Black and white saturdays

Normally I am not afraid of pain. I accept it. Embrace it. Sleep with it. Absorb it in my blood till it becomes a part of my cells. Breathes in oxygen. Only certain times pain becomes cancerous. Starts eating away the core of my existence. Becomes so overwhelming that everything else stops to exist.

That's the kind of pain I find myself in now. The worst part of it is, I don't know the reason. That makes me helpless. I am never afraid of a problem, when there is one, there always is some way out...some solution. I am only afraid of the unknown. It's like fighting an enemy you cannot see.

I wake up in the mornings with a severe pain. I feel I have spent the night away fighting monsters and everything is so unreal I find it difficult to talk to anyone about it. I can't see bruise marks but I know they are there, in every dull ache of the limb, they are there. I taste bitter. No amount of green tea, coffee or lemon tea can cure it. My favorite Cadbury hot chocolate is out of the market for quite some time. That was one thing that would empower me greatly. This is all a big conspiracy. The unavailability of drinking chocolate powder. Yes.

The day  passes in limbo. There is no fire to burn me to the core. To fuel me to race forward. I can't live an insipid life. An then there is nothing to inspire. In one of those moods when I can't read. I don't like letters. Sometimes an occasional book maybe. But I just can't stand the letters. They seem to bore into the brain and bore me to death. Reading seems so passive on days like these when I want to jump down from a cliff. Do something crazy. Something that gives the adrenaline kick.

I am an addict. I need to always be on a high. I can't live a normal life in which I go to office everyday, do my work and come back. I need to get that feeling that I have lived. Everyday. Predictability kills me. I don't want to know what I'll be doing the other moment. I want long drives. I want to ride a bike on 120. I want to feel alive.

Why am I like this? I was born this way. Never liked a dull moment in life. It starts to cause physical pain. It makes me feel shackled. I am a control freak. I obsess too much over puny details in life that I cannot control. I need to learn to let it go. Like the lives of people I love. For all my prayers. I can't help them in any way and that drives me crazy. Because I cannot live their lives for them. I have to sit quietly and see them shatter, piece by piece and then be there to help them bring themselves together. It Frikking HURTS.

Life is like a war at times. It corners you. Drives you mad. Leaves you weaponless. Mercilessly wounds you. Makes you go over the strategy over and over again your head and yet wonder, where, what I did wrong. What could have I done to avert this...What...why...how! Like love. It gets hold of you in your weakest moments and mocks you in your face. Somehow implying that I had a role in how things panned out. Dismissing my pleas that it was involuntary. I couldn't have possibly done anything. It can be circumstantial.

Of all the qualities that make a person, I place kindness on the highest pedestal. Specially in times of grief. In times of conflict. In times of helplessness. We need to be kind. To life. To our friends and families. To strangers. And most of all, to ourselves.

And pray. Close your eyes and believe. Somehow it will all turn out well. There will be sunshine. There will be love. There will be laughter. Till then, hang on!

The book of no memories

In love there is no past tense.

...
1st August
The hug, albeit in a dream, felt like warmth surging through every pore of my being...like a shot of whisky...on the chilling altitudes of 10000ft. 

I love you...said my muse in a voice barely audible...but of course, it wasn't meant for my ears...it was meant for my soul and that heard it crystal clear...like the first fm radio transmissions.

The soul...like the Gryffindor's sword, only imbibes that which strengthens it...pure love, kindness, warmth of a laughter and maybe a moment of that infinite connection. That moment pauses everything...in that moment I exist only for you...and my lips don't move but my entire existence becomes those three words...I love you. 

Love is as exhausting as it is fulfilling.

9th May 9.21 am

I saw Anna Karenina yesterday. Haven't read the book though. This movie made me fall in love. What I liked best was the technique. The entire movie was created in the form of a larger than life stage and as the movie progresses, the stage elements begin to be less obvious. 

The screenplay and direction were fabulous...totally fabulous. I haven't seen such a different movie in a long long time. 

And on top of it Vronsky...blue eyes...golden locks and a blue uniform...I don't remember the last time I saw someone so drop-dead Gorgeous. 

