Chasing Sunshine

The pieces of your life,

That you now hold

In the cup of your hands,

Are but fragments

Of a whole;

For you are broken,

In ways that you could not

Have ever imagined,

It is only now,

That you have started to discover,

The when, and the how,

Of your brokenness.

You bend low

To pick up the shards,

Hurting yourself in the process,

But you are too numb to notice;

Instead,

You marvel at your ability

To hold pieces of yourself,

While you are disintegrating.

And just like that,

You begin to believe,

That in being broken,

You might just heal

And build your whole,

One fragment at a time.

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A moment –

That was all it took

To change my outlook;

Or perhaps it was more than that,

Perhaps,

It was a lifetime,

And in traversing through mine,

I find myself gaining distance,

Moving farther every instant,

From everything that I have known

To be true.

Maybe it wasn’t you,

Maybe it was me,

Maybe it was a false belief

Planted as a tiny seed

In the depths of my troubled mind,

In a moment

So utterly transient,

And yet so momentous –

For it changed everything.

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The answers

To the questions that haunt you,

Lie in the past.

Every secret

That is yet to be revealed,

Has its origin

In a moment,

That has come and gone.

You look ahead,

Placing your steps

Into the morrow

That shines with promise,

Hoping you’ll find bliss,

And an absence of sorrow

To cast a shadow

Over your progress.

And yet,

There is no surety

In the imaginary,

For that is the essence

Of the future –

It does not exist,

Except as an uncertain promise.

What has existed

Is the past,

Holding within each moment,

The recollection

Of an emotion,

Yours to fetch at will,

If you please.

Meanwhile, each moment in the present

That you step into,

Is already on its way

To yesterday.

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I

You spend your early years

Learning to draw faces

That show how it looks,

You grow up to seek it in self-help books,

Heck, even a movie’s been made on it!

And yet it remains,

A special topic,

Arousing wonder –

For how indeed,

Do you find happiness?

And more importantly,

Hold on to it

For the rest of ever after?

II

You looked for the happy faces

From the faded pages

Of your kindergarten sketch book,

In every cranny, and every nook;

And although you found

What you sought,

Their happy smiles

Were not on your account.

III

So you had to move on

To keep looking,

And slowly, very slowly indeed,

You had an awakening,

Much like the sunrise,

When you realised,

That the happy face

From the faded page,

Was meant to be you.

IV

You get to choose,

What will make you smile –

Whether it is walking a mile,

Or resting a while

Under the bright blue sky;

Your pursuit

Is now complete,

For you’ve found the key

To enduring happiness.

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The path is almost never straight

It twists, turns and meanders

Through thorny bushland

And lush green pastures;

It takes you for a ride,

Quite literally.

And sometimes,

You lose your touch with reality,

You think you might be losing your mind,

In navigating

The course of this journey.

They say,

Where there is a will,

There is a way;

And therefore,

Since there is a way,

There must be

A bounty,

That it leads to,

Or not –

How does one find out?

By staying on the path, of course.

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I

Words are special –

I’ve always loved how they feel,

At the tip of my tongue,

Or as they course through the pages,

Of a touching novel,

For I love the stories they tell,

As a child,

Those stories were the fuel to ignite

My imaginative mind,

Those stories kept me awake at nights

Sometimes reading,

And at others, musing and exploring.

II

As time has flown on,

My love for words

Has outgrown

The confines of passivity,

That comes from reading,

Reflecting, and even exploring

The worlds I’ve read of,

In manifold stories.

No, my love has evolved –

It now roars,

With the flame of passion,

As it soars

Into oblivion,

And fetches words,

Strung together with the purpose

Of telling stories.

And so I’ve moved on,

From being lulled to sleep

By the warmth of a story,

To being awake at night,

By the faint light

Of the nightlamp,

Birthing a story,

My own story –

For I too, have one to tell.

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We must go on a journey together –

You and I,

To where the birch trees grow

Where you wanted to go,

Not so long ago;

And on the way,

We can have ice creams,

Every flavour from your dreams,

And you can tell me

Every wild story

That you’ve imagined,

Those the others find hard to believe,

And I shall listen

To each one of them,

As only I can,

And smile at the reminiscence;

And when we get there,

To where the birch trees grow,

You can take a moment,

To bask in the glow

Of the virgin sunrays,

Kissing the face

Of a bright new day;

And I shall draw you in

For a tight embrace,

Before I let you go,

With a tear or two

In each of my eyes,

Knowing what I do,

Of the gnarly pain

That awaits you,

Beyond the glow

Of the promising sunrise.

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I

The large glass bottle

On the table top,

Looks heavy, and ornate;

And it is home

To a lovely bunch

Of beautiful flowers.

But as the children run around,

Coming perilously close

To toppling it o’er,

I cannot but wonder

Why it is placed thus.

II

Why do we choose

To put at risk,

The safety of things

We’d rather not lose

Or the wholeness of those

We couldn’t bear to have shatter

Such as self-worth and honour?

Are we led by fate?

Perhaps it does not matter

To the powers that be

That pull the strings

Of our fragile lives.

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My words have stalled –

I’ve waited for them to tumble and fall

But they’re seemingly stuck,

And unable to flow,

So they cease to show,

The darkness of

The depths from where they would’ve sprung.

And in the absence of words,

I can only hope for an else

Which alas

Remains elusive –

Just like peace,

That has gone missing.

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Tread carefully

For the night is nigh,

And in the fading light,

You might fail to see,

The littlest creature

Hurrying home,

Its tiny body

Just as weary

As yours;

And all it seeks

Just as you do,

Is peace

And rest.

So tread carefully lest,

You place your feet

Upon a path,

That leads to the end

Of a life,

No matter how insignificant,

Or worse yet,

Maims it forever,

Leaving a stamp of ignominy

To live with,

For what might seem

Like a gruesome eternity.

Image: From one of my early morning sojourns