly 

in conversation 

with Cha-kaku's sudden smile-maker. 

And that's all right. (As are you. :) )

Oh and in case you ever come to wonder, yes,

she too, is an echo. Of you.

of herself. Twenty other people’s.

Twenty other place’s..

For that's what your world is made up of.

Echoes.

Echoes that are laughter, echoes that are goose flesh, echoes that are
streets, strumchords, verses, vines, carwipes, curtains, places,
people. 

Especially people.

And then it hit us - (like morning hits the shadows of leaves hanging over sidewalks)
The world 's always just dealing us another hand of
Echoes. 

Sloppy Kisses For You, Brantley Gilbert :)

She says
"Look baby I'm a rock star"
Grabs my old guitar
Playin' it upside down
Dancin' around
In front of our tv

I can't see the ballgame
So I just wave my lighter and say
Yeah, rock on baby
I'd rather watch you anyway

But when you're done
Can I come backstage
And get you to sign your name
On that zeppelin shirt of mine you're wearin'
I'll never wash that thing again

Yeah and she's my kinda crazy
The little games she plays
Lord they'll never get old
She's too cute to get on my last nerve
The way she throws her little fits

Pokin' out her lip and bitin' mine when we kiss
There ain't a fight that she can't win
That's my baby
And she's my kinda crazy

You ought to see her in my pickup
She's gotta have that radio up
Bless her heart, she can't sit still
Head in my lap, bare feet on the windshield
Says, C'mon baby let me drive

Now honey it's a stick shift
Remember what you did last time
Oh...

She never let's me rest
She keeps me up all night
Known to roll me off the bed
And steal the covers off my side

But I hear, "Wake up sleepy head"
And I open up my eyes
And it's all worth the while

That's my baby
And she's my kinda crazy

-

Brantley Gilbert, My Kind of Crazy.

Charlie Brown

Brown leaf sky. Still. 

Like a lake floating in a bowl of

November noon. 

Sun spots, orange 

rinds, the size of colourman

scars. Deep purple wool,

woolfruitsleep chords, and a

heart, brave 

as the ribbons that

flutter from handlebars of

wobbly tricycles. You wonder -

if this is the part where in 

another world, a stranger cries

quietly to the keys of 

Charlie Brown and

you suck in a 

sharp 

minute of being alive. 

Winter, she has a way

with souls. And fine lines. Winter's

for remembering 

that you are a toffee paper in a 

windy field. Winter's for 

scrubbing 

your insides, with songs 

and sea salt. 

Scrub.scrub.scrub.hurt.love

hurt.scrub. Till we are new again. 

Squeaky clean with 

a couple of wild

cracks. 

Winter's the part of you 

that snows 

every time a careless friend 

forgets to -

finish. Winter's the

part of you that 

melts 

(like a kiss on a baby's nose)

every time 

you meet 

a soldier, arriving,

inside

a fogshine mirror.

:)

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=L8ohdhWpvrk

Look For the Girl With the Broken Smile

Look For The Girl With The Broken Smile

She could be the one with that run away strand of hair, 
bullying the trash-page calm of her face.
She could be the one with the near-illegal anecdotes 
that'd make you want to air-stab yourself.
Or may be if you watch her for just long enough,
She could be both.


Look For The Girl With The Broken Smile.

And look at her too, if you manage to find her.
Look at her with the softness of a blurry hope 
tricked into being 
from across a milky way of unknown.
The kind of hope possible only from across the other end of the room,
from across the other end of your first quavering
'hello!'

Look For The Girl With The Broken Smile.

Look at her like you are ready to pour
over the novellas of misadventure
spun from the shadows of her right cheek,
the rhyme-schemes run down amongst the
wiped-outness of her wrists.
And oh, look at her like you won't
judge her half-orphaned scribbles.
She IS  her stories. Each of them.

All of them.


Look For The Girl With The Broken Smile.

Look at her like you had known love for a while, just not
long enough. And She'll
look back,
even as She looks quite away.
She has been looking away since 

what'sthatdaynow, and
if you find her double-checking her laces or 
dusting some nothing off her knees 
in a puzzled fumble, it's because 

she has managed to forget the exact shade of tender.

She thinks you are looking at her because of 
that incurable awkwardness she carries around. 
'Wanna make you feel beautiful' 

was a lifetime ago, 
see?

Look For The Girl With The Broken Smile.

Look for her because you have a thing for 

beautiful wrecks. (you wouldn't be the only one)

And because she is the  coldgreen moulding 

of the lost warship lodged 
a thousand fathoms under 
a midnight sea.
At least to you she is, at least,

for now...


Look For The Girl with the Broken Smile.

Look for her, because you 

anyway will, because

you cannot 

not. So there.

Look For The Girl with the Broken Smile.

But better still, lose her in the rush.

Because although you’d never realize,

she looks way too much like 

the girl whose smile you 

could not begin to

save. 

