It is honestly bizarre how life slowly starts feeling like a minefield at times. You don’t know which step would save you and which would explode everything you have built so far. Every step you take, every decision you make, every feeling you share has consequences. Some legit, and some illogical. The most illogical ones come from the deepest corners of our mind.

Our mind is truly a wonderful place. It is where our ideas find home, where emotions find stability but also where fear blooms like uncontrollable vines. Our mind truly works on its own. It takes the smallest of feelings and makes it too huge for us to consume. Our soul can’t seem to take the enormous emotions that our mind throws at it. There is always a fight between them.

So, who will win? Your soul or your mind?

For the longest time I have felt this strange constriction in my chest. Whenever someone asks me about my worries, I feel it. I feel it after I have let myself feel free. I feel it when someone comforts me. I feel it when I lay my pain on another human being. It has always been there, like a looming presence that something bad is about to happen. In the initial years I used to ignore it, dismissing it as simple nervousness. Now the feeling has grown – more prominent and more desperate. Now this feeling has a name, or a name that I have realized too late.

It is guilt. It has always been guilt.

I first felt it when I shared my sad thoughts with my friend. That was the first time I felt like I needed to share my worries with someone. I shared, they soothed and I felt like this is where I start feeling lighter. But then I felt it, taking its place deep in the four chambers of my heart, spreading the roots like a stubborn thorned bush. I dismissed it. I smiled through the constricting feeling that swirled around my throat and smiled with too much attention to my facial muscles. It was almost robotic the way I continued the rest of the conversation.

The next I felt it was when I lay down in my mother’s arms. I talked with her about all the worries that I felt when I was eighteen. Worries that now seem too small but were a mountain back then. I exposed my scars, my fears and my anxious thoughts while she soothed with words and love. My mother has always known how to heal people. She has always been magical. I had never expected that feeling to again swallow my breath.

It happened faster this time. Mid talk when I shared my deepest fears. I couldn’t form a word, as my mother waited patiently. I was scared she might think I am dying. I was dying though. The constriction was harder this time, like vines that now know which path to choose. The four chambers thumped against my chest, dropping down to my belly like a steep fall. I felt it travel through my throat, numbing my tongue. It was intense.

Since then, I have always felt it. Sometimes subtle, which I could push aside and sometimes so enormous that my legs would give in. It was guilt. A name I was scared to say out loud because guilt is something only unruly people felt. I wasn’t unruly. I was a good person, right? I have never done anything wrong. But the pain increased, the name now whispering my worries back to me.

You are a burden.
You are exposing your scars for them to laugh at.
You make them feel uncomfortable with your worries.
You are nothing but a liability.

It wasn’t always this hard. This feeling was there, but in the past it never spoke back. Now it was. Like a reminder that something bad would happen. A reminder that my actions have consequences. But what actions? I am not guilty, right?

Years passed, the feeling that once constricted every bit of my soul had loosened a little as if it has grown used to how my body works. Or that I have grown used to it. I still feel it, in moments when I shouldn’t. It stops me from being loved. It stops me from sharing my worries. My loved ones rarely see me breaking down in front of them. I have tried a few times, sharing small scars that might confuse the guilt. But no. It is always there, like a reminder. Like an alarm. Like a warning.

I am used to come off as a closed person to many, but it was the guilt that kept me centered in my own skin. It made me look stronger in the sunlight, while I drowned in my despair under the moon. It never visited me at night, knowing I am alone and probably writhing from my own wounds.

Then one Monday, the shift happened. It wasn’t something grand, or a miracle. I didn’t stop feeling guilty anymore. That feeling was still there. But now I was exposed to a truth that I was unaware of.

In the soft glow of the afternoon sun, my mother sat there, sewing the top that I tore accidently. She looked so peaceful while she fixed my mistake. The guilt engulfed me again. The sun streaks now felt thick on my skin as I tried to comprehend the room. Everything spun, from our family portrait to my poster covered wall. And amidst the chaos, she sat. Peaceful and not guilty.

She slowly looked at me, curious eyes finding my scared ones. Her expression turned from surprise, to a knowing glint. Her face morphing into worry and then the smile returned. She asked me to step in, giving me time to actually make my legs work.

I slowly stepped through the threshold of the room, eyes flickering to anywhere but at her. She asked me to come close to her, pulling my head into her lap. There was a time when I fitted completely there but now that was all I could fit. My head – which was ironically the source of the chaos.

“You feel it too, right?”, she carefully stated.

I looked at her like I have seen a ghost. A ghost of my own body. She stared at me with a knowing smile. A smile that didn’t reach her eyes as she tried to calculate how long I have felt it.

She feels it too. All the time. Always.

And it made sense. My mother has worked through all the scars the world gave her. Never giving up. Never trying to burden anyone. In the fog of my own misery, I completely overlooked the fact that she has been doing it for years too.

A relief. A smile. And suddenly the guilt that I felt wasn’t that bad. It was still there. It still resides in me. My scars are now rarely exposed, because I am too scared to experience that guilt.

I have often been scared of losing people who love me, when the time runs out. I imagine them leaving me when the reason to love me perishes with the cruel turn of the clock. The internal paranoia keeps me up at nights, and anxious in the morning hours. Will I ever be free from the thoughts? I am sure not, but I have learned to embrace it as my own.

I have come to my own conclusions, that seem pleasant to me. I don’t please the people who fall in love with my outer layer. I no more attempt to show care to people who are only there for my sunny days.

If you ask my opinion on it, I will say that love is at its purest form when you love someone unconditionally. When you love someone without balancing the pros and cons. Love can be extremely complicated to many but it is in its rawest form when it is unconditional. Selfless.

The first time this thought came to my mind was when I read this particular poem where the poet says how a love that is based on criterions will erode away when the reason disappears. A reason to love can easily turn into a reason to hate the very person. Love is not something that should emerge out of a particular reason. Love should be there for love’s sake only.

“If thou must love me, let it be for nought
Except for love’s sake only.”

— Elizabeth Barrett Browning

Elizabeth Barrett Browning1, an English poetess of the Victorian era, pleads in her ‘Love sonnet 14 – If thou must love me’, to not love her for her face, her skin or her hair for they will erode away with age. She smoothly describes the concept of unconditional love through the rhythmic lines of her poem. Her poem emphasizes on the concept of a love that should come out of the most selfless corner of human soul.

Further she pleads to not love her out of pity because that is a short-lived feeling. A love that blooms from the most ugly part of human mind is dangerous. If you love someone out of pity, then it will disappear when the person’s reason to be sad vanishes.

“Neither love me for
Thine own dear pity’s wiping my cheeks dry:
A creature might forget to weep, who bore
Thy comfort long, and lose thy love thereby!”

— Elizabeth Barrett Browning

Love should be pure. Simple. Gentle. Unconditional.

We all perceive love through different perspectives. It’s never the same for two people. To some it’s a refreshing feeling, like vast green lands and freshly bloomed flowers. Whereas to some it’s a rotten concept, like a dagger piercing through their heart.

Sometimes the age also plays a factor in understanding love. A young love is fresh, lovely and full of igniting passion, like the first flower of the spring season, like the firecrackers that color the sky on a New Year’s Eve. But as it slowly flows into old age, the love becomes softer and gentler in form, like a slow morning on the countryside.

It’s quite interesting how the concept of love if asked to a bunch of people will produce a completely unmatched set of answers. For someone it’s their mother’s perfume they still can smell even after her demise. And for some it’s the smile on their lover’s face that brightens up their day.

People actually fail to differentiate infatuation from love. They find someone alluring to their eyes and approach it as ‘true love’ or ‘love at first sight’. But in reality, the main concept of love is to accept the flaws, the underlying ugly dirt which every person hides consciously.

I might not be an expert in the very concept of love but I have seen and experienced enough to know that it does make you a little bit foolish.

‘What would you do for love?’

A common phrase that is used in many different settings. People have done and are still doing beyond normal things for the sake of love. They hurt others for love. Travel miles and miles for it.

To die and to live for love.

A very strange and almost thrilling concept. It’s almost like hypnosis. The only difference is there is no one who knows how to break the spell.

My early concept of love was in high school, just like everyone else’s. The teenage hormones blossoming into the exciting and tingling concept of becoming infatuated with someone. I always thought that love was like the movies, which always lead to happy endings. There was no way that love can hurt someone, is what I thought. It was innocent. Like secret poems and stealing glances. A teenager isn’t familiar with the ugly side of love. They have just stepped foot into the outside world and know that love is as selfless as their mother’s embrace.

My first heartbreak was tough. It was messy and ugly and almost on the verge of self-destruction. It was like a lost battle where you can’t find your way back home. It was like waking up in a dense forest where the only sound you can hear is the wild beating of your heart. I barely got out of that hurricane of feelings when I was met with another new type of love. The mature kind. The kind that soothed me and showed me the passion of young love.

My second heartbreak was worse. But you know what was the worst of it all? I never hated love. I never even thought of hating the very concept of falling in love.

When I was a bit more mature, I learned the meaning of love as a whole. It doesn’t have to be romantic. It doesn’t need to be always romantic. You can love your best friend. You can love your sibling. You can and should love yourself. Love became a broader concept to me. It wasn’t a single streak of light anymore. It was like the prism was visible and I could see the spectrum of love. It was an enormous concept with no rules and no allegations.

I always love listening to people. And through that the mere concept of unconditional love became more prominent for me. I first read about the poem by Elizabeth when I was in high school but at that time it was simply a poem that I needed to learn in order to pass my exams. The meaning behind the poem did affect me a bit as the poetess spoke about unconditional love but it seemed a bit foolish. How can you love someone who doesn’t even reciprocate it? How can you love someone without any reason?

As years went by, the meaning became more and more evident. The fog cleared up and I realized how important it is to not find a reason to love. Love openly. Love endlessly. Though it is evident that people will hurt you, but a brave heart never really backs off. Someone who wears their heart on their sleeves is stronger than someone who is scared to show who they are.

In conclusion, unconditional love is far stronger and unreachable, that many people don’t tend to attain. And I believe that it must remain like that. People who have the ability to love someone unconditionally are those who know the ugly side of love too. They know how it shatters their heart day by day and they still fix themselves and keep loving.

