There is Something You Want to Know

You peek at the window where the fractured
Metro comes to life. From this height,
Your eyes are hypnotized by the explosion
Of lights, the signals of night rising
Like sonic music. Imagine how it is to walk
The streets below you, walk and never turn
Your back once again to the desk in your room,
Where the stacks of books are settled on top,
The pens organized in their own concise
Arrangement. If you zoom in towards
The vague scenery, you can witness how a mug
Of beer ends up at a mouth of a lonely
Consumer. Or how the footbridge runs parallel
To the overpass runs parallel to the train’s
Railway. It will remind you that the niceties
Of love remain the same: companionship.
Marvel at the claims of the external, as they spread
Across the cityscape, and go beyond
To what is there, to what is not there, until
They come back to you, twenty flights of stairs
Above the ground, like a complex, interconnected
Web of occurrences. You are requested to savor
This passing hour, this grip of beauty on you,
These suggestions hanging in this February air, like mist
On spires in the morning. And you would eagerly
Respond—yes, yes—as though someone is listening in this
Stretch of silence, would tilt your face forward
Towards everything that has escaped you. Everywhere
The emergence of a concept: the conjugation
Of lives in the city, the serene assimilation of
The single and the more. Already you surpass
What is inside. All this time, you just want to be free.

Infidelity

It is pitch-dark outside,
And the night slips into
The city’s usual entropy.
You are in a room
With this girl. You are
A couple, legitimate
And so true. Like a child
She nestles herself in your chest,
Wanting to be received,
Wanting to be cared for.
She is warmed by the mild
Breaths that you make on her nape,
On her hair, in the sexy curve
Of her collarbone. And she moans
Her clue for you, surely knowing
Of what needs to be done,
Of what needs to be left unsaid.
And she hums a tune in the cave
Of your ear, the notes indiscernible now,
The melody unclear. And you can see
The apparent look on her face,
So hooked up and enticed
By this ardent moment,
Her affection so lambent
And porous and pure.
But what she picks up
Is simply the surface, an error
Performing as fact. And from
Your ceiling, there is a shame
Spiraling towards you, meeting you down
On the couch, where you are kept,
Securely, in her company. Gradually
The sweat of regret covers you
Like second skin, as she unbuttons
You, slowly, gently, her hand easing
Its way to your core, like a pro.
In the background, a phone
Persistently rings. And you know
That another hunger is waiting
To be squandered. So an attempt.
So an answer. What took you so long?
Nothing, you say to the caller.
When what you mean, clearly,
Supposedly, is someone.

Street Violence

And I was on my way home from school, my school bag resting on my shoulders,
Two books in hand, when I saw this kid who belonged to those creatures I dreaded
In the squalor of the streets, mainly because they have a knack for asking pity
From you, nudging you with all their common alibis and mishaps, goading you
To give some alms—for their family, for their schooling, they would often say—
All of which could pile up in your head, all of which could make you wonder
How these kids survive the heat and beat of the city, which had transformed
Into a beastly hub for pests like this kid in front of me, whose next tactic
Was to tap me, his thin fingers defined by crime and grime, his eyes cold
As coins, his palm an empty cup of needs; and he would take away the luxury
Of isolating myself from the world’s menaces—the smoke of cars, the honks
Of buses, the view of vendors on side alleys, and this kid—of course this kid;
When he finally embraced me, tightly, the weight of his body almost pulling
Me down, with all the reek of him, the stain of him blemishing the whiteness
Of my uniform, challenging the control in me, which made me push him hard,
And him landing on the concrete—butt first, then back, then head; and next thing
I know is that I was the center of an angered universe, all kids and men and women,
All sun-baked, all strange faces, all with furious eyes, stripping off the confidence
In me, wracking me, cursing me, ganging up on me, consuming the whole of me,
As if they couldn’t understand a don’t, a please, a no, a stop; and all that came next
Was pain, and fear, and blood, and shock, a blurry memory, a blanking of thought,
A blacking in my mind, the hazy images of prey and predator, of victim and suspect—
And how, till now, I still don’t know which I am between the two.

Sufferance

Pretend that you know the real happenings.
Proximity is never unshared. It is always there
on the page, where you can join others
in their lassitude. There is an invitation
to be one and the same with them.
Like the sufferers, you are not spared
from harm. Sooner or later you will be
reviving me, dishonored by the same bullets
that impinged on my body. I will not pity
you for being a minor victim.
I just can imagine the descriptions rising
from the world you generate, how they spill over
from yours to ours to mine. You will give me back
the scent of earth, that piercing cry, uncover
the individuals I can no longer mutter
from the grave. So little has visualized
the magnitude of my woes.

But how would you know
my composure—a destroyed grace—
when what I am to you
is purely danger?

