Dust

Exhausted listlessness

Stalks me through

The bush of the everyday.

Passionless 'how are you's

Old backpains

Listlessness of the day that stretches on for forever

Tired dust that swirls and dances in a ballet Under the spotlight of a beam of stray sunlight

Visible, then invisible. Visible. Invisible.

Incorrigible apathy of the hard bed

That seeps into the patterns in our skin, clenches tight

And holds on,

Till every morning we wake up exhausted.

Cut fingernails

Bits of paper that float in anarchy

Existing without a cause.

Stray droplets of sweat bead and coagulate

And fall, wordlessly.

Small apartments

The walls perpetually shrink

Contract

Squeeze

The life out of me.

Tired smiles

Of tired parents

Old undershirts

And sweaty meals

Served with a smile and the fervent hope

That happiness is well-cooked mutton.

Moisture hangs heavy

Over the dusking evening as

People hang onto their phones in loud

Desperation

And the ones who don't wait silently

Decayingly, for the ones who do.

Four tiny islands

Live under this yellow roof.

Insulated against each other's fire by

Old newspapers and TV and books

Cellphones and summerheat and money

And the internet and tired smiles

And old jokes and tired

Tired tired tired

Tired pursuit of money and/or happiness

Dusty filthy choking

Back empty words and empty jars

Of affection filled to the brim with

The dust of the Indian everyday

Days slip into weeks slip into months

And soon it is time for me to go back

And I have gained nothing, hung onto nothing

Nothing has penetrated my flesh and made home

Among the stars of my heart

Everything is blunted

By the dust of the Indian everyday.

Tired tired tired tired.

The exhaustion makes me want to burst out in tears

The anticipation was impotent

My love for these islands

Is anchoring me into quicksand

And I'm sinking, sinking

Into the exhausted everyday.

There is lead collecting in the pit

Of my stomach.

The abstracted notions of emotions

Connected to time and objects

Are draining like small rivulets into

This lake of churning metal.

The air is so heavy with moisture

That I'm trapped in it, wading through it

And I breathe the scent of old saliva

Every night as I lie on my bed

On my vagrant pillow

And toss frothily

Into the 'morrow.