Shed

I'm done. I'm giving in my papers today. Today, I don't want it anymore. I don't want him, him or any other him near my personal space. These walls are going up and they're going up cemented. It's not going to be easy anymore, I promise. I'm not letting you, you or you anywhere close to my space. From now onwards, it's mine and mine alone and nothing is going to come close to making me want to share my life with anyone. At this point, I don't think anyone is deserving of my space and time. From now onwards, everybody is at one level. 

No, the girl who gives her heart to every puppy on the road is not changing. You haven't affected me that much. I just don't want any of you anymore. In fact, I'd like to thank you for taking time off your busy schedule to tell me that the problem is with me. Maybe it is, or maybe you're just not worth my heart.

For now she need not think about anybody. She could be herself, by herself. And that was what now she often felt the need of—to think; well, not even to think. To be silent; to be alone. All the being and the doing, expansive, glittering, vocal, evaporated; and one shrunk, with a sense of solemnity, to being oneself, a wedge-shaped core of darkness, something invisible to others. Although she continued to knit, and sat upright, it was thus that she felt herself; and this self having shed its attachments was free for the strangest adventures.

― Virginia Woolf, To the Lighthouse

Don't you see

Did no one ever tell you that abuse was bad. Physical, sexual or mental. Did no one tell you that words can sting as much wounds can, sometimes they stay longer. Did no one ever hold your hand and show you how love felt. Did no one ever teach you that if you loved someone, you wouldn't want to hurt them. Don't you see it's hurting me? Don't you see it's eating her alive? 

I was taught that if someone loved you, they would never hurt you. But still, side by side with those lessons, I was hurt everyday. Hurt's friend anger tagged along soon. Anger said this was his place to be in, rightly justified. He made me see the happiness in everyone else's life and made me a jealous child, and now a jealous adult. But see, they say don't let life harden you. To bad for us, we started hard. 

Don't you know, yet? That you never swear at a sleeping child. Heck, you never swear at a child. Or an adult. Or anyone. That's what I was taught. How were we taught such different things? I'm glad I got nothing but your voice from you. Oh yes, and that one lesson. If someone hits you, what do you do? Hit them back. If someone pinches you, what do you do? Pinch them back. 

If someone hurts you..what do you do? Hurt them back? 

Folds and Pages

She was almost falling asleep.  Right there, at the brink. Slipping into the world of sub consciousness, of strange dreams. I love you, she heard. Her eyes opened on their own, without her permission. Like they wanted to know before she did. Her eyes gazed into his. Deeply, questioning the phrase she heard. I’ve never loved anyone truly, he had said a while ago. But there he lay, holding her like a precious gift in his arms, saying those very words to her. Never had a moment been so precious to her. She wanted to say something, but the words never left her mouth. It had never been that way; she could always say the things she wanted. Always, even if she didn’t mean it. But this once that she really did, it refused. Like grey clouds that refused to pour, looking for the right place, the right moment to shower down she held it on. No moment could compare to what she had just experienced. So she looked on, into those eyes that were imploring into hers trying to understand what turmoil was going on behind that distant gaze that she had. Are you serious, she asked finally and immediately regretted it. What a silly question, she shouldn’t have opened that mouth of hers. He laughed and held her tighter. Their faces now millimeters away from each other.  In that hot room that wasn’t hers, they were breathing the same air , breathing each other in and as if for the very first time. Their hands and minds needed no introduction to each other though. Since the first time they touched, it was like Déjà vu, she knew every nook, every fold of skin on his body.. that mole on the right side of his neck. And he knew her like he knew his books, cover to cover. His fingertips created electricity and his lips discovered her a little more everytime. It was a moment out of a story, she thought in retrospect. A story you never will forget, almost like it happened to you. This time for a change, she wasn’t reading. It was happening to her, her story, their story, unfolding like the most beautiful piece of literature written.

You make me want to write love stories, she said to him.

Are you serious, he asked. 

Regret

It's that time of the year again, when we come so close to losing someone that we realize what their proximity meant to us. Everybody is sniffing loudly, scrunching up their small puffy eyes, closing them every now and then and wondering.. what if. 'What if I had told her how much she meant to me' 'What if I just went to him when he asked me for something' 'What if I held her one last time before she went away forever' 'What if I hadn't said that....would she be here now?' No she wouldn't. Nothing we do and think is going to bring back anything about this person. We know this, yet...

(Lost and Found, August 2013)

Loss

It clenches your guts, the pain
Holds them tight and refuses to let go
Till you are ready to let the waters flow,
and let it flood your space
and fill your heart
Till it's brimming at your eyes
And threatening to fall.

