Brushstrokes

There’s a blank canvas in front of me
Urging me to colour it with my words.
I oblige
But I know not the hues that spill out onto it
Playing with the virgin whiteness in front of me
Staining it with thoughts that have no meaning
Scarring it with words that have no weight
I indulge
For the sake of this canvas
And for the sake of another canvas
That lies hidden somewhere deeper down,
I explore
Knowing not where this exercise is taking either of us…
The canvas
Or me.
But does it matter? After all when life and death doesn’t matter,
When love and loved ones don’t matter
Where intangible things called religion and caste matter more
Where honour has a price more dear than two living hearts and bodies
Where a death is worth a column of space and
And a celebrity wedding or kiss means more than The limbs a poor child lost for a measly Rs 50.
How does it matter if one more soul is moving along misguided and aimless
In search of eternal peace and eluding happiness
In faith that this is the best there is
For the canvas and the painter;
How then does anything matter beyond the here and now,
Beyond the meaningless words that have covered this vastness
Have clothed this naked page with their own inadequacies
Or does it matter?
The answer my friend isn’t blowin in the wind
It’s probably waiting to be painted on another eluding canvas
Where colour can penetrate thoughts and where dreams are not in black and white where life is not in grey and where paradise is closer to existence than reality is.
I succumb
To that dream
To that mirage
To that illusion
And I triumph for I exist beyond the rainbow and beyond the tiny letters stringed together on this line and hung out to dry.
And I live
And I love
And I lose
And I win.