Letters2AM

Dear M,

I am in a personal quandary. There are these two office guys, one has never made any effort to talk to me in these 6 months, hasn’t reacted to a single song I posted, the other has once called me his “spirit everything”, and made me an origami fox which I loved, he likes my insta posts, song choices and even told me about it in person (I was in a bad place when he did and I couldn’t talk to him, regretted it, tried talking on instagram but it was a bust, slowly it faded) and he doesn’t talk to me anymore or maybe I don’t. I’m such a coward. He seems really good. I should’ve talked to him when he was here. He seemed sad on first day. He felt invisible I could tell. I didn’t even look him in the eye. Something is really wrong with me.

I like them both, but I’m attracted to the former. In the office event last week, he made eye contact with me two times, other one I avoided even saying hi to, he must think I’m awful or maybe he doesn’t care. I know I live in my own world, and there is a good possibility that all of it is in my head and there is some disgusting uncle who actually likes me (that’s just how my luck is since college), it might be because I have fat and sometimes I’m too nice and I look weird or bizarre or unapproachable. No one I like, likes me back. There is definitely a number of possibilities. My gut tells me, he feels something, I came very close to asking him out but I decided to wait for sometime and give him a real chance.

From four nights I’m unable to sleep, mind is extremely stimulated, I even wore a thirst trap of a top yesterday for the team outing, hoping the scot would show up. There is no logic to my musings. I just want universe to act, do something and help me find love. It’s random and I’m delusional, you already know that. Anyway, I’ve been dreaming these scenarios with the scot, steamy and intimate moments. Idk what is happening to my body, I need to get my head out of my ass or maybe not, point is I don’t know and I needed to say it to you. Hope you are well. I know I’m not.

-

Love

Dear M

I’m here again. Talking to you because it still makes sense as an adult woman to have an imaginary conversation with a man she secretly has very intense feelings for. You were in my dream last night. I don’t understand it, but I don’t question it anymore.

You were there because you were there. Subconscious is the ether which reflects us and our thoughts in a lucid way. I don’t remember the dream at all, I didn’t write it down immediately, but this time I let it go intentionally. I know you will come back. You always do and I come back to you. Every year, I have something to say to you. To be honest, it’s probably every month or so, but I don’t. It doesn’t matter because these letters are not supposed to be for you. I write to you, because I have these feelings. You are my person and my one unrequited love.

Your whimsy and critical thinking is why I find you so irresistible. I wish we talked often. I wish you were in my life. I’d be good to you, like really good, like dreamy good.

I downloaded bumble, and right swiped few guys, and then talked to them. I almost made a young guy cry. He was being unnecessarily coy. They are a bunch of horny idiots. I don’t blame them. It’s really about me. Me and my fucked up sense of self. Someone who can’t claim anything as hers. Imposter and what not.

I wish I quieten these thoughts and kiss you. Hug you for eternity. Let the knot in my chest unravel. I would lay forever in your lap and play with your hair, let the sun touch us. People would get jealous of our happiness and closeness, but we won’t care. You are you. You come to my dreams sometimes and I love it.

-

Love

Dear M

Had a dream, you were there in my house, and I had overslept. I was panicking because I missed an important photo shoot. You tried to console me, your first instinct is to hug me, you do that and then you retract. I look confused, like what should I do, thinking of the missed meeting and how you just hugged me. You are awkward, and still are trying to make me feel better, I have this feeling that you will leave now. It’s all very uncomfortable but we are both glad to have overcome our inhibitions, even if it was for a second or two. Air stands still, I am here without blinking an eye lest I miss seeing you so close, and my body tries to wake me up, because it’s morning and do have to go to the office.

I believe that every time we talk on text, my subconscious just holds onto you. To take whatever I can from that attention, that rare attention to me from you which is fleeting. Yesterday I realised something about myself—that it is impossible for me to stop loving someone, idk if it is like that with all human beings but it is with me. My love is unconditional, for eg. My mother, I have the bitterest equation with her and yet I love her. Piyush, he has broken me in the past by barely acknowledging my existence, he gave me bare minimum and took my all, I have hated him but now he is not even worth that, I have no feelings for him and yet I love a version of him and I can’t un-love it. It’s impossible for me.

I don’t know why am I telling you this. Obviously I have feelings for you but I don’t think I love you. I love an idea of you. I have been naively expressing my feelings on this blog like a teenager with a crush, but I have changed now. I’m a woman with complex emotions and trepidations. Sometimes you are part of my web of thoughts, a romantic reflection of myself. You faintly fill a void. I have a strong imagination, for me a faint presence can create a dream difficult to wake up from. While I rationally try to define/classify my feelings for you, I also know there are things that I don’t understand yet.

