Till Such Time You Are Here

While I wait for you, I think-
till such time you are part of
my life, I think I should get a hobby. A
garden in my balcony,moneyplants in pots
pale and green, splotchy as the past, maybe
I will water them everyday, grooming them
as other people groom purpose. Or maybe, I
should start collecting stamps. Collect
expensive fragments from other people's
pasts. I have always been good at that, haven't I?

Or maybe I could get a cat? Let it
take over my life, while I
wait for you here, I could watch
the cat-curled up in a corner, smirking
at me, twirling its whiskers at the smell of
my stale beer, and my tired poems. Do
you think cats like cigarette smoke? I
do not really know much about cats.

Till such time as you are here, I guess, I
shall do nothing- just mope around. I shall drink
the beers that send me to sleep (or sometimes, fail to), I
shall stand in the balcony, strain to look at the stars,
I shall, till such time you are here, smoke
all the cigarettes I want, and then collapse
on the ill-advised mattress in one corner of my
world. I shall buy a thousand books
and sometimes, I will even read them-till
such time you are here, I
will write these stories, all of them,
meant for an audience of two. And one winter night,
I will burn them.

They will always be there in my head.