Ecstasy

.
.
Just a taste of the elixir
and they fall like an open book
A couple of glasses makes them loose
all sense of time and place...
loosing themselves like falling in love,
an insatiable desire for it.

They lift the spirit for their much awaited ensconce.
The clinking of glasses offering an excursion into another dimension.
Little do they know the darkness that lay beyond their fading selves.
Preferring to stay unenlightened to better appreciate the dark.

Each moment awakens a deep buried fear,
a guilty remorse or perhaps another thunderous laugh.
Issues of the mortal world smoked between puffs and blown out in a heap of ash.

Promises that could never be made (within the limits of the three dimensions) materialize.
Limits of trust and faith stretch beyond their selves.
Like having a first friend, getting your first crush, first love, first kiss...
magic flows through their veins and throbs between their heart beats.

As it burns through their throat, ripping open their chest,
detaching from the under world and placing them next to the gods of men.
Wildest of dreams running through their forest reach a clearing,
sun burnt desires roaming the desert find their oasis.

Every glass promises a step closer to reality.
Their reality.
That lay oblivious to the sane and the conscious.
It is perhaps this reality of dreams and delusions,
this path of wavering steps and intimate promises that keeps them coming for more...
.
.

Catharsis

.
.
Her dance continued....

while I watched the marbled floor turn red
"hope" is a sweet poison!
I waited like a frog in boiling water..
to come to terms with the rising temperature

The blows kept getting harsher
Her weapons of choice getting deadlier
Every wound was gushing red
The paintings watched...
as she threatened to exsanguinate me

The dying self respect...
heaved its last cry
Like a dying man's last breath
unable to say its last goodbye..
twitches every muscle for an ounce of strength

I dashed out the door
with no where to go
She had been my caretaker
That room had been my tomb
Outside...I was deserted
An island uninhabited inspite of all its beauty..

And so the fire burned...
with heaving jungles and roaring rivers
The flames kissed my wounds
I knew they would destroy a part of me
But they will also cauterize...

I returned one last time..
Not to watch her dance
she was gone
But only to burn those paintings
and the silken curtains
with their horrified glances

As each painting burnt..
I heard its cry in crackling fire
I felt its pain in its greenish-blue despair
And then its peace as it turned to ash...

Bit by bit....each memory came
and submitted itself to the flames
Each sleepless night gathered around
and was offered its purgation.
I left the smoldering ruins
meandering through the rivers...escaping to  the ocean...
.
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