With it, it brings the wails of months
Months that you've shut them,
Months that you've wanted to find them
but they refused to come out
Months that you've wished
and wished
that these wails would come and
wash away with them,
the pain, those memories, that regret.
But no, these are the worst of the creatures you've met.

Along with them, come their friends
Memories, Regret, Anger.
The picture of her smile...
It reminds the mind of what was
And will never be again.
It reminds the mind that, that smile,
you could've kept alive,
if you'd only tried.
And it reminds the mind that
it's past, dust, ashes..

The memories, that smile, that dimple... I miss you Goobey.

All the things I want to say to you. Well mostly.

I didn’t want us to be together any more than you did I just thought it was nice the feel of the small of your back and I liked talking to you liked the way you thought I was crazy liked feeling wild again because I’ve lost that you know that something that used to thump against my rib cage and make me wanna rip the dawn right out of the sky and tack it to the lids of your eyes and I wasn’t asking for the world you know just the feel of you there and your silence

Because even if we ran out of things to say I don’t think it’d bother me much don’t think it would send my bones to rattle and okay maybe I talk too much and try to connect too much and maybe the line I said about your heart beat didn’t sound as poetic out loud as it did in my head but I’m a zany case of skin and I can’t help it that you make me buzz electric and it’s not my fault that in my mind we’re just two lightning bugs like darting stars in tall grass

And don’t bother with your words I know them all by heart could stick them to needle point and sell them at craft fairs I know you mean well mean the very most well the very most well of any good intentioned backwards glance I’ve ever seen because you really have the loveliest eyes like scoopable eyes like spoon out and set for marbeling eyes like eyes that jelly my knees and make me wanna write and say too many awkward things

And even in this unspooling I’ve said too much and even in this unchaining you are still the silhouette of two arms of two legs and a head with two ears standing in the door frame of a red-light-lit-95-square-foot dorm room with the smell of alcohol prickling your nose and it’s okay this going it’s okay this goodbye because I don’t need to be heart broken to miss you and I don’t need to want to share a togetherness to feel a sense of loss however small however fleeting however inked however creeping it may be.

P.S- Since that wasn't the right time to talk about it, and to your face it would never be, because I'll turn to jelly right there. I just needed to get something across cause I hate regret more than anything else on earth. 

P.P.S- In case you're wondering, I didn't write all of it. Apparently someone feels the same way about someone else :O 

Apologies if I'm coming across as loony. 

Love, 

Ju

Tere Naina

They make me forget things. Your eyes. Make the world around a haze, like a photograph taken with a low shutter speed. Insert me in that picture, just gazing, at those magnificent pair of eyes that God created. I could write poetry on them, your eyes. For every time you look at me, just even glance by, my heart stops beating for a while I swear. They look like they've seen so much. So much wonder, so much pain, so much love....they turn this devastated cranky hag into a hopelessly romantic adolescent, your eyes. I would gaze at them forever, if I could. When you lie on my lap, dreaming of things I haven't seen, I sit still- Not only because you look so comfortable, because I don't want to miss the first moment when your eye lids open and reveal your Hazel Irises.
They make me see the beauty in others, your eyes. I don't know how that's possible, but since I've seen yours, I have a special thing for eyes. I now describe people as, 'the girl with nice eyes'. Yeah, very specific I  know.
On August 15th, the day the country celebrated, I celebrated too. My heart leaped with joy, the moment you came up to stage and told me your name. Okay fine, told everyone your name. Though it felt like they were talking to me you know, your eyes I mean. I didn't see your rugged beard or worn out tee and shorts. All I saw were those two little doors to heaven situated on the top region of your face, and I thought to myself then, 'ooh, nice eyes' (I think I said it out too).
They make me feel unapologetic, your eyes. I know that's giving them too much credit. But really, they give me this confidence that I've never felt before. A confidence to not hide away my feelings no matter what they are. They give me the confidence to look anyone in the eye and say things that I wouldn't usually muster the courage to say. So, they empower me, your eyes. And that's quite a bit for a pair of eyes if you ask me.
Are they really a window to your soul though? Cuz I'm in love with your eyes, if that isn't evident already. It's not everyday I write an ode to someone's sensory organs. If they really are a window to your soul, I can't wait to look through those windows to see what lies beyond. I can't wait to plunge into those Hazel seas and find that treasure you've kept so well hidden.



Actually,
I can wait.
I'll wait for all eternity if I can gaze at your eyes in the meanwhile.