When the lashes intertwine and the world goes black, the mind wanders in the stash it has stored over these years. The reel that plays holds a spark of a smile and a series of it fading away, the latter slicing life at an age when it was hard to even fathom what pain felt like more than a scraped knee and the prick of a pin. The two hands that intertwined her’s, were not teaching her to walk. One held onto her and the other pulled down both of them. Five memories of happy tears, five friends the heart loves to bits, five dreams to accomplish, and at the edge of it all stands a five years old girl playing hopscotch, unaware that the one-legged game of life has just begun. But while the earth beneath her feet still shakes, she wonders if it’s her feet failing to keep steady. So she tries harder, keeps questioning where she went wrong. But the more answers she finds, the more the questions evolve and accumulate, a series of unfortunate events and unanswered queries. She sees everything but chooses not to believe that malice was embedded deeply in each soul… And when the nightmare ended to clear the mist, it hits harder. This was never a nightmare, but an inescapable parasitic reality. That is the truth untold, for even if she speaks, she summons more damage.
Even with pages upon pages of the narrative, none could possibly explain everything that flashes before the eyes. Infinity seems too small of a word to keep a count of everything inflicted or to encompass the agony of it all. Yet to believe anyone chooses to be in pain possibly hurts the most. Even with everything draining the soul, to explain why this is untrue seems to be the most daunting task.
I am an open book, yet what anyone sees is just my visitors’ diary. I have grown up being told to ‘not tell’… and then chosen to never. Because if anyone could do anything, they wouldn’t, so they shouldn’t know. And now if anyone does, it’s always returned with the most insincere sympathies and I opt to be empathetic and choose the same only, for myself too.
Growing up, the only conversations I would have were with my favorite characters, so fiction became my best friend. I found comfort in how I could relate to someone that didn’t exist because the part of me that related to them didn’t exist for the world either. I saw my lens through those who had an eye for digging deeper. Wrapped up in their words, my mind found a piece of peace and a piece of me, in each narrative I occupied myself with while the noises outside got louder. Sometimes it helped me see myself better, sometimes the world I was in. I learned to love the hundred and fifty shades of grey because my world was never black and white. And so while everyone read the lines, I always read between them. What happened was never the question that bothered my thoughts, rather why it did was. Perhaps that's why the scholastic description of any form of art, was never my cup of tea.
And then the sounds got louder, the bruises outnumbered the screams. The art that I loved so dearly, was pulled further away. So I picked up my pen and paper and while everyone thought I was putting together ‘notes,’ I simply wrote, but my heart out. And I would scrape it and rip it to shreds, in a fit of rage that felt better when you couldn’t tear of what tore you. But with time the burnt diary was replaced by an archive and now perhaps there are several of those too, some I own by name and some by aliases, some darker than the others... Maybe my logophilia will forever be lapped up in the ink that stains my mind palace. For I am a person whose mind is their own dementor and whose thoughts will forever be held captive in Azkaban. But I choose to try to be the Patronus, even if my existence will always be linked to realities like the one who must not be named.
I chuckle every time someone utters: how do you expect to be loved if you cannot love yourself? The thing is I do not expect to be loved, for I have never been loved, at least in the ways that mattered most to me, the ones that could put my heart at ease. I have learned to accept that some do adore me, for who they perceive me as, usually because of how I am towards them. And none of it is fake, because that too is a part of me. But they’ve never seen me whole, or with no strings attached. Childlike love, or the way you love a child, when there is no reason to love except the way a pair of eyes look up at you and sets a curve on both faces. Unconditional and unequivocal selfless love. That’s the one that puts the heart and mind to ease. But replace it with irrational hate? Then it’s an endless journey of understanding why? Why do we all adorn masks in public, hiding away the bearer’s true face? But within the confines of the four walls, ‘despise’ is unleashed, worse than the monsters and demons we are taught to fear.
I have always learned to love, I simply never knew what it felt like to hate anything. Even when I used the word, it was figurative, more meant to describe mere dislike. But I have always been taught to hate, myself…
A child’s mind is a blank sheet of paper, it soaks the ink it is exposed to, making out words from what it overhears. It takes time to understand the world doesn’t see whole. And the reflection in the mirror turns to shape the way the world places the lens. But mirror images are distorted, the flipped images are the first dip into deception.
But I have grown to understand hate, and how even if it does not dominate my mind and mindset, I tend to hold that emotion for some. I have learned to hate those who taught me to hate myself…embedded reasons in my persona that form parts of me both as blossoming growth and shriveling instincts. Everything that has touched my mind and soul has shaped me into who I am, and perhaps not always for the better. And some will not love the parts they dislike, because they see the way the tree grew, not the way the shoots thrived. Not every flower is the same kind of beautiful, but not all seeds grow in the same ground. As the nutrients vary, our nourishment does too. And even if most choose to turn a blind eye, if the way they are nurtured contrasts, the end of it all will too. Yet to expect everyone to acknowledge the existence of the map of your soul, is a utopian theory. But to take their rebuke and abhor your inner child is a stigmatized way of viewing your reflection.
If this world has given me insecurities, I have learned to wrap them up in a sheath of confidence. I am either hated for things that make no sense or ones the person knows too little about. What makes no sense has no place in my mind, for I form theories even when one cannot, I am a fiction-lover that thrives on conceptualizations. But for things that are known too little by any other, I will always know more. And maybe you can choose to ignore the underlying aspects, but I cannot deny their impact. Yet I shall always try to shape up for the better. But I will never hate myself for them. I know you will and that’s my insecurity, knowing everyone chooses to see the glass ‘half empty’ but I choose to see it as ‘half full.’ And while you choose to picture everything in hindsight, only focusing upon the light that it all shines under, I regard all the shades of grey and the way the setting evolves with the growing speck of light. I am a realist, I cannot ignore realities, regardless of their place in the timeline. I am confidently insecure. Even when I see ‘half full’ I choose to never let myself forget most shall only see ‘half empty.’ But I embrace and carry both parts of me with the same fortitude. I have found my answer to loving yourself, I hope you do too.
Even if for the winter flower, spring seems far away, it holds on with the belief that it too is meant to bloom. Not all flowers blossom to be the same, but they are all meant to grow. And so with time, I choose to too. To evolve for the better, to alter my perspective, yet never deny my footing and crippling roots. I have chosen to fall for the skies, both blue and grey. Maybe to you, I am greedy. But I too wish to be happier someday. Until then, I see it fitting to find my reasons to smile in the way I can set a curve on another face.
I am inherently numb, wasn’t but perhaps will always be. Not because I am cold at heart, but because I choose not to be. I choose to not let all the hatred settle in till it makes a home in my heart. But it’s heavier than it ever was and continues to be. Raging storms do not surprise me anymore, it’s the climate I am used to for the seasons never change here. The illusions of pleasant weathers bear bad omens so often, they are the only ones to shake me to the core. But it is so rare to come across that mirage, that numbness is all I feel or choose to. I choose to shut out pain by simply getting accustomed to it’s persistent existence. And the only moment it alters into anything else is at the sight of someone else’s smile, anyone’s…
A letter to myself? maybe that’s what this could be called. Why is that not the title? Because my heart was stuck on this one. I understood love! But in relation to the latter, the thoughts remained questionable for very long.
More often than not my pieces are catalyzed by an instantaneous rush of emotions or thoughts that I need to put down to get out of my head. If you are trying to picture what got me thinking this time, I was revisiting Sherlock’s best-man speech. I relate to him a lot when he utters “…I never expected to be anybody’s best friend…” Yet I am thoroughly grateful to those who choose to be mine and call me their’s…
