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WATCH IT FADE

 

You open your eyes to a scene.

It’s like a dream,

you become conscious in the middle of it.

 

You do not know how you got there,

but it’s unfolding and there

you stand in their midst,

your hands on your hips

and you are wriggling your wrist

as you watch their words persist.

 

Not one of them could settle on any particular color.

The intricate details seem to carry so much vigor.

The way a lily does,

because they tell you it signifies rebirth and becomes

a symbol for innocence, and that is enough

to explain the moment – something precious.

So, you hover around them, depthless.

Each detail means something to someone on that table, and so you focus.

You smile, a cup of coffee in hand.

For most of the conversation, you listened and

You had nothing to say.

You could only give a smile away.

 

But then it starts to dawn on you…….

That you do not have a clue

of what is going on around you.

That the silence isn’t voluntary too.

You have no words in your mouth to construe.

All that there is, is the view.

 

So, you chew on the thoughts for a few

minutes and the thought flames on, anew.

Because you couldn’t hear what they were saying and you

try so hard to deconstrue,

but nothing is coming through

because there are no previous thoughts to undo.

There are no beginnings to start up to

and so, you look down at the paper that everyone is looking onto.

It is an obituary of you.

Everybody is picking out the very little details of your funeral -Adieu.

The colors, food, placements… and who

decided that you like blue???

 

How did you die? You wonder….

Where did you die? Oh, what a wonder….

‘Is that why I can’t hear them?’ No wonder….

And the next question of wonder is ‘who really are you?’

 

You do not know who you are or were.

Your mind leaves you unaware.

You can only glare.

A mind so entangled and bare.

You are definitely somewhere

yet you wish that you were elsewhere.

And where else, my dear? 

Everything else is darkness that could ensnare.

Uncharted territory yet to explore even if you dare.

Yet the mind is present, still bare,

and what a fortitude to bear.

 

Yet the brain is unwilling to share in this crooked nightmare

of yours, and that’s how you know that you are dead indeed.

There’s just emptiness elsewhere but the mind that heeds.

You are not yours to lead anymore, agreed.

And you just stand there not knowing how to proceed.

 

The realization that you once existed starts hitting at you.

You look around, flabbergasted.

You wonder how you got here in the first place.

You realize that you never really knew these people.

They give you a feeling of familiarity.

They could’ve been family, friends, loved ones to you – some similarity.

But now all that they exude is immortality.

Where they can live in vibrance and posterity

and you are watching from a hollow space in disparity

unable to comprehend their identities.

 

Their eyes carry stories that you’ll never know anymore.

Little clues of a world you once lived in that you can no longer explore.

You were part of this surrounding – this clan before

, and now there you stand like a stranger getting ignored.

The view indeed is catastrophic and sore.

It is all yours to now instinctively implore.

It is not a sight that anyone can ever adore.

But your eyes carry you to a painting on the wall that reads ’84.

It has something to do with you, you know, and therefore,

you dwell on it, taking you away from the indistinctive conversation a bit.

But it’s no use; it’s like a boat party, and you’re stuck on shore.

 

There is no memory to that painting, only feelings.

And that is how you know how real it all is.

That painting – the painting should be revealing

your past life but it’s all concealed in.

Like some inside joke that you can never share in.

A once entangled life that you can no longer pair in.

A well-curated constitution of life that you can no longer declare in.

A beautiful meal of exuberance that you were once prepared in.

A life once lived beautifully that you are now dead in.

Dead and waiting to dissipate into nothingness and fare in

a place you’ll never know those you once knew were in; you can only wish that you lived as beautifully

as the people on that table made it out to look, lucidly.

A life surrounded by people you loved humanly,

the best way that you probably could have, totally.

 

But, these people,

They are in another world now.

You’ve crossed over to another one now.

They can’t see or hear you now.

And you don’t know them now,

Oh now…. or rather,

You shouldn’t know them now.

The memories of them are slowly fading away now.

Entities, figures, anthologies, and wait…. a cascade now?

 

The cascade is also blue.

True to the clue – blue, blue, blue

‘Who makes all these damn decisions though?’

 

But then you wander back at that painting.

There are now emotions passing through, containing

clues now, one that didn’t click at first sighting.

There is a face in the painting now.

And nobody needs to tell you who that is – you know.

The painting now sits in a hallway,

Far from the chattering crowd

Surprisingly, you walk there

and it is dissipating

like the clouds in search for colors.

The hallway, an unwinding road.

Like you have been here before (a deja-vu?)

And this face you knew…

 

That face has been painted with colors that didn’t exist.

That steel gaze, curated with stones that could resist.

She looks like hailstones.

She is guarded by dark mountains.

One that you couldn’t find,

but you knew was there.

She rests in plains above a great rushing river filled with blood.

Her entire presence is captivating.

 

She looks like an entirely different planet.

It probably smelled like abalone shells there.

Musky, dark, and enticing but above all, vengeful.

She is an extraterrestrial being.

She is something out of the books.

She is a ghost town.

She is an empty cathedral.

A maze, in a desert….

 

Her lips looked maniacal, funny, annoying.

Like she said the name ‘sella’ often.

 

But somehow you knew this face.

How it used to be….

What it used to say…...

‘We are like ravens in the sky.

An informant to her sister.

We looked awful in that sweater.

It is like a scene made for television.

We are unteachable.

We are untouchable.

We are so bright that it is blinding.

We are scourged.

We are directionless – like the wind?

We see in each other – like a reflection.’

 

But if this image could be a book,

it’d be the worst book ever written.

Its pages would be covered in eye watering ink.

It’d be a painful read.

One that you couldn’t comprehend.

You try to….

…and it gives you a headache.

But you can’t stop anymore.

Because it is there to torture you.

You read while you cry hoping to stop.

 

This woman in the hallway is an inhabitable planet.

There the skies aren’t blue,

It is muted teal.

There, there are no sounds.

Just silence……

What’s more deafening than silence?

Not any type of silence,

but the type of silence that you are conscious about.

Your mind takes you there and makes you worry about.

That type of silence is maniacal.

It makes you see things that you could never speak about.

And what could be more deafening than that?