Things go wrong entirely too often in the lives of young women who give up their hearts to love. And before these beautiful creatures can suck it up and move on, there is the necessary part about having to deal with the universe collapsing around you or, at any rate, imploding within you. I wonder how it feels when you have to look at his face while he's asleep at that moment, unaware of what just changed. I wonder how you deal with him waking up in the same space as you, and how you muster up the strength to look him in the eye. I wonder if you'll even confront him about the full extent of what he's done, because I know you and I know your love for him.
We're all terrible, terrible people in some ways. In many ways, actually. A lot of us may even have bought ourselves a one way trip to hell (whichever brand of it you choose to believe in, or if you even believe in it). We like to think we're not hurting anyone else with what we do, but that's only a half-truth. The real story here is that we will end up doing it, whether we planned on it or not. And we saw it coming, but our recklessness, our absolute disregard for care had us convinced that it would turn out perfectly in the end.

you have to reconcile yourself to it at some point. i guess.

But see, we're all only just waiting at these stations for that one moment that resolves us. That's what it all comes down to: look for a last rest stop, and possibly stay forever. We can convince ourselves this is it, really. All to live for (and to die), and in the end it's only a matter of believing what you want to, not what you've been taught. Honestly, tell yourself it will happen and then chase those dreams till the thread runs out. You won't know how you got there, but at least you'll have a journey. Just as a little memento, just something to look through. To help while you wait for that one station that speaks to you and makes you want to be.
I've been told sometimes that being is the greatest gift I'll ever get. It's good to have a chance.

Quite unlike Lullaby
those authors of bliss aid
sordid fantasies,
Reminders of could-bes
and not-quites

recreate Cheap Love.
We were not meant to be lovers
nor to recreate
Ancient Lore

We were but players.
I live to forget my indiscretions
in  your moment of lying comfort.

Hold on.
And eyes squeezed shut,
breathing. Whisper a half truth.

I forget in the personal,
And the brutally close. Forget
when your profanity became sacred

Rude shocks of morning breath as
you find
a lash clinging
And then turn to
Football scores.
I pluck it gingerly and wish
for innocence back,
what better gift?

Your preoccupations
my lack of indignation.
Both astound me,
For I give it all, and I do not know
What right this is
nor what i should ask for.

Recede into insignificance.
No hard feelings.

You forget, you forget.

They write of love as if there is nothing else. I smirk in hushed, polite tones. At the eventuality of these things, at the quick collapse, at the necessary process of making it amount to something. At least we've got pretense.

When did it all become so fluid, so changeable?
To what end did we leave behind the selves we shed?

But truly, there must be something remarkable in being so insignificant?

6.

It's been a  while. Would you be proud?

Private Waste Land.

No, don't chase. You will find a labyrinth, and within it only that which will leave you breathless and broken. So don't chase, don't follow. It is gone, away and has drifted past its prime into peace. Time weaves its long, sinewy self around these places to clean for new stories, dust and dust and dust for a new present. So don't chase.
Those letters are long burnt out, the ashes lost beyond any meaning and we are standing here anew, but only just strangers. Look into these eyes, there is so much. So much, except for the mirrors we used to find and cherish. We are strangers, so don't chase.
It is bitter to recall. So I will not. Bitter to think of the tainted. So I will not, because this is not the taste I desire. This is not what love has taught me. What love, however? Which one? I cannot remember, cannot summon up those memoirs. Perhaps because they were purely imagined?
So don't chase.
There is nothing to find.

APRIL is the cruellest month, breeding
Lilacs out of the dead land, mixing
Memory and desire, stirring
Dull roots with spring rain.

Yeah I believe in labeling theory. More importantly, though, that I am a product of it.

Forgiveness. Noble, difficult, impossible.
Painfully slow.
Sit by windows and watch worlds go by, wait for yours to move. Maybe to wake up one day, and think nothing at all.

Hope is all we have, all we can aspire to.

