The Silence of My Voice

Remember when we were kids, and the sporadic, puny feats would make us feel invincible enough to grow up to be anything we wanted? And, there wasn't just one role we anticipated ourselves playing; there were volumes of them. Yes. How's that going, by the way? As children, we manifest ourselves to ourselves at multiple chances. As we grow - and, I don't mean grow up, but grow older - we tend to do this in our own times; in secret places, behind closed doors. I don't reckon it's the apprehension of being held up to an opinion, and flak all the time, but despondency in our own selves. So, we find ways to create; or, better yet, escape. I'm aware, I've spoken enough about it, but this place holds a special place in my heart. Deer Park girdles every Sunday morning with my parents, as a kid. It skirts my bunk schedules in college, to hide in a cafe writing, overlooking the lake, and the forest beyond. It contains all my low points, and long walks of woe. It's ...

"Everything about you separates you from the people in my life" You said it'll be gnarly, you said it'll be chaotic, But it'll be a ride, You said there'll be longings, you said there'll be greed, But that we'll make it a party, You said I need to give, you said I need to deplete, But it'll be all in good taste, You said you need to lament, you said you need to bruise, But only because monsters need the most spooning, You said you're warped, you said I was abundant, But it all was not unreal, You said it's not all games, you said I'll do the hurting, But no one really had a conspicuous plan, "Only because I've chosen you to hurt me" You said "I'm His Girl", you said you'll serenade me, But there wasn't even an orthodox departure, You said there'll be gestures, you said there'd be plants, But all I felt was belittling, You said there'll be time, you sai...

Hello. There are memories that will easily collapse in the palm of your hands occur sporadically. And, how beautifully brittle are these things? And, how easily these things make you hopeful for more of these evocations? And, isn't that the purpose they serve? To create genres of hopes to have us eternally believe in magic happening? There's a memory for me, of contentment and, of woe. I've never felt placidity that rivalled the one I felt each time I was home, all by myself. Prior to that, I'd never fathomed just how enervating a mechanism it is to make a house feel like home. It is, truly, just another feeling. There's no modus operandi that to take place. As evolved beings, we always compensate for lack of normality with objects. Not until I emptied that apartment, did it dawn on me that I hadn't found the need to add in a lot of compensations in it. It simply grew on me, and turned into a home. I can unambiguously point the definite moment when that ha...

Hello. Location: Naladehra Growing up, I've spent a lot of my vacations in mountains. Arriving at them was always shadowy, but dazed feeling always settled inside of me. It wouldn't be until much later that I would notice other people reliving a twinning fuzziness while describing their favourite place. And, that's what favourite places do - they tear you apart. Since I was old enough to cogitate my veins, I realised that the mountains made me want to be left unchaperoned, while also making me want to make someone see what I was seeing. The way you'll always be breathless by the view that awaits you at every crook of a mountain road, is exactly what it does to my insides. There's no fulfilment that rivals the one I feel each time I reach the mountains; and, there's no helplessness that rivals the one I feel each time that slope gradually ends, and I land on two feet on a loathsome land of uninspiring views. The snow, the nip in the air, the bonfires...

I've had a winter, The unprecedented ones, The ones, after which you face,  no qualms, Adjusting to the banality of the next one, The ones with exhilarating perilousness, And an absence of commonality, And, oh, the liability of the perfect! The ones with no ambition, With only the humour of expectations, The ones that never make it to poems, Because it's like blood, For those with amnesic tastes & a middling craving, The ones where the salt from their eyes, Weigh in on the long letters, The weight of which your postbox barely upholds, The ones, that makes them wary, Of where the urgencies lie, The ones where you never have to choose, The ones where the sunsets count, the breakfasts don't, The stories count, the sex don't, The looks count, the words don't, The ones with porous promises, And presents wrapped of lovelessness, The ones where the blistering answers collar the questions, And the questions are direly ta...

Hello. It's Day Eight! Have you ever met your soul? Ever felt it chuffed, or screaming or mourning? That person you keep hearing inside your head is you. Always you. Your soul is the person who holds you from losing the last of your inklings when you're wailing into your pillow alone at night. Or when you reach out to the world at times when you're completely empty, but not just yet. When you reach out to give more than you can afford, because it will all come back to you. Because nobody ever wants to keep too much stuff from someone else for too long, no matter how good or irresistible it is. That Person is also your biggest vulnerability. That's the person who's hiding behind you when you're shining in the limelight, when all she wants is her pajamas and some ice cream to celebrate. That's the Person at her most aggressive when you're busy wallowing, turning within yourself. Sometimes we forget we carry more people with us than just ourselves. Ther...

Hello. It's Day Three! Incompletion is an art form. As tempted as I was, to leave this post just at that, I don't reckon my blog deserves this humour jolt at three in the morning. Most times, in life, we can't see things through. Can't or won't. In either case, it really is a matter of choice, only one overruled slightly more by fear and insecurities. And, I'm strongly of the belief that certain things in life can't be overcome simply by the sheer gall of being bigger than your fears. But, I'm also of the belief that everything in life is easily ignorable. As trivial as that sounds, the easiest thing in the world is to unlearn what you know than learning something new. So, unearth yourself. Trace back where you begin, and be very clever to let the reason of that beginning be nondescript. It's easy. It's as easy as trying to remember why you started walking. Because, biology. And, yet most of us don't forget to retrace, fall to our kne...

