Under my Skin

The sun smolders at us as we make our way through the people haze of chaos and traffic and insanity.
You curb the wisps of smoke curling around your fingers and catch me watching.
You shrug. I look away.
“Heyy.. How’d you get that?” you ask, pointing at the pattern of scars on my elbow.
I breathe in the threads of smoke that encircle us both and tell you about the time I jumped off a moving train.
“Fucking Supergirl”, you say, laughing.
“It was a Bandra fast thingy okay”, I say defensively “Trains aren't really my thing. Plus, I was late.”
You smirk at the pious expression on my face.
“What happened then?”
“I flew, fell, almost died, went to the hospital to meet my dad, I was supposed to go there anyway, he was doing the whole doctor rounds thingy, he saw me, put me onto a hospital bed with those cool shiny lights everywhere and got like 5 nurses. I kept telling everyone I was fine. They told me to count to 10 and spell my name backwards. It’s not like I can even do that on a normal basis so whatever..”
I can see you fight the urge to say something I will kick you for so I kick you anyway. Just in case.
“I was fine though. He cleaned the friction burns and sent me for a brain scan. I tried running away. They caught me.”
Your eyes capture the sun and for a minute all I can is count colours.
“You like it, don’t you?” you say, watching me caress the slight roughness that has embedded itself under my skin.
“I collect them,” I say, stealing your smile as you reach out to hold my hand. The scars are woven into their own story and the webs have left the footprints of spiders all over body.
You ask for more scar stories, so I tell you.
I tell you about the time I almost died when I was five 'cause I fell in the bathroom and my father stiched up the back of my head on the dining table. Yes, we still eat there. No, I don’t remember it hurting. No, It hasn’t affected my psychological, mental or physical health and if you ask one more question, I will break your face.
I tell you about the time my family went for picnic, I must have been seven, and I cut myself on the sharp ugly divider that they put in pools to separate the baby pool from the ‘big’ pool. You grimace and hold my hand tigher when you hear about the blood in the water and the 10 stiches. Your grip relaxes and you throw your head back and laugh when I tell you about how my father stitched up my knee on a blue and white checked deckchair beside the pool with all of us in our swimsuits. How everyone clapped when he finished and smiled and how I remember this one old couple trying to distract me by making me guess the colour of their towel.
I tell you about the time I was running a race on sports day and I tripped and skidded across the grass and mud,biting the dust and how my body burned and even though I’d been coming First I lost to a girl I’d beaten in all the heats. That bit more than anything else. I still remember the sun schorching my dreams and how I limped across the finish line and how everyone else in the stands stood up and cheered. And how I collapsed once I crossed only to be surrounded by my parents and everyone who’d run the race and the coaches and…
“Always the Drama Queen”, you say, pulling at my curls. I consider screaming ‘Balatkaar’ in the middle of the road to prove your point but fortunately for you, I desist.
I tell you about the time that huge beautiful dog Sandy bit me on my arm and I now have the imprint of a dogs’ tooth.
I only tell you about the scars you can see.
You know that.
You play with my fingers and as you bend down to kiss me I can already feel a scar ripping itself a smiley face on my heart.
The sun blinds us and burns the skin on my face. I can already imagine two stripes of lighter skin when I take off my chappals.
It’s ironic, isn’t it, how absorbing light makes us dark.
You breathe into me and the scar on my heart sears, burning darker.
Another one bites the dust.

I'm Fine?

“So,” she says looking at me expectantly, “How is she?”
I swirl the sambar in my plate. “She’s..fine. Busy with school n all, y’know.”
“But don’t you miss her”, she prods, waiting for me to burst into tears or flames or some sort of emotion.
I don’t.
“I do,” I say, getting up to return my plate, slipping into a new mask, smiling with my mouth to show her that I’m fine too.

Remember when you had your boards and I was done with mine, we only met like every weekend?
I was fine cause I knew you were only a street away, the big yellow building, like the light at the end of the tunnel, all I had to do was turn up.
I was fine.
I am fine.
I still like to think that you’re only a street away, the big yellow building, like the light at the end of the tunnel, all I have to do is turn up.
So I don’t miss you.

My mother just walked in.
“How was your paper?”
“Fine, yeah umm..good. I finished it. My essay kickedass.”
“What do you have tomorrow?”
“Political Science”
“How much have you done?”
“Like umm..1 no 2, like 2 and a half chapters..”
“How many do you have?”
“1..2..3..4, yeah 4, no wait 5.”
She gives me a wry look, been there done that.
“Well, go on”, she says sitting down, “I’ll just sit here and read.”
I give her The Look. I look down at my book.
It’s upside down.
It’s been upside down.
Sometimes, it’s easier to read upside down.
She gives me The Look, “The only person you’re fooling, is yourself,” words of wisdom.
I feel this maniacal urge to burst into laughter or flames or some sort of emotion.

I know, I know.

Don't waste your time on me you're already
The voice inside my head
I miss you.

Hit the Floor

"You do know right, that you don't want him", he says, twirling the ball on his fingers, bouncing it away from me.
"Fugg off", I say eloquently, trying to snatch the ball away from him.
He dodges me laughing and jumpshots it into the ring.
Score.
Bastard.
"You're in love with the Idea of him, baby girl", he's in his element now, swerving through imaginary opponents, smirking for a silent audience.
"I am Not", I counter defensively, digging my nails into his arm.
He yelps.
"We think alike", I say snidely, unable to tell apart the thud of the basketball from my heart. What if, when you lie, you body doesn't give you away by tell-tale signs like your nose growing, it hurts you by keeping silent and shriveling up instead?
"Find me more people who think like I do and..."
"Hey", he says smiling, he's closer now, too close.
Where's the damn ball.
"I'm right here", he whispers, aii not you goddammit, the ball.
And then he's kissing me and I can smell his sweat and his thoughts and that sweet cloying scent that belongs to him alone, and to my past. Revulsion rises in my throat stealing me of the little humanness I have left.
"I don't want you, I want him", I'm crying as I shove him off me. The ball is miraculously in my hand. It isn't warm anymore, I can't hear it's heart beat.
He smiles sadly.
Sweat and tears mingle down his face and I can no longer tell the difference. I mirror him. I turn away.
"And you'd let Him kiss you?"
I don't answer.
I arc the ball into the basket.
It misses.

Can't stop

And I sit there stringing the beads of sweat on my skin, dismantling a phone that hates me.

My breath has worn out the glass and my reflection smokes upside down.

The breeze coming in through the window grazes my skin and I sense your shadow seep into my blood burning it black.

It stains the bathmat and no amount of water can get it out.

The smiley-faces slit on the soft inner skin of my wrist no longer smile back.

I swirl designs and they stumble into words, ugly brutal words that make me catch my breath and hold it as a test against time.

One message. 20 letters. 5 words.

The nail scissors has always been kept in that little red basket on the shelf above the sink.

Pretty scissors, shiny metal, shiny red metal.

"I can't take this anymore."

Neither can I.