OCTOBER 2003'S LAST RAINBOW

I love going off every now and then
By myself, into the wilderness-
That particular journey was different though
That one time, I had gone to forget someone
To erase my mind of her tormenting memories
(As if attainment of happiness were that easy)


I remember that it was raining
And it was so beautiful
The sky of 91 colors, painted grey, blue and Winnie
And the raindrops in my eyes
Camouflaged by the tears
Suddenly, the temptation to jump was lip- smacking


That’s when I caught the sight of the girl in the yellow raincoat
Standing in the distance
Half hidden in the mist
I thought
Also contemplating the same temptation


I said,
“All the things that we've fought for
All these places we've grown out of
There's nothing here to run from
Look up baby now
Are you in or are you out?
Leave your things behind
As it's all going on without you
And you’re too busy
Here writing a tragedy
When you've no idea what you're missing
You have played a lot with this rubber soul
What are you waiting for?
It's all right
There's beauty in the melancholy
It's so amazing once you do that
Leave the winter in the ground
Leave the sorrow out of bounds
Don’t do it”


She said,
“I know what it’s like to be dead,
I know what it is to be sad”
And she began making me feel like I’ve never been born
Like I’d never understand the depth of her pain


…………………
When I saw the boy in the black windcheater
I felt I could recognize my pain reflecting in his eyes
We discovered we had so much in common
Even apart from our transcendental sadness
Apparently one same July afternoon at the same time
In 2003,
Into his house and mine, came a stray canary.
In two widely separated countries


I said,
“I miss my father very much.
He was murdered
He used to write too
I’m saving his writings for posterity
He wrote me a poem
I never read it
I never wanted to discover what he’d written”
“Were you so afraid to know?"
"But I do know.
He was my father"


I suppose that a lot of people think that they have no homeThat home is a place where you have a mom and a dad.But home can be any place that you want. Or wherever you can find Home could be right here on this side of the cliffSometimes I had thought that God had not smiled on me. At other times…..like this, I think he was smiling at me


I thought:
When my wound throbs
Does it remind him of the beating of my heart?


He said,
“What makes you think your pain is alone?
I could tell you my own, private, stomach- curdling stories…..
The broken romances
The unrequited affairs….
We all have our sad stories
Some of them are profound
Some are funny.
Some are stories of madness, of violence.
Some, ordinary
Yet, they all have about them,
A sense of mystery
The mystery of life,
Sometimes the mystery of death
I have my wounds and scars too
Just that mine are better concealed
In all these big, bombastic words”


And he started to cry….
“Why do I fall in love with every girl I meet?
Why can’t they love me for who I am?
Like I love them, every single one of them?”


I said to the boy,
“No one loves you.
No one except me
Open your eyes
It is like paradise.
I’m here now”


But he said,
“What if this present
Were the World's last night?
In the setting sun once your love fades
And dies in the moonlight
Then the world as you know it, crumbles
Like the sense of reality drowned in theatre.”

…………………
Our pain makes us different and alike
An aching painInterminable as marble

Deep love drifting on the tide forever
No one will remember our loss
Our pain will pass by,
Like the traces of a cloud
But tomorrow again
The sun will rise
The pain, you will come to bear
Tomorrow again
The birds will sing a pretty song
There will be music in the air
Tomorrow again
Leaves will change
We may be waiting there somewhere
For each other

……………………
I said,
“Will this sadness ever end?”
“’Qaey Sera Sera’- whatever will be, will be….”
That’s what she said to me