SubconsciousEscapism

6.

Private Waste Land.

Young and?

In my veins

Word.

All you need is love...

Oed' und leer das Meer

Home Part II

When the fog became God

12.

Then and Now

Johny Panic and the Bible of Dreams

No Surprises.

BidderSweet.

Silvia.

They don't love you like I love you.

Maybe Tomorrow.

Yes.

Desertscape.

Hole-65daysofstatic

Overdue.

Burn so bright I wonder what the wave meant. w00t.

Is that why you wanted a love song?

Bombed.

Gas tank.

Khekhekhe.

For rain, look into heart.

Fade out.

Cause we've all been painted by numbers-

Idols.

Who?

I want to live and breathe.

Whuttodo?

Hello, I am .

Calendar girl.

Why so blue, you?

Feeling.

What's gone is gone, eh?

It's not a rant, it's a state of being=\

R.I.P - 02/03/05

Your Ex-lover Is Dead- Stars

Denature

Damaged -Plumb

Words of Wisdom.

Haye mein kitnee emo huun.

In The Sun by Joseph Arthur <3

Pink

2011-06-22T14:58:00.002+05:00

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.

2011-05-25T07:15:00.001+05:00

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

2011-05-09T14:52:00.001+05:00

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.

2011-05-01T00:24:00.000+05:00

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.

2011-05-01T00:20:00.000+05:00

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.

2011-04-18T08:08:00.001+05:00

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

2011-04-14T11:52:00.001+05:00

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

2011-04-07T11:05:00.001+05:00

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

2011-04-07T08:43:00.000+05:00

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.

2011-03-31T00:31:00.000+05:00

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

2011-03-22T10:04:00.002+05:00

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.

2011-03-22T05:05:00.000+05:00

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.

2011-03-20T13:06:00.000+05:00

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.

2011-02-24T11:04:00.000+05:00

"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.

2011-02-18T11:08:00.001+05:00

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.

2011-02-15T09:35:00.000+05:00

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.

2011-02-11T11:13:00.002+05:00

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.

2011-02-08T09:47:00.001+05:00

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

2011-02-04T11:41:00.001+05:00

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.

2011-01-22T10:41:00.003+05:00

"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

2011-01-21T09:31:00.001+05:00

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.

2011-01-18T11:18:00.001+05:00

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

2011-01-14T05:02:00.001+05:00

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.

2011-01-13T19:15:00.000+05:00

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.

2011-01-12T18:15:00.000+05:00

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.

2011-01-11T06:18:00.000+05:00

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.

2010-12-20T02:56:00.001+05:00

It's difficult to reconcile yourself to silences when you're young and every bone in your body is screaming out life. You're somewhere between not-too-young and not-too-old; this is what they call the "prime" ( of what, though?). You're supposed to conquer everything, not stand here and watch it fly past you. It's difficult, and it takes patience you do not possess because you lost it in the struggle against a world that refused to stop. So you had to move, because there is power in numbers and you were truly defeated in this one instance. And then, well, it's unexciting really but there are times you begin to confirm when you have to. If you stop and think about it for a moment, if you have solitude- it's not gratitude you feel. It's this immense irritation about why the world isn't moving, because inside your mind time is racing. And just yesterday you wanted it to stop.
You wonder if this is some sort of cheap trick fate wants to play, since the world didn't stop when you wished for it to, and now it won't move. Murphy's law, they call it.

It's always the little things. Does it really matter how quiet it is as long as there's music and a cigarette? How the absence of those two makes everything worse is something you will never quite understand; what makes sense, though, is the cold. And the heightened senses. You'd blindfold yourself and spin around just to feel like you're moving, since tequila waved goodbye ages ago. But that's just wishful thinking. There's work to do, papers to write, expectations to fulfill. The only thing you're allowed to do is sit in your corner of the room, twiddle your thumbs and type out twenty-something handwritten pages. And then write some more. And work a little more.

It's always, always a battle. The whole universe seems to think you're good enough, but are you really? Are you good enough for yourself? Is it ever enough?

And more importantly, what happens if you stop?

2010-12-09T01:06:00.000+05:00

LOL JK.

So my question now is, is shared misery also a pre-requisite? Because geographical proximity made the list a while ago.

2010-12-07T07:55:00.000+05:00

I've become uncomfortable sharing myself with the world, and I feel that increasingly, I cannot talk about things here without thinking about them first. And that was never the intention.
Maybe, it's time to stop.
Just a thought.

2010-11-27T04:48:00.000+05:00

Indeed, indeed. And what should I go back to, and what should I go on for?
We live more for our small hopes and dreams. But when they're gone, we stagger and stumble, and fall. And then what.. then what?

2010-11-27T02:35:00.001+05:00

So many stories but which one to tell?

2010-11-27T00:35:00.003+05:00

Oh how life turns.
You give your heart, and it's torn apart.
And all you have left is sad little rhyming cliches. And pieces. Of everything you gave away.

Oh but.
We will keep calm
And we will carry on.
They survived the holocaust with it, and mine is but a heart.

2010-11-26T22:55:00.000+05:00

The world stops, if only in pictures.

2010-11-22T11:45:00.000+05:00

I think.
I think what we're waiting for is the world to stop for a few moments, so we can take a deep breath and collect ourselves. Except that it never, ever does. So we stop and try to collect ourselves anyway, and what happens then?
The world moves on and leaves us behind, as we're left doing all the breathing and the collecting.

Such is life.

2010-11-21T11:36:00.002+05:00

Loneliness is often, and unwelcome. But you must be a good sport, and you must persevere. Because there is always another day.
At least that's what they've been telling me.

2010-11-17T05:56:00.000+05:00

Of course I dream of running. Everyone in the ranks of the restless and the lonely does. We dream of conquering, and escaping, and of the subsequent elation that will take hold of us. We write out elaborate fantasies in our imaginations, then wipe the board clean and write some more, just so we can test out the limits we have set for ourselves. And of course, to find out if it's possible to break them. Up there is the sky, and we find ourselves owning a blue vastness with our eyes closed and our hearts open. We embrace the possibilities we make, and we will them to become true. Only to have the satisfaction of knowing, even for once, what it feels like. We live in so many hopes, dream so much- it all piles up, quite precariously in our souls. It's always at the point of almost toppling over, but even then we can't let go of the empires we've achieved, if only within ourselves.
It's not like we don't know this is a series of exercises in futility. We know more, and better, than those who never dream. That's the epicenter of our crisis: we know a little too much, and a little too well that our castles are made of sand. At the end, when we're up against the world, they will wash away and wash up in the consciousness of others who dreamed like we did. And even then, even when the these lives have collapsed, when we become bogged down in our own webs- even then we we will not have the heart to warn them. And we will never laugh, because looking back at our naivety will be endearing in the most heartbreaking of ways.

2010-11-16T08:53:00.000+05:00

But of course, you will move mountains. It's what you were born to do, and this stalling of yours is just a momentary distraction.

2010-11-07T23:33:00.000+05:00

You spent half of your life trying to fall behind
You're using your headphones to drown out your mind
It was so easy, and the words so sweet

You can't remember, you try to move your feet.

It's all incoherent and alien to you. The world is blank and you're lost in it, except that you're not little, and there's no one to pick you up and restore you into your little corner. You forget if there even is a corner in which you're supposed to belong, and it puzzles you because you've come to the place where you've convinced yourself that you made that corner up, a long time ago, to run away from Unpleasant Things. So you allow yourself to stand there, in the middle of all that vast endlessness, right in the center, and feel like the world's spotlight is shining down on you and you're looking up at it. You can't decide whether it makes you feel important or impossibly small, whether you want it all or none of it, and if it even makes a difference now that you're here and this is life.

