A lazy feeling

*(categorized under waste-management)

Off late, many have asked me if I am going to a certain poetry festival and I say I did not receive an email invite.

I think nothing much of it, and move on.

Then more friends ask.

Again the same answer resurfaces through my mind… but now I am thinking.  Should I have another thought about this? Do I dissect an un-invitation like a frog on a table? If I dissect it, what should its entrails mean: Exclusion? Oversight? Deliberate omission?

Oversight is the lightest color.

Omission has noir tones.

Exclusion is a personal feeling that comes from the latter, but not necessarily the former.

Alright, reverse gear, retake.

Should I feel anything at all? Or just suspend the moment into a next daydream?

Should I feel offended in a country of default offense-takers, where offense-taking is a serious hobby?

But offense of what, really? Of the chance to re-purpose time? Reuse resources?

If I don’t feel offended should I feel hurt? Or Nothing?

Nothing is the lightest color.

Hurt has a noir tone.

Opportunity cost is a personal feeling that comes from saving time, money, resources. From not having to pack suitcases, wait for arriving and departing planes, usher into smoked hotels, check internet connectivity, navigate through crowd and traffic, giving up a daily routine.

Besides how can an introvert be excluded? Fish drowned in water?

And what of all those places that invited me time and time again and I did not go?

Emptiness answers emptiness. Blanc, blanc. Intentional absence answers invited absence.

So what to feel? Maybe: nothing.

So when someone asks me again: Are you going to this poetry festival?

I won’t say: I didn’t receive an email invite – why open a fissure of speculation?

I will just draw a blank, and move on,

Then have some piping chicken chetinad & crisp onion pakoras

And watch a subtitled film

And phone an old boyfriend

And watch green rain outside the window

And huddle inside a mildewed blanket…

And be.