Elizabeth Barrett Browning’s Sonnet 14 – If thou must love me

If thou must love me, let it be for nought
Except for love’s sake only. Do not say,
“I love her for her smile—her look—her way
Of speaking gently,—for a trick of thought
That falls in well with mine, and certes brought
A sense of pleasant ease on such a day”—
For these things in themselves, Belovèd, may
Be changed, or change for thee—and love, so wrought,
May be unwrought so. Neither love me for
Thine own dear pity’s wiping my cheeks dry:
A creature might forget to weep, who bore
Thy comfort long, and lose thy love thereby!
But love me for love’s sake, that evermore
Thou mayst love on, through love’s eternity.

My poetic take on this topic is neither as beautiful as hers nor has the same meaning. I am speaking here rather in a desperate way while she pleads to her beloved. In a way I think that makes more sense because while she has realized what she requires, I am still desperate to experience love.

All I want is the truth, my love

In the name of love, they scream,
Even when the world shatters beneath our feet.
Love that comes in so many forms,
But is anyone ready to endure the cruelest of it all?

Tell me my beloved with your heart on your sleeve —
Would you still love me when my thoughts run too deep?
When my stomach folds and molds like rotten clay;
When my unwanted crevices blossom like summer day.

My beloved don’t be silly about it.
We are running out of time as you see.
Tell me please you love me for the scars,
And not from the way I look from afar.

When you lie down beside me on our cozy bed
And the sheets no more hide the craters on my face,
Would you still trace them like stars in the sky?
Or would you turn away to whisper a final goodbye?

I shouldn't scream at your face with so much anger,
But I want to know before time runs out.
Would you still love me when the hour glass turns?
Or would I feel your absence and mourn?

Anyways, without further ado, let me talk about it.

A week ago, I was on a flight, a short one to be precise. I was on a time crunch so I had to book a flight instead of a train.

Now this story isn’t about how cumbersome the boarding was, or some funny incident that happened while I was getting checked in. This is about a simple thought, a small miniscule lapse of my mind that I had from something that I experienced. A thought so small, but so overwhelming that I had to write it down.

I boarded the flight as usual, luggage checked in, boarding pass in hand and my laptop bag dangling from my shoulders. The queue line was long, as I stood with that heavy bag digging into the flesh of my right shoulder. I got the aisle seat, which is honestly better than the window seat in my opinion. A kind lady sat beside me, as she chatted with her friend who was seated on the window seat.

The flight took off and I let the humming of the engine overpower my thoughts. The ringing of my ears quietened after a while and I finally decided to listen to some music. Since it was an hour-long flight, I decided to take a thirty minute nap because I was tired. When I woke up, we were close to the destination. I sat down properly and started reading my book, trying my best to not fall asleep again.

Now let me tell you that it was raining when the plane took off and was immensely cloudy at the destination airport too. I looked out of the window and the clouds were threatening to holler over the aircraft. I meekly looked back at my book. The captain announced a slight turbulence, which was something I was used to, as per the weather conditions. I held on tight to my seat’s arm as the turbulence began.

I am not exaggerating when I say that this was the worst turbulence I have ever experienced in my life. I have been traveling by plane since the age of 14 and never have I seen this intense level of shaking. The plane tumbled and shook aggressively as I held so tight that my knuckles turned white.

This is where the thought arrived. I was traveling alone, in a plane that was experiencing such intense turbulence. A wave of uncertainty dancing on my mind. Amidst this state of panic and nervousness, a thought occurred to me.

If by any chance, this plane crashes, what is something from my belongings that I will take with me?

At first, I thought obviously my mobile, but I realized I can always buy a new one, and always get back the pictures, or always make new memories. Then my laptop? Hard drive? Years and years of pictures and memories that are in it but it all seemed vague at that point. What about my books? Stories that I love to read and treasure but if I survive, I can always buy new books.

At that very point I realized, that if I were in a near death situation, I wouldn’t have any idea what five things I would want to take. I will be saving myself. I will take me and make sure I return in full piece. All I thought about was returning to my family, to my loved ones, to the people who care for me deeply. Other things would come back eventually, or I can make new memories. But this life? It won’t ever return to me.

This thought gave rise to something else. By then the turbulence has slowly subsided, the hum of the airplane steady. My mind went back to this one book I read – The Wall by Marlen Haushofer.

There the main protagonist a woman, finds herself secluded in the alpine mountains, with no people around. She has been separated from the entire world by an invisible wall that runs along the valley, for how long she has no idea. She is stuck there, left to survive on her own. A few animals here and there and a house that is empty. At first, she didn’t want to accept the fact as she tried to find an end to the wall, but alas.

She stumbles across the valley, trying to find anyone who is in this similar situation as her but bizarrely there was not a single soul left. It was all abandoned – the farmlands, the forests, the small huts on the hills. Everything left to decay as if an apocalypse took place and she had no idea about it.

At that very moment she realized that she has to survive all on her own. Slowly and steadily, she learned how to tend to cattle, how to grow vegetables and how to chop wood for warmth. She learned how to churn butter and how to understand the weather just from the rustle of leaves. She learned how to hunt deer and other animals.

“And why should a man, without the fear of criticism, go on working at all?”

Human mind is a complex little thing. This organ is so complex that you can never know what goes on inside it. But one thing is for sure and that is we humans live for the attention. In the society, we always try to make us look overly presentable. We try to hide our true selves at such a level that it ruins us. We run behind the luxury, the status and the ways to look even more youthful.

When it comes to lone survival, we tend to forget these things. Human mind in isolation is in its primal mode. We don’t care how we look, how we act and how we dress. Society isn’t there to pressure us with its rules and criteria and we slowly become the most somber and basic version of ourselves. We move past the earthly desires and focus on surviving.

“No one calls me by that name, so it no longer exists.”

The woman here is in isolation. There was no one to take care of her, or even talk with her. She was all alone, with cattle and open valleys. All she thought about was the chores that she needs to get done to survive there alone.

“But if time exists only in my head, and I’m the last human being, it will end with my death. I may be in position to murder time.”

The protagonist went through these peculiar thoughts which kind of made sense to me. We humans are who made time, and it is simply a concept in our head.

So, when we seize to exist, will time too?

I realized that I was also having such thoughts. Thoughts that are simply weird and not something you say out loud. I almost felt like I was in this woman’s place and I understood her way of thinking. Truly books make sense to you at the worst possible times. When I first read this book, I couldn’t make sense of many parts of it. Some of them felt so overwhelmingly monotonous that it took me a while to finish it. I always found it peculiar to read about someone who has the same trail of thoughts every day.

At that very moment, I finally realized everything. I realized how much depth this book had. I realized the intensity of it. I realized that when human mind is in isolation, it keeps thinking and rewinding the same things over and over again.

“Imagination makes people oversensitive, vulnerable and exposed. Perhaps it’s a form of degeneracy. I have never held the shortcomings of the unimaginative against them. Sometimes I’ve even envied them: they have an easier and more pleasant life than everyone else.”

The realization hit me. My mind has already revolved to the possibility of me dying. I have already decided the intensity of the situation without thinking logically about it. Except for me, most of the people in the flight didn’t panic to that level. It was me clutching the handle of my seat and trying to make sure I don’t die. Even the air hostesses were calm, and they should be the first one to stay alert if there is an issue.

My imagination was what ran wild. I imagined my family getting the news. I imagined my loved ones knowing I am no more and I realized that I would die without being able to experience most of the things I wanted. Imagination does make people vulnerable. It strips them off the calm demeanor they carry and bring them to their knees.

As the sky cleared out, and the final announcement of landing boomed through the speakers of the airplane, I was finally brought out of the thoughts. It made me chuckle. I realized I have thought too much, embarrassment coloring my cheeks. I looked around me to see everyone already talking and laughing among themselves.

Somehow life did go back to the way it was – calm but always vulnerable.

But to me, home isn’t a place, as it already resides in us. Let me explain anyways.

I have spent a quarter of my life finding a place I can call home. Always packing suitcases and moving my feelings and clothes from one four walled structure to another. I have tried to find the soothing warmth of home in every house I have lived but none has really made me stay. None of them create an ache in my heart when I finally get up to leave. I am afraid I would never find home.

I am not homeless per se. That word isn’t what that can be used to describe me. I live in a big house, enough for me to stay comfortable. The rooms big enough for my furniture, clothes and emotions. The giggle of my siblings and the soft hum of the kitchen chimney. My dad working in the corner room, the brush strokes making a scratching noise on the big canvas. He told me it is his best work so far but I know he tells that about every artwork of his.

And I also know that he will have to pack up his canvases too when the holidays are over and he will be wandering countries for his job.

I have always been taught one simple thing:

“Art is not what feeds us; it is the big corporate companies that do.”

Hence, through the rush of every day life, we forget the real meaning of home. I have learned this at a very early age. Our family was only a family of four in picture frames and vacation places. At home we were three, always a little incomplete.

So, for me, home has always equated to earning. Staying away from my father for all year long is the price we paid to have a home. A bitter reality for a little girl who hated seeing her mom struggle through everything alone. My father lived oceans apart and it was not as if he was leading a luxurious life there. On days he would murmur over the static of the old rundown phone as to how the food tasted bland, and not like home.

Ironic, isn’t it?

When I see millions of quotes flying around about how home is where your heart is, I just sit down on my bed numbly. I wonder how it really feels to be at home. Is it calm? Like the calmness I feel when I sleep? Or is it warm, like the bonfire that was barely lit? I have so many questions in my mind and each one of them lead to this foggy haze that I have no use of.

Home, as they say can be a person too. For the longest time I have tried to find home in people I meet. From friendships, to relationships, to people who have been kind to me. I have tried to find the warmth that books talk about. It might have been a little desperate from my side, as I have always been the one burning at the end of this search. You don’t easily find home, is what I can conclude.

Adjusting is something I have learned from a very young age. It was ingrained into me along with the virtues of kindness, politeness and gratefulness. Sometimes it does get overwhelming but I have learned how to mask it.

