Adulthood

Freshly off the rocky boat that brought you across the sea they call Teenage
The jacket of invincibility fits a size too small suddenly
This new island they call Adulthood is your home now
The rules of land are different from the sea they warn upon arrival
But no one tells you what the new rules are
The first steps on the shore are hard after spending years at sea
You falter, stumble, fall and scratch your skin
The jacket tears apart, ripping at the helms
While you struggle to find foothold on the soft sand
Passersby whisper about how you walk weird
But no one gives you a hand
You see some struggling too, but some others seem so sure
"Experience!", a fellow struggler tells you following your eyes
Eventually the walk gets easier, but just when you find your foothold,
The landscape changes, and they tell you, you gotta keep walking
It's a marshland now, and again the faltering ensues
But it has been a few years on this island already
And you know that there's no escaping it
So you learn to make peace with the idea of this new home
You still are not sure when the landscape will change again
But you know as long as you own your fragility you will be fine
As long as you accept that you're breakable, you will be able to fix yourself
The knowledge is empowering, yet some nights
When it gets a bit too cold here on this island
You miss that jacket, the jacket of invincibility that fell apart at the shore
The waves have probably taken it back and fixed it, you think
And it is keeping some other kid at the sea warm now
And you hope they take care of it
You hope they know its not theirs to keep forever.

Why I didn't laugh...

I don’t blame you

I really don’t

I am not angry at you

I am really not

You didn’t hurt me

You really didn’t

But when you made that joke

That joke that you had made

A hundred times before

And I had laughed

A hundred times before

Because I thought it was funny

I really did

Only this time I didn’t laugh

And it wasn’t your fault

Just that your joke

Sounded eerily similar

To the voices in my head

That I had silenced

A hundred times before

At 3 AMs, 2 PMs

At 7 PMs, 10 AMs

The voices that I had

Refused victory to 

A hundred times before

Lately they were getting louder

And when you made that joke

The voices laughed in my stead

And I couldn’t silence 

The deafening sound

And I couldn’t laugh over them

Even though I tried

I really couldn’t.

The fraud

She looked his way and with a brisk wave and stifled smile, muttered goodnight and turned towards the door. She left the party and walked a few steps when the familiar voice spoke from behind her. 

“I though we’d never meet again” 

She paused on her way.

“So did I”

He moved a step closer toward her.

“What happened to all your laughter? I used to tell people about it”

She turned to face him.

“Your memories have been kind to me.”

“You seem different. Cold. Whatever happened to the girl everyone fell in love with?”

She looked him straight in the eyes, indignantly.

“She was an imposter. Her fate was the same as that of any other fraud. She got found out and was forced to drop her act.”

He looked back at those eyes and before he could form his thoughts into a sentence, she promptly turned around and walked away as fast as she could, without running. She was glad she didn’t bring her car today and the subway was a long walk away. She’d need the walk.

He wanted to follow her. He wanted to ask her more questions. He was angry. How could she call the only girl he has ever loved an imposter? How could she lose her so easily? 

Yet he couldn’t move. Or speak. He kept standing there for a while after she left. The chilly wind was somehow comforting.

“Honey, here, you forgot your coat inside! Why did you come out in such a hurry?”

He turned around to face the voice. His wife.

“Oh! I am sorry! I just had a call I had to take. Let’s go inside now.”

News Of Death

A word in a shriek. Many more words.

She looked up.

Words and more words and more.…

Wait, she can't hear them anymore. Everything is moving. Lips, people, things. Yet she can't hear any of it.

Everything is moving. She is not. She is trying. She can’t.

Her limbs. They feel different. Light? Cold? Warm? Loose? Absent.

She sees everything yet her brain refuses to process her vision.

There's no air. She can't breathe.

Vacuum.

A moment. The longest moment her memory permits.

Years later, she will live this moment again. It wasn’t a shriek this time. It was three telephone rings.

And a few more years later, yet again. It wasn't a shriek or a ring. This time it was her name, in an unfamiliar tone, that led the words.

These vacuums never came alone.

There was always a predecessor moment when everything was unassumingly normal, that she would remember with uncanny precision every time her memory took her back to them.

And the succeeding moment when she was thrust into all the chaotic movement and sound around her, with her loose limbs and her sleeping voice gathering sudden voluntary momentum, without her conscious permission.

She never knew what to make of the vacuum.

Was it a monster holding her back too tight, suffocating her and forcefully shutting her ears rendering her mute, inanimate and deaf for the longest minute?

Or was it an angel of kindness, permitting her a moment of transit, devoid of every thing, every feeling, before her life changes forever?

Taking away a piece of her, leaving her broken forever, but gifting her a moment of numbness before she feels it?

A kind monster?

