Catharsis is Nirvana.
Cave drawings. Parchments heavy with emotion. Journals soaked in pale ink and vivid memories. An envelope braving the world in search of another. Splashes of paint rebelling against grey walls.
Black letters on a white screen spilling from my fingertips.
I want you to know that it’s not your fault. I’m just putting this out there, just in case the thought crosses your mind.
I hope you will continue to think of me as witty, quirky and intelligent. I do not want to be remembered as a sour ending or a collection of thoughts that failed to carry themselves properly across our restless thumbs. I don’t want to be the source of any sorrow – do know that no one ever made me happy the way you did. And I’m happy that I’m leaving you at a time when you have many sets of arms enveloping you and keeping you warm.
I believe this was inevitable. At one point or the other, we were bound to say goodbye for good, and I’d rather I do it now, at a time when my absence wouldn’t made a mighty dent in your daily schedule. Or anyone’s schedule, to be fair. I know I’ll be breaking hearts as I go, but they are all hearts that are capable of healing, unlike mine that seems to be stubbornly holding on to things that do not even matter anymore.
I digress. I suppose you could say I’m dragging my feet, because this really was the last item on my agenda. I’m tired of pretending to be everything I’m not, and my demons are bidding me home. And I think I’m finally ready to go this time.
I had vowed to myself that I would never write about you again, but today I feel the words tumbling out of me like marbles, scattering on to the floor through the weathered base of a cardboard box that I should have known couldn’t hold the weight of my thoughts for so long. They roll around me in all directions, even as I try to gather them up in coherent sentences but all I can really do is sit down and let the cacophony of promises ring in my ears for ages before dying down rhythmically. I grab two fistfuls and hold them to my ear, listening for the sound of your snort or the crinkle of your shirt. Suddenly, the silence is deafening.
The days pass me by, but the perpetual flip calendar on my mantelpiece is still stuck on the day you bid goodbye, much like myself. I’m still not done untangling myself from your hug; I swear I saw your ghost on the platform when I stepped into the station the other week for the first time since then, and it was all I could do to avoid wondering if you’d feel like stepping out of your carriage the next time you come this way, and if you’d spy a piece of me where you left me that night.
I had vowed to myself that I would never write about you again, but I suppose it’s inevitable that I do. I might have finally woken up to understand what I had been blind to all this while; I might have started assimilating and absorbing the intricacies of your responses; but try as I may, that fails to change the nature in which I perceive you. I thought there was magic in the space between you and I, and knowing that the words between your lips and mine had nothing but emptiness to navigate was not an easy truth to encounter. But then again, understanding all the ways in which we are not special failed to change the fact that you are.
I’m unsure who deserves another chance between us, or if at all it makes any sense for either to. Sometimes, I gather up my heart in my arms and try to pick the shards out while singing a lullaby. Sometimes, I feel the urge to pick up a piece of glass and stick it back in, wincing as it slices a vein open. I can feel happiness seeping out of me, and it feels like you’re the one holding the stitches.
You’re the one holding the stitches, and the one holding the shards. Me? I simply bleed.
I wish we could be acquaintances again.
Continue reading “Watermark”
Shrodinger’s cat. Manifesting realities. Collision of ideas. A daze.
I need to back up and collect my thoughts.
Continue reading “Dead Or Alive”
I wonder why emotional distress transforms into physical signs of coping. I can feel myself inadvertently holding my breath, as if all the words I might end up spilling otherwise are getting locked up in my lungs till I can find a way to absorb them back into my core. I feel myself clenching my feet, as if the space between my toes holds the key to getting this hurt out of my system. I feel myself closing my arms and legs in, trying to keep myself warm in a world that suddenly seems to have run out of hugs. I can hold my breath in no longer, and the sighs come out long and loud like a windy waterfall; in a way, I’m relieved no one is around to hear them.
The most random things can rock our boat, and this morning the sea is choppier than usual. It worries me that it takes but a moment for me to collapse onto myself. Two steps back for every step forward. Why is love such a wretched affair?
I can feel my own body conspiring against me, threatening to form large pools of tears at the corners of my eyes, and I resist with violent blinking and locks of hair thrown across my face as camouflage. I yearn for a dose of dopamine, but the high isn’t worth the crash that follows, and I resign myself to clutch at my skin and sink my teeth into my lips till they bleed.
I’ve heard folklores of people being sacrificed or buried alive to strengthen the foundations of buildings and remember how, every time my sail gets torn, I stitch it up with stray pieces of muscle, hoping the collagen and blood tie up the loose strands. Today, as I bleed on to another ragged end, I can’t help wondering – how long till I finally get to see land?
Serendipitous Rambling 