Want to write about the movie...but no time  Sigh!

6th May 7.54 pm
woke from dreaming but it took convincing
I was shaking screaming i was still alive
---
Sinking somewhere...the song lashes at me...puts vinegar in old wounds and laces them with salt. I still can't go on.
Depression looms deep and the clouds won't go away...I get scared, I get restless and I wonder if at all life has some respite from this anxiety. Don't feel like working, don't feel like writing...just feel like running away to some place far...somewhere on sea shore...where there are books and music and movies that I love.

I am going crazy again!

8.34 am
I suffer from severe anxiety...for a long time I did not know the exact word for it...everything I used to describe the condition was still to vague to be addressed by any doctor.

I stumbled upon it yesterday...I don't know if medicines help or if anything helps...the physical aspects of it are pretty disturbing. The constant heart-ache, pain, not able to think properly, irritation, anger, fear, feeling of loss, being unloved, everything gets mixed together. If I try reason, I shouldn't be facing any of these pains at all. Logically I should be a reasonably happy person at peace.

Logic does not follow reality I guess.

Had a strange night...wasn't able to sleep properly, had nightmares...sometimes I also wonder if I am going mad or something, is there something like do I have the mental capacity to hold on for this long...does anxiety affect any other functions?

Feeling severely depressed. Not able to write it off too.

4th May 10:48 am
My muse...my love...spent the morning scanning some pictures of yours...you are like some abstract painting, every time I see you, a new story is born...I feel like flying...I become light as a feather...I drift on the whiff of musk...I feel your touch on my wrists...there is no tattoo but the fragrance of your goodbye.

15th April 8.24 pm
It was a golden evening...the sky was tinted with the gold of your eyes...the air had a hint of your laughter...I could feel the musk of your voice on my wrists...where you kissed me before the final goodbye...chaining me to the last image of your departure...it reminded me of rains in some faraway country...the grains of sand flickered past and the night stars replaced the gold in the sandclock.
How many lifetimes has it been since I last saw you?

I wonder if there are fragments of my memories bookmarking the pages of your life we spent together...a quietness begins to fall, a dampness in my heart refuses to go away...there is a flicker of your name...fading initials etched on some rock we sat and spent the evening laughing...

There is a longing...a yearning...a search...where are you...my beloved...my muse...where are you?

7th April 2:38 am

I don't know why I think of you and a man playing violin by the river in a same flashback.
I miss you. I miss the whole comfort of being able to call you when I want to. I miss the time when the city felt warm...as a hug. And though I never did hug you I wish I had...life's too small for such puny regrets.
I made a promise to myself never to utter these three words unless they screamed from the very core of my existence.
I love you.
You are in my prayers. Always.

5th March 8.11am

I always thought one minute flies by. But sometimes it really lingers on. Once, a person pointed at his watch and said to me, that because of that minute, he'd always remember me. It was so charming listening to that. But now I look at my watch and tell myself that I have to forget this man starting this very minute.

-Days of Being Wild

24th Feb 11.30 am

I am a very very confused person. There is a turbulence in me that refuses to die away...I sometimes get very irritated about this restlessness because this is not directed at anything, there is no outcome of it...or at least any desired outcome of it. 

In my heart of hearts I know I need to be working on something I am maddening in love with...but now I am afraid...love is a scary thing...it takes a life of its own...behaves like a parasite and soon nothing of me remains in me...I become obsessed with an idea. 

Too much procrastination. 
I took up a job because I wasn't able to do anything that I want to do...now I stand on the land of confusion still...there is no compass to guide my way. Though I am not afraid to take a path that is wrong...I do not want to hurt anyone...I inadvertently end up hurting the people who love me most.

I sometimes wish life for me was simpler...like my other friends who are happy in their jobs...for them the only worry is the increment percentage...office politics...such small things in life and they are so full of it. They don't think their life is going wasted. What is wrong with me?! What is it that I am desperately dying to do...where is that spark of idea...why do I kill all my story ideas before even fleshing them out...

What is it that I need to talk about...what is it that is killing me from inside...why can't I give words to the chaos that is playing havoc with me. I purposefully isolate myself from the world...yet there is cacophony...O God! how do I sort myself out!!!