Li'l Girl

Who hurt you li’l girl?
I did.
Who broke you?
I did.
But you’re bleeding!
Who gave you these wounds li’l girl?
I did.
Surely not!
Did he? Or him ? Or her? Or she?
No, No.
It’s just me, just me.
Won’t you cry li’l girl?
I did.
Won’t you call for help?
I did.
But no one’s stopping!
Who’ll fix you li’l girl?
I will.
Surely not!
Won’t he? Or him ? Or her? Or she?
No, No.
It’s just me, just me.

Hope ?

                "Hope in reality is the worst of all evils because it prolongs the torments of man"

                                                                                                                -Friedrich Nietzsche

It is the hope of an oasis perhaps, that keeps a thirsty man lost in a dessert going. Why else would he take another step? 

Hope, one would say, is a necessary delusion to survive in a world which is out to get you. 

On a subconscious level, hope gives us the power to take control in our disappointment. It allows us to choose how and when the disappointment reaches us. When the world lets us down, hope allows us to reject the world's dictum and take the reigns of power in our hands by choosing to believe in a probable version of the story that may become our reality at a future time. It makes us feel empowered. We feel we are in control of choosing the hope of happiness over the reality of  our disappointment. Indeed an intoxicating promise for a broken heart.
We need hope, we do.
Yet sometimes, this empowerment is really just an illusion. A rather tormenting one. We hold on to a version of the truth that doesn't presently exist in reality and might not even in the future. But somewhere in us a faint whisper tells us that, if we hold on to it a little longer, if we keep faith, if we give it more time, if we wait for the right moment to come, if we are a little more patient.........if, if only!
It is a shackle. It binds us to something we need to give up on.
But how do we know? How do we know when the empowerment becomes imprisonment? How do we know when to give up hope on hope?
It could be a casual question thrown in a joke, an empty laughter, an unspoken word, a broken smile, a silent stare, it maybe subtle or  it may be really loud, but when it happens, somewhere, somehow a switch flicks. We lose hope. It is perhaps the most liberating experience. To be free finally from the burden to believe in an illusion. Liberated from the obligation of holding on.
Hope doesn't necessarily bring us happiness, but rather encourages us to hold on to a version of the story that doesn't really exist. Never did. Probably never will.
And what if it does exist? Well trust the future to bring it to you, if it so pleases. But don't expect it, don't hope for it. Don't let your present be limited by the hope of your future. Don't let an illusion limit your reality. At least the present and it's reality is yours. Why jeopardise what's yours for what might never be?
I would rather accept the truth and be heartbroken than fool my heart with promises of happiness I will never be able to deliver on.
Knowing it will never happen is so much more liberating than hoping it does. There's an odd sense of peace in the knowledge.
So, Give Up.
Lose Hope.
Move On.
Be Free.

"....and she was loved."

I don’t know about you, but no matter how much I kid the world, I crave perfect stories. You know the kind that fairytales are made of and every time you retell it people go “aww, that is perfect!”?! 

I have gone around often, declaring how I love our messed up world and it’s imperfections and how only imperfections are perfect, but all the while I have secretly hoped and prayed for perfect moments in every story I have ever lived. 

Am I a hypocrite, then ? Well, maybe! But I am not the only one, am I?

Don’t we all try to validate our stories with meaning and sense and some sort of a ‘coming to a full circle’ ending ? Yes, we know better, we know that the best stories are tragic, the best loves unrequited, but is knowing that enough to satiate our need for ‘perfect’ and ‘forever’ and ‘happily ever after’?

Believe me you, I am true in my appreciation for the universe’s sense of irony and the poetic justice that often flatters our sombre tales.

But, inspite of that,  every time I walk into a new chapter in my life, I can’t help but secretly and a bit perversely perhaps, hope for a perfect set of firsts that all link together to make absolute sense.

But it doesn’t. 

That’s not ‘eureka' material though, we already know that. But somehow I never admit that, at least not to myself.

I have always told myself that we live in our own 21st century version of fairytales and it does have a perfect happy ending, after all. 

Lie.

Wait, I am not saying life isn’t a fairytale. I am saying perhaps it is not the fairytale we think it is.

Okay go back to all the fairytales that you have ever read, heard, overheard or maybe wrote.

If we cut out the prince and the princess and the ‘once upon a time’ and the ‘happily ever after’ the perfect kiss and the prince rescuing the princess…yeah so basically almost all of it, what are we left with ? 

Love.

In some or any or every form. Love.

Parental, Romantic, Friendly, Humanitarian……Love.

So what I am saying is that maybe, love and love only, is our fairytale. 

That this monumental emotion, incapable of definition, is perhaps all the salvation we need.

Whether it is your family, your friends, a legitimate love interest, or just your pet, you have been, are and will be loved, by at least one living being. 

And that there, is your perfect story. That is all you need to tell, all anyone needs to know.

In the mean time I will continue to go about my life faltering, breaking, falling, collapsing, hurting, crying, howling, smiling, kidding, laughing….living.

But when they write my story, if they say “…and she was loved”, hope you’ll know that I have lived a fairytale.