2010-10-18T10:06:00.000+05:00

Write.Unwrite. Erase. Delete. Adjectives for the inevitable End to words, and pasts. To what they have done, and what they could do- in your head, of course. It only ever mattered in there, where your own demons chase you around in echoing circles that never cease to exist. Unless you erase and delete, of course. But how does one go about erasing and deleting chapters of one's life? How can your mind regurgitate the blank-slate-state-of-being, throw it up and slip it on- at any rate, it's never going to be the real deal, is it?
It can be very convincing. True. And if you stop it from chasing you, that's half the battle won, perhaps even more.
But where to begin. Really, where?

2010-10-15T08:11:00.000+05:00

One of those tired spells where you feel drained of all energy and power, and there's pouring rain outside. Words are incoherent, even as you try to form sentences in your head.
But then you give up.

2010-10-06T06:30:00.000+05:00

It smells nothing like the sea here. Nothing like the salty, smoky smell of a Karachi breeze in the night, no sign of balmy air catching you by surprise on an oppressively hot day, no smell of tikkas and kebabs sizzling on skewers across the street, and the hustle and bustle of the city that never sleeps. Never, not when bombs are exploding, not when people are killing or dying, not when the electricity conveniently goes out and comes back on. The city takes it all in her stride, and we as her children, do the same. So when I wake up in the morning not to sights of crazy-coloured buses wreaking havoc in heavy traffic, aided by motorcyclists who quite evidently seem to be on some sort of death mission, when I don't hear impatient drivers blaring horns at other cars and instead have to rely on an alarm clock to wake me up- it bothers me. There's only so long you can stare at a clear night sky with an abundance of celestial bodies before you start missing the tell-tale smog of Home, and only so long when walking out of your dorm in the morning you to see squirrels scurrying about over leaves in various different shades of yellow and orange is a novelty.

I'm not sick of it here. I probably would never be, but I guess it's a tough one to let loyalty face a head-on collision with awe.

2010-09-25T13:04:00.001+05:00

"We're gonna watch the sunrise, do you want to join us?"

At least they asked. And I didn't even know them.

2010-09-22T08:12:00.000+05:00

Here we begin, in near-paradise, our lives. New and untainted, we spend our days broadening our horizons and our minds, spotting migratory birds, sitting by the lakes at sunset and walking and walking and walking. In this bubble we forget our Self, or perhaps the multitude of Selves we used to be. Here, we are new. We have no shame, and nothing to hide. Here, we are cocooned if we choose to be so. And here, there will be no judgments. Come tomorrow, we will not be called to account for what we did. It's really a rather carefree, mirth-filled existence. Life is endless readings, overpriced cigarettes and coffee, the search for authentic tea, beautiful windy mornings with hints of a chill and a lack of men (we don't complain about that, believeyoume).
We study music, and gender, and philosophy, and the environment- we rattle them all out in one breath, like it's really the most normal thing in the world. We have big dreams, we want to make this world a better place. We really tend to believe modern-day versions of fairy tales here. Here is where no one notices the colour of your skin, where you come from, your religion or the lack of it, your sexual orientation- really, nothing matters much. We go from being 17 to 25 in a matter of seconds, and back even quicker.
And what about me?
I fear this new-found freedom will convert the misfit in me from it's dormant state to a bitter, unfitting part of the Life Puzzle when it is time to leave.

2010-08-22T06:03:00.000+05:00

And then, there are some who want to be seen, and known, and heard, and talked about. But never, for once, will they let this be known. And in this not letting it be known, they forget themselves the true meaning of essence, and then it is lost. They are all and nothing, starting a fire and ending up with ashes.
And what about ashes?
They go where the wind goes.

2010-08-17T02:33:00.001+05:00

Nostalgia chooses to peek out of the strangest corners; it envelopes me when I look at deserted, half-constructed buildings, when the smoke from piles of burning rubbish gets caught in my throat. when the stench of fish accompanies me through half of Clifton, the beach with its sour, dirty smell against the too-bright glare of whitewashed light. The streets with roads eroded and filled with water because of rain, swarming with mosquitoes. The urchins and the hijras and the thousands of beggars in Ramadan. Streets suddenly plunging into complete darkness because of power cuts.
And of course, Abdullah Shah Ghazi ki mazaar. It twinkles and shines, like a gaudily decked out monarch showing off his jewels. You can blow up as many shrines as you want, and these people will still flock to them.
In the evenings when the air is still and balmy, and there is not a single hint of a breeze.
At 3 am, when the roads are empty and quiet, yet never quite asleep.
At random times when there is nowhere to go, nothing to do except sit around and hang out in someone's room.

It is always the same Karachi. It is in my blood and my heart and my flesh. Karachi, in all its third-world glory, unabashedly proud. It is home, like no place will be.

2010-08-16T03:51:00.001+05:00

You leave a million heartbreaks in your wake, with each turn of every season. For what? Alternatively flitting and stumbling through life and love, this restlessness will turn one day into a pain you cannot ignore, and from there on the curse will take its toll as the seasons you fled tie you in their threads of spun silk that just won't tear. One day there will be a sky to look at, but no sun that holds meaning for you and there will be nothing left in your name or later, your memory.
You will be a speck of dust, and they will walk over you like you did over them. They will not notice, and you will not startle, for you will not be what you were: there will no longer be a tiny, golden deity. Instead, you will be what you never thought you could become. An inconsequential grain of unremarkable brown sand.
And then, you will wonder.
How is that for change?

2010-08-10T01:20:00.000+05:00

They call it the City of Lights but it don't shine here no more.

2010-07-13T05:30:00.002+05:00

At some point we all revert back into the old days, when a million stars twinkled imaginatively in the sky and each one was someone's lost beloved, a piece of soul shining every night to reassure those who were left behind. When we'd prop eager hands under eager chins and listen to stories, pretend to sleep for half an hour just so the teacher would let us splash paint on cheap-paper-covered-plastic-canvas and allow us to call it a goat, a cat, an apple, a chair, our Mommy. In a good way, nothing was ever entirely one thing. You could slap someone for not sharing, and then be best friends in two minutes. When your parents fought, you would command your father's attention, urge it with a desperateness "Baba! Baba! Babaaaaaaa!!", tap him on his shoulder or pull on his sleeve, something he couldn't ignore and when he said "Yes Baba?", you'd ask an inane question or two, and feel self-satisfied believing you'd done all you could to stop the fight and anger.

Then the magic steadily faded, the stars were merely a collection of gases waiting the end of their own time as we're waiting the end of ours. And shooting stars were enough to make people swallow cyanide. We became old enough to tell our own stories, old enough to make them sordid, old enough to regret them and not tell them to anyone in our shame, let alone little children (as we once were) with their hands under their chins. Old enough to see the flaws in the pillars we once saw as invincible, to become them. When we unearthed the masterpieces we had created- after the pretend-nap that somehow turned real and our teacher gently shook us awake, groggy eyed as only kindergartners can be after twenty minutes of sound sleep- we saw how it was neither an apple, nor a cat. It was nothing like those, nothing in between. Nothing, but a blob of cheap, bright poster paint that was preserved only because your mother kept it in a plastic folder and forgot all about it. And sleep? That came and went, came and went- easily, fitfully, restlessly, dreamless. What had once been seamless became a hotchpotch of adjectives, with the key one missing acutely: peacefully. You grew old enough to see the patriarch in your father, then old enough to hate him, then old enough to channel your resentment into things that would annoy him enough to fire up his already tempestuous anger just to test the limits and toe the lines. And when he was no more, you were old enough to handle it in your own strangely sad way of growing up too soon for all the wrong reasons and all the wrong people.