Meet me in July

One of those silly little things I feel like writing when it rains. The pitter-patter of raindrops creates a natural rhythm and some words just fall into place. I am not too good at rhyming and often clueless to throw one word after another...but somedays there is a broken song, beautiful in its swaying away from perfection. It's not a good poem and it's not according to meter, it doesn't follow any rules. It's a little of this a little of that...somehow I feel guilty about writing poetry, especially verse that rhymes. Still, somedays I should allow myself the luxury of posting something totally useless.

Just like that, learning to say my goodbye's better...

---

No sooner than I fell in love with you

It was the time to say goodbye

I could tell you, I never fell in love with the city
May be you would actually believe my lie

As I think of you, the city blooms
The rains sing a night's silent lullaby 

I tiptoe on nights of dark, misty, grey
I reach up to kiss the cloudy sky

A thousand things to forget you for
A million things to remember you by

I wonder if you’ll ever know my friend

I love you so, but I don't know why

I'll wait for you till the monsoons end
Come, meet me one last time in July

My rusty heart...

Loneliness is a very private type of sorrow. It grows in your heart, shaded from the smiles of the people who love you most. It quietly seeps in your days, dimming the  light of your eyes. It hangs like a leech from your tear-ducts, nourishing itself from a steady supply of tears till the point it becomes immune even to the salt dissolved in them.

You become an island with no docks for a boat to be tied on, you create sea-storms to prevent ships from dropping anchor near your shores. You create a world in which no people exist. You steel yourself against any warmth received from fellow human beings.

You become quiet and you let go of words in your vocabulary till the time you can't converse even with yourself. There is a huge difference between peace and quiet. The same as between loneliness and solitude. Solitude has a direction, a purpose while loneliness is the absence of either of these.

You purposefully erase all traces of your being. You lose all hope of being rescued. There is something particularly melancholic about being there on a bridge alone. It's the closest you come to being non-existent...being a passive observer of the world going around doing its business. Sure you do come a little closer to the moon, but that cannot warm your heart up.

And then one day you burn all bridges.
---
I open the book of my life and wonder through the pages that have burned through cigarette...I look at the coins I collected on my trips to countries I can no longer remember. The more I write, the more I forget, it's like a blackboard I never read again. Every time I erase the stuff I had written and start afresh, knowing very well that the writing is only going to be there for a short while of my life.

Some days back as I was in another one of my lost moods, I came across a faded, rusty postbox..there was no lock to it, the door was open...I checked to see if there are any letters in it. The last one that the postman forgot to take out but I could find none. Imagine days of being full of envelopes containing several emotions and then being abandoned. Left empty...with no secrets yet with memories that are so obstinate that they kill you but don't leave you in peace. Remember that tree in In the mood for love...the one on top of the mountain...where people would go leave a secret...this is one of the last ones of those trees.

Not with blood, soul or emotions...we are all made of memories...I dissolve in air...one memory at a time...

Murderous glances...

If someone is murdering me...I would like this song to be played...somewhere in faraway memories. It comes back to me like a forlorn echo...like a withering Gulmohar bud in spring...like a semi-dried Sheesham tree.

Did you know that when temperature falls to sub-zero, waterfalls freeze?

While questioning...did you really believe that I was in love with you...ever...even for a moment? I think my love is like this song that I keep listening to like my life depends on it...I don't understand a word yet I understand the song...its like knowing someone inside out without even looking into their eyes once.

What kind of eyes does a murderer have...are they cold, calculating, fearsome or are they just like everyone else's eyes...like yours or mine?

When you say...I have the eyes of a murderer...aren't you afraid? What makes you believe I'll spare you...just because I am in love with you...a love you don't even have belief on? Don't trust me...not with your life...not with your heart...not with your emotions...not with your fears...smiles...sorrows...not with your laughter...poetry...silences.

I am learning the art of goodbye...be wary...someday I'll really gather enough courage to just quietly collect myself and leave without a trace...I promise it will be like I never existed...I will wipe out every memory...even the ones tattooed on the walls of your heart...the ones intertwined in your dreams...the ones dissolved in the ink you use.

