Letting bygones be bygones

I

When I love something, I read about it till exhaustion. And beyond. Mostly, sorrow attracts me the most. Poignance, casts a spell on me and brings me to a standstill, rather where I am compelled to explore. Till exhaustion. Once I can't feel my feet on the ground, I choose to sink deeper and deeper. Even if it means nothing. I discover the agony I have buried within myself and I cannot bring the process to a halt. It's nasty and it's involuntary. Almost like a chronic addiction. For instance, if I love a film, I read about it for days. Until I have had my fulfilment. And fulfilment is a relative word, my friend.

II

My friend was sitting in a bar with his friends. They were all smoked up and were having a few beers. I was back in my room, writing a poem. Or something. We were all of twenty. Or less. A very fragile age that. I was writing a poem called Underachievers Anonymous. Sitting on my bed. On my blog, back then. Mist on my windowpane. Blanket till my waist. Memories are best set in winter, I say. I wrote it in a flow and published it. He read it almost instantaneously. Yes. And my phone rang within a minute. I had barely un-blanketed myself to walk up to the coffee table. And my phone rang. And it was him. He had called to say how exact my timing was and how his gang was now going gung-ho about underachieving etcetera.

III

Something beautiful and terrifying I read today: Love, even if never fully expressed, somehow lasts forever.

In The Mood For Love

Imagine smoke and mirrors. Smoke, often from his cigarette and more than a couple of mirrors, facing each other at varied angles, light reflecting and refracting as it wished, without restraint, through red curtains and green bed spreads and tiled marbled floors coloured like a chessboard, printed wallpaper with chequered designs, of light blue, or deeper, a lampshade or two, a can for carrying soup, an umpteen number of bottles, spread across, the entire room feels like a living kaleidoscope, beside her fuchsia lipstick. And music playing in the background, probably, cello, or the trombone, that digs a hole in your soul. Only that, everything that is is thoroughly jaded. So as not to stand out but to merge with an oblivion, creating a subtle lust in our mind and slowing passing it down to our gut.

Just as, at times the vastness and beauty of the universe makes us feel tiny and inconsequential, a great work or art, a masterpiece such as this, decimates me beyond human imagination. I am all but flattered that I came to witness it, purely as an act of coincidence.

It is as if, by itself an enigmatic repository of memories, the actual events corresponding to which I never experienced, however, I somehow, ironically, carry those memories around. Guilty as charged, my heart full of shame and broken at that, by love that didn't last. This causes a universal amnesia of sorts. We have all been there, ages ago, in that same room of dull yellow light. And impersonated conversations, spaced out with sighs. And rainy alleys and damp staircases and singular light bulbs on the streets that have been proof of so much love, abandoned, so much love, forgotten. So many phrases, left unsaid, so much skin left untouched, unseen.

But just smoke and mirrors. Smoke and mirrors. Smoke and mirrors.

Bottom of the Pyramid

One of the toughest realisations in life is that you're going to be average. And nothing more. Mediocrity is no crime. Except it seems like one. All the time. Forget average, you might as well be below average. Bottom of the pyramid. And your only achievement would be that you survived. Lived to tell your tale. Or better, keep mum about it. Losers are my type. But more definitely when they are the quieter kind. There are always going to be the virtuous others. Who are richer, prettier and more glamorous. Fuck them. You be god damn average. Or poor, ugly and pale. With nothing to say. But just be, already. Just be. Even if it means starting your days thinking that you can't do this anymore. Even if it means laughing at other people's pointless humor. Even if it means ageing and getting fat and getting spotty skin and tired bones. Even if it means counting to the last penny. Even if it means failing at every plausible objective you set for yourself. Even if it means being ambivalent and un-opinionated. Even if it means looking down at yourself. Even if you realize, every passing day, that you are the bottom of the fuckin pyramid. And that, no matter how hard you try, you can't get any better. Still be. Right there. At the bottom. Where you are. What you are. Whatever you are.

The Dung Beetle

Once when I was four or five or six. Years of age. I was a stout little girl roaming around in umbrella cut frocks. You know frocks that swelled up like an umbrella. A dung beetle stung me a bit. On my left hand or right. I don't remember which. Memory doesn't work that way. And you know that. Just that it was either hand. Probably, my right. And it swelled up like a dung beetle itself. Blew up like a balloon, my little hand. It began to smell weird. Nasty. I didn't think I would ever get my original hand back. In my little head, I was so worried. 

But, it did get better. The swelling went down. The pain went away. I must have been happy. And as usual, relief must have overshadowed my happiness. That's the way it works for me. Mostly I am so worried and then, so equally relieved that I strangely, accidently forget to be happy.

There's this kid that lives upstairs. I meet him in the elevator sometimes. When our times match. He has got plump rosy cheeks. We don't have nothing in common. But sometimes, I go up to his floor, bid him goodnight and then come down to my floor. Translucent human attachment, this. Even if I have had a bad day or good. Even if he has had a bad day or good. He stands there, with his backpack on and a smile on his face and waves me goodbye until I vanish downwards. 

His mother left them. Both him and his father. His father, whenever I see him has wry heart ache written all over his face. As if he has lost himself. Forever and ever. And nothing would cure him. His eyes are as sunken, as his son's are bright. His son, is a miracle. 

I see him chasing butterflies in the garden downstairs. To capture them for a moment between his cupped hands and then instantly release them. Colorful butterflies, dozens, flock the magnolia trees. I hope he recognises the colors. I pray that his vision opens up. And so does his mind. Everyone tells me, he is slow. What a horrible thing to say of a child. 

I am afraid, that a dung beetle might sting his tiny little hand as well. It's three decades after. Dung beetles might as well be, extinct. For all we know. It's not even the same garden or the same flowers. But I wonder.