Home for me isn’t the calmness and the hum of refrigerator. Home for me is the nervous silence before a storm. It is four walls continuously making noises which make me flinch. Home for me is a peace that is short lived – like an effervescence.

I can talk about the uncomfortable silence for as long as I can but I am also tired talking about my misery. It might be selfish on my part if I just talk about the unwell feeling I get when I am home because there is more to it. Always.

I might never find four walls that feel like home, but I have slowly realized that home isn’t something I need to actively search for. It isn’t something that I always need to touch, sense or see to feel it. Afterall, I have found home to be always there. Gently residing in me and in the moments I spend with my loved ones.

I might always be a wanderer, but in my heart I will always carry my very own home.

Because, home is my sister laughing at the silliest of jokes. Home is my mom’s nagging when I do something wrong. Home is my best friend’s warm cup of coffee, and home is my dad’s rapid-fire questions. Home is when my brother lies beside me to show me something interesting that he came across. Home is my aunt surprising me with delicacies. Home is having the best sleep in middle of a family get together, because the chaos brings me more comfort than the eerie silence of the walls.

Home is the mistakes I make as I groan and get mad. Home is the soothing touch my mom gives after that. Home is the meals, warm and delicious. Home is playing cards till it is way past the bed time. Home is my friends calling me at midnight on my birthday. Home is the constant rants I have with my roommate, and home is the soft clinking of the window chime.

Home is my favorite boy band; home is the books I am yet to read and mark. Home is the soft feeling of my old teddy that has worn out hands. Home is my favorite color, my millions of hobbies, my dance teacher’s lessons, the places I love to visit and the special masala tea that the uncle beside my home makes.

Home is me, when I finally let myself be free.

Often times we tend to become someone we are clearly not. This feeling of being someone’s go to person eats us up. We try to blend into the persona they have created about us. We try to fit ourselves into the puzzle piece of their life. We slowly try to reduce our own personality hoping that we can fit into theirs.

These feelings don’t go away that easily. They are always there, inbuilt into us. The kid who was well behaved, the kid who was mature for their age, the kid who never threw tantrums, the kid who was easier to handle.

Where does this intention come from?

The answer lies in our human nature itself. Likeability. It is something that is not present in us, but grown in us since a very young age. The intention to be likeable, to be less troublesome and to understand and acknowledge other’s opinions on a strict level. This grows into a severe feeling of always trying to make room for others. You learn how to read the room even before you have passed the threshold of the door frame. You learn how to read every micro-expression. You learn how to modulate yourself to match the frequency of others. You cover your loud laugh, your overly expressive gestures and your opinions.

You twist your preferences, often tagging along with others so that you can simply feel like you belong somewhere. The need to be called as ‘my person’ by everyone you meet drains the actual person that you were. You start becoming everyone’s person, and not your own.

It might seem very interesting at first as you love the attention that comes with it. You love to be the one, people refer to as ‘my person’. You love the way everyone comes to you for help. The feeling of being the savior, the helper, the giver is intense. It makes you feel so full but also empty at the same time.

Becoming a people pleaser seems easy as you don’t have to then get involved in debates. You say yes to almost everything the other people suggest so that you don’t have to go through the process of overexplaining how your choices are different than theirs. The desperate need to be invisible but also become the centre of attraction.

These intentions are curated into us through the daily mayhems. You become a mold of every person you have met, and forget how it is your soul which needs a shelter.

You forget that the mind you have created for everyone else is not being able to protect your heart. You twist and turn yourself into such an unknown person, that you gradually become more and more vulnerable.

What happens right after?

You get hurt. Maintaining a fallacy is tough, and that exhausts you. You panic, you ignore and you try to make yourself as small as possible. You have no idea how to please everyone and that makes you anxious. The mask starts feeling heavy and you keep trying to find a room where there are no people so that you can take your mask off, but in vain.

People don’t understand the play you are playing. They don’t see past you. In your life, you are trying to reenact theatre roles which are not even necessary. You become the side character, the one who is always there, who always tags along. It makes you unimportant, and you slowly start becoming someone who is taken for granted by others. You are the common denominator, the one who will be there no matter what.

It might seem pleasing at first when people actually ask you to tag along, but soon you get tired of maintaining a persona that is definitely not yours.

The frustration of not being able to please everyone gnaws your insides. You realize that you cannot be everyone all at the same time and that breaks you.

The gradual process of trying to find yourself

It isn’t something that hits you on a random Tuesday afternoon. You don’t find yourself whole in any way. That is not an easy job. It is a painfully slow process – one where you have to look carefully into the mundane activities of your day-to-day life.

You slowly find yourself when you clean your wardrobe, do the dishes, or take a stroll in the park. You find pieces of yourself in the bookstores you visit in your leisure time. You find pieces of yourself in the old record stores; in museums you rarely visit and in the stillness of your bedroom after a tiring day.

It is slow, subtle and almost knocks you off your feet.

Then the pain hits. The gut-wrenching realization that you are slowly distancing yourself from people who once were in your closest friend circles. It feels like a relief to finally open the mask, but the strings have now dug deep as you see people slowly lose interest in you as a person by proclaiming that you have changed.

With every step you take towards becoming your own person, you lose at least twice the number of people. It is simple mathematics I believe. To win something, you have to lose too. The pain still hits, like an age-old scar that still sends shivers down your spine. In the beginning, you try to scramble back to them, trying to pull on the mask that you are trying to discard, but now it doesn’t fit your face. The mask doesn’t fit your heart or your soul. It has broken in places, cracking you open and showing everyone what is beyond the fallacy that you have created.

The final acceptance

The final acceptance will never come quickly. It is different for different people. For some it might take a few months, but for others it might take ages. Funnily, it does hit you on a random Tuesday. You suddenly realize that you are smiling more, making silly jokes and being yourself. You finally realize the people you have surrounded yourself with are there for who you really are. You realize that you no longer have the heaviness on your chest. You realize that you no longer have to pull up the heavy mask of being someone you are not.

It’s like leaving addiction – one day you just don’t need it. The air feels fresher, and the days happier. You start enjoying your own company, and you don’t need an external force to enjoy an outing.

You become you. Unapologetically you. You don’t have to be someone’s person. People will come to you when they match with your frequency. You are not required to act like someone you are not. You don’t need to be the savior. You don’t need to there for every single person. You don’t have to everyone’s person.

I am now buried six feet under,
The earth slowly swallowing me in.
The cold of the soil soothes my soul,
But my mind is still humming low.

When I am finally let down gently into the grave,
And the casket has been shut for better—
I hope my skin crawls into my soul,
Reminding me one last time how warmth felt.

May the decay start slow, like slime from a snail.
May it uproot me gently, like unraveling a tale.
When the maggots decide to eat my eyes,
May they find emptiness within.

When they finally decide to eat my heart,
May they suffocate on the bitterness I carried for me;
Coated in the sweet remnants of love,
I always carried for everything else.

May they dig into my skin,
Perforating the places,
Where i have scratched myself;
On those lonely nights.

May they dig and dig and find hollowness within.
Not a heart, not a soul, not a reason to be there.
For when I am six feet under,
I hope I have fulfilled every reason to be alive.

When I feel the heaviness of the soil on my chest
May it be heavier than remorse—
Remorse of not taking a leap,
In the directions I wanted.

When I finally close my eyes,
May there be no tears from others
And neither from me—
I will die a satisfied death.

May my eyes never be moist from despair,
My skin all rotten brown but my soul golden.
Yes, that—
That is how I want to go.

— written by moonqueen

I can describe many things – like the rivers, flowers, birds, fallen leaves, empty benches and trains leaving stations. I can describe the feeling of a blooming garden, and also a burning castle. I can write a poem about the infinite sea, but never about you. This has been a dilemma of mine. I talk about it to everyone, everything. It’s like a maniac episode, where I talk and talk as it goes on and on.

I have always been on my knees for you darling, I have always been on my arms and legs. I have always embraced the withered petals that have once adorned the path you walked. I have embraced the warmth of your presence, and the coldness of your absence. I have loved the nights when you have brought me soothing touch and the mornings that have been spent nestled in your chest.

For you my beloved, I can be anything. I can be the soft shower of rain or the thunderous storms. I can be the petals and even the thorns. For you I can be soft and harsh. For you I am a warrior and a maniac. I wait for you to hold my hand, for you to ask for my heart. I wait for you with blood trickling down the valleys in between my fingers, as the heart pounds all by its own in my shaking palm.

You will ask for my heart?

It is all yours, thumping in the rhythm of your name. The blood trickles down, tracing the way your breath stutters when you see me. For you my heart beats in this unknown way that is beyond my understanding. For you I become this person I am not. For you I am a trader – trader of my heart. For you I am a sailor, who has rescued hidden treasures. I can sing songs for you, the tune familiar to the way your throat vibrates when you speak. I can take pieces from the sky and weave them into a dress that is all yours to keep. I can weave my heart on your sleeves, as it is exactly where it belongs.

For you my beloved, I will give my beating heart in your hands, without thinking twice.

You never get the intensity of it, do you? You could ask for my lips, my hands, my ears. You can ask for all of them and I would happily give in.

My hands, they have always been cold. The winter days, the summer nights and the rainy afternoons are all yours. I have always been a cold soul, my skin like ice and my heart melting to its demise. But for you I warm my skin. You have once whispered to me on a lonely night, that you hate feeling cold always. I had been helpless back then as I was always a cold soul. So now I warm my skin for you to embrace me. I warm my cells, my organs, my fingernails to bring in the warmth of this entire universe to your doorstep. My hands have learned the shape of yours, and they clasp perfectly together now. I have sculpted them to fit against your shoulder blades. I have molded them into an art that is easier for you to grasp.

My lips have always tremble when I take your name. My ragged breath falling out of my quivering lips as I address you as my love. The tenderness of your skin is what my lips long for. My lips are shaped to trace the curve of your neck, the warmth of your cheeks and the tip of your fingers. My lips are shaped to perfectly fit with the middle of your forehead, your skin warm, my lips cold. I melt into you like ice when it is summer. You can ask for my lips, and I will give them to you – they are already familiar with the way your muscles move.

