Yours Truly

Also known as:

Here, beloved, at this very moment, let me present to you,
MY BEING!

… there. Oh, read it to me—
The inaudible, the interval.
It has a timbre like a column of light,
yet if you call it a colour— it must be pitch black.

Let's punctuate this, holding my being at check;
Let me give it to you piecemeal.

                    ,
                            ,
                    .

Now, you can pause.
Now you can think about how to utter this emptiness.
But how to utter any emptiness?
Even without talking,
even without playing a song in the background,
even if, for a moment, I stop my internal monologue,
There is the low humming of the AC,
the vehicles in a far-away avenue,
There is this unnoticed backdrop of a city that never sleeps.

humm….., [a deep inhale]
humm longer…., [inhale]
humm…… [inhale]

We discovered lullaby all over again—
Every child's umbilical darkness— sung by their mothers.

Or, we can now hold our hands and inhale my being.

inhaaaale….,
paaaaaaaaaaause……,
exhale…..

No, you are doing it all wrong.
It is not:

Anticipating inhalation….
A grand chest-bursting pause….
A satisfied exhalation….

No, that is Praanaayaam.
Let's not work on it and utter my Being through grunts.
Simply be, and listen to how our bodies work. It is simply:

inhaaaale….,
paaaaaaaaaaause……,
exhale…..

Ah! The staggering simplicity of our life.
The Bhaaratnaatyam with only three Mudraas.

Now that you have inhaled my Being, what did you feel?
What is it to our existence?
A rot?
An incurable disease?
A veritable anguish?

Or is it there, an amphitheatre, unburdened, unsleeping, unpunctuated—
A suitable stage for the dance.
A dance that my life is.