Keepsake

Do you remember the dim lit alleys. And cafes with bowls of water and petals floating amongst floating candle flames. Have the slightest memory, do you. Of the long nauseous drives, uphill and downhill and then uphill again. Do you remember, how our friends hooked up and went for long walks leaving us behind, alone, alone-together and writhing in unbearable adolescent solitude. Seated on wooden benches under tall, very tall pine trees, picking up pine cones from the ground and counting them. And those long sun less mornings of fog mixed with steamy breakfast. Memory is a tricky thing. You forget the obvious. But store these tiny irrelevant details. Like the big flat-screen TV. Or the aimless strolls uptown and getting lost. And then not finding a cab on the way back and getting caught amidst a hail storm. Do you still think of late night, almost running into dawn, parties. Do you remember the first time you held a drink in your hands while another girl mixed up vodka with rum with whiskey and danced and puked. Do you remember watching, and being watched. And how the feeling of undiluted lust was. When you lusted for a man, so blindly without considering parameters of beauty or money, just lust. Pure lust, on plastic chairs, holding drinks in plastic cups, until dawn, under pines. And then witnessing a gorgeous orange sun crack the sky and washing off that illegitimate lust with all the pragmatism you could gather. And walking back to your room and taking a really hot shower. You could never claim what was not rightfully yours. Nevertheless, you smoked in disquiet corners in insomniac parties and imagined poems. You wondered what it would feel like to doze off on each other's shoulders and wake up in the touch of undiminished love. Even if things didn't work out much, you thought of dinners in cafes of floating candles on rooftops. Same rooftops that were too tempting not jump off from. Yeah.

On a slightly different note, do you remember home. Unbearable summer days and sucking off seeds from melons. And forest fires. And rickshaw rides of total absolute liberation. Do you remember long chats and unacknowledged affections. Do you remember splitting the cheque on a date to make it look platonic, how fearful were we. Do you remember wearing capris and skirts and hiding your bosom full of love in loose immortal t shirts. Do you remember the earphones and endless playlists on loop. And windows media player. Do you remember boat rides and swooping bats. Propositions and heartbreaks. That could never be healed. And walking back in the rain, plucking wildflowers. Strange train journeys and waking up bare feet because your slippers were stolen. Staining your fingernails in flower juice. Do you remember grainy pictures and unsophisticated phone cameras. First touches, shoulder brushes and kisses in the dark. How naive were you, how unloved were you darling. Do you remember. Chomping off platefuls of noodles and gravies in garlic sauce, and espresso, all that. Yes. Do you remember being ugly, particularly. 

Picture courtesy: Ukiyo-e 

Thirty

Is it indeed deliciously befitting to lose everything, indeed. Aging is losing something everyday. I stare at the mirror. At my pale midnight reflection. And lather coconut oil on my cracked feet, this winter has been harsh, particularly. Where my eyebrows meet a wrinkle has permanently appeared, I worry a lot. The eyes look exhausted, dreamless. Of course, it's midnight. That being my alibi, I dissolve into a dream. Suddenly I am eighteen again. I am young and plump. I write poetry about how my hair looks like a tree on above my head. About seeking out my shadow from among the shadows of dozens of trees while walking back home on late nights. The street lights dazzle me. I wean myself off my infatuations by writing their names on pieces of paper and burning them in candle flame by the window ledge. Turning love into ash by some warranted act of karma. Exploring newer ways to dispel the many jinxes of unrequited love. And learning to accept my body, of course. Everything that I came with. My bulging thighs, messy hair, my dusky tone, overall anti-delicate-femininity. That was at least a decade before the phrase body positivity was even phrased, and I was fighting my own mighty battle. And losing everyday. 

I was losing then, as I am losing now. I am thirty. It's a gorgeous age to be. Fucking gorgeous, mind wise. You have seen just enough of the world to start taking the right calls on it. To stand on your own two feet, somewhat. To have a place of your own. To quote from poets you have fallen in love with. To laugh quietly when you hear a book you read being discussed. Thirty is as good as it gets. 

But on certain midnights as these, now that you don't stare at the moon much, you stare at the mirror slightly longer than usual to notice the loosened skin on eyelids, the sagging arm flesh, the extra flesh in the wrong places as goes by acceptable misogynistic standards. You feel maligned. Wronged. Abandoned. Depreciated. 

So many years have gone by, so many of them. So many films watched, songs heard. So much prose written. So many many miles walked. Yet nothing has changed. At the end of the day, pretty is all you gotta be. #ohfuck 

Exhausted to Live

It's a dark deep tunnel. This tunnel is all that is. Look closely enough, and you shall see. Make it out. Its vague outlines, its hot painful breath. With which it shall swallow us all. Each one in its own specific way. But it does. I hope it does. Because I don't want to be the only one dealing with it. Some of us get past it. They see the world beyond, be happy, cheerful. Some others just float in the gravityless air of this tunnel. I am one of those some. I have been floating for quite a while now. Ever since I can remember I see myself floating in this deep dark tunnel. Flapping my hands, searching for the walls. My feet feeling the groundless sway and shivering in that fear. My shrieks, echoing and finding their way all the way back to me. There has been no past, no future. Only this looming present. I look down, I see flashes of light. But then that's it. 

I have come to know that, that light is an illusion. I can't make it through. Through this. I am going to let it swallow me.

Because I can't try anymore. I just can't. Cannot. Part of me, doesn't even want to. I am too tired. Exhausted for life. Exhausted to live. Whatever the consequences, be. Whatever the end, becomes. I just can't do this anymore.