You can ask for my soul, as it is now of no use to me. My soul has learned the way your breath feels on my skin. My soul has memorized the way your fingers trace the dip of my curves. My soul has learned the way you smile against my lips, the way you embrace me without a thought. My soul has been yours, even before I knew who you were. It has been stubbornly intertwined with your torso, warmth seeping to me like blankets. My soul was made to be yours, and I was meant to be the giver of it. In every universe, my soul will find you – in the broken mirrors, big castles or battlefields. So yes, you can take my soul as after all it is all yours anyways.

Now let me warn you beloved, for I have always been a little selfish of few things. I am a giver, I agree but there are certain things that I can never give anyone – not even you. This is a fair warning, for you mustn’t feel betrayed when I talk about this. There are things that have been mine for ages, things that I cannot survive without. Things that are so purely mine that it is of no use to others.

You can take my hands, my lips, my ears, my heart, my soul. They have never been mine. They have always been yours to keep. I can surely survive without them.

But oh, my sweet soul, you must never ask for my eyes.

My eyes are so solely mine. So solely imprinted into me. They are what makes me see and trace the world. They are the reason I can observe the beauty and ugliness of the world. My eyes are so desperately mine that it is on no use to you. You will find that it will make you blind. You won’t be able to see anything, except you.

My eyes always find you, in every setting. They are destined to search for you in every crowded room, every empty pedestal and every shipwreck. My eyes will always see you, and no one else. You won’t be able to see anything but your own image, and that would tire you. So, my love, let my eyes be mine as I can then keep seeing you till my last breath.

Oh, my sweet beloved,

you may ask for my heart,
as you hear it thumping
in the rhythm of your name;
blood singing your tale.

you may ask for my hands,
and find—
how they warm up only for you,
fitting perfectly within your fingers.

you may ask for my soul,
the one i will so willingly give;
as it is already stubbornly intertwined
by a thread to your torso.

you may ask for my lips,
as i gush and blush—
for i have memorized,
the warmth of your tender skin.

but,

you mustn't ask for my eyes—
it won't be of any use to you,
for you won't be able to see 
anything but you.

The suffocation never stops. It just makes me more and more feeble. The frustration doesn’t end as it finds home in every crevice of my already melting heart. The feeling of something missing is so prominent that I am unable to even take care of the things I have. The things that I call my own are no more mine. They are scattered, in pieces on this wide minefield and every wrong step can kill me all over again.

I am scared. Scared to scream, scared to whisper, scared to even breath out loud. I have tried several times to hide everything away, like a squirrel hiding the walnuts. I have tried to be quick, to be slow, to be normal – but nothing seems to work. These nightmares, vivid dreams in which I am floating over magma, have scared me immensely. I have given up on my desires. I have given up wishes. I have given up any hopes. I have folded them, neatly and kept them in my old almirah.

The room is filling up with water. My toes are dry but I can feel the coldness of the liquid suffocating me. I try to touch the ground, keep myself intact but I am floating away from the exit. It is an infinite sea. Infinity scares me. I have always tried to limit myself but the limitations have taken the driving seat in my already torn down car. I am now scared to get out of this routine. This routine of whatever I have created for me. This hell hole that I have so beautifully carved out of moonstone. The water is cold, my skin has wrinkled but the magma is hot, my heart has melted.

Is this how it feels? To be confused? To be concussed and not able to differentiate between dreams and reality?

I am not someone who gives into urges but I have had this urge to find a volcano for so long. The kind of volcano that looks like a wishing well. Volcanos are such incredible things. They hold so much rage and only burst when they have stored in too much. We humans are somewhat like that but instead of bursting into molten lava that destroys everything, we let the bubbling rage destroy ourselves.

I am scared that they will listen to my thoughts. I don’t know who they are but I have been warned of people who hide in the shadows. They mean no physical harm but they will break something that is solely yours – your soul.

I mumble sweet nothings to my own mind, lull it into sleep by cradling it like a baby. I tell myself to be quiet while tears stumble down like house of cards. There might have been a hope that I will be saved but it has long gone away. I have embraced the darkness, the numbness, the harshness.

I have taught myself songs, the ones only I can hum. I have taught myself how to walk with the heaviness in my heart. I have taught myself how to be a volcano that never erupts but is still bubbling from within. I am warm and cold. I am rebirthing and combusting. I am a coward and a villain.

I disdain my own way of living through things. I disdain how I write about things, that can never be solved. I have been writing about the same feeling for ages now. The same way my heart cinches, the same away my pupils dilate. I have been talking about the same gloomy darkness that I came face to face with at the age of twelve. I hated that feeling back then. Always tried to be positive so that it goes away but now I embrace it. I embrace the nausea. I embrace the hysteria.

You might call me a maniac, but the dark shadows have always kept me burning.

Torpefying Nausea

A numb whisper.
A naked dream.
I am drowning,
In the infinite sea.

Scared to stumble.
Scared to cry.
I have folded desires,
Like clean laundry piles.

The cupboard is full—
Overflowing the floors.
I barely have space,
To breath and hold.

My body is frozen.
My soul has been charred.
What is this misery?
Cold stings like liquid tar.

Don't think. Don't wish.
Don't whimper in the open.
They will hear you,
Even in the crowded mansions.

I write and write
Of the same nausea—
The one I hated at twelve,
Is still my favorite hysteria.

We always take many things in our life for granted. We are humans after all, and sometimes we are wired to expect few things to just happen with us. Sometimes we just expect success to be easy, to be always ours. We are obnoxious. Some things just are expected to be more easily achieved, like a piece of cake.

But even a piece of cake is harder to swallow whole. You need to take bites; you need to chew slowly. Letting the sweet taste of the cream and the savory taste of the cherry melt in your mouth. But most of all, you need to wait. Wait between bites, or when your jaw hurts too much or when you are simply overwhelmed by the sweetness.

Maybe it is a piece of cake, but you still need to have the patience of accepting it wholly. You need to have the patience of trial and error. You need to have the patience of choosing wisely.

Should I use a spoon or a fork?
Decisions, trials, errors.

You can definitely eat a piece of cake with the knife itself, but it will be absurd. Dangerous. You might hurt yourself, temporarily injure and bleed. And then success won’t taste sweet. It would taste metallic, and not so pleasing.

The virtue of patience is well known to all of us. We have all been taught about it when we were kids. It is always in the back of our mind but we are stubborn enough to never remember it in the first attempt.

We are impatient beings, who have been trying to easily achieve everything that we think of. For some it might have worked out, but that doesn’t mean they won’t pay the cost of an easy success.

Every bit of success comes with a price we need to pay. Every bit of success comes with the perseverance and hard work of someone who isn’t sure how to even order a cake. They wait patiently, till someone realizes that they deserve a sweet treat. And when they have it in their trembling fingers, they try to swallow it whole. Get choked, and collapse.

Success isn’t all about the hard work, the restless nights, and the trail of sweat down the forehead. It is sometimes about being patient when you are finally handed the fruit of your hard work. It is about the endurance, calmness and surety in your mind. it is about not losing your balance when you finally have success.

It is about being grounded even when you are given an altar. It is about always staying loyal to your roots even when you are on the highest point of a blooming tree.

Falling apart is a lot easier than rising to the top. It might take one years to finally achieve that simple taste of success, but it takes seconds for them to experience downfall. Our downfalls are the bitter truths that we face when we become too egoistic.

A person who always wants something more, never falls down. But someone who gloats too much about their success, is met with humiliation one day or the other.

The simplicity of finding success is harder to grasp than imagined. A simple thought of being patient, and not try to gulp down everything in one go is terrifying to every human mind. we try to swallow everything, quickly, selfishly.

And in that selfish mindset, we often forget that when we do choke on the bigger chunks, there will be no one to offer us a pat and a glass of water. We will be held against the selfishness we have shown. We will be held against the impatience we did show.

It might be a piece of cake, but it is patience that feeds it to us.

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I lean a little too much towards the paintings made by Vincent Van Gogh. Maybe it is his story, or the way he creates art, or the meaning of his art pieces, or the tragedy that his life was. I was recently studying about his art pieces more thoroughly and came across these two paintings in particular.

Just a reminder that whatever I speak here is solely my perspective and what I have understood or picked up from the explanations, the artworks. I have stared at the paintings myself and have come to these conclusions and it can be different for others. I am no expert in judging artworks but I do like interpreting these pieces.

Two chairs. Two separate paintings.

They both are placed at the centre. They dominate the entirety of the canvas and the emptiness is as such they are giving you permission to sit down. There are objects placed on them as if belonging to someone in particular. The chairs are empty but there is some sort of personality hidden in them. Like a touch of something unknown. Something human. You can almost sense the energy of the owner of the chair.

These two canvases are like the two panels of a diptych and when you bring them together, they create a new type of meaning. A new perspective.

One of the chairs is a luxurious polished wooden chair with cushion padding, and armrest on both sides. It somehow shows us the richness of the owner. A person of authority or influence. There are two books and a lit candle on a candle stand placed there. Hence, might be of an intellectual person who has a keen interest in reading, gaining knowledge and learning more. The candle can also signify hope, like someone who is there to support the people in need.

The room where the chair is placed itself is quite luxurious and huge. With carpeted floors and rich green walls. Surely something that not many can achieve. It almost feels like there is so much space to expand the creativity and knowledge. So much space to store all the thoughts. The luxury doesn’t always have to mean money, but also rich in education, meanings of the world and different concepts.

We can clearly see how Van Gogh saw his friend Gauguin. This was the chair he used and even if it sat empty, Vincent could always feel the presence. As if the chair has picked up the personality. As if the chair now speaks on Gauguin’s behalf.

Now if we turn our attention towards the other painting. The other chair. It is a simple, light washed wooden chair. No armrest, no cushions, nothing that has anything to do with comfort. It seems like of someone who believes in the simplicity of life. Someone who is too dedicated to his work to look back and enjoy life. Then we notice the pipe and the tobacco pouch. Is the person an addict? Or is he someone who has had a tragedy happen to them? Maybe he finds comfort in smoking, as he loses himself.

