It’s been more than a month since I’ve been in my apartment in Bombay. Six weeks I wandered my beloved American streets, remembering each of my childhood dreams. Reuniting with friends I haven’t seen in half a decade almost. Never have I spent a better month. It was everything I dreamed it would be, and more than I needed. I feel whole again. I feel like the man I was supposed to be.
Long walks into the Haight in San Francisco, across the Golden Gate Bridge and into Saulsalito, watching the happy people jog and play with their dogs, and enjoy the California sunshine. Sitting with Boris and Vera in their cozy little home, watching them joke with each other, and tell me again and again how happy they were to have me with them, and to see in their smiles that they meant it with more fierceness than people express anymore. I remember the food - ceviche at Fresca, sublime tenderloin at the Cafe Florio, the monstrous, devilish, delectable burritos at El Farolito in the Mission, and in Papito on Petrero Hill, the divine Burmese at Burma Star.
Then in New York, where the largest pieces of my personality were molded and cast and polished to a shine, where all the cool people live. To walk down a different avenue everyday, from Central Park to the Villages, from Harlem to High Line Park. To sit in Irving Place Cafe everyday with a handful of notebooks and the new collection of poems by Leonard Cohen, Bukowski, and Collins, and Lorca. And to write my own, sipping large cups of perfect coffee, and pretty girls walking by, some of them kind enough to smile at me. And nights out with friends who may have become workaholics and serious by day, but still full of that whimsical fire that drew us together in the first place.
And now here I am, back in Bombay. When did this place start to feel like home? When did this wanderer find such contentment in a city so difficult? It was you, my darling friends, and your love, that made this place feel like a home. Yesterday was a joy beyond anything I have felt. The food, the drum circles, the deep long laughter, the music shared, the stories exchanged, the hugs so warmly given. It was you.
I am happy. To be back in Bombay. To be back to all of you. To be back in the circus, dying to put on my clown costume again. Oh please baby please baby please, set me to act again. Give me another shot at some modest immortality.
You whom I was born to love and be loved by. I want you here with me, whoever you are that will make this shattered poet’s heart beat steady and true. I want you here with me. I want to make you tea on this moonless night. I want you to sit on my kitchen counter with your feet swinging and your eyes unable to blink back the brightness of your spirit. I want to take our cups of perfectly brewed Qawah, and sit out on my balcony. There, far above a city full of people all looking for somewhere else to be, with you is where I want to be. Overlooking my restless neighborhood I want to sit with you in perfect stillness and silence, wrapped in the blanket of each other’s smiles. And we shall sip our tea, side by side, close enough to touch, mere breathless moments from it. I want to play you some music, that I’m sure you’ve never heard, and some that you have and loved deeply all your life. I want to put some music on that's gonna make you wanna love me all night long.
All that you see, all that you read, all that can't do right, all that I fail to do, all that I try to, all that I fear, and all that is good is me - waiting. Hurry up.
No comments:
Post a Comment