Hello. It's Day Seven. People after people, bogie after bogie, I sit on the punctured steel bench, far from being reminiscent, Of the hefty and rooted stone parenting the dusky oak ledge, Always smelling of musk, it veritably was crafted, Keeping in mind humans as humans, and not luggage, I somehow settle my derrière, which is also quite disapproving,  On the gruesome bench, There are now wires, and with each added filament, Would be fracturing of a roof so mile-high, fit which it would  All the male ego you would see, floating heavily Along with the dark vapour of the coal, And the smell of the smoke, glamorise which it would, The idea of the handsome smile you wish, You could descry across the platform, I see them daub inch by inch further away,  Wanting more expanse, while gobbling more turf, "We'll make them grand", they said, "They'll look modern", they said, And amidst all their gloat bubbles in the air, stif...

Her hands, withered yet supple handed me the little black books. I found her speaking with a voice roughened with wisdom, repeating the same words I'd heard last in a voice much flintier than hers, "Sky is the limit, Barfi. He taught your mother this. You must inherit it."  Aware of everything the books cloaked, anxiety also misted over me knowing I'll be taking them away from whom they've always belonged to, the sky it belonged beneath. I could feel myself sinking into a conundrum by each second as I touched the wilting leather hardback of the diary that held his entire life. "What if I can't crack it?", shilly-shallying my indecisiveness as always. The bleak moment I saw her smile sardonically like never before, I felt a menial catastrophe that slight action instigated enveloping me.  "Must you be so distrusting of yourself? You're quite like him in a way."  Thrown back by her words, I failed to understand if my behaviour, and more...

The cigarettes let out a bulky quilt against the air that inflated his chest, and he dextrously created stories between them, as he slapped the air for a ghost-less vision. And each time he sauntered through the heavy walnut opening, his past seemed to catch up with its bells high on. The stink of rye, and the stains of scotch. The burn of Cuban spices with the heaviness of the citrus cleanser. The pale, alabaster skin of her derrière, and the impulsive flare of his parchment. The moss of the lamps reminded him of the unripeness of the bedroom doors he squirrelled behind, each night, when the clock struck ten, and his old man in turn struck any visible hide he could find on her body. He'd kill her and bring her back from the white light, time and again. Time and again, he'd push her, praise her, need her. He'd destruct her piece by piece, and make her whole again, until both were gasping for breaths. He'd seen the old man's welts across her back, his...

Have you ever known, what coming home is like? How would you,  When all you've done, is wander, Through every lane, searching, For truths, fighting them with lies, Pulling your own strings apart, Heartbeat by heartbeat, You will never know, What coming home is like. Have you ever known, The warmth of another soul, The comfort of the company, Of another's silence? When all you've done, Is run away, Thinking of everyone as crowd, Selling your heart out, On cheap street take-outs, While only gathering the lonesomeness, Others had on offer, You will never know, The warmth of another soul. Have you ever known, The disgrace of two parted lovers? How would you, When you believed you two, Could survive apart, But what for, really? Because all you did, Was be terrified, but awed, You will never know, The disgrace, the ache, the abomination, Of two parted lovers. I miss this space a hell more often now....

Can you take me someplace else? Where my diary isn't the one, Whom I tell things, I used to tell you,  Somewhere,  That's not home, A place you're homesick for,  A world, not to be found, But to get lost in, Where there's no tax on coffee,  And people live to read, Somewhere,  Where the freshness of the cakes, Is the only intoxication to resort to, Where the wine is shared with only those you love,  And not to forget them, Somewhere, That is untouched by profit, That is virgin in its most spectacular manner, Somewhere,  Where you can talk to stars, And instead of guiding you, they hear you, For a change? Where the moon is unblemished, And the sun shines only until, Your warm skin shines to make you stand out, Do you know of a place like this? Take me to that place, Where you're the only person I tell things, And my diary is the only one to tell things, I can't tell you.  In hunge...

She sat by the same window, stirring her coffee. Looking out - thinking - nothingness. The comprehension of the most simplest activities of the human mind stayed well beyond her reach. She came here often to be astray in the smoke from the chimneys that preceded the green lake. Through the cloud of the smoke, she kept her attention out for the water. Water that seemed misty from the chimney smoke. Water that was true. Water, that was imperviously solid. Water, that reflected everything for what it was. She smirked, thinking funnily, how the haze from the steam of her coffee, was just so essential for her to obstruct the distractions the world was ready to serve on a plate, each time that she was here. Alike the steam of her coffee blanketed her when she rendered herself most vulnerable, the smoke of the chimneys, never let anyone see the true face of the water. She often thought to herself, how unfair for the water to be abandoned out there naked. Oh, how she could understand the sha...