Her Petal Lips

She.
She is a person.
She is beautiful.
She is smart.
She is kind ..
and she is my friend.

She distracts me by day,
night has brought no relief for I have dreamed of her for seven days.
She talks to me for hours,
even when I'm alone, she calls.
She touches my hand sometimes,
lightly, a soft caress,
and blushes like a blooming rose.
She kisses my cheeks with her petal lips,
strokes my brow and wishes I would speak.
She has hammered at my silence,
forced a crack that has let in emotions, so alien to me.

I am too shy to enter a realm beyond friendship,
too awkward to express my intricate feelings,
and too scared to receive an answer I do not want to hear,
but today I will speak.
I am to see her at midnight and yet I cannot wait,
so I wait upon a bench that gives me full view of her building,
as the bustling street life walks by.

The sun is at its zenith, it seems to hover above me,
but provides me no comfort on this frigid day.
I conjure an image of her, she smiles at me,
looks at me with her loving eyes,
oceans blue, oceans deep.
The scent of mangoes drifts into my nose,
the aroma of her skin of snow.
A river of warmth courses through me,
she has done what the sun cannot.

I hold three roses, for this simple gesture can reveal more than I can ever say.
The hours pass by,
and I do not get tired of waiting,
for the mounting excitement is a pleasurable tension that I thrive in.

The sun starts to set,
there are cars passing by but it is less now.
People walk by and stare at me curiously for many had seen me earlier,
rigid and unsmiling.

The sapphire sky becomes a myriad of colours,
shades of violet clash with fiery orange,
and the blues stand a witness.
Still I sit,
midnight is some hours more.

As the night sets in, the windows of the building are illuminated.
Those with lights standout like fireflies and fascinated, I stare up at hers.
It is now five until midnight,
my rapid pulse, a thousand bull stampede.

Suddenly, her curtains open and there she is,
a silhouette familiar to me.
I feel myself getting warm,
for even her shadow occupies a space within me.
Another silhouette joins her, and my heart almost gives out.
The silhouettes intertwine, until they become one,
and by the light of her window, the meeting of the lips is clear.
I will my tears to ebb, as the crack in my silence slowly stitches itself back together.
My heart full of grief, I watch as the vines wrap around each other for eternity.

I keep the petals on my cheeks ... but leave the stems behind.
As the silhouettes dance in unison,
I walk away in darkness.

TRANSLATION OF இரத்தக் கண்ணீர் (Blood Tears)

*This is the translation of the tamil poem, 'Blood Tears'. As it is with translation, it is not always possible to convey the imagery and word play, so while translation is a fairly accurate representation of the original, it does not convey the exact meaning, imagery and word play. 

When the sun rises in the sky, the people of this world awaken,
the sun is the roof of this windowless world, that has been forsaken.
When the sun enters its slumber, the moon arrives alone,
the cries of the mind echo without noise and yet one can hear the moan.

I stand on the banks of a river-a river I cannot see,
in this room there is no time, for there is no clock for me.
I sit atop a pomegranate tree, an old man yet a child,
but when I open my eyes, the rubies bleed for my trials.

My four sides surrounded, my visions cry for my kind,
this poem that I write is where I reside within my mind.
As if a statue, I am motionless, inside echoes my screams,
In this hell that I live in, I fear nothing but my dreams.