There may be after all hope for me to find love, but tbh I feel quite hopeless most of the time. State of the world is such, having money to protect my future gives me guilt and sleepless nights where half of the world has no future to protect because of this group of billionaires on our planet. They just take and take, without any accountability. Makes me so angry.

So many things to fight and live for, I need love in my life to keep me going. I have sibling and parental love. I seek romantic love as well, I have so much love to give in return, I want to find a home for it. I want intimacy, I want to feel vulnerable around you. I want my heart to skip a beat when I see you. I want to let my guard down, I want to breathe in presence of you. You may never know about it, but I know you do feel something inexplicable like I do. Something pulls us closer. It could just be all in my head, or it could might as well be real, who knows, universe is a mysterious place. There is so much we don’t know.

I say goodbye now. See you in my next dream maybe. For now I wanna lay in bed and think about you and what I wanna do to you if you were here. ;)

—

Love

Dear M

I have digitised all the letters I've ever written for you in my diary except the one that I sent you. I wasn't planning on writing this one but here I am.

You never leave the heart, no matter how hard I try to not think of you. You pop up in the most vivid dreams, embracing me, talking to me, kissing me, loving me. I know you are happy as much as one is able to be and I am glad that you are traveling, supporting your wife, making memes, solving nyt puzzles and living life to the fullest.

There is no off switch. I want these feelings to go away. All the love I have for you, even though I don't know you, I know you. Uncanny connections like these, are harder to ignore. You are you and there is no other. I sound like a teenage girl. There is no logic in all of this, not that I am looking for it, but I try to reason with myself. There is no reasoning for this. It's just is.

Sometimes I think to myself that you are just another fucked up guy trying to live with your own problems and conditions, but I feel I want to be a part of your journey. Share mine with you. Bask in your love and let you bask in mine. It's just so much here in my heart. Each day I tell myself to not look you up or like your post, or laugh at your silly jokes but I fail miserably. I am a mess, not that I look it. I know it in my heart that you and I will never be together. My love is unrequited forever and ever. Yet I hope you stay happy and experience all the experiences, find more love than you can handle and that your heart is full of love and questions and memories and all kinds of feels.

Love

Dear M

I am not writing to you today, but still writing for you. My thoughts are jumbled enough to make sense to no one. I am really numb, I feel that life is receding from the shore and I am just watching from the beach. It's a nice beach. I will return home and whatever is left will go on forever.

Sometimes I think to myself, why am I so sad? Why me? Everyday is a struggle. I feel like an idiot when it comes to studying. I must try hard, but I don't know what I should strive towards. It feels insipid. All of it. I enjoy math I think, but the reasons are all wrong. I want to seem intelligent.

I don't know why am I like this, hungry for attention, I think everyone is like this. Our survival depends on it. Deep down, if I am being true to myself, I want to just live my life. I wish I find peace in this life and soon.

-

Dear M

So much should've been said in the past one week but it wasn't. It was quiet, it was work, it was self review that one time I've to judge myself from a corporate point of view, tell people what I've done and where I've lacked. Everything is a haze. I am in constant turmoil.

And there is you, looking at your face every now and then calms me down. I feel these days that you know how I feel, and you smile at me thinking I'll look at your photograph. I do. Your smile is lovely. You being in the photograph, fades everybody away. I do only see you.

I am in Mumbai right now and there is so much thc in my blood. I made hash brownies the other day and I got super high, like I was remembering my past, how it had been for me living in Palwal all those years ago, our family dynamics, my father's protectiveness for me as his first born daughter; two separate interpretations of movie Annihilation, more discussion about Piyush and our relationship.

You know I asked him to read about the article about women these days not having libido for man with man-child characteristics, I must have rattled him or something, I seriously can't tell. But it's true, his lousiness or dumbness about life and not really knowing what to do, puts me off. Makes my vagina go dry. I do masturbate on occasion but when he approaches, my mind is like "c'mon, do your little book reading or sth, and leave these things to me". In bed, he has seldom idea what he is doing. A big turn off. I wish he reads the article and realises what he is supposed to be doing. You can't make people attain common sense.

Anyway, I feel I carry this big ball of sadness and on occasion when I let myself have fun, it's amazing. Talking when high, on this night, was cathartic. Like I was moving from one painting to the other. In the first one, I was a person outside my body, no one cares what I do and do not. Hell! they don't understand even if I explain things, may be they can't hear me, so what's the point of it, you know.

