December

Suddenly it’s December and I find myself listening to my winter playlist again. It’s a playlist with songs of love and songs of loss. The one that makes me yearn for something intangible. It’s maybe a feeling that I cannot understand, a destination whose existence I know not of, a home where I have never been, a warmth that maybe does not exist.

With the songs comes the realisation that I was never someone’s Heather or could never be someone’s Georgia. A sinking feeling that there’s no reason to dance to snowman on a white Christmas because a forever love feels too heavy to hold in my forlorn heart. Suddenly, I become too good at goodbyes as my tears dry, making promises to love them from a distance because being together does not feel the same. But the cold wraps me up soon, and I find myself missing the sun as it starts to snow, begging the question, “Was it really worth it to let them go?” And suddenly, I find myself at their doorstep, begging them back in my life, apologizing for being so shallow, trying to break down the walls I built and sealed on my own. Suddenly, the memories of those cigarettes after sex become my only source of warmth. Suddenly, it is just the wind whom I can whisper to the stories of my love.

And soon, I am tracing back my memories to August, the time when it all began, when it always begins. It’s so weird how all my stories start in August and end in December, like a pattern that renews every year. And maybe, that’s why I hate August so much. August brings me hope, a hope that starts with an end date, the date already known. And despite every December hurting me so, August does not stop making introductions, it does not stop me from weaving my wildest dreams and building airplanes. August knows that it will eventually all come crashing down. Despite August believes, like the fool it is and I let it, like the fool I am.

Suddenly my feet feel cold, a simple teaser to a dying soul. The days feel darker now, darker than my intrusive thoughts. I can no longer differentiate what is real and what is not. So, I give myself completely up, engulfing myself in all that I have left to call mine, the darkness, the sorrow, the painful nights. And I wait, wait for you to knock on my door so that I can happily die.

Suddenly, it’s December and reality hits. The one where it was never them but always me.

A Clean Slate, A Flowing River, A Malleable Dough, If I May

My mom told me I would have to compromise eventually.

I am not a socially likeable person. I never was, I never will be. But the idea of me is indeed likeable, loveable even. Apparently it’s a package deal that comes with being a clean slate, a flowing river, a malleable dough if I may. It’s the curse of my existence, a curse I can just make peace with and compromise like my mother said or just keep fighting, losing parts of me until I finally succumb to the forlornness.

You see, people mistake my indifference to be a non-judgemetal space, my lack of vocabulary to be a quiet solace, my obsessions to be love, my fears to be acceptance, my laughters that are meant to drown out the voices in my head to be joy, my broken soul to be depth.

Maybe because accepting reality is unfathomable. The reality that I am neither a bed of roses nor that of thorns. Just a nothingness in between who’ll become what your heart desires. I am neither a friend nor a foe, just a pawn to be used to take your own stories further.

People do see me for who I am ultimately. But they will never accept it. They will just drift away naturally, without a thought. Because friendships might wither with time and space, enmity might disappear with heartfelt conversations but pawns are made to be used only when needed. Before and after, what relationship would you even have with one?

People do see me for who I am ultimately. Because I refuse to hide behind the stories created of me. I want to be heard for who I am. I want to be loved for I am. I want to be hated for who I am. I want to be accepted for who I am.

But this path of war is becoming lonelier by the second. The hurt unbearable. And I am scared that someday I will finally give in and compromise. Affirm the world’s ideas of me, actively deceive them, no more just not announcing the truth but actively lying. I am scared that someday, pain will become a choice I made and not just a curse I need to survive.

A Threesome with Death

I have recently started a new ritual. Every night before falling asleep, I hold a blunt knife against my wrist. I know my anatomy well, at least the at risk areas and how deep the cut needs to be for any actual damage. So with a blunt knife, even if I snap, I’ll survive. Because I don’t want to die, I never wanted to die.

And yet having my life standing on that edge brings me peace. The voices go away and the world gets smaller. Suddenly the world is just my wrist, the knife and death. The knife teasing my wrist with death waiting to get her share.

