Suture my wounds.
Or don't maybe.

Rip them, shred them, probe them deep.
Hurt me, hold me, don't let me sleep.

Give me pain, burn me for apostasy.
Cries, wails, any form of ecstasy.

Salve my solace.
Or don't maybe.......


And the crowd cheered boisterously. He could really feel their appreciation. "Thank You. You guys have been wonderful. Have a fantastic evening. ", he said bowing graciously on stage to the crowd.
"Ladies and Gentlemen, Chiranjeet Das. The winner of the Flamingo Publishers Anthology Contest.", the anchor came up on stage and announced.
"They certainly moved me. Did they move you?, he could hear on the speakers as he came looking for his friends who had accompanied him.
As his eyes took adjusting from the glare of the spotlight to the dark of the audience on the floor, he looked around at the seventy odd people in the crowd. "Quite an event for a poetry convention", he thought to himself.
"Hey man! Insane that was. You are real good shit man", Capi appoached out of nowhere and hugged him.
"Thank You, dude. Thank You. I told you, it wouldn't be boring.", Chiranjeet smiled. "Where are the guys?", he asked.
"Towards the end. Just walk straight across the fourth table in along this row. I will come back from the washroom.", Capi gestured.
As he moved through the place making his way, carefully across the people sitting around their tables in the dimly lit seating space, he saw this woman sitting on the table just to the left of the table on which his friends were sitting. She was dressed in a navy blue dress, just moving towards the bar. Her red coloured hair and sharp eyes just fell on a his for a fleeting moment. She held as her gaze for a good two seconds before she casually brushed a strand of her hair behind her ear.
"Damn!" the neurons of his brain all remarked in unison. She walked past him towards the bar. He almost saw a smile. Or maybe he wished she smiled. He casually got drawn to the bar and sat himself a good five seats apart and ushered his friends over to the bar.
As they were having their second beer, the music was now getting louder and he felt someone tap on his shoulder. "Excuse me.", someone asked. He turned back to see the very woman he had noticed earlier. If she looked good from a passing glance, she looked stunning when he looked at her now. Her blue dress just below her thigh, where it only partially covered a tatoo.
"Wow", the neurons in his brain could only whisper now.
"Hi, I am Mihika. Just wanted to say, your poetry is amazing. I could so unfold the story you were telling and get immersed in it. It felt amazing.", she greeted him.
"Wow", this time he was sure he said it out loud. "Wow. Thank You Mihika. Thank You so much. That was one appreciation, I won't forget."
"No man. Your words paint and it was wonderful. It was a pleasure.", she replied.
"Mihika, right?"
"Yes."
"Can I buy you a drink? I feel like, the validation you just gave me, kinda augurs that.", Chiranjeet said, smiling at her.
"Sure. But will your friends not be disappointed? I don't want to take away the effervescent poet from the group.", she quipped.
"Well, they wouldn't be my friends if they would not let me have a drink with a woman who knows how to appreciate the finer things in life."
"Did you just somehow manage to praise yourself, while also flirting with me? Quite the poet you are! Subtle and suave."
"Well, you saw through the crevices of my poetry. I can't expect you to not see through this now, can I?", he humorously added as he excused himself from his friends. They laughed away walking towards where she was seated.

"So, what makes you see so fascinated with pain?", Mihika asked looking sideways to her right where he was seated.
Taking a sip of the whiskey Mihika had ordered for both of them, he looked at her eyes and said, "Well, Pain is truth after all, isn't it?" "Dukha- The first Arya Satya of Gautama Buddha. Life is full of sorrows. Sorrows beget pain and that very pain is the truth of life."
"Quite the Buddha yourself are you?"
"I think we are all born Buddha. Then society feeds us, breeds us and morphs us into Siddhartha. But when we look beneath our layers of subconscious, look around a bit, we can sense what Buddha wanted to say."
Mihika kind of got lost in her thoughts. The expression of someone looking in the mirror during her struggles. Something about those words kind of hit her, as she swilled the ice cubes in the glass. "It's true, you know. It is so true. Haven't read much about Buddhism, but yeah, it is true." "How old are you Chiranjeet? If you don't mind me asking. Because you are wise enough to be 50.", she composed herself and asked him with a playfully appreciative smile.
"Oh! You saw through me. I am fifty one. Clearly!", he said in the same vein. "It's just that I have aged well to look good enough to tell that I am in my twenties."
As they both laughed, he couldn't help but ask, "You got lost there for a second though. What was it?"


(To be contd.)