It made me realise, I gotta do a bunch of things in my life and that needs no one's approval. After this realisation, feminist in me also thought how wives keep looking at their husbands/fathers to see them, listen to them and give them permissions to do things that they want - the whole patriarchal shebang.

I can't shake the feeling of being rejected by everyone in some way, you know my grandmother cried the day I was born because she wanted a grandson. I imagine what my father would've said to her - he would've fought with her and called her a fool for not liking his baby daughter. I feel so loved by him at every step of the way. I have a strong imagination but I know his love is pure and real. Fathers and daughters. I did cry a lot today, missed him and wondering what he is doing right now. He is getting old, and yet very cute and full of life.

I felt that I can be my own person. I also thought about becoming a farmer. I was so desperate to get out of that small town and start a life in the city where I wouldn't be inferior in everyone's opinion. I've felt inferior to others quite a few times in my life, all those days when I was not earning. It became a different journey when I started earning. Now I feel farming is a good way to survive and give back to the earth. I'll compost and use solar energy for most of my needs. I need to find a place where I can buy a piece of land and build a house. A place where temperatures are not extreme and it has plenty of water.

I thought about different things after that, like unsafe spaces for women, train journeys specially when Piyush mentioned how much he likes to sleep to train sounds, I told him it was fun until the time I was groped, molested or inappropriately touched on a train. I was always on guard after that and never enjoyed train rides. It was whole of Palwal where I felt unsafe and all of us wanted to get out of there. I told him about this boy who lived in the same colony as me - Aashu. He was autistic, his family treated him like an animal, or a servant whenever they felt like. They didn't send him to a proper school. I felt really bad for him, I wanted to curse his family. I used to say hello to him every time I came across to him. He seemed very kind and always smiled at me. His younger brother was evil, I always wanted to slap him. He evangelised my brother into a nasty teenager. I really hated him.

You must be thinking that I am so full of myself, judging everybody, making my own world and playing a character whenever I feel like. I even write letters to myself, once a year on my birthday. It's a ritual that I started when I turned 21. I read previous year's letter and write a new one to the next year me. I stopped in between, I lost sense of self in between, I am getting all that back now. May be that's why I am talking so much about myself today.

I love writing to you and I love you, I hope you know that even I am talking about myself.

-

Dear M

I am writing to you today because I feel anxious, overwhelmed, belittled, infantilised and unloved. I am breathing but I have no wish that tomorrow comes. I want to just go away, leave everything and find a new place for me because in my own life I feel I don't matter or have a place.

Stupid work people and their big egos. People make opinions about me. People think I don't work or put in the hard work & blood into everything. I just hate their corporate guts. How much can one talk about themselves. I get by. I heard a lot of things today, I was mostly quiet. Even went to a place where I was just staring at my screen faded away in the crowd.

There are too many people trying to say so much in so little time as if it's all going to end tomorrow. I feel - not being able to make connections immediately is a gift that I have. I take my time. Experience helps. I am uncompromising and compromising at times, alter between two. Nothing is absolute, I am always changing. What happened today was really depressive. I think I listened to others too much, it's the time I am never getting back. I am going to use my own mind to navigate my career. I have the agency. I will make stupid decisions but they'd be mine.

This world wants experts, but all people are somehow managing - I know this for a fact now. No one is perfect or a know-it-all Sherlock among us. In corporate it's mostly about getting the access. Enough about all that now.

I want to talk to you, it felt nice to chat with you the other day. You are near to me even when you are away, far far away from me, among the stars may be. I still want to make you a part of my life, my art, my poems, my breaths, my dreams. Looking at your face reminds me of a kindness that still exists in this world, which is extremely rare these days, reminds me that someone is there who could get the agony I go through in this world. All others feel like strangers.

It doesn't diminish my efforts to be better or do things for myself. I am only realising that I matter, and at least I need to take care of myself even though no one looks at me, that doesn't lessen my value as a person. I don't want to be great or anything. I am not that ambitious either. I want a sustainable life for me, I want to be able to see people for who they are and help if I can. I am going to start doodling soon.

I will keep the spirit alive. Don't you worry about me. I still love you if you are wondering but like I said before I won't be able to give it to you or show it in any way. It is mine and only for my bearing.

You live your wholesome life. Be whole. I'll be there for you.

-

Dear M

I know I haven't written to you in a while, and trust me it's completely intentional. I see you and I think you are happy because happy people cook. I love you and I don't know if I can love you more. I don't know you, only a small part, a smidgen. You are so much.