The room as we notice is small, compact yet simple and reasonable. Light washed walls, simple tiled floor which can even describe coldness as in winters it does get too cold to step foot on tiled floors. The chair being so close to the door can also describe how limited space he has got as compared to the expanse of his creativity.

Vincent somehow perceives himself as a simple wooden chair. Modest and simple. But in reality it is the dilemma and the lack of space to expand his art. He is always fighting against his own brain and the relapses and maybe the amount of despair he has faced has made him grow up walls which are now suffocating himself.

“The 19^th century artists, great and profound minds, often have the character of sacrificial victims, of victims who sacrificed themselves.”

— quote taken from book named ‘Van Gogh, the complete paintings’, Bibliotheca Universalis, Taschen publications

Now, if you place these two paintings side by side in such a way as if the chairs are facing each other then it might tell you a story of friendship, or people who despite their class share similar opinions. It almost feels like they are agreeing to the point one of them has made. A mutual understanding, friends who care for each other beyond the social status. In this world, people often look down at people of lower class which seems illogical. We are all humans after all – born from dust, and will return to dust. And this strange friendship gives us hope.

If we for instance place the paintings in a way that makes the chairs face away then it is completely a different story. A story of different opinions, of broken friendship or an argument that has made them turn their heads away from each other. The luxurious chair holds authority while the wooden one reeks of simplicity. Despite that, their strong opinions are what stands tall. Creating disputes that will probably never be fixed.

Van Gogh in his own despair has created the paintings in such a way as if the colours are of different polarity, expressing the irreconcilability of day and night. It seems like he was a little upset when his dearest friend Paul Gaugin (whose chair is painted as a luxurious one) left him and his shattered dreams. A friendship broken, trust fallen. A contrast from how they have once been. The exact contrast that you see in the paintings.

Vincent is seen using the empty chairs in many of his paintings. He has always somehow tried to create a personality through chairs. Whether they are simple wooden ones or stools. Somehow all of them tell a story. Sometimes the chairs have persons sitting on them or even Vincent himself.

Like for example his painting ‘At the Gate of Eternity’ which was made in May 1890, when he was admitted to the hospital in Saint-Rémy-de-Provence.

The painting truly signifies despair and madness. Like he has no control on what is going on. Even if he has named it has a gate to eternity, it almost feels like a lifetime of punishment. He is standing there on the gate, afraid to step foot in because he is not sure. The background seems a lot paler than himself as if he is trying to contain the color but slowly losing it. The fire is still burning and maybe there isn’t coldness yet. The fire can signify the little bit of warmth, hope still left.

Another example that I can seem to remember is ‘The Bedroom’, made in the year 1889.

The subject of this painting is his simple room in The Yellow House, Arles, France. The intense pop of colors was inspired from Japanese print. The works feature a wooden bed, two chairs, and his paintings, with distinctive yellow, blue, and violet hues. It almost signifies the calmness after the storm. A refuge after mental distress. The bold colors with distinct hues can signify the simplicity of his humble home. Nothing extravagant yet his peace. A chair sits closer to the bed, maybe to signify people who come to nurse him, or hold his hand while he lays there resting. People who care for him and are trying to support him no matter what.

The other chair is quite at a distance, almost making it look like business deals. Like it is for someone who simply comes in to discuss important matters, rather than his health. People who are not close to him, who only mean business and have no plan on nursing him or coaxing him with comforting words.

And while these paintings will always have something new to be explained, a new perspective that can be formed, what I have explained is solely what I have gathered from viewing them from my own perspective. And while reading about these paintings, and observing them with my own eyes, I have come to the conclusion that the best way I can describe these paintings is through poetry.

So here is a poem I have written inspired by these artworks.

Lack of Presence Doesn’t Dissolve Personality

Two chairs sitting side by side.
One stays silent while one speaks its mind.
The vacancy makes the scene peculiar,
But it’s the simplicity that separates what’s unclear.

The wooden chair is simple, impactful but ignored
It mutters words that are non-existent to human soul
The lavish red chair claims its authority
As it speaks its mind and writes its own prodigy

Impact is never shown importance until it has strong roots,
But every little change can lead up to grand disputes. 
The chairs agree as they face each other in a conversation;
But when the backs face each other, it is simply aggravation.

Two chairs sitting side by side,
Both have seen and have rules to abide.
And even if there is not a single soul on the chair,
The ghostly touch of personality is all that is required.

To start this discussion, which is yet another extensive essay of how I am spiraling again, I would like to ask a simple question. It isn’t something that you need to write down the answer of, but do think about it.

“Do you notice the vase first or the flowers that are kept in it?”

As for me, personally I will always notice the flowers first. That is a very normal perspective. The flowers, which bloom and spread such a sweet aroma is what catches our eyes first isn’t it? It is the flowers that always drag us towards them to appreciate them. The vibrant colours, the sweet smell and the dazzling petals. We sometimes forget that it is the vase that is hoisting the flowers up in a pretty bouquet for the world to see.

That is where I say that I see myself as an empty vase. Not something really important until adorned by flowers. Not something that is kept just for the sake of it. This is more like the thought that we buy vases to keep flowers – that is literally the job of a vase. But do we buy vases just because they would look pretty even when empty? Very rarely.

There is always this thought in my mind that I am contented with the things that I own, with the things that make me, me. But then I look around and see how I sit there like an empty vase. I like the little things in life but in reality, it is just me saying that I am tired of wanting things that never come to me. I am tired of wanting things that have never been mine to keep. I am tired of how the wind blows past me but never tousles my hair. I am tired of the evergreen meadows where I am just a patch of dead earthen soil. Maybe it is useless to ponder about things instead of working for it but that is all I am good at.

I am good at pondering, writing and creating gut wrenching pieces that no one really gets. I am good at being invisible even though I truly love being in the spotlight. I am good at being someone rather than being the one. I have always been good at being the second best when I let someone else shine in the limelight that was supposedly meant for me. I am a giver and maybe someday I will have nothing more to give. Maybe that day I will learn my lesson.

I give away so much of me that now I am searching like a maniac the pieces of me that are needed. I have given away parts of my soul, my love, my skin and my bones. They never repair on their own and now I sit hollow, like a vase that hasn't been cleaned for years. The flowers are dead and the stems rotten, creating a pungent smell in the stagnant water that resides in me.

I am an empty vase and no matter how much I fake decorate my appearance, my body, my soul — I will still be a vase. I am meant to hold pretty flowers while everyone gushes about how the flowers are so vibrant. No one ever notices the vase as it is simply there to hold something.

I am a sucker for the attention that comes when I am adorned with flowers. I try to live in the illusion that everyone is turning their heads to look at me. I try to live in the deception that I am the main event for at least once. The truth might be right in front of me but I live in this delusion that I am to be loved for who I am. That I am adored for just being me. That I am everything even without the flowers.

But alas, I am nothing without the flowers and when they have withered, I sit there — empty, lonely, ignored.

There is this thing that I always compare myself to empty vessels – like pots, vases, broken urns. I always imagine myself as a leaking old earthen urn which is abandoned but not entirely. I reside there, in someone’s house, on the uppermost shelf of their old cabinet that they keep in the attic. I was once privileged enough to be on display – like an heirloom. Then times changed, the urn long forgotten as I started leaking. I am now unable to hold anything in me as it leaks all out – even love.

When I think about myself, I always imagine something hollow. Something that should be filled with things to make it look worthy. I can contain many things but it all is temporary. On my own, I am nothing. It is the emotions, the feelings, the memories, the stories and the interactions that make me something more. I pass on from person to person while they pour their heart out into my hollow soul. I keep these emotions close, as I move on to the next person. The heaviness that I feel from carrying so much has now weakened my body. There are hidden leaking holes that now cannot contain enough of what people say, and hence I sit away in an abandoned lane.

Maybe I am more than what I give myself credit for but it is an honor to be an empty vessel honestly. I get to keep so many stories even if it overflows at times. I try to keep so much in that I burst sometimes into millions of pieces as the emotions spill out without a warning. And then I am left there, collecting the ceramic pieces of my once empty shell as I piece them together slowly, patiently and all alone. I keep my pieces close to me till I find worthy hands which will keep parts of me safe.

I am still waiting for that one kind of love that will take these broken pieces from me, melt them back to clay and mould it with their own hands back to a vase that is worth it. I am waiting for a love that will mould me into a vase that is valuable – all by itself.

Share mid-twenties: a poetic struggle

As someone who has been in the writer community for as long as I can remember, I have seen several people lose their spark. It is heartbreaking to see several poets/writers retract back, stop writing, or write soulless poems just for the sake of keeping their title as a writer intact.

There has also been a time when I, myself couldn’t write anything. I was too tired. I hated the way I never got likes, or even got appreciated for the poems and quotes I shared on social media. It drained the creativity out of me. It drained a significant part of me which I have always embraced. It is now terrifying to even think about it.

When did we start writing for others rather than ourselves?

I have known poetry since ages. Always been intrigued by the way famous poets weave a string of words into such deep meaning sentences with soulful elements and beautiful paragraphs. Like music without the tune. Like thoughts without the noise. Poetry has always been something that fascinated me. And when I realized that we have such wonderful poets in modern world too, it made me so happy. I am always glad to share my poems with people who understand them, who can read between the lines of my poorly written verses, who can give a new meaning to the poems I write.

But alas, in this world of rush and reputation, some of us lose the war. We slowly start looking for appreciation, acceptance and approvals. We start making poems that don’t feel like ours. Isn’t poetry meant to be ours? I feel like it should be something out of our skin, something that can only mold with our soul perfectly while others just read it to realize how we see the world.

When did poems become a performative act?

Nowadays, majority of the people are hypnotized by the social rush. They are creating poems just for the sake of getting likes, titles and something that they can show off. Books are being published just because they want the title of author beside their name. Quotes are being shared that are so common that every 9 out of 10 posts have the same words written in a different way.

When did we lose this battle against social media? When did we start looking at our poems from the scrutinizing eyes of something that is so fickle?