Then, when you were finally old enough to consider why things happened as they did, why your father was the tyrannical patriarch he was, why it wasn't his fault, why it wasn't simply black or white, why there were endless lines and maps that lead to the same place and yet took you on different rides, why you were part of the one person you had hated with all the force of a child in a hurry to grow up. When all that came to be, there simply was nothing left to talk about, the doctrine of Nothing Is Ever Entirely One Thing became maddening.

And then you reverted back into the memories of when a million starsouls shared one home.

2010-07-05T04:07:00.000+05:00

The air crackles with his blue-tongued lightning-haloed angels.
His love is the twenty-storey leap, the rope at the throat, the knife at the heart.
He forgets not his own.

The red box I see from the corner of my eye commands my imagination. It runs, wildly and twistedly and turning, leaps off cliffs and into notebooks, pools of ink, tear-smudged words. I yelp and run faster, hamster wheel threatening to break, I am horrified. I am unable, and I am paranoid. It is being fed, and within me becoming alive- a living, breathing symbol of this, this thing I cannot quite explain. Or even see.

The memory throws up high and dry
A crowd of twisted things;

A right here, a left there and an infinitude of wrongs, where can we go but charge into our own follies and wish for a moment, then run again and crash headlong into a pile of thorns. This crown on my head, circling me and glowing, this halo really just stings if you come forward and look close. I am gold and fear, the culmination of a paradox that grew by and failed itself as all paradoxes do in the end. And I? I was lying there in my own dreams, within the not-at-all real and the stark squalor of immediacy holding out my hand and waiting for Johny Panic. But He never came, as they never really do. We waited.

I have seen eyes in the street
Trying to peer through lighted shutters,

So the red box, this absolute, utter, bleeding reality of us. It really just belongs in the sewerage of our urban hopeless states, when night after night after night we toil for love, lay bare a shoulder; and then more. We never quite get there, but they tell us again and again-

He forgets not his own.

(The title of this post and the beginning is Sylvia Plath's work. The verse part is from Eliot's "Rhapsody on a Windy Night")

2010-07-04T06:18:00.000+05:00

I've been waiting and waiting and waiting, and now you're here. I remember wishing for a light at the end of the tunnel, it's here now. And it's you.
Don't change. For the both of us. xx =)

2010-07-03T22:37:00.001+05:00

That's the cigarette she stubbed out. She looks at the half smoked thing lying there, suddenly thinking why. She didn't want it anymore, it was making her nauseous. Besides, she doesn't like the way people look at her when she's smoking. It makes her feel naked, dirty. She wonders why they look at her like that, but only for a second, before moving back inside. She's going to be outside in the balcony again tomorrow, same time, same place and think the same things. Half smoke another cigarette, and throw it away. These half-smoked things, half finished stories, half healed hearts, half victories; it's a trademark now. "I know, I know.."
3 AM.
The clock over her bed hasn't been working for 6 years. Who knows why it's there. It's a waste of time, literally.
"So's your life."

I know, I know.

2010-06-20T01:36:00.000+05:00

We are far from invulnerable
when we fall,
when we tinkle like
the stainless steel
against
the delicate china,
but break in a frightening crash.

Except maybe, less glamour-
more clamor for lives
not yet lived and roads
not yet taken.

Maybe, maybe all we wanted
was a chat over some
mango pickles and the
monsoon passing by our windows
and sticking eager faces,
summer skin out to lap up the rain.

Maybe a time where
you and I, or them,
other manifestations of us,
loved each other for exactly
that. Each Other.
Where it was easy
and the word outside
was a reference to summer rain
and hot tea.
But, alas.

2010-05-06T23:06:00.000+05:00

Won't you take it all,
you silent, beautiful lull,
you endless, sweeping thing that
snatches and snitches on
this solace that has been
gnawing away,
pecking and gnawing,
You pest, you creature, you mirage.

Would you let me forever hold my peace,
If I for that one moment refuse to speak?

I bid goodbye to
your bids on my love,
You sweet, sweet bidder,
Auction me off,
I trust they will
to the highest, to the best-
Perhaps to you and this heart,
this infinitesimally beautiful,
this petrified,
this caged
thing will be yours to keep.

To what end,
For what purpose?

2010-05-06T18:43:00.000+05:00

Did I say too much,

Did I say enough?

I don’t know, Silvia.

I don’t know, Silvia…

I don’t know. The questions circling around in your mind will find no answers by stumbling into me- there’s not much to see here, let alone find. You will dig deeper, and be rewarded with ashes of what I used to be, used to feel. Now I can disguise myself and carry on like it never happened. The pages no longer turn, we are no longer dancing in flames that licked at our consciousness and burnt our beings into contemplation. My words are as empty as my soul- perhaps the latter is emptier than the threadbare pocket of a homeless, washed out bum. I’m still waiting for the pennies you may have, to throw my way. A dollar, a nickel, a cent- aik paisa hee dedo, kuch tou dou, idher tou dekho..

Circle round the room still,

Often breaking my will,

Know I can’t have you here,

Someone else on your skin..

Two minutes- all you need is two minutes to forget my face. That’s all anyone ever needed. Really, it’s a joke when we profess our inability to live without one another. It really only takes two minutes, whatever your interpretation of those one hundred and twenty seconds might be. How does one love? How does one find that love? And how does that love last? How does it not break the heart after taking, and taking, and taking- and in one final plunge emptying it of a lifetime of painstaking giving. And when I’m empty, when you’ve had your fill, when I have given it all away, when I am dried up, where will you be?

Not here, maybe in another dimension of my thought, maybe when I will think about you one afternoon- far into the future, far out in the distances I see from my window. I may see us, and I may dwell on it for the tiniest of moments, form one of those impossibly long nexuses; then forget it ever happened.

That forgetting part, it helps me stumble through.

And the lights go out,

Will there be a trace

That I loved Silvia?

That I loved Silvia….

That once we loved and gave and fulfilled and promised.

Once upon that time, so long, long ago..

2010-04-13T04:27:00.001+05:00

I spend a lot of my time thinking about how, next year, I'm going to be twenty. Even eighteen seemed quite young, being an adult was still far away, something in the distant future that I wouldn't have to worry about for a while. I enjoyed my bits of freedom, and let growing up wash over me in a lazy wave that struck every now and then, but never too often.
I still haven't learnt how to drive, or acquired an ID card. The only form of identification I possess is my passport, and my school ID card, that makes me feel like- well, like a school kid.

I realised why, sometimes, people refer to college and university as school when it isn't school. It's holding on to something that has been so important to them. My sister just got to fifth grade, and she's so excited about using a pen to write. I'd have thought "Yeah. A pen. Big whoop.", but I remembered how excited I was as well- being a fifth grader, being allowed to use a pen- these things were signs of growing up.
And now it all seems to overrated, this getting older thing.

I know I'm old enough, but I don't know for what. On a peculiar level, I actually appreciate it now when mum barges into the room at 4 am in the morning and asks who I'm on the phone with, when she refuses to close my door and makes fun of the word "privacy", when she tries to force feed me and when she tells me where I can and cannot go.

I have, what, four and a half more months till I'm entirely responsible for myself. Where I go, what I do, who I meet, what I wear, my timings, my choices, my friends. I have yet to decide how I feel about all of that.

