Turn

If you could just turn,

May be walk up to the windows,

The ones in the east,

And pull the curtains away,

You would see that sunlight seeps through the pores of cloud,

And softly touches the dampened floor.

You might feel it too,

Rubbing against your hand,

Like a drop of honey on guarded chocolate.

Then make your way across the rooms,

In tip toes,

You can wake him up then,

Perhaps to his disappointment.

Sleep clutching on to his eyelids,

Making him blink ferociously,

The sunlight mild enough to not disturb,

It was just you,

And sleep wouldn’t go.

He would dump himself back,

Or probably wake up for he loves you,

But it wouldn’t matter.

For you would have seen certain things,

Certain other things,

Certain other sleepless things.

You would have seen a moth struggling with a bulb,

Lit still in early morning,

Ignored by a careless security guard,

Question the brightness of the sun.

If you could just turn,

You would see that the kitchen window was left open,

And it embraced the midnight storm,

Spilling vessels and what’s in them,

As the contents fell softly on a sack of rice.

You would have to keep the window open now,

So that sunrays can fight the moisture on the brownish granite,

As you quietly pick the coffee beans, fallen carelessly on the floor.

Someone would have knocked on the door,

Tapped it slightly, responsibly,

And you would find no one through the magic eye.

Partially open the door,

To get a smell of the ink they use in a printing press,

As news would be bundled on cheap paper.

Your hands would smell of coffee by now,

Maybe even a brownish hue on brown.

You would smell your palm and wish,

You would wish for certain things to come.

Newspaper would be carefully kept beside the bed,

Something for him to be pretentious about,

Something for him to start off a conversation,

That would do enough to curtail your anger,

But not involve you too much,

For he must be needing to flip through the pages,

Mental notes for his social discussions.

But then if you could just turn,

You would see a yellow light,

A yellow dot like a lit up hut in the midst of a darkened wheat field,

Summoning you from a pitch black music player.

You would find your feet taking you there,

And then find your finger press a circular button,

And darkness would come to life.

“Take a sad song and make it better”,

It would say, and you would hum.

A slight drizzle would come in spatters,

Against the glass pane of French windows,

The ones in the west.

You would look beyond,

Somewhere in a remote village,

It is probably raining,

Washing away the mud that layered the freshly laid roofs,

Drenching the children and their uncovered books,

Running back from the dismissed class of a quasi classroom,

Under the shade of an Asoka tree.

The drizzle would turn heavier,

Striking against the glass in a non rhythm,

Like ruthless mercenaries firing pearls from a distance,

And you would find your way through poetry,

Through words and lyrics strung together to win hearts and minds,

Through screams of joy and mud stained school shorts,

Through lovers under yellow umbrellas across the greying beaches,

Through sandy feet and inebriated embraces,

And dislike rain.

But then if you could just turn,

And rush softly back to the east,

You would see that a few rays in the distance,

A few honeyed rays from a misanthropic sun,

Make their way to the moist earth,

As if to shower some warmth to the souls that would wash away.

A few butterflies would find enough time to manage some ration,

A few crows would finally change trees,

As the sky from the west would thunder aloud,

And the rays would dissolve like the end of a movie.

And you might want to shut the window again,

Still warm from the morning sun.

The song would end, with a soft siren from the coffee machine,

Sounds of his reckless movements in the kitchen,

A spoon falling on porcelain, followed by a few curse words,

And you would smile.