Vous avez?

Have you ever doubted yourself so much that the doubt becomes one with your self? Of course you have.

Have you ever given up all your rational thinking for something, and then seen that something atomized by nothing but concentrated thought? Maybe you have.

Have you ever wanted to talk so much that the words are glued to you tongue and all you can do is scream? Maybe that too.

Have been ever been accused of being good? Just plain, simple, good?

***

Have you ever felt condemned to see what no one else can? Have you felt wronged, cheated, betrayed? At the end of it have you felt foolish and laughed at yourself? Of course you have.

Have you seen the past fast-forward and the future rewind and the present pause? Just because you held the keys of time in your palm? Maybe you have.

Have you ever wanted to read all the books of the world and then be able to say something nobody has ever said before? Maybe that too.

Have you ever survived a dream that was not your own?

***

Have you ever felt afraid of dying? Of living? Of breathing in your next breath? Or uttering the next syllable from your lips? Of course you have.

Have you ever known like you were meant to be known, seen like you were meant to be seen, heard like you were meant to be heard. Understood like you were meant to understand? Maybe you have.

Have you ever felt tiny and yet awed by your place in the scheme of things? Have you ever felt supreme and yet humbled by the most fleeting emotion? Maybe that too.

Have you ever seen your reflection in another person's eyes?

***

Have you ever hated what other's love about you? Have you ever feared what other's hate about you?

Have you bathed in a moment of clarity amidst a whirlpool of confusion?

Have you held your own when everything in you is hell bent on destroying it?

Have you ever firmly, squarely, quite gracefully and absolutely suddenly landed hard, flat on your arse?

***

It hurts.

Senses alight

He settled down in his usual place. The comfortable sofa in a distant corner of the cafe where the bright afternoon sun invariably got lost. His Moleskine notebook lay poised beside his big mug of hot chocolate. The black Mont Blanc Miesterstuck had been a family heirloom. He sifted through the pages of his notebook. It was the perfect page - blank and inviting. Ready to soak in the colour of indigo blue.

But what should he write? What was there in the world today that demanded to be imprisoned in his words. Pigeons hid under a table laid outside on the pavement. `A simple way to escape the sun,' he thought. `Should I write about them? The secret life of city pigeons..' Just as he seemed to be drawn into this idea, he glanced to his left.

A sun burnt, loose fitting orange top and trousers the colour of dark chocolate. She ambled into the cafe with the grace of an elephant high on mahua. The sombre note of an oboe broke into his thoughts and he smiled. He knew the slow, infectious, beckoning tune.

Pores, on a delicate touch,
well up and overflow with sweat;
Filling up the air with the poison smell,
dripping languour so carefully slow, so tauntingly wet.

***

A tinkling clarinet sneaked over the oboe as a smooth violin wrapped itself around the sharp shadows of the noon sun. Pista green bag and a desperate knot on the nape of a shapely neck, holding up a turquoise halter, flowed past on a floating skirt of ivory crepe. Elegantly light, the tune turned ethereal.

The fresh lemon of tangled wet hair,
filters a whiff of you from deep inside;
Suspended by strings of a submerged quiet,
my heartbeats toast the rising, tempestuous tide.


***

The violin was wrecking havoc with a wild run of notes. An unruly pair of drums seemed to have joined in to strengthen the rising crescendo of octaves. A mischievous tuba picked up high, every low the violin dropped. He just sat there unable to write, transfixed by the music, bound by his thoughts. It was nearing closing time and he had no idea how to end it. His indecisive reverie was chopped in two by the decisive click of shining black stilettoes on the linoleum floor. Shimmering legs of silken bronze cut through his thoughts like a knife slicing cheesecake. Oh, and what a slice they cut.

A taste of breath, stale and toxic
Running faster than blood pumped anew,
Exhaustion driving the final stake;
Shattering this olfactory myth 'tween me and you.