2010-04-11T01:04:00.000+05:00

It beats in surrendered corners and
in shreds scattered through the wind and
In ashes that fed the bonfire we lit and
(It was never so bright before)
within us.

An inkling of the cracks,
this is the surface too but
it's just inside, I'm just here, but
it's unknown to you and
you are within me, deeply
as I am outside the world that
is you.

Wait, they don't love you like I love you.

Reach out and extend arms,
inward please, not out,
but no- that's not right-
You can't reach in,
And I can't come out.

2010-04-05T01:07:00.000+05:00

I'd explain it if I could, tell you why I write these morbid little monologues about things that were and will come to be. But my job is to reveal how it feels, and not why- ironic, because I'm the ever-unfeeling, the posterchild of heartless and faithless and hopeless. These things you attach to me, without ever asking me to give you a penny for my thoughts. It's too expensive a bargain for most people, especially in these times of recession- our hearts are emptier than our banks. We'd much rather cut forward than let the weeds of our pasts shackle our ankles and drag us into the inky black of memories. What's in it for me?

That's one that always evaded me.

2010-03-25T02:22:00.000+05:00

I knew I belonged to the public and to the world, not because I was talented or even beautiful, but because I had never belonged to anything or anyone else. -Marilyn Monroe

Perhaps when we find ourselves wanting everything, it is because we are dangerously close to wanting nothing. -Sylvia Plath

Some things just make more sense than others.
Yeah.
If you knew, if you figured out that essentially, there is nothing about me. That's all there is to it. Nothing.

2010-03-21T13:21:00.019+05:00

I look around at a beautiful life
Been the upperside of down
Been the inside of out
But we breathe
We breathe

Yeah, we breathe. Every night, every single night, the godless minutes pass with excruciating slowness and I'm left begging to feel. I beg, and plead, and cry- just to be able to feel. Something, anything. Throw a bone at me, give me a little, don't abandon me, Hope, please don't. And even in this numbness, I can't stop deconstructing. Can't stop looking for signs, for meanings behind why I am this way- it just never comes to me. All I know is I find myself being able to empathize with why he may have chosen to die. And I never even knew him, hadn't heard of him till he was gone. And yet, I feel this affinity with him.
Don't get me wrong. I'm grateful for all that I have, because it's a lot more than most people do. But it's a series of pyrrhic victories, pointless battles won, things conquered. For what?
I'm here, but I'm here for them- not me. Because I don't comprehend why. I could be standing at the sidelines, an anonymous observer of my own life. Although I'm controlling it.

I can't-won't- talk. There's little, if any, good that comes out of talking. I've exhausted all I had to say to anyone, and all I do is sit, and wait, and watch. And I still can't see anything.

So maybe tomorrow
I'll find my way home
So maybe tomorrow
I'll find my way home

2010-03-21T03:06:00.000+05:00

An hour knocks on the door and
Upon finding it shut, slides under the crack,
Slithers in uninvited to tamper with my memory
To laugh at some incomplete recollection of
A windy day followed by
A foggy night.

A Mind as hazy, as hazy as that which
Caused these beads of thought to slip
Off a string that came lose with a
Slight tug
At the nape of her neck, that night
That passed so restless and alive
In the solitude of survival,
Of pretending that we are, indeed, alright.

One of the strangest things we, as emotional creatures, do is try to attribute shreds of meaning to our mundane existences. We all bump into mental blocks, fall to pieces, get back up and then- we fall again. It's a lot to process, because when all you're doing is getting through life without ever really knowing what the point is and without even trying to attach significance to it, all you're in for is a tough time. And then one day, as you're staring into space, it hits you, this hollow epiphany- it's not a phase. It's just life.

2010-03-18T01:08:00.000+05:00

It's a wave-no, it's something else- a bubble is bursting somewhere, a song is dying, there's a clandestine parallel pathway that's operating in the very same godless microcosm we call life. I watch you build it up to a perfect falsetto and then, it's sudden, your voice dies mid-perfection. I will never encounter another one like that, never fulfill my lust for the flawless. It was an almost, but it was a not-quite too, and wavering back and forth between the two I see the impossibility of forever.
What is sacred, what has ever been to you, I ask you now as we sit in this cosy cafe waiting for our orders and the pianist's fingers linger over the keys of his bread and butter- like a ballerina, they go back and forth, back and forth, as I wait for an answer that you can give me. But it's lost to you as well, I can tell when I see you, when your voice is a croak that never became you. It always revealed your lies to me.

I would get up, walk away and leave, run into the streets of Amsterdam, Paris, Rome- wherever we sit in my imagination- only to find myself in the Sahara. Because what are you, if not a mirage? Illusory, delusional, a falsification, breathing here to crumble my sand castle. There will be nothing left when the water washes away our lives and our loves, the sea comes back to purge every now and then. This desert was once a sea, an ocean,a habitat. No more now, no more. From dust, to dust- This is us, unhinged and unraveled, as we wait for the champagne and the oysters, over-romanticizing the loss of romance, because an opportunity for glamour is not to be missed.

But inside, here, in my mind, I am parched. I am waiting, and there is an oasis that never was, will never be, calling out.

2010-03-17T20:47:00.000+05:00

If anyone wonders why I never erase any part of my life from here, any of my loves, it's because here are pieces of my life spread out in the best way I can put them, and this is one jigsaw that can't be erased.
So I might as well let it be, on the www and for real.
You just can't change it, and hey, it's been beautiful at some point, hasn't it?

2010-03-09T02:50:00.000+05:00

The reason, I realised, that I don't make friends is that I think people are very, very unreliable. It's not a trust deficit, it's something else. Every single time I've tried to make an effort with someone has turned into that person and me drifting apart for no apparent reason. And my problem is, I have too much of an ego to make an effort with too many people. So, I stick to my lot, the people I've loved, hated, tried out, spend a significant amount of time with, and they're still there.
And I guess I'm fairly alright.

Except that, every once in a while, you think back about that one "friend" who drifted away, who you had a wonderful bond with, and it makes your feel wistful. Because there was something there that someone lost along the way.
And that is sad, if not tragic.

2010-03-07T22:07:00.001+05:00

"You're so mournful, ever so mournful, always so mournful." She said, emphasizing the tragedy of the situation as she took a delicate bite of the chocolate donut she held in her hand. ("Ishouldn'tbeeatingthis, I'msupposedtobeonadiet" says the voice in her head, and like all other unpleasant voices, is drowned out on a whim.)

"Truth is, I just don't see it anymore, me- who am I? What is this, what are we? How wonderfully existentialist of me to ask, how very Ayn Rand- perhaps one day I'll be one of those high-flying career women without a love but with..what's that word...job satisfaction? Yeah, and a six figure salary.
What's that? Expectations? I hate that word, though I do have an awful lot too, of course, don't we all? But I despise it. It sounds dirty, and cheap, like a trash fiction romance that we all want (admitit, tit? No. It. MovingON)in our lives but will never confess to. And yet we have them (expectations, not trashfic romances), will keep on nurturing them until they kill us from within- or maybe not. You can't kill that which never lived, yeah? Yeah.
Don't look at me so reproachfully with those pretty eyes, honey. You know all this is nothing new, I'm just saying it so it seems to be. We've heard it a lot, you and I, that the world is no place for us-primarily from ourselves. Believed it too. So I know, I know it's a bit of a shock when the high heavens don't open up to mark your passage into some transcendental, parallel reality. You're as normal, as ordinary as that clerk who's stuck in a strictly average 9-to-5 job, as that beggar who(that?) was knocking with his filth encrusted knuckles on your car's window. It's just that the filth is within you. It's your heart that's covered in it.
Don't be so defensive. It's only just me, and I know you inside out. I see you everyday, we've spent our lives together. You can't hide that face from me, you know it too."