One Can Be So Sure

The feel of our bodies locking
on each other—that is everything

we know about ourselves, as these days
are scaled down to their ultimate

sensation. We are snug with such relief,
such release, having shared all this

in numerous places: in malls and cafes,
in bars and cheap inns, in the accommodating

rooms of our parentless houses. And how,
in the endless hours of mourning over

our losses, romance rescues our beaten
lives, like a common alibi. Nothing

is gravely given—not our careless actions,
nor the labels in which we are nastily

forced into, nor the acerbic arguments
we have the mornings after. And if only

we could avoid the appetite of a touch,
the appeal of a private hour, the startling

slipping into showers. But there, at the end,
is our full surrender, arranging itself

like a tempting foreplay. We have known
better, of course. That when we talk

about these matters, with crassness
or caress, they end up as casualties

of our brazen indifference. If this becomes
our one and all, the huge wall that separates us

from the rest—so be it. Let the real
and the fake be blurred and blundered,

let the rumors stale in the grimy sink,
let the stink of our week-

old clothes concretize inside the hamper,
the unanswered calls summarize what we

shamelessly mean. Unfazed, we are left with this
sincerity: you, assured, me, assuring.

Speech

Last night I dreamed in a strange language.
Controlled by speech, I could speak anything
And still refer to you—the moon-washed topiaries,
My bed, the odd caller at the other end of the line.
In the innocence of sleep, there you were waiting
And bearing nothing, untouched by the bruises
Of my here and now. I claimed you as my own,
Conversed with you in the platitudes
You would learn to pronounce someday.
When I woke up, I assured the clarity
Of words. I articulated your name,
Thirsty of its meaning.

But you are not with me anymore. Indeed
There is no certitude between us, only reminiscences.
And it strikes me: I should allow myself such frailty. Such promise
Of somnolence to hold me, like how the arms of darkness would.
And from there: This person to talk to. This secret to say.

Because There is Redemption

Troubled and confused you are standing at the edge of a cliff, scanning
The unmoving night or what seems to be the vanishing skyline
Upon the insistence of evening. From where you are, moonlight
Descends like a friend and the wind’s movement gathers

Like an embrace. Except that there is no security in these, only
A solace pretending that nothing has happened, nothing has gone
To waste. And you tremble at such indications: the city
Getting tired and tiring, the contacts of lovers becoming

Trivial as spit, all assets corroding in their sheer enormity.
And when the roads turn clueless of where to lead you,
And the limbs of trees extend their agonies, and a single leap
Creates an alluring illusion, you hope not to return.

It Has To Be Done

Trying to make sense of things, he remains
With her in a park, under a gunmetal sky,
In a terrain that collects and collapses itself
Like a heap of debris. He is attempting to be one
With her, to position himself in the boundary
Of owning and letting go. I’m having a good time,
She says to him, expectations chaining together
In every syllable she makes, as if unready to accept
A pending sorrow. But what does it mean
When he finds no vigor to unlock her
Understatements, always furtive, always adrift in air?
He stares at the bunch of roses being sold
At the corner, their redness saying something
To him—a ridicule perhaps, or a conscience
That needs to be welcomed. At sundown,
The obligatory strolling down around the area, the fingers hinting
On intimacy. After a while everything recedes
From the view: the gush of delight, the urgency.
And all at once the conclusion dawns on him,
Cause after cause, effect after effect.
He is no longer lying to himself.

It Must End With This

To finally meet and link these coy identities, to learn about the immensities
of a possibility, to compose ourselves like the city’s
neon lights, to sense the flatteries in the words
that might come next

No talk about poetry, you initially warn me, as if dispelling the notion of apprenticeship. But you, too,                             give in to what we know is unavoidable:  the luminous lines from your collection, the instructing cadence                          in your tone. In front of us: pizza and pasta, our appropriated actions, the categorical yes or no.

To drown in the mall’s rising static, to be separated by this age and range
of concern, to slip into the expected unlearning of ways, to grasp
the revealing facts, up in space, dazing me: your mouth
and its digressions, the token concessions,
the litany in the conversation

What’s next? you ask. (Neither the aura of the night nor the charm of a promise can nudge us farther
to the future. Given the situation, these are what we have: the fading away smile, the redundant tile
pattern under our feet, the complete monotony humming in our ears. Dear, you call me
with such finality, as if granting the moment its necessary pronouncements. Knowing
the irrelevance of such label, I sustain myself with these versions: elsewhere,                                                                                                                           not ours, severance.) Nothing, I think.

To realize that our bodies are singular, our minds unsure, to let this jolt
ourselves from such temporal occasion, each risk and wish back
in its default setting, to cling to the last image of you
—a pretense, a consequence—to conclude this
sequence, rather tellingly, with a farewell

Furthermore

surrender to the city: the mood of urbanity immunized to the landscape of here and there

surrender to the streets: the dog searching for its mate for the night, torn between shadow and light

surrender to the lover: the tickle of his tongue at her core, always knowing, always wanting

surrender to the plot: the couple arguing about the meanings of choices

surrender to the summaries: the date in the mall, the ring on her finger, the emphasis on now and now

surrender to the idea: the word us firing out of his mouth like bullets

surrender to the images: the scathing scanning of the eye, the traffic jam across the cityscape

surrender to the aftermaths: the bruise like a wilted petal on her cheek, the bracelet of slices on her wrist

surrender to the page: the names imprinted on paper, the talks about something else

surrender to the meanings: the arc of a narrative and the things they should have known