The talking in our house

Is like a trickle from the tap

Even after a long time

Your hands haven't gotten wet

And when you need to soap, it won't lather.

The listening in our house

Is like a tape-recorder

What you say to it makes no difference;

Yet it has recorded the sounds perfectly,

Can repeat them verbatim,

Without understanding.

The laughing in our house

Is like the fancy crockery.

We can display it, visitors and guests can attest;

We use it on ourselves once in a while

And enjoy it; but normally, amongst ourselves,

You wouldn't have guessed it was there.

The love in our house

Is like my mother's wedding ring.

It legitimizes, excuses, entitles;

Assumed to be there, hidden away somewhere

Until one day, searching for something else,

We realize its gone, with no more than the basic minimum pang.

We wanted to ride rough-shod

(Why not better shod, again?)

Over all their nonsense. All their

trivial pursuits, their petty rivalry,

Back to the basics—or rather forwards.

Pure thought, and pure sensation,

The totalitarianism of Youth.

No more living for the future.

Now is enough for itself, and for us!

But you have to plan beforehand for a revolution.

And a first-div is required to rule the world.

empowerment.

i give him the once-over.

long legs, broad shoulders,

casually loose shirt, lean,

not-too-full lips, high cheekbones, sharp nose.

look again, appreciatively.

see it register, the split-second almost-smile, the triumph.

when he passes, turn. nice ass too.

say it loud, as invitation.

why not? i have a (bed)room of my own. seeti baja, seeti baja ke bol.

Bring a light when you come, for it's dark on the highway
And trucks roaring along grimly, in the dark, with lit-up jaunty cabins
Will jauntily run us over and be gone.
Mid-morning will find us vanished into tubes and chalk outlines
With the tar just beginning to bubble and absorb the last of us,
Moustaches shaking knowingly at those
Crazy youngsters on bikes, trying to get free,
Or whatever,
Causing heartache to parents and wasting their money,
Though we're not them.

In full rooms, with full lives, we're happy just trying,
But they'd mark us out as anti-socials,
Delinquents, Sallu-aspirants or shameless (-ful?) women
With troubled childhoods, oppressed by the drought of civilization,
The pressures of the information age, the ruthless competition.
Like elephants dead in the electric fences of sanctuary
We were caught getting in or out—
A State infrastructural lapse.
We might've even got bullet-holes, and become
Would-be terrorists, or Maoists; "How a child from such a good family—?"
And so on. I suppose we should've expected it.
Here we were, trying not to take
The path less travelled by; what would make a difference?

It's funny how you know people.
Collect bits of them—
an Oh, He's So Hot accidentally dropped within earshot,
a Did You Hear whisper, heard from inside a cubicle,

sequences shot from the corner of your eye,

inconsistencies you only noticed when someone else was saying something else,

a wretched fight, not worth the trouble,

the thing you gulped down, rising like bile into your mind,

the things they laughed at, and why.

It's gotten easier nowadays, with

Facebook and all that.

But the old ways had much more style, and took more skill.

And you didn't have to stop and realize how jobless you were.

It nibbles its way out.

Somewhere, imperceptibly,

A cheek shivers, a jowl wobbles.

The teeth are gnawing

Juicing tearing

Rabid, driven;

It gets through.

Peeks its snout out,

Sniffs, darts a glance around,

Scuttles again.

I particularly dislike it when it comes back to me, with an air of relish,

As though I hadn't told it in the first place.

She came and brought a feather,

wafted it onto the desk with

thoughtfulness and affection.

She thought of me when I wasn't there

And brought me a tufty white thing. ?

Then she said nothing and smiled

At my grinny thanks

And went away.

I'm so horrible but a feather

Is so artsy and I'm so not,

And why didn't she say anything What

does she mean by it We never talk

nowadays.

She came the next day to borrow a book.

Looked at the single shelf in my wall

that had books in it, picked up a book of fairytales,

(Perrault, not Grimm) and thanked me quietly.

Why does she always have to pick airy-faery

stuff And why did I just spell fairy faery And

why can't I get through a book, any book

whether serious or fun without it being compulsory

Oh God I'm turning into one of those colossal(ly)

bitchy bores that can't Think of anybody else and why

Are my capitals going Haywire and my line lengths inconsistent

And Why am i stuck in internal monologue?

BREATHE! BREATHE!

[gasping sounds. other people presumably come on stage]

Narrator (also me): Yeah, so. Pity the tale of she, he, whatever. This is just One of the many people (p.c.pronoun) knows.