She finished eating that donut, daintily licked the tips of her fingers, moved from in front of the mirror. Monologue over.

2010-03-07T22:05:00.001+05:00

I've never seen her cry. Except that one time, when he was dying, and she was struggling to make that decision about whether she should have him put on life support or not. She decided against it, because she's a strong woman. I've known people who have put loved ones on life support in the vain hopes of a turn around, a full recovery that never happens. It's an empty reassurance, telling yourself that there is a tiny sliver of hope as long as their heart is beating, as long as that oxygen mask mists over with the machine-breath. You feel like your words are getting through to them, and any moment now their eyes will open slowly, and they will smile and all will be well.

Too bad life isn't an episode of Grey's Anatomy. The Merediths in our world aren't such resilient survivors, I will tell you as much.

Point being, I've never seen her cry. They wanted her to sign his life away, but it wasn't because they cared. It was just a matter of wanting to get it over and done with. It's a fact I've become accustomed to in the past five years that have made us feel like unwelcome strangers to an exclusive party. It doesn't make a difference to me, things rarely ever do. But it devastates her in some way, I can tell because she talks about it repeatedly. And I want to grab her by the shoulders and shake her and tell her "It doesn't make a difference. They're not our family, not your relatives, not his relatives. It really doesn't make a difference." But she's my mother and I'd be violating some code of conduct if I were to do that. Besides, we're not very expressive as a family. No hugs, no kisses, nothing of that sort. And I'm perfectly fine with that.

She cried then. Didn't make a show of it like they did, but she cried, and didn't eat for two weeks. I wonder what she thinks every year on the day he went. 17 years is a long, long time.

2009-10-12T02:06:00.000+05:00

Wait a minute I'm passin' out win or lose...

Frenzy and (wrong) value judgments made in the nick of time. Relying on past examples of getting-away-with-it and pulling-it-off ( so many). Fueled by over-sweetened black corporate poison and an intense desire to get this over and done with. Self-reflection when there's really no time for it, and a lack of company.

In bursts I don't know what to do with myself, with this syllabus, with my insane last minute endeavors. There's everything but an hour and a half of tomorrow to look forward to.

Godspeed?

You're welcome.

Kick start the golden generator
Sweet talk but don't intimidate her

2009-10-09T22:56:00.001+05:00

Too much work and a lack of concentration fueled by the desire to let go and write and scream. But how?
There's a block surrounding us and we're being consumed by the fire we began ourselves. Too ambitious, perhaps? Too eager? I'm told bitter truths that I swallow in sugar coated pills, pills that let out bursts of cyanide into my thoughts, until I am not I and you are not you, our world is changed, and there are no intersections in the venn diagram of our story.
Except maybe love.
But was love ever enough, as much as it may be? Does it part oceans, shake mountains, perform those miracles? Or is it just... Something that's there. Abstract, intangible. Is it possible for something to die when all you have is love? Wasn't it supposed to be the glue that holds it all together. "We might not have anything, but we have love." transforms into "We might have love, but we have nothing else."
I have no idea when and how that happened. I don't even know if it's happened. Sometimes I wonder about the past and how the years shaped the path I was going to take. I wonder if I'm a tad bit heartless, if I'm deliberately insensitive.
Insecure, invalidated. So am I.

I'm trying to let you hear me as I am

2009-09-23T04:47:00.000+05:00

They flew off the roof, I stared in awe and horror and shock and... I stared. A death rally, mobs clad in black setting alight crimson fires and a celebration of the utter morbidity reached by mankind. They stood there with last goodbyes on their lips, reckless and loud, eyes screaming vengeance and rage. I stared still, waiting, immobile.
The crowd jeered, the noises clashed and collided, like a deluge of misery washing over me,and I was mesmerized. A row of men and women, preparing to propel themselves into thin air as the ultimate act of rebellion. The most profane of sacrifices, lined up as they were on that rooftop. Oh, it was such a convoluted joy then in that mob.
And then,"Allahu Akbar", an explosion.Or was it cheering? The shattering bodies, bloody fireworks and sparks and ashes. Orange red gray. Guts, concrete, fire, smoke. Alarms.

A declaration of our own funeral, a collective suicide song ringing high in the charcoal air, and then, silence. For the dead and departed, for the pieces of flesh and bones strewn in the mob's feet. They coloured their foreheads with burning blood and let go of the inhibitions tying them to this half baked sanity. Incited, ignited, they cried "La Illaha Il Allah, Muhammadur Rasool Allah!", a chant eerily disturbing to me after being used for a lifetime as a confession of my faith. Who was I then, in the face of this unknown Islam?

Who were these people I saw, and when had this happened?

Swords were unsheathed, and criminals who looked like me were brought out. Women, girls, little children, made to stand right there in the middle of that circle, and still I stared. I stared as they began slicing here and there, watching the blood spill out, as the mob warded off satan from the souls of these infidels who hadn't donned the nameless, faceless black garb of these apparent revolutionaries.

And then, I snapped out of my trance. Backed out of the balcony, ran inside to protect my family, because I had seen what they remained oblivious to. Knowing, even in my desire to save, the futility of it all. Because I was not nameless, or faceless. I was not covered. But I ran. And just as I was reaching that lock, the door burst open.

I saw the metal stained red. I smelled the blood and soot on their clothes, I saw the hatred in their eye for us. I wondered which God I should pray to, because they had claimed mine for their own and excluded me from faith.

And then my eyes flew open.
The clock said 11 am.

2009-08-08T17:55:00.002+05:00

Love shoots her in the middle of her forehead, point-blank range. It's such a game of hide and seek, the endless riddles plaguing the days of a beautiful dream, now on its last legs, now brand new again. The polarity is annoying, astounding, magical. A word throws her off balance, and then he pulls her back up, preventing a hard, skull crushing fall.

She remembers curling up against walls and sobbing till her heart is empty, letting out all the joy that made her feel like she would burst. And once she has been detoxified of all that happy, he lets her in again. In her quiet musings, she feels quite like the gas tank of a car that's been going on for a long, long, long time.

She needs a miracle, he a new faith.

2009-07-24T22:55:00.003+05:00

Teach me the art of conversation so I might have an excuse to ramble on all night.

It is a very sad thing that nowadays there is so little useless information. -Oscar Wilde

I misspelled conscious, and now it's too late. I have a subconcious but not a subconscious. I wonder what that means. I wonder if there's a difference. Oh this is so very, very unnecessary. I want cake, made into a house, on a boat. Then I'll blow out the candles and sing happily ever after.

2009-07-24T01:25:00.004+05:00

Rain twinkles down in perfectly shaped droplets of hard, clear candy and pierces the orange glow of streetlamps. Shining drops descend like swarms of fireflies onto the earth, raising the musky smell of a monsoon gone wild and the soil gives off wave after wave after wave of the scent. This I want to capture in my palm and feed into my heart, so that I might turn inwards whenever it strikes my fancy..How simple it would be to satisfy that crazy craving, with a set of instructions anyone could follow.
Capture smell of rain.
Set free inside heart.
Look into heart whenever needed.
Smile.

Rinse, and repeat.

But for now, I will watch the battle between the streetlamps and the rain. Until, all of a sudden, the lights will be snuffed out.
Guess who wins?

