This one

Talks. And tries to make me

talk.

About my creative process as an artist and a writer

and my influences and my inspirations

and other bullshit people talk about.

I tell her that I write because

when it is 3 o'clock in the morning

and its a power cut and you're suffering

from chronic insomnia and you're drunk

and you've just

puked half your guts out

and you have a spare

flashlight,

there is nothing better to do.

Except make scary faces in the mirror I guess.

But that gets boring, eventually.

And she whines. Oh so much.

She tells me how she hates

Bengalis and Porcupine Tree and shallow people.

Makes plans about the future. For me too, which

slightly annoys me.

Makes the most amazing brownies. 

Writes poems.

Reads more than most. Then gets whinier.

Disappears. For days.

Because she can.

Makes me heart wrenchingly curious about

what she is doing right now.

Some chicks

just brighten up your day.

Fish curry and rice.

Four car pileup. He says. The car crashed into the truck

first.

Then the Tempo whammed into the car. Then the bus

hit the Tempo.

No one died though. Well, a dog did.

But that doesn't count.

Oh, a dumpster skidded on the broken glass and

collided with the divider

half an hour later.

I was there, he says, gnawing off the head of a fried fish

with his front teeth.

He had helped them

take out the bodies.

Seen a real live amputated leg

up close

for the first time in his life,

He smiles impatiently as he tells me.

Oh fun.

They serve good fish curry and rice here,

in this vermin infested, scavenger prone shithole

of a chai shop.

I often end up here in the evenings because there is

nothing else to do.

And their samosa paav is an commendable effort.

And it is right across the road from my favourite bar.

And because my only worry when I end up here

is how to balance the scalding teacup in one hand

and the cigarette in the other without burning myself

with either object.

I guess, there is no good fish or bad fish.

There is just, fish.

Unless you want to eat it.

Or it wants to eat you.

Wonder if they've moved the dead dog off the road yet.