creating nikki

Yeah it’s absolutely fucking disgusting that you heard me cry like that and you knew I was up all night suffering and yet all I got was a sorry and no follow through. But you know now at 29, with this lush heart of mine and this beautiful brain of mine, and all this fucking suffering and lessons and wisdom and hurt and pain and strength and all…you know what’s worse? If I don’t leave. I can tell you that you hurt me and it sucked but if there’s no repair or change then shouldn’t I hold myself accountable too? No, it wasn’t my fault that I cared or loved or wanted more or put in the effort or hoped. I don’t regret that. I think that’s a brave thing to do given everything I’ve already been though. The thing I do have to hold myself accountable for is not disengaging from people and situations once I realize they will keep making me cry like that again. And while I’m breaking they will sleep peacefully, go to the gym, work, etc. I need to hold myself accountable too.

My tits are sore and I want iced coffee and I don’t want to be a part of this family. And then as I finish my third cigarette I know that it would have been the same if I was a part of any other family. This heaviness is the inheritance and your task is to write it off as much as you can as you live your life. You cry at pubs in new cities and at the fire escape stairwell at work and you humiliate yourself in front of people who think you’re cool and you allow yourself to be messy and real and all over the place. You feel it and you purge it and you process it and you release it. You do not calcify it to pass it on to your children if you so choose to have any. Because thats the deal, right? You are going to fuck up your kids. You are going to give them their inheritance too. But maybe you can make it so that it’s a little more manageable and a lot more speakable and a lot less expensive on their sanity and soul. You are allowed your tears and you are allowed your cigarettes and you are allowed to be not as cohesive when you like somebody and they hurt you. You know why? Because you’ve been paying the cost. And you are doing alright. And you get to be. And you get to have your tits grabbed and sucked on and kissed and slapped even in a space that is safe and comfortable. But it took a lot to get there, didn’t it? It took a lot. Make that iced coffee extra strong today because when you taste it, it’s going to taste sweet anyway—you’ve had a tremendous growth arc.

Fruits and white dresses will save you. Girls who are chalant and full of life despite what life tries to do to them on a daily basis will save you. Boys who don’t want you for your body and appreciate you for your personality and company will save you. The moon, the sea, that child with missing teeth will save you. Ramen at one am when you feel like you’re dying of a fever and are all alone will save you. The hesitations and miseries of long dead writers printed in cheap pages will save you. Seeing the humanity in your father will save you. And when you stop being a bully to yourself, that too, my dear darling child, will most definitely save you.

sometimes it’s a Thursday afternoon in late April and you just have to put on Taylor Swift songs and smoke cigarettes and drink aam panna and forget you have a corporate job or duties as a daughter or yearning as a woman and then proceed to shower and lie down on the floor and let the ground give you the steadiest hug and come back to Tumblr and realize it’s not that serious and scream into the void and order some cupcakes. okay? okay.

tell me three facts about you on/off anon, and I'll write you a love poem. i'm yearning, let me channelise it into poetry?

You live like you’ve lived before and you grieve like you’ll not live again. Time is a joke or is it the longest running joke on us? I know soon enough I will not remember, and sooner yet, I shall not care. The collarbone, the tears, the intimacy of our phone calls. It was real for a breath and now it is stale. Memory like bread that has been expired but you don’t see the mold, it’s a shame to throw it out already. I’m going to drink my confused decoction of luke warm iced coffee and I sip from that glass straw I will sigh at the echo of your laugh… somewhere tucked in my cells still holding on to the softness you touched me with. And yet, once the coffee is over, I will remember that the highest grace, the most precious thing I have given myself is the ability to say no and walk away from lunar love. No use it is, these periodic desires and waning feelings. My heart is steadier and it seeks the radiance of love that shows up eagerly, naturally, rotation after rotation until revolutions have passed by and our hands are still in each other’s, firmly, gently.

You’re twenty nine now. And the birthday cake is not the sweetest thing you taste. It’s the presence of the people who love you on the days you’re bright and on the days you’re blue. When you blow out the candles, you don’t have much to wish for. The things you want, by now you know you are the one who has to make it happen. And by now you trust yourself to know you will. It may not be the most optimum process or the smoothest timeline but your soul doesn’t work on the principles of capitalism, does it? It works well with a nervous system that is regulated, a body that is well rested and listened to, and a heart that doesn’t find its lushness painfully tragic. It works on a mind that is luminous and a smile that shows it. It works when it’s well oiled with warmth, with resonance, with clarity, and with earnestness. You’re twenty nine now. Thank you for making it here being the person you are. No part of you needs to be murdered. Only cared for better. Eat the cake. Get some rest. You’re doing good.

And once again January. And once again the familiar ache and hope. Will this year be on my side? And if not, will I do well, anyway? No resolutions, no goals. Your life is larger than one calendar year. Let there be emotional house rules, orientations, and guidelines. Let there be cake and books and not staying longer than your nervous system signs off for. Let there be new hobbies and old comforts. Let there be joys you cannot possibly fathom right now. Let there be wins. Let there be grace in losses. And let your stomach continue to allow for spicy food and cigarettes. Smile like you always do. Share your inner dialogue less. Write as much, more, perhaps. Read the books that pick you. Tune out off the noise. Let yourself be bored. And yes, more flowers, please. More dinners on rooftop restaurants on full moon nights. Don’t confuse emotional labour for intimacy. Reduce your exposure to extractive situations and connections. Refill your bottle of water more promptly and let your skin be moisturised. Journal by hand, journal digitally. Keep understanding your body and personality and work with it, never against it. Sleep. Sleep. Sleep. More visits to the sea. More letting things be. You’re lovely. You’re doing good. Breathe.

It strikes me as crazy that one day you’re just supposed to stop loving someone. You’re supposed to stop talking to them. You’re supposed to stop waking up and video calling them. You’re supposed to never hear them laugh or make them laugh again. It strikes me as crazy that you’re supposed to stop thinking about them when you hear their favourite artist or eat their favourite dessert. How you’re supposed to be okay never hearing your name from their mouth again. Tell me, how do people survive it? Tell me, why aren’t people more stubborn in refusing to let go of someone they hold so close to their chest night after night, morning after morning. Tell me, how am I supposed to just move on as if we are strangers again, as if I never knew what it felt like when you kissed my face? When you held my hand? When you cared about my existence? How do I do that? I’m good at pretending… you have to pretend if you want to survive. I didn’t want yet another pretence of indifference towards a human I held to tenderly.