For me, poetry is hidden in my old diary pages, bleeding with ink that’s so secret that I am scared to show them even to my own eyes. Poems are a part of our soul that we write on paper to keep it safe, to keep it as a memory. I have been several versions of myself and each one has a story to tell; each one has a poem to recite. It is extremely a saddening sight to see when writers lose their spark just because they don’t get enough fame. I hate seeing poets become soulless when other people don’t relate to the things they write. I feel nauseated when I see generic quotes float around with no real soul in them. It is truly sad to see how people are just following along and not creating, not writing, not bleeding.

Like what are you waiting for? Just fucking write?

Poems are a way poets bleed, pouring their heart into a mere piece of paper so that they can touch the lines with their bruised fingertips to feel the pain of the poetry over and over again. Even when your heart heals, these poems always contain the pain you have once felt. And that is exactly what poetry is. I have this hope in me that we will finally break through this barrier of social media and write for who we are. I hope we finally write from the ink that bleeds out of our own skin and not ink that we have collected along the way.

Poetry is meant to be our own, our soul, a thing only we understand and I hope we don’t sell it out just for the sake of robotic phrases that don’t soothe the ache that has formed beneath our beating heart.

And to the people who think they have lost their spark, to the people who think their poems aren’t enough, may you know that it was never about the fame. Poems that you write are solely yours and it is our privilege to read them when you share them to the world. You are not obliged to share the pieces you create meticulously. It is your choice that you are letting the world see a part of you that you have hidden in pages of your notebooks.

It doesn’t need to be rhythmic, systematic or aesthetic. Poetry is supposed to be harsh, raw and desperate. Have you ever seen a wound bleed out in a rhythmic pattern? No right? Just like that poetry doesn’t have to always have rhyming words. It is the chaos in your mind that you try to clear when you write them down. It is your weapon of saving yourself from the harshness of the world.

And I truly hope, that poetry finds you again. In the exact warm way it has once found you long time back when you were just a teenager who sat alone in your small room and whispered, “Why me?”.

Since ages I have seen love as an almost pastel colored emotion, that never really can be noticed. It is always present in the way we care, hug, nuzzle and listen but never loud enough to shatter the windows. Love has always been the warm kitchen light that illuminates the room with a feeling of safety and comfort. An almost different emotion that suddenly strikes you and there is no return back from it.

But then I met you. And suddenly love was burning red.

The way you moved, the way you talked and the way you existed. The way the entire world slowed down when you entered the room. The way every little inch of my existence screamed to destroy myself just for you to pick them up and mend me. I was ready to shatter my own heart and present them to you for I have heard whispers that you were always good at fixing things.

I have taken one look at you and knew that you held something that was meant to destroy me. You were meant to shatter me into millions of pieces. So many pieces that it would have taken me days to even find each one of them.

It was catastrophic – the way you moved.

It was almost enigmatic in the way you always knew what to say. In the way every mere human in the room stopped and listened to you. In the way you demanded attention like it’s your right and oh my god it is. It is your right to demand attention because it is yours. Every inch of attention that humans can create is all yours to take.

And I was attentive. I looked at you, my eyes moving along with you as you swayed from side by side. But what demolished me is that you knew I was watching and you knew that I was almost too alert of your powers. The way you knew that I would ruin myself from the mere thought of having you in my arms. It was in the way your sharp gaze traced my every scar and memorized every ragged breath that I allowed myself to let out in front of you.

Love, once was something that soothed an ache. A nurturing feeling that blooms flowers and causes fireworks. But now it’s like a tempest. Revolting against the sea and creating destructive waves. And me? I am an innocent ship. I have known that I was to get hit by your storm but I have still gone out, into the vast openness of the ocean and waited. Waited for you to strike me with your thunderstorm.

The sky screamed and whimpered as the streaks of light roared to life. A warning. A chance to escape. But I stayed there, my heart pounding from the way I saw the calamity with my own eyes. My eyes twinkling with some kind of excitement from the mere thought of experiencing something from you.

I have always been passionate about the way I feel love. I find it an overwhelming feeling. An emotion that breaks you before it makes you. It is the urge to be ruined by someone just for the mere hopeful wish of receiving a soothing touch later. The entire concept of love runs just on hopeful wishes. Wishes that are destructive but in a tempting way. And when I talk about you, I feel like I have already plunged my heart out to show you how it thumps in the rhythm of your name.

The most ironic part of all this is the way you know the power you hold over me. It is the way I shiver from the thought of your eyes finding mine in a crowded room. I have learned every inch of you and the way you store that ocean full of emotions in those dark brown eyes has my head reeling.

You shouldn’t have looked at me straight in the eyes, for I feel bare under your gaze. I have been trying so hard to hide these emotions but you read me like a page that has been torn apart from a book – bare and vulnerable. And all I can do is let you read me, let you bring me to my knees.

Maybe it is in the way you talk, or it is in the way your hands are always warm, or in the way you give me that knowing smile when I am trying to hide the turmoil you you cause in me. I haven’t really thought of love as all-consuming, but it is, in the worst way possible it is.

I have never thought of love as destructive but oh, my darling you destroy me in a way that will forever be my favourite.

I haven’t really gotten time to write poems lately. But this essay is something that has been eating me alive so I needed to get the words out. I have an old poem, that somehow goes with the similar concept and I would love to share that.

The Moon and its Desperate Lover

You are the moon and I am the damned sea.
A tale supposed to end in tragedy,
For I reach towards you with all my might.
Destroying everything around me despite.

You sparkle across the sky, an alluring entity.
I wander off around separate realms to find clarity.
My tides simply twirl and dance on your conduct.
But it leaves behind a scar that’s so malicious.

You are the mysterious moon and I am the desperate sea.
We will never be one and it is how it should be.
But my heart doesn’t listen to this obsolete truth,
For I tame my waves to become your muse.

The shore, my dearest mate has warned me always,
Of the clever tricks you have for me laid.
I might know that my tides will never reach you.
But luck be damned as I always search for your sooth.

You are the magnificent moon and I am the treacherous sea.
People scowl and curse when my tides are full of glee.
They blame me without understanding how I am in love.
And I cry in my distress as nothing could be done.

When we look at someone, we always try to analyze their worst trait. We try to dive deep, notice the most miniscule things just to see where they go wrong. Trying to find an area where they will show a part of them you wouldn’t like.

But what is the worst trait a person can have?

We as humans have always had this mentality to notice the worse traits from the appearance itself. We notice a crooked nose, asymmetrical eyes, distorted lips. A short height, bulky waist, or the worst? An ugly face.

But ugliness isn’t the worst trait you can possess. It is in fact not even something that molds you into who you are. Traits are honestly subjective to how a human perceives the way they look at someone. The saying “Beauty lies in the eyes of the beholder” has always been true. For instance, if you have this pure hatred for someone, you will always find them repulsive to look at. It’s an involuntary action. You can never look straight at someone who has created uproar in your life.

And just like beauty is always dependable on perspective, ugliness is the same. It is only the person who thinks it as ugly sees the ugliness. Hence, ugliness isn’t essentially the worst trait you can have.

“If you believe you are ugly, then it doesn’t matter what kind of mirror you look at.”

Nothing that is physical, and you cannot change without going through extensive work is a trait that can be in the list of worst traits. Then the question again arises, what is it that makes a person the very worst?

Is it in their nature? The worst trait, might be thought as being unkind, ungrateful or overly nonchalant about situations that actually require our immediate response. The worst one might be is ignorant. In this world where we are meant to reside together, the worst you might be is indifferent.

When you are not compassionate, unkind to people and things around you, it easily shows up on your face. A new born child is never born unkind. It is the way they see the world around them that makes them so. Being unkind is something that you gain as you grow older. Being someone who doesn’t empathize is certainly one’s own choice. And being someone who isn’t ready to change for their own good is the worst of it all.

Maybe you have had a childhood that has taught you to never be grateful for the people around you, but that doesn’t mean you cannot change. Just like you take traits from your family, you can take traits from every person you meet. Maybe it is the vendor, a friend, a teacher or even a stranger. Traits are something that can be passed on and it is you who gets to choose from them. It is quite inevitable that everyone has their good and bad traits but what they decide to show is what makes them human. What they decide to portray more is what makes them different from others.

In a room full of people, you will never find each one of them having a bunch of good traits but that doesn’t mean there isn’t any good. Goodness, gratefulness, kindness is always there. You can find it in the way kids help each other. You can find it in the way someone helping an aged person. You can find it in the way someone taking care of stray animals. You can find it in the way flowers decorate trees. You can find it in the way riverside blooms because of the water. You can find it in the way mountains always stand tall and protect the foothills.

Kindness is everywhere and probably it is something we have to allow ourselves to absorb in.

I have seen writers describe humans in many different ways. They call humans vessels, stardust, souls, bodies, vases. But for me, humans are like sponges. We absorb everything we see around us. It is in our human nature to absorb something we find intriguing. A habit, a word, the style of talking or even certain stories. We absorb them, make them our own and spill them to the next person. But in the process of absorbing, we forget to sometimes sort out what is good and what is bad. We forget to find the better things because that is weirdly how we work. And maybe, just maybe that is what makes us more human.

“What you absorb, is exactly what you can spill out.”

So, when someone asks me, what is the worst trait they can acquire, I would say it is the inability to sort between the good and the evil. And by some divine intervention, we are actually bad at that. Our sponge like souls have no filter to throw away the bad. We absorb it all. We don’t know which trait can cause us harm. Truly a sad business I must say.

The worst trait isn’t being unkind, ungrateful or indifferent because those are things that you have absorbed along the way. The worst trait is spilling them first out when you have finally known how to differentiate them. The worst trait is knowing that the person in front of you is hurting from the way you are and not doing a thing to change yourself. The worst trait is being stubborn enough to not let yourself evolve.

We are the finest examples of evolution from the physical and mental perspectives. We have come such a long way as a species that is taken as the most intelligent ones. And even after that, our emotional intelligence hasn’t really been that caught up with all the evolution.

And somehow, I believe that emotional intelligence is something that doesn’t come in-built in us. It becomes a part of us as we grow older. It is affected by our surroundings, the people we meet and the people we allow to influence our life.

In conclusion it is quite debatable to find the real worst trait but what I must say is that these traits make us up. And sometimes, when we let the bad parts spill out, we are slowly hurting ourselves and the others. We humans are always easily influenced by the bad. It is easy to absorb I must say.