She has been,

She has been

loved.

Of Squiggly Blue Happys

*Happiness is*

Saying things that auto-rhyme

Realizing that winter is around the corner

Drawing your hoodie sleeves up to the fingers

Dreaming of a white birthday

Shuffling your mp3 to surprise yourself

Touching the wet pink tip of a cat’s nose

Discovering a new band that totally gets you

Getting a friend to listen to a song that they grow to love

Going to bed with The Chamber of Secrets

Drawing cards for birthday-people

Predicting every song in Mamma Mia on cue while watching it

Catching a whiff of the GreenApple shampoo on yourself, hours after shower

Waking up to night rain

Getting the sing-along lyrics right even when you’re high

Thinking up names for imaginary future pets

Practicing the loopy signature all over your class work copy

The Enchanted Wood,

Slippery-Slip and Pop-biscuits on a rainy noon

Your nose touching the ice cream cone

Watching a happy friend

Meeting a stranger that feels like a friend

Writing till everything is just right

Remembering

Believing

Knowing that things fall into place, eventually, always.

:)

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rmj3iU36Mmw

Letter, From a Girl Quite Gone

It’s taken my sister a week to paint that Tee. 

For a week now, I’ve watched her brushes at work, our room a renegade rally of fabric bottles and palates.

Every now, I catch a new band logo appearing across the length of the baggy black, half an inch a time.

I think I’ve even memorized a couple of names – August Burns Red, Bring Me the Horizon.

And it’s still a month to her boy’s ‘Happy Birthday!’.

There’s just no telling, you know?  The utter irrelevance of things that’ll, sudden as a star shower,

cut through your limbo and gut your sick indulgence.

I doubt I’ll ever really know, what it was about watching a sixteen year old put all her heart into her best mate’s birthday preparation, that got my insides in a tangle.

Perhaps it reminded me of the night I’d spent in vanilla stains, trying to bake the least disastrous cake for you. You’d let slip something about craft papers, it’d taken me all of my cake-focus to stop myself from guessing your surprise out loud. Or maybe it was all the hours of snack-stash listing that came back to poke me in the throat bulge.
I couldn't possibly tell which, but I know it isn't just one shot of a misfired  memory.
Not really.  

It’s always a lame guess, just what sets it off. But I think it was the unsullied innocence of the scene. Of capless paint bottles and a hunched up girl, anxious to dream up the best gift she can, enchanted that she has a reason to. 

Uncomplicated, woundless love. 

The floating ends of a half-remembered dream, for me.

It broke a few veins, I guess, realizing that I’ve come crazy far from being that crazy girl.

(What? You need a little crazy to be that beautifully in love. And not spook out over it. See?)

But it’s a good kind of crazy, that. Hell, perhaps even the best kind.

And I’ve run miles to lose track its faintest smell.  Full credit there. Blah.

But cutting myself some slack, do what it takes to come out on the other side, right?

Even if you come out a different person.

At least you’re still there. Hanging in somewhere.

Being something.

Oh that I definitely am. Something.

I’ll not bet you remember, but

so were we.

We were, we were something.

Something  good. Rare, even.

Something some light-years away from this loop of vagueness and half-truths here.

Not free from your average squabbles and strains of a working relationship, may be, but something honest, something unapologetically real. 

How many times do we get to say that?

(I’m not counting. I don’t need to.)

Well, what do you know, Que Sera Sera.

Sometimes I wonder if it could have been that hard, coming as who you are, each to each.

No lisping, pretensions, no careful omissions.

Because I remember ice creams. And laughter. And  words, sincere beyond their years.

Because I remember feeling lucky.  Safe.

Freefallingly in love. And not even spooked over it. (Imagine the odds of that one!)

Coming back to my sister’s boyfriend’s birthday gift,

believe it or not, it has left me with more than this angsty emotional rant.

I suppose clarity IS that. Simple and unavoidable.

What was, was.  (And it was beautiful. For me, it was.
Just why would I take that back?)

And then again, what isn’t, equally isn’t.

You can’t defend an absence by a presence paralyzed in memory.

You shouldn’t have to.

May be I’ll always remember our  icing sugar, handmade paper days, you know?
(And not spook out over it.)

And that’s exactly why I’ll not be around to double-analyze these love-like whimsies
that keep me drifting  in your test tube of piantlessness.

Not anymore.

I've known too many seasons of capless paint love to trade myself for this pale water colour mess.

I don’t know if that should make me sad or happy.

(A bit of both, may be?)

So for what it's worth, if
it's worth something at all,
know that I've loved you.  Long and real.

No half-truths, no omissions.

I’ve loved you when you loved me back and I’ve loved you when you didn’t/quite know.

But.

It’s taken my sister a WEEK to paint that Tee.

And the few stray blobs of love I got on my skirt in the process, tell me that it’s my time to
stop.

:)

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gHGDN9-oFJE


:)