Empty tables, empty chairs.

Bottles left uncorked, empty wine glasses.

Barren porcelain vases with no flowers. Delicate china gathering dust.

Poems never written, words wasted. Sheet music yellowing and torn.

Letters to no one, crumpled, fading. A broken guitar, rusted strings.

Candles left unlit. Pretty dresses, tailored suits, musty and moth-eaten.

Stark reminders of dinners missed, of conversations never had. Signs of memories never made. Of promises never whispered, of hands never held. Marks of broken hearts, of scars unhealed, of futures forsaken. Telling stories of hopes and dreams, left to rot.

Of wasted potential.

Empty tables, empty chairs.

Tonight is a night for quiet. For the beauty of the moon calling out to her waves. For the madness of distance. And the warmth of blankets. Tonight is a night for poetry, for longing, for music. It is a night to let desperation to take over. For calm to come when the frustration runs its course. Tonight is a night for the base and the unruly, for the poignant, the intellectual.

Tonight, let us go crazy together, tear each other to pieces, put each other together. Let us break free, tie each other down. Let us forget it all, and then remember. Let us hold each other tight and let each other go.

Tonight is a night for conversation. For silences. For malice, for beauty. For green-eyed jealousy and honey-eyed lust.

Tonight is a night for me and you. For love and beauty. For whispers and screams. For us.

Come to me love, for tonight, is ours.

December and January are my favourite months of the year.

Not only because it is Christmas time and birthday time. Though those are two major reasons :)

I like them because these months means winter. And winter is my favourite season.

Winter means cold. And cold brings people closer. You find comfort in a friend's hug. Hands are held and stuffed in jacket pockets. You hold people tighter, closer.

Winter is about blankets. About foggy days and mist and walks. About watching the stars when it is cold and revelling in the beauty of a moon playing hide and seek in the clouds.

Coffee and hot chocolate and hot croissants make sense all the time.

Winter is about scarves and jackets and socks and sweaters and gloves and warmth.

And even on the dark lonely nights, when there is no one to snuggle with, winter is about finding company in yourself. About snuggling in with your favourite tv shows or your favourite books. About settling in with some Cohen, listening and thinking and writing. About snoozing the alarm five times every morning because under the sheets is too warm and comfy.

I love winter.

Silence

I sense an emptiness around me
It echoes the emptiness I feel inside
One that I have been ignoring
Persistently
Steadfastly

In the silence that surrounds me
My thoughts pour in
Filling the spaces
The nooks and crannies
Of my being
Unbidden
Strong
Confused
Countless

Insecurities
Fears
Doubts
Memories
Fragments of poems
Checklists
Worries
Places to visit
Budgets
Pictures, photographs
Quotes, dialogues
Movies to watch
Books to read
Lines
Words

All rushing over each other
Around each other
Tumbling
Tossing
Waves crashing on the shore
Raindrops falling
Freeflowing sand through fingers

Yet
They do nothing
Mean nothing and everything

While around me
There is still
Silence

Of honey eyes
And moonlight waltzes
Whispered desires
Hands clasped
Fingers entwined

Whisky and wine
White sand
The night sky
Murmurs and silence

With talks of the tides
Of love and friendship
Plans and promises
Tunes hummed
Wishes sent to the universe
On the crests of the waves

Of honey eyes
And moonlight waltzes

As night falls
And the warm embrace of sleep beckons
I say 'good night, my love'

I hear you fall asleep
Drifting away
Your breathing settling
Into a familiar pattern
Your cares forgotten
Worries left behind

And I smile to myself
For soon we will meet
Because what are dreams
But connections transcending space and time?
And together we will walk
If only
In the land of the night

There is something about the stars that just makes everything okay.

When I look at the stars, splattered across the pitch-black sky like an artist just flicked her paint-filled brush across it, their very disorder reassures me. The very chaos of those tiny pin points of light makes me feel like it's okay for crazy to exist. Because as humans, we found order even in that chaos. We made ourselves believe they formed shapes and gave names and characteristics to them and even made multiple sciences out of their study. If we could fool ourselves into believing that the very stars have order, then finding order in our lives is child's play.

The science behind the birth and the death of stars and knowing that their light reaches us so very long after it leaves the star itself is fascinating. That sometimes the stars we see aren't even stars but just memories of them, with their light reaching us long after they die.

The most important thing I see when I look at a starry sky is my own insignificance. Compared to the endless magnitude of the sky and the trillions of stars it, who am I really? My life and issues seem so very unnecessary. When I look down at the tiny amount of physical space that I occupy in this planet and then compare it to the sheer infinity of the night sky and the stars in it, I realise how very worthless I am in the great scheme of things.

Those stars are a reality check.

I wish I could see the stars in Bangalore more often.