A bad habit, a bad trait is easier to copy rather than something good. Because good takes efforts. Good takes awareness of people around you. Goodness takes time. Goodness takes heightening of senses. Goodness isn’t something vague. It is heavy and it sits right there in our heart. It is the heaviest thing to absorb and probably, most people aren’t strong enough to take the leap.

“Does what I cannot see not exist? What moves me the most is that what I cannot see nonetheless exists.”

This is quite a soothing yet terrifying fact. We see so much, we notice so much but even after that there are things that we cannot see and that doesn’t mean they don’t exist. We can’t see how our heart pumps so much blood, we cannot see how we breath and that doesn’t mean we aren’t breathing.

We all are breathing, thriving, gasping for air and somehow it goes unnoticed – or rather I say invisible. It’s the invisible things that carry along the entire universe. Not everything is in our grasp and that seems like a thought-provoking concept.

We are such intelligent species and yet the nature, the world has successfully hidden so many aspects of it from our naked eye. We don’t get to see how we make someone feel. We don’t get to see how the other side of the moon. We don’t get to see how someone loves us immensely.

We cannot see how someone’s heart warms up a little when we enter the room. We don’t get to see how someone subconsciously smiles when your name is spoken. We don’t get to see how you can increase someone’s heartbeat.

In this world, rather than noticing, and seeing everything, the thing that is superior is feeling. We feel things even before we have seen it. We feel love even before we touch it, and we cannot touch love. We feel care even without seeing it in materialized form. We feel warmth of an embrace.

We feel the meaning of sentences. We feel the way someone is dear to us. We feel the way hands graze each other. If we were to close our eyes, the other senses heightened then we would have felt the way someone falls in love with us. We would have felt the way music touches our soul. We would have felt the way the world signifies so much more.

“The truth is somewhere: but no use thinking. I shall not discover it and yet I live from it.”

Line taken from Agua Viva by Clarice Lispector.

This is it. The truth that is hiding somewhere. We are never able to find it but the truth of how nature works is ingrained in us. We live from it. We live by it. It isn’t something that is needed to be discovered. We humans are such delicate beings and we feel way too much. We can sense the presence of such feelings without even having to look for it. And I think that is beautiful.

We aren’t needed to know everything that is around us but somehow, we know. In the way we breathe, we listen, we move, we thrive, we cry, we laugh. We know the world is giving us so many things but we are not needed to know the things. There is no definitive list, no bill, no receipt. We are just here to embrace the unknown feelings and call them our own.

We are just here to be something that is merely a speck of dust. We can never question the way our soul responds to the world and nature and hence, we are simply little beings who feel mighty things.

I believe the entire concept of us existing is in the way we contribute our inner soul. We store so many unknown emotions in us that we ourselves don’t know what to do with it. So to exist, we contribute. We contribute these emotions, feelings to people who are important to us. We contribute our love, sadness, agony, anger, dilemma to people we know would keep it safe.

Sometimes, we do hand them to the wrong people, who ruin the way we feel things. But that doesn’t stop us from giving more. We are just a vessel of so many different feelings and if we keep storing them then one day it will burst open — spill over and ruin our favorite dress. Hence, we give. We share, we decrease the burden. Some might take parts of us that we give unwillingly, but to replace that we always find someone who gives us a part of their feelings.

I hope that everyone finds someone who doesn’t ruin the parts of them that they share.

I hope everyone finds a home they never want to leave.

Quote written by me

A place that's not just mere four walls but is warm enough to keep you sane. I hope you find a home that's all yours, and you decorate it in whatever way you want to.

I hope you find a home which accepts you just the way you are, a home that sparks joy instead of panic. I hope you find a home that unfurls the twisted feeling in your gut, a place where you don't have to scheme all the time. I hope you find a home — even if it takes you forever to find it.

And hence, now that I think of it, I am glad I am not being able to see certain parts of this big wide world. The parts that exist nonetheless. I am somehow amused that I get to share so much even without handing them over physically. It’s certainly magical and will always amaze me.

The month itself brings so many kinds of emotions. From freshly blooming flowers to the hazy cloudy days. The birds cooing again with enthusiasm that they have lost during winter and the insects buzzing all around with their wings all bright and ecstatic.

When I was a kid, I hated that I was born in the month of June. Schools would announce summer vacation during that month or hold exams and I never really got a chance to enjoy or distribute chocolates to friends in school. I always felt sad. My friends would be on vacations, leaving me with no one I can invite and celebrate my day with. I never found anyone who shared similar problems with me and it made me so mad.

But now?

I love June. As I grew up, I started loving it in my own kind of way. I was born in one of the last days of June, because the universe decided to put the entire warmth of June in me. The month of colors, spring, flowers and so much more. The month that elicits happiness. The vibrance of the days, the beach vacations and the way everything about June seems so colorful.

But now? I think about the deeper aspects of it.

For everyone, June might be so bright and enigmatic that they always feel it’s an explosion of colors. But for me, June is stagnant. Like mellow music that softly courses through your veins and fills your body with a soothing hum. The kind of steadiness that feels like might collapse at any moment. June feels so numb, like the feeling when the doctor injects anesthetic liquid into your bloodstream.

The calm eerie numbness that you feel. June is like that. You never know when the effect wears off but you are aware when you can suddenly feel everything. Like a storm hitting your every neuron.

June for me isn’t the bright yellow, pink, orange or red. It is soft, like the colors that are created by brush strokes so quick that you almost miss it. Like minute pieces of pebbles that have their own stories to tell. For me, June has always been a reminder that I will always be scared of what comes next.

I shiver even in the warmth of the summer sun. My body feels empty as if waiting for someone to embrace it – but in reality, I don’t know who. I feel like a hollow vessel in the scorching heat. June might be something so pompous for people, but for me it is nostalgia and memories.

I have seen love, felt love, stored love in every inch of my skin. It’s as if the entire love of the month of June is stored in me and I am unable to find it. It’s there, I can feel it always. I feel it when the sky shines bright. I feel it when the clouds take the stage as they grumble and rumble. I feel it when the flowers bloom, surrounding me with bright colors and sweet smell. I feel it when the birds chirp, and the bees buzz but I never seem to find it. My eyes aren’t meant to find something that’s hidden in my soul and that makes June smell like a box full of secrets.

June isn’t the fragrance of flowers. For me, June is the old chest under my bed that I dare not open. The one that holds so much that I am even scared to go through it. It sits there, all dust and rust. The surfaces have been scratched millions of times but the lock remains in place. A reminder that if I open it, I will never be able to close it.

Beyond that stubborn rust laden lock lies the soft touches of my beloved people. The people I once loved. Like hands playing with each other as we run through open fields. In that box contains the memories of confessions done on a hot summer night while we hide under the bed and giggle like teenagers. Sun sparkling through the gaps of our fingers, as you feel the heat even inside your palm.

Hands brushing against each other as I find love after love. But they never stay. They never stop for me. Only linger. Like an omen of something bad. Like I am meant to be someone who will always only have the lingering touch of love. Neither hands holding each other, nor love that stays more than one June.

And I sit there, I hope for the nostalgia to return and not cause pain this time. I hope the memories to be delicate as flower petals and not shards of glass on fire. I am somewhat foolish, for I wait for the world to give me a June as bright as the others imagine it. I want to see the bright colors, the sweet fragrance, the gentle love but alas. I am always there with an empty hand and snowstorm – even in the month of June.

June’s favorite woeful child

The petals fluttered, the sky cleared.
The birds chirped and the bees quarreled.
In the month of June was when I was born,
But alas, the love seemed to overflow now.

My hands sit empty, my skin prickling.
My eyes shatter like glass utensils.
Hair like the chaotic ocean waves–
For I am everyone’s safe haven.

But who is mine?

June never felt so bright for me.
The sky gloomy and the birds running.
Soft, melancholic and so eerie,
That is how I envision the month to be.

I have seen the stagnancy; the stillness.
Always someone so eager to impress.
June feels like the calm before a storm–
Like the after effects of an experiment gone wrong.

I was born in June-end, summer almost ended,
But my heart still beats like I have ran miles.
The love scattered that I am scared to pick.
My soul an empty vessel, and nothing more than it.

You think my world was shattered by you? But I have destroyed it with my bare hands while mending it back again just to destroy it for the umpteenth time. I was a mother before I was a daughter. I have nurtured grief and rage as my beloved children, feeding them daily with utmost care.

I have known rage even before I knew how love looked like. I have felt rage in my veins even before I felt butterflies in my belly. I have tasted blood before I bled through my underwear – as I bit my lip to silence the bubbling rage that dared exploding through my veins. I have hugged disgust even before I knew how it feels to hug someone who means something to you.

Red, has been the color of rage for me before I even started to address it as love. I have seen anger in the eyes of my mother when she was silenced suddenly. I have seen rage in the popping veins of my grandma when the world seemed a little harsh on me.

I have seen grief in the densest parts of my skin when I sat there helplessly. I have seen my mother’s eyes turn numb even before I learned how they sparkle with love. I have seen her wide gaze of disbelief even before I knew that you were supposed to be in love in a marriage. I have for the greater part of my life believed that marriage is just a simple thing, a ritual, a rule. I never knew you were meant to be in love with your partner, for I have never seen that happen.

And when things get tough, I somehow always find myself in my childhood bedroom, hiding from the rage that flung across the living room. And when I see my friends yell at each other, I am suddenly in my childhood home where love wasn’t a choice even. And when the world becomes harsh, I am suddenly standing in my mother’s place, experiencing the wrath of my father.'

But dare I say that I am not like my mother. I might be like her in some ways, like in the way I pin my hair back. Like in the way I dress. Like in the way I trust easily. Like in the way I help people. Like in the way I always pleasantly smile through all the pain. But I am not like her when it comes to rage. She looks like someone who has accepted the lost battle, her young bubbling rage long buried and gone. But me? I am insane.

I am insane with rage boiling inside my body and it is not just my own.

