A word is said by a cold woman in a cold world,
It says: I dream of a world where things are true.
I speak of love, too, but since time has left us with very little freedom,
And since the word is time,
She does not say it, not without a strong sense of 
Theatre,

I write to her and
Everyday, I speak what 
I have to,

I tell her that the very word is the lie,
The artist,
The work,
The man,

And that’s how
I speak,
That’s all I have ever 
Spoken,

Looking back, I am nothing
Except a grey, grey, grey stone,
And a wide, wide reality,
Today, I have forsaken it,
And become at one with
My only muse: 

I talk to her, or would like to, anyway,
Like a bird in the dreams 
Of the greatest men,
Like all ordinary people,
Like the rickshaw-wallah, or the haunted man,
The obsolete schizophrenic drunkard past his generation
And his vice: I, too, speak of things
And dream of those I love,

It takes everything away like a grave moment filled with passionate thinking,
It says everything, but will never see beyond its human world. 

…

Ritwik Chaudhary is a writer and an actor. He is published in literary journals such as Indian Ruminations and Unlikely Stories Mark V, among others. He likes to visit places.