Lately I was thinking, during one of my wanderings that what if you are not who I think you are. What if you are cruel and mean, or rude or insensitive in person, what if I've been a fool all along, fooled by my own mind and conditioning to believe the tiniest part of goodness (must mean that the whole must be and is everything I'd dreamed of) in you, but I have a plan unlike the one I had before.

Now, I am not gonna act on any impulse regarding you. I understand whatever I feel for you is unrequited love.

So what if I am full of emotions and no one knows about it (nothing that I haven't faced before in my life). You teach me things. You are a rock, my belief that you are the way I love you is enough for me.

I am disinterested to know about your life or more things about you. For me, only the person matters. You exist for me, for me. I don't care if this makes any sense to anyone, I think it doesn't have to.

It's lightening outside, you know how it is in Bangalore. It is a beautiful city. In the safety of my room, with a candle burning close by, and a fan carrying the entire burden of moving the air around, I bid you goodbye. I'll write soon, very soon.

-

Dear M

I am sure you were waiting for me to write to you. Your delusional lover, who has no idea what she is doing with a pen in her hand. I often think of you when I read something interesting or listen to a song that you may like but I don't tell them to you personally. I am not sure if you'd like it, now that you're married and all.

Nonetheless, you are in my dreams and thoughts. All kinds. Voltaire's Bastards is a good read. Its size is intimidating but I am determined to finish it before I go. I know two weeks is a short time to finish a 600 page book but with an average of 50 pages a day, I can do it.

I miss you. I wish you could listen to me, ask me questions, care about my amusement and seriousness and look at me like I matter, my thoughts matter and my ideas too.

I am content in being with myself. I care about these things without you being here. I do miss you though, you'd be a nice addition to this brightly lit room, filled with yellowing pages and walls and me in between all those lines spattered like my own words.

-

Dear M

Like everything in this world feelings do seem to be perishable. Without nurturing any blossom would die a natural death and for you I can't keep all of it together forever. I have a stench of stale where I keep you. Yet I keep you, safer than everything else I have. I have no idea why. I do not care if you choose me ever in your life or someone else you've met before me. I am radiant still. Your existence is enough. I sound delusional. Whatever it is, gives me strength to love freely, appreciate art, keeps me intact and protected from the wilderness & pretentiousness of the world outside. I know you know me and we are connected. That's all that matters.

Life has been underwhelming these days. Lots of dynamics and I stand still amidst. Bewildered by the audacity of some people to violate human rights like they mean nothing, their tenacious and rehearsed lines of defence - I spare myself from being affected in any way. I continue to learn the ways of the world.

I am learning to swim these days and it is something to look forward to everyday. I was thinking of cutting my hair for the time being, just for convenience. Sometimes I think I am queer. I hate dressing up like a performative woman, frills disgust me and any kind of social bondage just because I've got breasts and a vagina.

I don't know if you ever would wanna read all this, but talking to you honestly means a lot to me. They won't matter after I am dead. My letters give me a connection to you that spoken words never could. I am woman with a secret. You are my secret, my delusion, my muse, my all. Writing to you is my sole connection to femininity, if I understand it et al. I love you with all my heart, it feels like it's bursting and I've never shone in someone's absence which doesn't feel like it. You are here and I can see you, and you love me like I wanna be loved.

-

Dear M

I danced yesterday.

Went into my room, put my headphones on, closed the door, shut down the lights all the way and dropped the curtains. I loved every bit of it, sitting with my thoughts about people, notions, conversations and this song popped into my ears from the movie Dil Se -> "Jiya Jale", I got up and became that woman dancing in the centre, looking all very pretty and beautiful, seductive even. I danced and wondered if you'd be attracted to me then?

Soon after that, another thought came - my most fundamental self wants to attract people. This desire, howsoever I want to accept it - makes me weak, troubled and vain. Still something tells me that I am not - but how do I assure myself, because deep down I want everyone to be in awe of me. I have to beat that feeling out. I want to be rid of vanity.

Inexplicably, I do feel beautiful when I write to you, bathed in love like bathed in the morning light, my honest self. I guess I want to remain in touch with you so that this doesn't feel imaginary (it is, though). I am real and so are you and so are my feelings for you.

I was thinking about a different sort of love, something that starts at one point for someone but it has nothing to do with them as a person but a moment when they were someone you'd love and no one can take that away. In particular, I remembered a guy's voice from 7 years ago while he was singing a song, I barely knew him and we were at a party, people started singing and this guy sang this song along with few others and there was a line where his voice was distinct, it came from his heart - I wondered if it was because the line was about mountains and he is from there, and he loved mountains, idk.. could be - who knows, anyway I fell in love with it, for that moment, and I still remember it like how it was.

