Diary of a Lovesong

31st December, 2004.

11:05pm, and lights out throughout the house. In one room, a couple who missed their son flicked channels, waiting for sleep but always returning to National Geographic. In the second room, an old wrinkled woman dreamt of her brother and of a son who had beaten her but only afer eating the fish curry that had sat up with her, waiting for him to come home. She dreamt, her mouth moving noiselessly. The maid, all dark sullen heated sex, snored on the floor, bed pan forgotten.

11:23pm. From where she sat-- the warm corner of the couch, curled into the cloth-- she saw the pale light of the television go out. Like other nights, her parents would consign her brother to the grace of god, and mark the time on the clock, knowing they would wake in an hour and a half to check if she was in bed, or still sitting awake-- in the warm corner of the couch, curled into the cloth.

The things they didn't know:

1) the old wrinkled woman had pissed her sheets, again.

2) the girl, their daughter, was waiting for a miracle.

He called. During their conversation, midnight came and went. The darkness of the house swallowed the new year, and ate her smile forever. For the rest of the year, the girl preferred the night to the day.

It is better for a man and woman to shout and weep their anger and loss when they part ways. It is better that all the love that has been is burnt up in one huge pyre, the flames licking at their eyelashes, warming their cheeks the way they will not touch each other ever again.

It is far worse when they stay polite, and invite the cold inside them, turning their love to ice so that nothing is heard melting, slowly. Running down to form a salty well where your arms close your breasts against the couch, into the wall, into the night which falls around this building like soft warm cloth.

"If only you had asked me to stay back, jo. I was waiting to hear that, but you never did"

Her mouth froze with all the cold she had allowed inside. She clutched at the phone, burying her ear into it, painfully eager to hear him breathing in the silence.

"It's better this way"

For the first time in her life, she said nothing. Knowing that he was in control of this conversation, knowing that her mouth was frozen, she squeezed tighter into the corner of the couch. He said he had to go, and she closed her eyes, falling back into the cave that was behind the corner of the couch. She fell far, and it was all fast and dark and cold like an underground train. The ground was hard. She closed her eyes.

12th May, 2005.

She sat next to the wrinkled old woman and smelt the talcum powder, the faintest aroma of decay. She touched the wrinkled old skin, like she would touch the shell of a sea turtle, the bark of an ancient pine tree. Like a trapped whale, the old woman lay there calm, knowing she was being watched, being committed to memory. She went on the plane with the phone, knowing it wouldn't work outside india. 3 months later, she would bury it in foreign soil, without a marker.

13th May, 2005.

They sat at a lazy right angle. She was sitting forward, holding onto a single neat linen crease at his knee. The world was in that crease. Between her fingers, in those fibers was where they hugged and kissed and forgave and apologized and laughed and cried and held and slept. He spoke. Her mouth was frozen. The beer was flat. the hotel bar was loud, filled with people that did not read poetry. She watched the car pull out of the driveway.

6th November, 2005.

The train passed by the city you live in. Twice. The first was in the daytime. The second was when towers of blinking lights rose against the night that fell around manhattan like a soft cloth. You did not know. And if I ever bring myself to stand in timesquare and increase the volume on my 'pod, you will not know then either.

7th November, 2005.

A perfect circle's cover of the Cure's Lovesong is playing. The wrinkled old woman, contrary to all expectations, has not died.

"sanity now and beyond me
i will always love you
however long i stay
i will always love you
whatever words i say
i will always love you
there's no choice"