I have never wished for death but she is still the closest possible existence to what I want. And so I get swayed. The realization that what I want is not possible leads to my moments of weakness and the exhaustion just makes me want to settle. But the thing with delusional people, just as realizations hit suddenly, the delusions take over. And I hope, hope that maybe if I live long enough, my wishes will come true.

With the blunt knife against my wrist, every night I let my madness crawl. Sometimes it escapes in the form of tears, sometimes giggles, sometimes apathy. But it never leaves me for my body seems to pull it all back in when I put the knife down. Ahh the sweet taste of cowardice!

Thunderclouds

A soft growl. A rumble. A roar. And then a murderous screech. Today, the thunderclouds that often seemed angry felt like they were in pain.

Thunderclouds can’t speak, they can’t put their feelings into words. All they can do is make sounds that are often related with one emotion: anger. But is that all they can feel? I wonder.

Today was like always. Like always, the gloom spread across the sky hinting that the heavens would cry again. Like always, there were flashes of light every other minute, cutting through the darkness that would have otherwise swallowed us whole. Like always, the subtle wind was breezing through the gaps between our bare skin and the fabric that is supposed to keep them safe; sending shivers down our spines. Like always, the heavy thunderclouds roamed the empty space ready to pour down at command of the skies.

But today, the sounds felt different. Today, the growl seemed a little sad. Today, the rumble felt a little anxious. Today, I could hear the hurt in the roar. Today, I sensed fear in the screech. Today, I saw shades in the monochrome. And, it felt different.

So, what is it? Have I started understanding the language of the heavens or is this what people simply call projecting?

The ghosts that drifted and the ghosts that stayed

In the fall of 2017, I had a minor incident. I took a knife to my wrist when my mom was standing just a few feet away from me. Her first instinct was to pull the knife from my hand and slap me across my face, twice. She hoped that those two slaps would be enough to pull me back to reality. It wasn’t.

For her, my actions were something unimaginable, something that didn’t fit into the world that she had built over the years, something that she could not fit as a part of her daughter. That day, as she sat on the couch, tears streaming down her cheeks, I had never seen her so helpless. That day, she sat stripped of all wisdom and virtues and advice; she sat with nothing else but a tiny request. A request that read along the line, ‘Please don’t do this to me ever again’ and I could do nothing but grant her that wish.

But today, even after two years since the incident, the voices still find ways to get within the vicinity of my ears, the vibrations making my head spin, spiraling into nothingness where some years back I used to store tiny important stuff called feelings. I haven’t taken a single action to try and hurt myself since then and it is very unlikely that I’ll try it in the near future. However, the thought still lingers, floating like a ghost of the past, intangible but very real.

The seconds behind my ‘Fashionably Late’

It’s a beautiful day today. The sun’s high, the air’s fresh, the sky a beautiful shade of blue. I need to get to work by 10 and for the first time, I could actually make it. Every thing has been fitting perfectly today like the pieces of a puzzle and I have never felt better. Today is going to be an amazing day.

It’s 9:15 on the clock. It takes me 15 minutes to reach my workplace. I got enough time. I pick up my phone, start scrolling and lie down on my bed fully dressed. I scroll and scroll and scroll. By now, I don’t even know what I am looking at, just endless scrolling, in hopes that these posts of random people would fill the hole that was slowly widening up in my chest. But it doesn’t. The hole keeps widening and widening and widening. Amazing how things always wind up in the exact opposite direction of how you intend them to be.

I look up, 9:35, I can still make it. The endless scrolling isn’t helping so I just turn up the music, curl up in a ball and hold my chest tight, anything to stop that void trying to swallow me whole. And I cry. Not cry exactly but gentle sobs, a hopeless effort to wash it all away for even tears seem to betray me at times like these.

9:45. I pull myself up, takes every last drop of energy within me but I pull myself up, look in the mirror, fix myself up, plaster a smile on my face and leave for work. I speed on my way, maybe the wind will blow it away. I reach work, take out my phone, check the time, 10:05. Well, late again.