2009-07-22T21:17:00.002+05:00

He lives in the heart of his heart, and shares with no one the secrets that meander through the crevices of his life. Sometimes, just sometimes, when he puts his palm against hers, the secrets become her own. Without knowledge of why and what, she accepts this token of approval and swears not to betray. The map of their (uncertain) time together has been swallowed by tears and water, there are blots and blurs where there were cities and oceans once. They go on, though even the uncertainty isn't confirmed. Nothing is, nothing ever can be when you cross lines not meant to be crossed, and that, is what she has done.

But it is alright for now, the cracks momentarily hidden between their palms, like a flaw hidden in a delicate porcelain vase. Now it's broken, now it's not, there's no telling who will display the wrong side, bring out the very obvious mistake. There is a sigh of relief and an oath of apology.

The effervescence is gone, leaving in the wake of this loss a glowing, spectral hue. This translucent tragedy, with its beautifully tearing up halo, a victory with an unfulfilled w(hole) in it.

2009-07-14T14:10:00.002+05:00

I walk away again with my heart in my hand. Exit stage.
Here comes the routine I know all too well.
I switch off my phone not because I'm afraid there'll be messages, that I'll have to talk. I do it because I'm afraid of the exact opposite. My strategy: reject before being rejected. Fuck up before being fucked over.
I hate my defense mechanisms.

2009-07-13T22:30:00.002+05:00

You said it was love
I said I'd like you to be mine

Two I love yous you say without really saying anything at all, and in a trail of "you too"s here's a declaration of undying com(passion), an eternal promise, a relationship made pregnant (?) by expectation. Until we miscarry. Our lovechild, this love bleeds away into the wind, as wisps of yesterday meet the disappointment of today and there is no puddle left behind. C02 does not leave puddles,no water to clean up, no mess, dissolvable stitches leave no scars. Love and medicine have come a long way, you can't see marks anymore, who talks about 50 years when 50 hours will suffice for the climax and Anti?
I am not a cynic, I am but a bystander objectifying the objectification of our affection, as love gains a tangible quality, a wholly new sensory overload. Too much too soon, move up, move over.

We've all been painted by numbers. Recreate a masterpiece, every heart will have a Sistine Chapel. 1, 2, 3, replay the downfall of Adam and Eve, then erase, move over because it's too intense and all you wanted was.. A Mona Lisa.

2009-07-10T00:44:00.002+05:00

The music is tempestous, filling my ears and my head, behind my eyes in bright blue-green circles of rioting and chaos, enough to make me close my eyes. Enough to allow my head to willingly spin, a full, whopping 360 degrees of release into frenzied euphoric solos of the guitar and pounding bass sort. Gold lion's gonna tell me where the light is..Oh yes, Gold lion is.
Explosions.
Uh oh.
I want to push and shove anyone, everyone out of my room, this is my time, my space. This is my hangover to deal with, and who are you? (no wisecracks allowed, you don't get that chance.) What to do but sit and marvel at wrecked trains and crashed planes, whose little bitch are you supposed to be anyway? And while we're at it, won't you tell me what it's about?

Ans: Refer to paragraph 1.

2009-06-30T19:51:00.002+05:00

Afraid to see the truth of what we have been worshiping, we cast down our eyes. Yet if we look up, we might find that our altar has no idols, or that the idols we put there have fallen and we behold something else shining in their place. In searching the darkness, we have found light.
Eleanor Herman in Sex With Kings

The bubble bursts into thousands of tiny shards of glass, one of them is me. I fly through the window, thrown by you into a river, in the midst of pebbles skipped by people sitting on the bank. Surrounded, I sink lower and lower, the rays of sun dull into these depths of a barren seascape. I wait, and I wait, and I wait, for a strong current, a flood, anything that will take me out to sea.
This is like nothing I ever saw, not like anything it was supposed to be underwater. I'm still breathing, I'm still conscious.
I'm still me.
I'm still waiting.

Suddenly, I want to go back to a time where I used to have regrets. Over actions, over people, over events. Now, there have been too many been-theres-and-done-thats. I used to wonder what it felt like to feel there was nothing left to lose, and now I know. It's a lonely sort of liberation, like traveling through Paris without a lover by your side. You crave because you see, not because you need. It's a passing desire, a want that aches and fades. I've got you, but in the ebb and flow of life, who knows where you'll be. Who knows where I will be, who knows where the rest of them are.

It's all gone down into a forgotten lane of memory, you'll forget me, I'll forget you. We all forget one another, what with the constant system of replacements we've cultivated for ourselves.

I wonder if this was the light I'd been looking for, if the idol was worth crashing. I wonder if I'm better off. But more than anything else, I wonder if this is what it's like to just be.

2009-06-22T00:05:00.000+05:00

Oh, we love an audience to our misery. We love it so, so much.

Say what?

2009-06-20T00:45:00.002+05:00

There's a lull, a silent, killing, creeping lull. It's deadly, spewing green poison into my thoughts, that oozes out into the rest of me, changes colour, turns into many more deadly hues, so many more. Muddy browns, cemented greys, a vertigo in black.

Sway, sway, sway to this non-conversation in all the dull shades of Melancholy. Who knew not-bright would be this blatant, this loud? What ricochets off the walls surrounding my mind, what rude interruptions am I trying to suppress?

Why do moonlit nights beside the seashore offer no salvation? I wouldn't take any if they were shoved in my face. Just an aching, gaping wound of something missing, but what is it? Where are my answers? Where is my peace? Where is my rainbow, my leprechaun, my gold? Where are the illusions?

This half insanity offers me no explanations. It comes and goes, like a visitor, an uninvited, pestering houseguest. Enter now, exit later, enter again, more exits, every day, hours and hours and hours of halfness, nothing completed. Hold it in, hold it together. For how long? There are no voices whispering "just a little longer."

Nothing.

Xavia, who will save us?

2009-06-17T15:48:00.002+05:00

I need to wash myself again to hide all the dirt and pain
'cause I'd be scared that there's nothing underneath
And who are my real friends?
Have they all got the bends?
Am I really sinking this low?

Eighteen years in the same city, not even one friend to show for it. Some I've pushed away, some pushed me away themselves, some decided they disliked me too much as a person. And before I knew it, it was too late to make any more. I couldn't do it, it wouldn't happen.

This is a fullstop I'm stuck on, there's got to be a new chapter somewhere around the corner. Locating that particular corner is a bit of an issue... there's just so many.

In my head I sit alone in a corner, in a little emo bubble. Wondering, wondering, wondering.

2009-06-17T14:14:00.001+05:00

"If our friendship depends on things like space and time, then when we finally overcome space and time, we've destroyed our own brotherhood! But overcome space, and all we have left is Here. Overcome time, and all we have left is Now. And in the middle of Here and Now, don't you think that we might see each other once or twice?"
— Richard Bach (Jonathan Livingston Seagull)

"I thought space and time no longer applied to us."

*They do to me.*

"Then why would you send me that quote?"

*Jao na.*

2009-06-03T23:00:00.003+05:00

I've been walking in the same way as I did
And missing out the cracks in the pavement
And tutting my heel and strutting my feet
"Is there anything I can do for you dear? Is there anyone I could call?
No, and thank you, please madam, I ain't lost, just wandering"

Everyone loves a sad story with a happy ending. Everyone loves it when things suddenly turn around, with some lucky twist of fate and all is forgiven, forgotten. It's all in the past, lost to present happiness, into oblivion. A vacuum filled with happy, gooey, warm and cosy. Except that warm and gooey and happy and all those things don't come about in real life. Except in brief bursts that pop like flimsy bubbles from the cheap soapy water they sell outside parks here.

