walking down a dusty road

if there was just one person

just one person alive

one, who thought me beautiful

thought me beautiful all the time

beautiful as i sit washing clothes

in this pathetic shit hole

that passes for a bathroom or

beautiful as i walk down this dusty road

would it make life worth living?

give me something to live for?

i think you’re beautiful

i think you’re beautiful all the time

it’s what gives me a reason to live

and i think i’m alive

true that

- of countries and ideas and us

that surge of excitement at

the slow realization that

the idea - sans imagination - that

the present boundaries

that have stood  - if they do now stand -

for no more than a hundred years are really

more acceptable than the boundaries that existed

for six hundred years before that

is stupid, is just as silly

being civilized

i’ll say it like you want to hear it

and i’ll risk it sounding too corny

“oh! i want you so badly my dear…”

but the truth is i’m just really horny

new beginnings

(overheard in the shuttle the other day)

sure, we don’t look the roles

i know we don’t fit the moulds

u don’t look like a dad and i don’t look like a mum

u still wear slippers and shorts to the department

and i’m often mistaken for a college student

but so what?

we know what’s what and

we’re capable of love

parallel universes

edging my way along the pavement

crowded with strange people tackily dressed

i dodge smoke blown in my face

and paan spat at my feet with a certain grace

and yet my elbow still hurts

from where i bruised it against the rocks

while swimming in the clear pools

in my forested escape

what if?

what if i was to fall in love with you?

what if as i write this, i am in love with you? and

what if i was to never confess it to you?

what if you went on living and found love

found love and lived a lifetime, content

and some distant faraway day, somehow

discovered quite by accident

that this was written for you, now

would it alter anything at all?

what if i then told you

- in my wretchedness, having become cruel -

that i was just waiting for you?

that all that while i’d just been waiting for you

for you to take one step

to say but one word?

just a gesture

however small?

would it alter

anything at all?

cheap thrills

and when i’ve held the torch in my mouth and read

long enough, coz i lost the headlamp lately

my lips hurt, but it’s a pleasant tingling hurt that lingers

like i’ve been kissing long and passionately