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ESC (Song that inspired the post.)

Zombies,trampling the dirt they have forgotten is called Earth.

This might as well be a post-apocalyptic movie marathon.But hey,guess what?

Those have more thrills and twists than the graph of my days can be plotted at.

A letter takes up the space inside my head,a letter never posted,

a letter unsaid,one never read.

So much is the power of a letter I want to address into space,if only one piece of writing would be enough 

for it all..that people cease to count as much as they used to.

Weak -Daybreak in the peak of monsoons,or leftover tea,this is it-

The last cup,of what I thought were bonds for life,turns out I'd only been blissfully ignoring the bottom of the cup I was drinking out of.

Sometimes,just sometimes,there is no cup,just strings like pizza cheese,holding up things that don't need to be helped.They spring like weeds between rocky slabs of concrete,no need for fostering,no use for fawning over.They survive all right without award or adulation.

Okay,I need to stop.Too much metaphor,too much cheese here.

See what I mean? I never took it seriously,when people remarked with half a smile,I'm getting older.

I feel you,all of you.

I wish for us all,for there to be an Esc key.

Hoping it wouldn't take us so long to have realised that what mattered and what din't isn't the same as what will.

Just a daydream away.

The sides of you that are parts of me,
Snow angel shadows of our dreams.
It's where we meet,first meet,
Burning bright as memory.

The blanket of stars and  cups of tea,
Monsoons of the mind unleash.
It's when we first felt,felt free,
Mapping out all the irony.

The shards of hope and crescents of hurt,
cut deep into wounds we couldn't see.
It's how we first knew,knew love,
sitting in your balcony.

The books our words could fill out,
dwelt deep in the grooves of discovery.
It's what me meant,meant to be,
Mettle of malleable metal cast across adversity.

Ode to a Submarine Sandwich

"You don't need to click a photograph of that," she said "not all beautiful things need to be captured by a camera lens,framed into definition,sometimes,your eyes are enough to hold all the beauty still,comfort it like a crying person in your arms."
The other woman,mucho hipsta-Pastel striped scarf teamed up with black shorts and T-shirt,short cropped hair,thick black frames-meekly nodded in reply,as she took another giant bite off her sandwich.It usually so happens,when you notice a pair of people,it always appears as if one does the majority of the talking and the other listens.I wonder if strangers took me to be the listener,I wonder if strangers really notice.Yes,I'm a bit creepy like that,analyzing the prospect of strangers analyzing me exciting me and all that.
And when I heard this almost profound statement,in my warm,friendly idea of urban utopia-Home away from home-Subway,it took me to another place.
That's the thing about unintentionally eavesdropping on conversations out of sheer curiosity,there are snips and bits you catch on and they always take you back to a memory you din't know you'd created,and revisiting a memory while hearing a remark about memory-loop within a loop,close to déjà vu.
Conversations like these remind me of the estranged quiet of sunsets on apartment terraces,blowing bubbles,blowing away a childhood,the evening prayers-the perfect music to the muse of the breeze-I swear this memory could count as a painting.The memory of not wanting to leave.
The nostalgia entangled with excitement-the reluctance to grow up juxtaposed with the adventure that awaits,the hurt of being chosen over,the triumph of learning to say no,to stop,the cuts left from jagged goodbyes,the rush of power that only comes from learning not to stop,beating the odds.Beat,beat-like eggs for an omelette,like a heart reminding itself to beat.
"Subway reminds me of Friends" my sister quips in-Yes,I agree,always takes me back to happy places I forgot-times of sharing giant cookies,while over the small things,that adda you go to before and after-a movie,a birthday party,school,when your hungry and you're not,when you're fourteen and not,and everything you feel in between.
"No" she says "The show,friends.Brick walls,and it's emptiness,and the intimacy of it all.The 90's.The big red Open sign,an invitation to life's neverending reverie."
Yes,strange woman who I don't know,you don't need to keep reminding yourself of anything,no keepsakes required for flashes of all things best-and thanks for reminding me,that's why you're never alone.Not with all this beauty in the world,to be cherished.Even if you are,you have havens,homes away from home,where loneliness is a common syndrome.And just for a minute,all of it can give you beatific bliss.

Stop to smell that rose.

When was the last time a song made you feel?
The last time a smile warmed your heart?
A sentence made you smile?
The beauty of a word baffled you?
A child made you think?
A memory lit up your eyes?

Smells like summer love.

A childhood that seems so distant,I could have dreamed it all up,all the while.
So different were those summers,spent on rusty cots that creaked under the weight of innocence and ignorance.
Of swimming down streams,tickled by shoals of tiny fish,fear trickled by,feet planted firm underwater.
Old nails that stuck out of wooden beds,scraping knees clean of flesh,just one tetanus shot away from pain.

