Indeterminate.

Backspace. Broken, twisted fingers as blood trickles downwards from the left arm and falls down on the already wet floor with a resounding, ominous plop.

Red.

Red has the maximum wavelength in all visible light. Things which we perceive to be red, blood, for example, absorb all other colours in white light and reflect red. Red of blood. Red of the panic button. Red of your full lips which, what with all their priceless little imperfections, I assure you, are still inviting. Red of the big red panic button.

I remember my Grandmother's hands. Long thin aged fingers covered with paper skin. Arms tanned so much that they looked like snakeskin in sunlight. And the small vitiligo patch near her right elbow which looked like a star on a dark horse's forehead. Her hands shook so much when she held a teacup that the rhythmic rattle of the teacup against the saucer echoed in the room. The rough papery warmth as she would hold my face in her hands and how they enveloped my entire universe and how she smelt of parsley and sandalwood and home.

I do not wish to write to be remembered. I have no story to tell. I have no wars to wage. No fight to win. My words do not have strength enough to propagate ideologies. Or overthrow them. My will is not patient enough to defend them. I am not an orphan. I am not a criminal. I have not seen the inside of a prison cell. I have not killed. I have not seen the night sky illuminated with the soft ethereal brilliance of the aurora among the millions of clear radiant stars so that it looks like the last remnants of a million of God's own Roman Candles. I have never experienced that infinite moment in time and space as I fall down from the sky with nothing but the earth below me and watch it accelerate towards me as I scramble for breath just as I scrambled for my first ever breath. I have never looked into a pair of eyes and in them realised my purpose in life. I have not lived enough. Leave me be. Leave me be. I do not wish to write to be remembered. I wish to write, to remember.

Panjim in the rain.

The last dregs of my coffee cup

and the water in my shoes.

Small change in my wallet

but a pocketful of blues.

What business do you have here?

I wish I could explain.

I guess I'm here, just to look

at Panjim in the rain.

The road is like broken glass

fallen from the sky.

And poetry is nothing but a better way to lie.

The moths drink up the street lights

and I drink all that remains.

Swig by swig, under the stars,

in Panjim in the rain.

The mice and men are in their holes

hiding from the Gods.

The empty street and the empty pier

can't stand an empty glass.

Everybody is a sinner in this town,

searching for a saint.

All they find is alcohol

and Panjim in the rain.

Water water everywhere,

but not a drop to drink.

Laughter laughter everywhere,

but not a thought to think.

My bartender is as nonchalant as they come.

"When it rains, it pours", He says.

Then pour me another one, and let me drink

to Panjim in the rain.