Premonition...everyone who is to die young feels it...feels it with every passing moment as the grain of sand falls in a sand-clock. It's a small life...beautiful though...heartbreakingly beautiful...but then...if only...if only...

Those that can smile with a broken heart

17.11.11


I just realized I won't ever be able to write to you using my fountain pen...you would then know that the valley of flowers I have described in my letter has a river flowing through it and that river is full of salty water. You would see the mist clouding my happy sunshine falling through the window while I write to you in winter afternoons. In fact I think I would have to resort to writing mails to you again...typing doesn't capture the tremble in the fingers while writing a white lie.
---
I write the way people pray to alleviate pain. 
In prayers there is an unknown god...there still is a disbelief lurking that your prayers may not be heard...he might not answer you insignificant pleas for a relief...a narcotic, maybe.

The pen, doesn't discriminate...it heals as it fills up pages...words stuck in your brain tumble out and you start to breathe a little easier. 

And then I thank God that I can write. Ahh the irony of it!
----
And you question fate and you question faith.
----
Ahh...me...never bother, I'll just be fine.
I still have my pen with me. 
I'll write till it stops hurting...in the end it always does.
---
Those that can smile with a broken heart are the ones who know how to plant white lilies in the fault lines that have formed
---
Loved and lost. Cycle is complete.
Are you happy now?
---
You left me stuck in a living hell.
Who is gonna bail me out?
---
And I practice for days on end, mentally stressing on the words, 
'I hate you' 
while knowing very well that when we meet, I'll simply look at those eyes then the only words able to stumble out will be
'Hate you, I?'
---
Falling in love...
:) :) :)
yet again...still it feels like first love...

I can't still believe how I hadn't heard this music before, how could I...I mean how could I.
I had a wallpaper of Kurt Cobain way back in 2004 but that was because he was incredibly handsome and there was something very very beautiful about the pic I had got from a colleague's desktop. 

I see him strumming and smiling and singing effortlessly, his eyes...oh his eyes...that pain that creeps up at times...and that smile...ahh...

O my my...I am in love with Kurt :)


---
Ahh...the tyrannies of love!
---
When someone is able to hurt you. Real bad. That is the time you would taste real fear. Because that is the time you know deep in your heart. That person has a great control over you. And you have none over yourself. 
Sigh!
---
Aquellos ojos verdes

The memory of that day has started to blur around the edges. There are some fuzzy characters, a little soundwave that echoes of the walls of memory. A peeled wallpaper here, a coffee machine token there. Air is still dense with cigarette smoke seen through burning, red eyes. The day passes in a jiffy and all that remains of that memory is relegated to black & white. THe only thing that remains lifelike in that portrait is a caption written in green ink at the bottom white portion of the photograph.
'His eyes are brown'.

12/11/11
---

Tyrannies of love

Some people come in your life just to completely fuck you up from the inside...to break you down, toss you around, play with you with the innocence of a child, leave you utterly heartbroken and when you start falling apart you only begin to wonder why you still can't wrap your head around the fact that you love them. still...in spite of and because of all this...you question your belief in yourself and you ability to pull yourself together piece by piece. 

And one day you realize that you have actually gathered around all the pieces and stuck them together...and that's the same day you realize that you haven't put the pieces at the right places. Your heart is still frighteningly close to the memory of his eyes. 

You wonder when/if it ever gets over!

And finally...the pain sets in...the irrevocable sense of loss...the real reason you feared love in all its ferocity, it's destructive power raises its head. You writhe in agony, lose nights of sleep...and in the search of an anesthetic you dare to ask the person who put you through all this(mind you, you are still in love with him) if he has a cure.

And then...you are labelled a MASOCHIST!

Impermeable

Listen
Don't breathe
Quiet
Dead silence

A tear just
shattered
The fragments
unleash a tsunami

A limitless
depression
submerges
my existence

Words become
impermeable
gloss over
the real pain

Crude stitches
don't let me
fall apart
nor heal

Now. Wait.
I am not
reborn.
Yet.

Hope.
Pray.
And then
come back.