All Along

All this raw, crazy beating madness, that lives a life parallel to the calm composed outside. There's a million cells and a million thoughts rushing through veins, and yet through some mysterious power it holds ground in them all, ever present, ever persistent.

Lovers don't finally meet somewhere, they are in each other all along, says Rumi.

Pregnant with each other's presence, a chest swollen up and full of love, we travel. We take each other by the waist, through each step. We are already experiencing each other’s worlds, just unaware that we are in the thick of a beautiful forest together, but alone. These goose bumps that travel through my skin, each time I close my eyes are just your fingers embracing my soul.

Lovers are in each other all along, he says.

I came to know love through time, a discovery I continue to make each day. It was an achingly beautiful song heard. Listened to patiently, word for word, hurt for hurt.  Romanticised madness aside, we learn that we carry a madness for the other. Not madness, in the truest sense of the word, but madness in the matter of choice. Over and over, given the choice, I would choose this madness with you.

Over and over.

Lovers don’t finally meet somewhere, he says.

How many countless steps have we taken, unknowingly through each other, have you thought? This silent love that moves where I move, touching what I touch. I leave our imprints wherever I go. There are traces of you in places you haven’t even set foot on, is that not a bewildering thought?

Whether we be or we don’t, the beauty remains in the truth that we already are.  

© Sneha Singh 2016

Knot Knowing

In the fullness of everything, one suddenly lapses. Like air out of a balloon. No pin prick. No burst. Just a slow release. An existential crisis of the how and the why and the “is this necessary and should I be here, or there or someplace else”.

And if so, where is it that I belong? Why is there a pressing slit in my ribcage that questions where the soles of my feet are, and where my soul should be? Who put that slit there?

It is a slow, slow walk to somewhere – that I know. But where to, I know not.

As one unravels each knot, insides, one within another, sit still like a piece of cloth that has just been wrung out but not yet put up to dry. Do you know that damp, heavy stillness? But it’s sunny outside and everything is fine. It really, really is. So it’s not the outside that is damp, it’s the fibre of the cloth. That’s the cold one feels. That’s the cold, no matter how sunny it is it. You wait in a lump. Either to stretch out, or be stretched out, or stay put and dry.

There are moments of time warp in my head, where I am not sure which way I should be going. Or is it just okay to make peace with the fluidity of it all. That there is no destination and that you are just moving forward in respect of where you are right now. Or maybe you’re not moving forward, and that too is okay. Or is that deemed as being too comfortable? Not stretching yourself, and all that potential inside you.

The word potential always takes me back to physics, and energy. As moving masses of energy, we are the physics, chemistry and biology of all that there is. Surely, the energy we put out in thoughts, feelings, words and actions creates ripples and penetrates other energies? I walk around trying to imagine orbs of energy around me, beings with masses that have potential and kinetic energy.

Time and again, through the best and the worst, I have times when I sit with these knots inside my chest. And mostly, there is never a good solution to the process by which these can be untied. Maybe they aren’t there to be unpicked, but for me to be unpicked by them. To get perspective of the universe and the mitochondria, but at most times it is beautiful spillage of – energy, which I am sure goes around and comes back around in line with Newton’s observations.

Time, time, time. Best friend, worst enemy and above all, an effective teacher. Another year on, released, I watch the remnants dissolve slowly. Shed, shed, shed that skin once more. One of my favourite animals does, and what breath taking beauty emerges when it does.

© Sneha Singh 2016

Joyous Ache

Open the box and feel each bead

On this one string of memory

This one, soothingly smooth

Wrapped in fingers, like in arms

This one, full of laughter

Lights up dark little crevices

Made blue by veins

And this one, with crossed over limbs

Brings back the joyous ache

Of pulled apart togetherness

© Sneha Singh 2015

Stories

Stories

Snap out of one.
And submerge into another.
One has my voice.
The other my eyes.

Stories, both
One verbose
The other black and white.

I pull me out of incessant rambling
So I can chase words around pages
Full of characters, woven to entertain
As they live their journeys through my eyes
One syllable at a time

I make my way through the wars and losses, heartbreak and joys
Murder, deceit and lies
That fill these pages.

Only to recognise, stories are everywhere, within and outside

Stop now, don't you see?
There's no running
From that which makes up
The very fibre of our being.

© Sneha Singh 2015

Fall

A paper boat makes its way
Upon a wave, unafraid
Until it rains, until it pours
And robs the boat of its control

A butterfly flutters by
Taking to colours and open skies
Until a bright orb shines its face
And the butterfly fades away

The mighty storm
The blinding lights
Have shaken my anchor
And closed my skies

As here I lie in my cocoon
For that which fixed me once
May do so again
Soon

© Sneha Singh 2015

What are?

You to me. Fluidity.
Like streams gushing through crevices
You make your way through my veins.

Me to you. Memories.
Like stars that speak through foggy nights
I twinkle now and again, when you shut your eyes.

We to us. Journey.
An ongoing pace, a beautiful phase
Wherein we are constantly uncovering

Pieces of each other.

© Sneha Singh 2015

Melt

There’s a stone in my chest

And one in yours

Hearts, hardened over time

Let’s rub them together

So we may get warm,

Forget of the wounds, they remind

Let’s breathe onto the surfaces

Of hard pitted rock

So goosebumps may appear

Let’s caress the grooved veins

That still pulsate with some life

Of moments we still hold near

Let’s rub them together

And light the spark

Which may turn into a fire

Let’s let these stones

Burn and melt together

Become one, engulfed in desire

© Sneha Singh 2014