Let's all be tortured poets letting our words bleed into stories of where this world, this life, these times will take us. Get caught in traps that never were and be a series of not-quites only to feel sorry for wasted talent and promises of youth that we couldn't live up to, and then spend the rest of our days in unexplained silences only we understand. We have anthems ready, innumerable tales of the sorrows we constructed, crafting them carefully until we could envelope ourselves in covers of disillusionment and call it wasted potential. We are the new nonconformists, the anti to your now ancient modern social constructs, the dregs of your baby-booming, money churning, soul crushing pursuits, the self-discoverers, the subjects without your objectivity clouding our judgments. So watch us, watch us as we tap into our inner selves, run after the ultimate spiritual experience, and leave you behind as we chase our quest to be us. Just watch us as we crumble and collide and self-combust.

When spontaneous becomes another word in your vocabulary, it's just a sad realization that growing up wasn't as glamorous as you painted it to be.

"I am not the only man to seek his fortune far from home, and certainly I am not the first. Still, there are times I am bewildered by each mile I have traveled, each meal I have eaten, each person I have known, each room in which I have slept. As ordinary as it all appears, there are times when it is beyond my imagination."
From The Third and Final Continent, one of the short stories in Jhumpa Lahiri's Interpreter of Maladies.

Young and?

Close your eyes and breathe it in. The smell of grass growing out of melting puddles of snow, the smell of sunshine and new-bloom. Let's waste time and make dreams, do it until we're tired and giggling. Then let's do it all over again, for the rest of our days here. Let's not think beyond now, or today, or this moment right here, beyond these days. We're no longer young enough, but if time should have to stop, this is where we should let go of it and never ask for it back. Because the coming years won't make us any prettier than we are now. It's just right now these all-nighters won't kill us, only now that we have nothing to lose. What is a zit in the face of everyfuckingthing?We know we are blessed, how can we feel guilty about it all the time?
Don't ask what we've got to celebrate. That is a stupid thing to ask, if there ever was one. Just close your eyes and smile when the sun shines on you.
Why, you ask? Because you are beautiful young people, and you deserve to stand in this moment.

In my veins

are twisted streets, filth-filled alleys, a wreckage in the name of urban planning, the threat of bombs and blood and death, clear skies with no stars, excruciating summers with hours of no electricity. The face of  all that is deprived, and hopeless, and downtrodden. The stench of fish and sewerage, the musky smell of bodies in crowded bazaars, and dirty street-side food. The children and the disabled and the old, knocking on windows, begging and selling- begging for more than money, and selling more than flowers and tacky made-in China toys. Selling lives and blood and dreams.
In my veins are 4 am sunrises in a place that never went to sleep, waves crashing against hot sand, the feel of bug-infested grass under feet, skies in shades I will never find anywhere else, the vivid, nearly tangible threads of hope that clings- a whole life. And all the people who live in that universe that sprawls and sprawls and sprawls. That cruel, beautiful city- it's difficult to come from something that is more than around you.

A friend of mine just turned 19, and her Facebook status is one of the most beautiful, uplifting things I have read in a while. And therefore:

"18, I'll miss you...
I stood on the top of an Italian mountain, galloped on the Mediterranean, graduated, swam in a little black dress, let someone go, became part of a sisterhood, toasted the sunrise on the Atlantic, ran through Times Square, lost a friend, gained many new friends, drank with a stranger, danced in Montreal, and learned what it means to simply be. A very big thank you to being in my life. Much love"

If that isn't beautiful, I don't know what is. And what makes it better is, I did many of the things she did.
So here's a late goodbye to 19 and 2010.  

Because black and white is only just a color scheme, after all.

For someone who doesn't pray, I have a lot of faith in God. I suppose I no longer know what I am, and the term "Modern/Liberal Muslim" irks me. People like us aren't at peace with themselves simply because they live in a strange sort of uncertainty. I know which God I want to follow, but does that God want me to be following them? I'm definitely not doing enough for my God. But I'm not going to turn to some alternative version that caters to me and what I want, makes life easier. That's never been the answer.
I will not take the God's name in vain. I will not tattoo the Quran on my body. I will not wear Allah pendants, or the Ayat-ul-Kursi for decorative purposes. Does all of this make me sound holier than thou?
I don't restrict myself to halal meat. I respect people who do. I don't understand it when people insist on eating halal, but will drink alcohol. And there are many who do that. But perhaps this is some strange way of practicing faith, just as I have my own.
I do judge people. More than they know. More than it is my place to judge. And I ask for forgiveness everyday. But excuse my audacity if I don't know what it is that I seek forgiveness for. All my life I was taught not to take God's name in vain. The one thing I took away from faith was to be a good person. Does a good person pray regularly? Or do they avoid hurting other people? Or both? I was taught that there is a God, watching over everything. And I've never really forgotten it. While there are people all around me professing their atheism and their agnosticism, I turn to the only God I know and I pray for protection. From what? I don't know, but I suppose it's a certain loss of faith that I fear more than anything else.
We all need something to hold on to, and feeling abandoned by the one entity I place my trust in is more than I could handle.
We all need forgiveness. For a million things.