Is it the same? Is it even of any resemblance,the same life? So turned over by time,turncoat nature of thoughts.
I,who is love with boxes of preserved memories-believes that the past before the keepsakes was but a dream?
I still can barely hold up a conversation.And love is till the sight of a swimming pool.
But the little things,the longings of childish intricacy,the language that befuddles the older-
do they just die inside our walls,vanish,disappear into the acceptance of reality?

I press flowers into pages between books,like slices of forgotten dreams pressed into semi-sleep.
And the same sad song plays back at me,when I look into the sometimes green,sometimes amber eyes of my big,gentle dog.
Blowing candles out for someone else,like on a birthday cake,but wishing for something beyond possibility,a wish too late.
Invest in the bizzare.Invite the quiet inside me.The only answer there can be before the strength to grow up prevails. Being understood  is as hard as it is to understand.
And I'll be waiting again,counting drops of summer rain till the end.

The eyes which seek.

 

Look at those Mary Jane school shoes,polished to perfection they sit atop the shoestand you once used to not reach up to.It's only your last year of school,the last span of being in these shoes.Stepping out of them,nothing less than a ritual or rite of passage.
It's only half your size now,but there are so many rules.So many directives to follow for good.And the knowledge that there will always be someone capable of abusing their power over you,inside,you'll always be that six year old.
Nobody told you there could be a difference between the kinds of human touch,nobody gave you a prerogative of  you what those around you could be capable of.It was always a lonely front you lived through,a one-girl battle.
Now they draw parallels,sure set conventions to conform to. No conversations,only rules to live by,adhere to,always.
All these rules,because people will look at you.What are you doing,stupid girl,people will look at you..You look inappropriate..it's the worst thing a human can be,exceeds all ill-virtues,you know? They'll call you insolent and they'll call you an embarrassment.Because you're the eye and object of desire to society by virtue of being female,you're a lesser being.But being chauvinistic male is completely forgivable?
Do you even see the irony in the statement "Asking for unwanted attention" ?
No bones,no skin,no pulse,no hope,no love,no life.Only struggle,survival,walls,and veils and what next? shrouds,perhaps?
I know you want to protect me,save my dignity.But how viable is your approach,this insanity of  hiding behind layers of insecurity to avoid indignity.Is denying yourself a personality getting any closer to achieving a true sense of life and liberty?
Ruinous to our culture you say,liberty,yeah?  You'll call me disrespectful,but culture evolves.It grows and accepts,because diversity,permutations and combinations is nature's way of creating life,itself.Why shouldn't it be a basic human right to grow out into our personalities? I mean,in ground application,not just an inked statement set pretty on paper.
At sixteen,you were supposed to develop a friendship with me not a hostility.A nurturing,conducive environment instead of the cold cover to shelter my wisdom from branching out-what good is it to emotionally isolate me and then condone the evils of society? It's true that the world and it's ways would hurt me,and you were only trying stop it-but it's inevitable and in attempts of trying to stop it's force hurling at me,instead of uneasy acceptance,my thoughts got tainted before they transformed into ideals.

You were six,who's fault was it really? He knew exactly what he was doing,you were too naive.Your parents still haven't told you anything,and like to keep you naive.And then they feel most disrespected at the lack of closure,the truths you never tell them.
They tell you little bits now,all so useless,you wish you could tell them.You were six and it was a classroom.She was nine and it was the neighbourhood.Another was five and it was the confines of her home.
Where were they then? The morally self-righteous? The protectors of decadance,that claim to be doing their part? How did they leave you alone,isolate you emotionally?
So unapproachable,that you couldn't broach them with the truth of cruelty.
You knew,even at six,you knew,like you know now.Preccocious children.They would respond with disbelief,you would call it shock but it's ignorance,really.
They love you,but time doesn't permit them to,neither does the structure of society.You love them,unabashed,but they will never see the story inside you,the lines connecting the pain,a crumpled ball,doubled up in your chest.
 They won't be there,no,not when you tell someone for the first time,finally sharing the feeling of needles pulled out of your pin-cushion heart.No,even then they'll term you wild and rebellious,they'll never see the layers of pain that casted you out of social circles long before they should have existed.They will try to preserve dregs of your innocence as if they ever had a clue,clueless about the story echoing melancholy grown cold inside your mind,long before you know anything about anything.Trust propelled like string puppets,put up a show, hollow and dark.
Some day,just some day,you might stumble across your kind.And you'll let the pain flow,let in rain inside a closed room.And the bell curve will go up then,you might feel like more than a statistic,more than a nameless little girl.
You'll survive and fight the way you deserve to,the way you were never taught you could.The black Mary Janes will grow into skeletons in your closet,you'll wear them out...push them into oblivion,and you'll dare to dream of a world grassy enough to tread on barefoot.