You end up watching excessive amounts of Grey's Anatomy and start sounding like a teenage Meredith Grey going through a midlife crisis at 18. And a weight problem (which makes it slightly Bridget Jones-isque too). Ha.

I ain't lost, just wandering.

2009-06-02T21:55:00.002+05:00

If I am lost for a day,try to find me,
But If I don't come back then I won't look behind me.
All of the things that I thought were so easy,
Just got harder and harder each day.

I was thinking of deleting this blog, but I guess I won't after all. There's no one to talk to and nowhere to go and nothing to do and all I can do is write miserably and let the world look into my secrets. No one cares, there's only laughter and secret enjoyment. I don't blame anyone but me. I will never blame anyone but me, because expectations, as I've said before, are a whore.

I'll go back to being numb, thank you very much. I'd take that any day. It's the best I've felt.

Chocolates and butterf(lies) and rainbows and kisses and kittens and candy and..

Nothing.
=)

2009-04-14T21:58:00.003+05:00

Paint wash, immersion
in a matt blue emulsion.
Coloured in a thick coat of
melancholy that drips
Off
my skin, in big blue splotches
(Splatter),
And pollutes.
Scourging off
The bright until I am
Blue.
Inside-out & Outside-in
one solid hue.

Fumes intoxicate and
penetrate into
The Personal and
The Private.
no hidden agenda,
I wish I had one concealed,
not interfered with thus
and diluted.
Such a rude interruption,
Tea party gone astray.
Now it’s blue too.

Ultramarine pigment,
Powdered and ground into
Dust
Wave after wave after wave
Of allergies hit and
settle comfortably.
Please, go away,
My uninvited houseguests in
Blue.
This shade isn’t welcome,
And neither are you.

2009-03-11T01:10:00.004+05:00

"You know, the funny sort of sadness that creeps over you when you think about the past...." She trails off. How to explain this feeling that language so utterly fails to encapsulate? It's a bubble caught in your throat, a resilient one that chokes and makes you splutter, but doesn't burst. She thinks hard, tries to think fast before her audience loses interest, she can see it waning already. So she does the best she can. "You know..When you think about the past, and then you think about now. It feels like quicksand, like it's not going anywhere and you're sinking in the pointlessness of it all. You want to go back to being a kid, because you remember playing in the neighbourhood park and Feeling Happy. Everything just seemed to go downhill the moment you became conscious of any reality that existed outside of your imagination and the funny games you used to play. How one thing lead to another, and suddenly you found yourself thinking * Mann...I really screwed up, didn't I?*, but it seems to be too late. You resolve never to feel as strongly/passionately/wrecklessly/helplessly about anyone/thing, because it's OhSoWrong. That's what it feels like, yeah."

Feeling. I use that word too much. I like the way it sounds in my head when I say it over and over again.

2009-03-10T23:14:00.004+05:00

I don't know who I am anymore now that I know the difference between what I want to do and what I'm supposed to do. I stick to the latter, because doing what I wanted just lead me right into trouble. Sometimes I think I'd like to have that feeling back, but look what it did to me. I suppose I'm better off without it and without you, and it would be stupid to ask "Then why does it feel like something's missing?", because obviously, it takes time to get used to the absence of something/one who's wreaked such havoc in your life while being such an important part of it. It takes one word to make life pause and go on a fast rewind of everysinglething and I've been thinking about it. It makes me feel lost. In a few seconds.

If I say it shouldn't have been this way, that's a lost cause, right?

Now that I'm actually going somewhere, it seems to be a point where nothing is moving. I need to figure it all out in my head. It's not unhappiness, more like being clueless.

Are you listening?

How did we get here, I used to know you so well.
Hahah yes, Paramore.

2009-03-06T23:58:00.002+05:00

It's just rather strange. Being accustomed to a certain feeling for as long as you can recall, and then suddenly, it goes missing. You look for it in dusty corners of the memory, expect it to be buried under some of that mess lying around, that you'd forgotten about. You find piles of rubbish, carry out a huge clean up operation, and still that feeling can't be found. It seems to have disappeared without a trace, and you're left with a new one. A replacement, if you will. A new way to look at the world, at people.

All you say is "Well, I've come a long way, haven't I?".

2009-03-02T01:48:00.000+05:00

You are missed.

2009-02-28T15:44:00.001+05:00

Why does life keep on taking me back to my favourite Scrubs quote?
People are bastard coated bastards with bastard filling, and you, are clearly one of them.

2009-02-28T04:11:00.001+05:00

God that was strange to see you again
Introduced by a friend of a friend
Smiled and said 'yes I think we've met before'
In that instant it started to pour,
Captured a taxi despite all the rain
We drove in silence across Pont Champlain
And all of the time you thought I was sad
I was trying to remember your name...

This scar is a fleck on my porcelain skin
Tried to reach deep but you couldn't get in
Now you're outside me
You see all the beauty
Repent all your sin

It's nothing but time and a face that you lose
I chose to feel it and you couldn't choose
I'll write you a postcard
I'll send you the news
From a house down the road from real love...

Live through this, and you won't look back...
Live through this, and you won't look back...
Live through this, and you won't look back...

There's one thing I want to say, so I'll be brave
You were what I wanted
I gave what I gave
I'm not sorry I met you
I'm not sorry it's over
I'm not sorry there's nothing to save

I'm not sorry there's nothing to save...

I love this song. It says so much.

2009-02-10T13:08:00.003+05:00

I wrote this a day after Halloween, which was a horrible, horrible night to have gone through. If there was a Top 10 Mortifying Moments list for my life, it would definitely have made the top 3. October was a horrid month for me, so I was, I guess, kind of out of it at that point. It's funny how you lose your head and don't even realise what you're doing sometimes. So well, I wrote, and then forgot all about it. I was going through my stuff when I saw this:

Implode. OED might have a proper meaning for it, but my definition is: when I find myself doing things, thinking about things and accepting things which I never thought I would. Which I judged people for. And now, it's a constant lack of clarity and good judgement, with only divine intervention saving my sorry ass by a measly shot. Maybe it's all the hurt and the anger, but losing all ideas of moral right and wrong, sticking out my middle finger to the world and whizzing through life always struck me as an incredibly stupid thing to do. And yet, here I am. Open as a trashy tabloid, so people can talk, point fingers, laugh.

I'm giving them something to talk about.

And that something is me. I don't quite comprehend how I manage to do so, but putting myself in situations which invite public humiliation, labelling, gossipping seems to have become my forte somehow. I'm a disaster careening towards a night in jail because I went 150 Mph on a road with a speed limit of 30 Mph, and the cops are catching up to me. They're moving in, and when they do, my facade will fade and I'll be like a deer caught in headlights. When the truck hits, the ground will move from under my feet, the world will take a 360 degree spin and I'll go on a 20 second high before I call it quits and exit, time's up on stage child, move along, move on.

When I'm looked at,and I know I'm being whispered about, smirked at, I know. It's not paranoia. I know because I allow it. So next time you stop and stare, know that I know, since it's because of me that you know. And this doesn't make sense, but neither does anything else at this point. It's just an inborn sense that everyone has, which prevents people from doing things out in the open because well....they'd be judged...yeah. Which I'm choosing to ignore. You might say, fuck judgement and fuck people, but you'll mostly hear it from:

a) Guys who want to fuck you.
b) People who've been screwed over, or have messed around so much they really don't have anything else to say.

So that's where I'm getting my pearls of wisdom from these days.

And why is all this hitting me now?

Because, the realisation I'm better than this resurfaced last night after a particularly embarrassing incident. I wasn't drunk. I wasn't high. I was in my senses. Because even without doing something, it's sick how you can fit into a certain mould at a certain time, and suspend all concepts of reality, what you're used to.