It is of my mother, my grandmother and every woman who was silenced. This rage in me is of every woman in history who perished to give birth to me, a woman. The past is a living proof that even if women were silenced, they still existed. In the dead silence of the night. In the scorching heat of summer and in the eerie winters.

So, when you ask me how I am so strong even after the grief, I always thank my mother for it. Because I was her mirror image before I was her daughter. She created me with the need to finally have someone who looked like her but with less grief than her. And I am glad she made me.

Even though I wasn’t made from love, I was made for some purpose.

I was made for her to see how she would have flourished if she fought a little harder. I was made for her to see how the world would have been if she wasn’t forced into falling in love. I was made for her to see how each of her dreams come true one way or another. I was made for her to see how she would have bloomed if she was loved easily. I was made for her to finally say that she has accomplished something. I was made for her to see the wings she herself sacrificed to see me fly.

And I won’t disappoint her. I will fly high, with the grief, rage and distaste tied to my back as they have been here even before my name was decided. Like a gentle river, I will flow through the harsh crevices, slitting open the rocks and showing my presence like a source of life. Through the testimonies of time, I am going to cradle the gruesome feelings that reside in me even before my heart took shape. For I knew how dismissal felt like, before love itself.

So, when you ask me, what takes for my world to finally end – I would simply say that it is only me and my hands which have the power to shatter the world I have so courageously built.

Note: if you love the poems I post, do feel free to buy my poetry book off amazon. The link is given below. You can also read it on kindle unlimited for free.

A Garland of Thoughts

With guilt, I clutch my heart so tight;
The squelching noises are deafening.
Blood trickling down my bare sinful hands
like a river; in between the valleys
of my fingers that are trembling—
with excitement rather than remorse.

I laugh and cry and mourn of something
that so weirdly seems to be unknown.
The world moves forward as all I do
is sit and stare at the massacre of my 
distorted hands holding a lifeless organ,
that was once my prized possession.

Always the one to wear the heart
on that goddamn sleeve of my
overworn shirt — the one 
I don’t even like the color now.
I stare at it, as it stains the cufflinks red;
A color once of love, but now rage.

Oh, I am bleeding from all my parts,
but it seems like a funny little thing.
Always so brave enough to show love
and now you see me stupidly crumbling.
The ground beneath seems cold, my face 
sinking against the pool of my own end.

Is it truly, honestly bizarre,
that I am to love everyone with 
my bleeding broken heart?
I am scared of my own thoughts,
squeezing its bare remnants in the
Inside of my scarred palm.

Trust me when I beg for some mercy.
I have just been trying to save my soul— 
hidden in the depths of my centre.
But I am standing on the court room’s dock,
as if I am to blame for the splash of red
mixing with the white cement of the floor.

If maniacs could listen to me right now,
they would know that I was never wrong.
For I am merely here to do what 
I needed to do for my beseeching core.
My heart has begged me in my dreams
to make it stop from thumping so loud.

And I?

Who am I to not listen to its pleading?
For I am nothing but a goddamn slave;
slave of my own body and soul.
The slave that has nowhere else to go.
I am stuck in this place for years now— 
A little rescue mustn’t be that unfair, right?

So, as I wait for the sentences to be spoken,
and for me to be the one guilty of murder;
murder of my own trembling heart —
I hold it in my hands for one last squeeze.
Hoping, truly hoping for it this time
to finally not feel the remorse after all.

— moonqueen

I think whenever I imagine love, it always has you with it. I want to experience love, but only when it's you. The loving kind, the angry kind, the passionate kind, or the destructive kind. In every universe I hope I experience love only with you.

I have gone through so many who made big promises to show me how true love works. Grand gestures, secret codes and so much more. Going to the end of limits to assure me that I am their lover. Being bold about it, but never loud. I haven’t experienced love that is loud. It doesn’t have to be extravagant with rainbow colours and sprinkles. I want love to be loud when I am the quietest. I want a love that is colourful when I have lost my color. A love that is abundant when I have nothing to give back.

And in you, I found it all.

You bring the color that I have tried so hard to find. You are loudly loving me, even though the loudness doesn’t hurt my ears. You show off love in a way that it always remains there — like a constant, steady reminder that I was meant to receive this kind of love. You know I always thought that I wasn’t meant to be loved. Throughout my life I have imagined myself — and I still do, that I was always meant to love, not loved. It was a simple belief and I never really tried to defend this.

I always found pride in the concept that I have enough love in me to give to others. And then you happened. It wasn’t a grand entry. No warnings, explosions of petals or some kind of orchestral music. You just seeped into my heart, like sunlight through cracks on a window. A soft, soothing presence that I almost missed it.

I was meant to always love others, but you are who was meant to love me. Every inch of me. And no matter how many times I say this, I always wish to find you in every single universe. No matter the form, I just want you with me.

Like twin flames, like soulmates.

We can be two trees growing beside each other. We might be the mountains and the river that flows through it. We might be the sky and the bird. Two fruits hanging together from a branch. We might be the sun and the moon. I don’t care, as long as it’s you whose name joins with mine.

No matter how many times I have tried to make sense to the way you love, it’s beyond my imagination. You never stand on the top of the mountains to scream out my name to the world. In this modern way of love, you never post me on any of your accounts but somehow everyone you know, knows about me. Everyone I know, obviously knows about you. I have never seen you being loud and showing me off like I am some kind of trophy.

Instead, you hold my hand when I anxiously nip my skin. You wait for me when I eat the last bite of burger. You never saw me as a trophy, but you did see me as your home. The one you are supposed to keep safe. And I am honored to keep you safe within my heart.

I may not be vocal about it because I always feel like I am not worthy of your love. The way you show love with so much force is impressive. Your love pushes back the doubts in my head and I believe I will never be able to return back that level of love to you.

But I can promise that I will stay.

I will stay through the storms and the nightmares. I will stay through the boring days and the exciting ones. I will stay when spring comes and when winter arrives. I will stay when the world is ending too. I might never confess to you in words how much you mean to me, but I will always find you in the poems I write. My pen is meant to find a way to mention you in every love poem I write. For me, love is you; and you are love.

A poem I wrote a long time ago, but is still my favorite:

You Are My Muse

I surrendered my withered petals in your hands,

They haven't been loved since last summer end.

I was sure there wasn’t a single hope left,

But they bloomed as you held them to your chest.

.

The ecstasy was undefined

I couldn’t believe my own eyes.

It all became a blurry dream

As tears tattooed on my cheeks.

.

You blushed red and gushed about how I am the one

And probably that’s how now I find red special.

Your evermore love and breathless promises

I have no idea how it cleared the mess.

.

All I can remember is you swept me off my feet

My withered petals are now all yours to keep.

Oh, my love, how did you make it grow?

Made my little fluttering heart glow.

It’s funny how sometimes we humans decide our fate with our own bare sinful hands. We agree that we are what creates our own future and that destroys the need to grow and move forward. Most of the times it’s the darkness around us that enunciates these kinds of dangerously decisive thoughts like death.

Death is something that can come to someone naturally, or what I like to say ‘when it is time’. In the present time, I believe that it is timed perfectly. A result of all the things that have gone down in your life. You might try to stop it and that is fine but I strongly believe that catalyzing your own death is destructive. The teenage me though had different views. For her the easiest escape from all the trauma was death. A soothing feeling. A calmness. An eerie stillness where nothing can reach you. Neither pain, nor the voices. It’s just you and the stillness which isn’t even interrupted by the sound of your breathing.

Life was bad back then. A living hell. And I am not just talking about academic pressure and teenage heartbreaks. All those things never mattered to me. You see, I crave for friendships. Bonds that are stronger than just romantic attachments and maybe, just maybe that’s why I went down the rabbit hole of finding a friend in anyone who showed me a little attention. Pathetic, isn’t it? But what can I do? I was always like that. A little loving, and a whole lot pleasing. There was this one time when I had decided that I wouldn’t walk the surface of earth after the age of eighteen. It was a simple thought. A satisfying feeling that all the pain will go away after I turn the golden age of 18.

My adult life wasn’t something I planned hence. I did have dreams but they were simply a second option. An option only if the first one goes wrong. And I was so dead sure that it wouldn’t. The pain was too much for me. My entire body would ache whenever I thought about the people who brought me to this dark tunnel. I was lost, not a single glimpse of light. The tunnels were never ending. Zig-zag. A puzzle I wasn’t willing to solve. I was just a kid you know. Just a kid. I would walk in the darkness like a vagabond. No aim. Just one simple thought. Death.

As you can certainly tell, that didn’t happen. I did find the light. A tiny flicker that piqued my interest. I had always been a curious kid and maybe, just maybe that saved me. I was out in the light. It took me a time to adjust. My adult life was different. The initial pressure on my chest not exactly absent but manageable. I tried to cope up with it. One day at a time. I wanted to love myself a little. I am twenty-four now and still somehow is lost. It’s a different kind of lost I believe. I don’t feel scared. The nights don’t scare me and death doesn’t cross my mind.

Though on days, when the sun hangs a little low and the clouds fog up my mind, I think about my companion sometimes. I think about the way, the thought of death once soothed every inch of my skin. The way I always knew that when death will come, it will be so soft and gentle that I will cry. That it will feel like being carried to your childhood home’s bed while you are sleeping soundly. The laughter and warmth of your grandparents fading away into the background. I always thought death will be peaceful. A sort of relief that nothing can bring.

And even though I still think about it as a calm exit, I have trusted my fate more. I am no one to decide my death and I hope I remember that. I am not allowed to take my own life because that is not something I have the right to. My life isn’t just my own you know, it is of everyone who has smiled a little when I cracked a joke. It is of everyone who finds a little relief when I stand beside them. It is of everyone who knows that I am one call away. Maybe I am not selfish enough to take away a life that seems mine. But I am glad I am a little selfless when it comes to trying to find death.

Writing something this heavy always feels struggling for me but I have been wanting to talk about this for so long. I have gone through so much in the past that sometimes I get brave enough to share it. I hope whoever reads it finds some kind of peace in it. It’s not that poetic but a raw part of me somehow.

Note: if you love the poems i post, do feel free to buy my poetry book off amazon. The link is given below. You can also read it on kindle unlimited for free.

A Garland of Thoughts