I seem to have taken a hiatus from writing poems. I know it looks like that from the two stories in succession, but it’ll come. It’s just a break, and I’m really enjoying the different style in which the stories have been written. I might seem awfully full of myself when I tell you that ‘the stories have been written’, but trust me, that’s how it is. I don’t have absolute control when, and how, they are penned, or in some cases, typed. They’re two different, beautiful mediums through which I hope to express something.

A short story is an idea in your head. It’s there in pure form, swallowing you in completely till you pay attention to it. And then you try to grasp it; to understand it completely, but come back burnt from the experience, because such purity is not for us mortals. The moment you touch it, you know that you are not capable of handling it. You can’t even look at it now without shielding yourself. That’s when you take the help of the wonderful invention called words. You wrap your idea all around, like a newborn babe, with infallible words to shield yourself from the sheer intensity. You wrap them softly around the idea, leaving just enough to get a small, loving glance at it. And then you brand your thoughts down, solidifying the infantile form burning bright, forming the words on paper which you know will last.

Poems are a different matter altogether. A poem is like an impromptu dance. Just like at the beginning of the dance, you hear the crescendo of the music, swelling to the point where you just start dancing, so it is with poems. It ruminates in you for a long time, and you feel it coming on, greater and greater, to the point where you must listen to it. It leads you on, to it’s own rhyme and rhythm, till you are lost inside it’s world. Your pen flies across the landscape of the paper, like a ballerina flitting across the stage; a black swan at it’s peak. You are guided by the music, setting the tone of it all, though the steps are your own. And when it is time for the dance to get over, you feel the climax coming, and you build into this frenzy, up to the moment of revelation, when it is all complete. The epiphany, where it all falls into place. And then it’s over. And you can go back now.