Then why would I deliberately put myself in a situation like that? It was something like having the brakes of your car fail and crashing through your windshield. In my head, that's what I was doing.

I know what I want. Need.

I thought it was all over, I'd move on like that *poof* and it'd be gone. But it's not, and of late, because of it, I've become the epitome of stupidity. There's no one to hold responsible, it's all me, but the longing exists. There's only one thing I want. I'd give up the world for it. It's not a case of grab the stars and moon for you if you asked me to love. It's a plain cry to make someone see how wrenching a right away from something only leads to a place for wrong because the jigsaw doesn't fit any other way. Like when you denature an enzyme, it's permanently gone. Sayonara.

And I just plead to you, don't denature me.

But you're hopeless and helpless. So I blame myself.

Thank you God for saving my ass, and knocking sense into me because of what happened. Please keep saving my ass. Amen.

2009-02-10T01:45:00.000+05:00

I hate the feeling of knowing I'm being screwed over and not being able to do anything about it.

2009-02-09T01:52:00.001+05:00

Tip-toe out the door
into a cold unfamiliarity
that rivals your own
manner of impersonal conversation
and
easy detachment.

Into a dark
with blurry definition
and
a silver emptiness to
fill in conjured up silences,
they answer questions you'd
rather not ask.

2009-02-09T01:03:00.000+05:00

Dreaming comes so easily
'cause it's all that i've known
True love is a fairy tale
I'm damaged, so how would i know

I'm scared and i'm alone
I'm ashamed
And i need for you to know

I didn't say all the things that i wanted to say
And you can't take back what you've taken away
'cause i feel you, i feel you near me

Healing comes so painfully
And it chills to the bone
Will anyone get close to me?
I'm damaged, as i'm sure you know

2009-02-05T00:28:00.005+05:00

I’ve always maintained that anyone can…
January 27, 2009 by a very smart person

…have a relationship, a partner, a marriage, a fuck. It’s just a question of lowering standards sufficiently.

But then your friends make helpful comments like bless him, he’s really punching above his weight and you realise you have not so much lowered your standards as thrown them in front of a train and watched them explode over you in a surprisingly heavy shower of gore. So when the fucker stops calling, you’re torn between feeling rejected and relieved. I mean, he was ill-educated and the wrong side of average in every possible sense, but shit, even that didn’t want you?

And this is the paragraph with the conclusion. I know what it is, but I can’t be bothered to write it. Imagine a vaguely cloying cliche. Yep. There you go.

From a certain blog which I do not wish to tell peeps about, yeah.^_^

Worsheeeeeep.
And thanks Manifor showing me this gem=D

2009-02-02T23:30:00.001+05:00

the sky is grey
the sand is grey
and the ocean is grey

and i feel right at home
in this stunning monochrome
alone in my way

i smoke and i drink
and every time i blink
i have a tiny dream

but as bad as i am
i'm proud of the fact
that i'm worse than i seem

what kind of paradise am i looking for?
i've got everything i want and still i want more
maybe some tiny shiny thing
will wash up on the shore

you walk through my walls
like a ghost on tv
you penetrate me

and my little pink heart
is on its little brown raft
floating out to sea

and what can i say
but i'm wired this way
and you're wired to me

and what can i do
but wallow in you
unintentionally

what kind of paradise am i looking for?
i've got everything i want and still i want more
maybe some tiny shiny key
will wash up on the shore

regretfully
i guess i've only got three
simple things to say:
why me?
why this now?
why this way?

with overtones ringing
undertowæŠ¯ pulling away
under a sky that is grey
on sand that is grey
by an ocean that's grey

what kind of paradise am i looking for?
i've got everything i want
and still i want more
maybe some tiny shiny key
will wash up on the shore.

Grey by Ani DiFranco.

URGH.

2009-02-02T21:33:00.002+05:00

Feel so blaahed out since the past few days, I think it's all the work.

I feel lost, as in, people actually come upto me and ask me why I look so lost. It's so weird. I didn't think it would be written across my face.=\

A thousand times an hour is torn across
And burned for the sake of going on living. - James K. Baxter

2009-02-01T13:45:00.000+05:00

Beautiful song=)

I Picture You In The Sun
Wondering
What Went Wrong
And Falling Down On Your Knees
Asking For
Sympathy
And Being Caught In Between
All You Wish For
And All You Seen
And Trying To Find Anything
You Can Feel
That You Can Believe In

May God's Love Be With You
Always
May God's Love Be With You
Always
May God's Love Be With You

I Know I Would Apologize
If I Could
See Your Eyes
'Cause When You Showed Me Myself You Know
I Became
Someone Else
But I Was Caught In Between
All You Wish For And All You Need
I Picture You Fast Asleep
A Nightmare Comes
You Cant Keep Awake

May God's Love Be With You
Always
May God's Love Be With You
Always
May God's Love Be With You
Always
May God's Love Be With You

'Cause If I Find
If I Find My Own Way
How Much Will I Find?
If I Find
If I Find My Own Way
How Much Will I Find?
You

Well I Dont Know Anymore
What Its For
I'm Not Even Sure
If There Is Anyone
Who Is In The Sun
Will You Help Me To Understand?
'Cause I Been Caught In Between
All I Wish For And All I Need
Maybe You're Not Even Sure
What It's For
Anymore Than Me

May God's Love Be With You
Always
May God's Love Be With You
Always
May God's Love Be With You
Always
May God's Love Be With You

'Cause If I Find
If I Find My Own Way
How Much Will I Find?
If I Find
If I Find My Own Way
How Much Will I Find?
'Cause If I Find
If I Find My Own Way
How Much Will I Find?
If I Find
If I Find My Own Way
How Much Will I Find?
You

2009-01-31T02:33:00.004+05:00

White light bathes frothy waves crashing into the shore, illuminating a continuing Domino Effect, while the heavens pour out a storm. Pellets of rain like clusters of fireflies under lamps, landing onto the steps leading to sand and water, almost as if you can catch them. In a way, you can, if you let them soak you. Soak, not clean, because rain is no longer pure and who knows, the acid could eat into your body. But stay, stay until it washes the surface, till you feel it is enough. The sea sings notes discordant, made more so by the rain pattering onto concrete, into sand, into water and albescent froth.

The water sings to you.

APRIL is the cruellest month, breeding

Lilacs out of the dead land, mixing

Memory and desire, stirring

Dull roots with spring rain.

2009-01-27T23:14:00.002+05:00

So she paints her nails a celebratory candy pink, and shows it off to herself under bright chandelier lights. It's difficult to choose, how to look at it. Under the white light, or yellow-orange. Tough decision, for such a pretty colour. And this is special, it makes her feel like a princess, with liquid cotton candy on her nails. She can't stop looking at it, tear her eyes away from it. It lifts up her spirits. It makes her want to don those rose tinted shades (again) and run around painting the town red, run wild. Clear her mind, and let the colours explode until she feels like the end of a rainbow waiting to be discovered.

She wants to feel happy again. She wants to live in a bubble too.

2009-01-25T00:16:00.002+05:00

"It twinkles in the moonlight, you see?" she said, holding her little trinket close to her heart as she pranced around. He looked at her, puzzled, and shook his head.
"But of course," continued she," How should you understand. You've never had one, have you?" carefully testing the water before she dipped her feet into it and sat down next to him.
"I'd share with you, but it's precious, so precious. precious, precious, precious." And all the while, he smiled at her giddiness, upon finding that tiny piece of silver that shone in the moonlight.