Word.

"Some women choose to follow men, and some women choose to follow their dreams. If you're wondering which way to go, remember that your career will never wake up and tell you that it doesn't love you anymore."-Lady Gaga

Holding it out in times of famine, with hearts spent and eyes in strange hues of bloodshot. Those are but images, outside there is strength. There are resolves to go on, to keep moving, to be as the world is. To be something, just don't lose. Carry on, what are you waiting for?
No, nothing really matters, and nothing is ever worth that much. But there are so many ironies in saying that, because if it's inconsequential, then why pour your soul into it? Why lose what little you have saved? It could be anything, anyone. Irreplaceable is not a possibility or an option; in fact, options open- it's what we're all about, isn't it? It's the pain of losing things that catch you with a slow, surprising tingle, and make you feel alive again. It's that, excuse the cliche, magic, so to speak. But as surprising as it is at its onset, the excruciatingly deliberate way it takes a toll is anything but a walk in the park. Everything but that. You know why it's easy to watch sandcastles wash away? Because they're just that. Sandcastles. You build them so the water will sweep them into itself. And no matter how long you spend, it's never forgotten how transient they are.
What I'm talking about now.. this? This is not a sandcastle. It could be a mirage. An oasis, imagined of course. Definitely not a castle of something that washes away with ease and grace.
This right here is dirty. There's a reason no one ever talks about it. It's uncomfortable to think of it gone wrong. It is unbearable. Torturous. So you push and you push and you push it away, all the way to the back of your head.
But this isn't a hundred dollar note you'd thought you had lost, and then one day found in some pocket of some jeans you wore six months ago. Oh no. There is nothing pleasant about the stark realization that there is nothing but you. You are the only reason you exist, and you are selfish, alone- but it is all about you. But then you're cut up into these pieces you can't reconcile yourself to. They cut into parts that are absolute secrets, but how do you keep something from yourself?
Never had much of a penchant for painting things rosy. No, sir.

And here's to unexpected apologies, and none from where they should be coming.

It's strange to explain. Even to feel. You can see the lights dimming as you walk by, and you can see your feet shuffling on automatically in the directions they've been taught to walk. You can eat, chew, swallow- and have no idea of what you just did. Because this dimming, it doesn't just limit itself to the streetlamps. It's wrapped itself around your heart, and now everything is pale. Withering and pale. Spring is around the corner, but this chill in your bones- it won't go away.
There are no stories in eyes this blank. There are no words for hearts this dim. Every time some hint of coherent thought tries to push its way in, your head spins. The world spins, your legs threaten to give way. So you don't think.
But then, when you're sitting. When you are alone, you wonder if you made the right choices. You wonder if you should've stayed. There were only two things to do. It would have been a leap of faith either way, and you chose one. But now, when you're alone and empty, you just wonder if it was right. You had always known that some things would be left behind. But in your ignorance, you didn't know at what cost. And in what ways.
 And ironically, the only quotes that you can quote are words said by those who walked away. You will always be alone. Alone in lonely.

The thing with love is, it can make you feel powerful even when you aren't. And then it drags you down, further than you ever expected it to, and leaves you in the gutter. Shattered illusions are an understatement.
That is the thing with it. Yep.

So very tired.
I am cold down to the last bone in my body. I might as well be standing in the storm raging outside. Cold, weary and wondering. When am I ever going to be good enough to be worth something?
Oh well.

The loneliest kind of restlessness is spent thinking about the past. When you look around yourself, and see how far you've come from all of that, pride isn't all that's on your mind.