May be I am just mad.

-

Dear M

I dismissed my feelings for you for the sake of normality, civility, societal rules & what not. I even stopped writing these letters, but today I realised it doesn't matter. For the first time I felt something really strong, after seeing you with your love interest.

I completely understand I am not your match, we are two complicated people, and there is not even a question of you in my life. I am with my husband (now estranged), and he cares deeply for me (as he says). To him, I've confessed that I don't love him anymore & he seems to be appalled by it but wants to turn things around, I'll leave it at that.

All I could do is, be honest with you. You know, I am one of those people who won't find love in their life. I believed it was merely a crush that I had on you and it will pass, but it just won't.

My feelings resurface every now and then, and it hurts to deal with them. I don't know what am I supposed to do with these, I hope they will fade away soon. I am doing okay without you, and I hope you'd be happy, always. When you told me that you are happy these days, I felt relief. I know I never dared to ask you but did my letter do anything for you? I mean, I do imagine that it made you feel special, and you realised that you could love again, and then you decided to leave your soul sucking job & date your flatmate.

You are special though, you are to me. I don't understand why, for the world we have never met before 2019, we've never talked much, I have no idea if you felt that connection with me, but I was smitten the day I saw you. My feelings don't come from a place of desperation, like when wives whose husbands are emotionally unavailable are. I feel for you what I feel for you, it's pure, it's there to stay, but like my letters it's safe with me, only mine not yours to have or see. You are in my dreams, my thoughts, my letters, my diaries and my being. It doesn't get better than that.

I apologise for deciding to archive you in telegram and delete my instagram after seeing you with her, I guess it was spur of the moment reaction, but I'll make peace with it. I will tell you all my stories, all my life. I had a similar thing for a band member of my college and years later I told him that I had a crush on him -- he turned out to be an ass, I am glad that I did tell him. I never spoke to him before that so I think it wasn't unrequited but who cares.

First time I fell in love, he was my best friend in school. We dated for 3-4 months, I was head over heels, writing poetry, couldn't stop smiling whenever I saw him, we'd walk to school together and even while coming back to my bus stop. It was like a dream. Back then, I had no fucking clue what 16 year old boys were capable of, I was naive, I wanted to be his wife, and how most first loves are, he was dating this other girl on the side and next thing I know was him telling me that he just wants to be friends. I think he was doing me a favour by being half honest, I was inconsolable. After having my eyes cried out, I burned my poetry pages and stopped talking to him.

He gave my phone number to every goon-type guy in the city and I was haunted for next 2 years of my life. What an ass! He has been the biggest so far. I also had a weird friendship with this guy I got to know in my first job (I helped him in need), he clung to me like a leech and never let go, any mention of him still sends shivers down my spine. I have blocked him on every social media. It was ugly in the end. I am a complete dunce.

So far, I've not felt any lust for you - just have this warm feeling inside of me that while I am writing all this, you have no idea that I feel this way and yet I am okay because you crossed my path in life, saw me and were kind to me like no other.

Will write soon, bye for now!

-

Dear M

I don't yet understand why my brain would find a pathway back to you, but I had a strange dream last night (actually just 15-20 mins ago). I won't send you these letters, I'll just write them so that I can be more honest. I know, for you I am slightly more than an acquaintance and you must have felt coerced into all this letter exchanging gesture. At least you replied with a blushing emoji.

I've not had great friendships with Scorpios, and I don't know if I can call "this" a friendship at all. My mind has created you like someone who is here to stay. Don't worry I'll not leave you hanging. I'll pop in and drop some meme or heady video once in a while on your telegram but no more passionate stuff which I know you don’t expect from a woman you hardly know. You know, whatever I've said so far, sounded much better in my head than it looks on paper.

Anyway, this dream was kinda funny but made me feel so much. I was at my wedding, I didn't see who I was marrying, but before I'd appear before my family and guests I realise that I don't have a wedding dress, so I wear some red tee-shirt and a blazer (looks formal, I thought to myself) and some pants. I come out, and see that everyone was waiting. They don't realise that it's me, so I sneak out. I don't remember getting in a car but suddenly I was sitting on the back seat of a car in the middle, hanging forward talking to you and one of my annoying friend from my childhood.

You're driving uphill, and suddenly this girl stops in middle of the road, you continue the conversation with me and move the car around her. Then there are these two dogs, one is standing on the side and the other small one sitting on the road, you move the car over her and turn back to see if she is fine.

Meanwhile I am telling you all about the universities I am applying to and you are listening attentively but not saying anything. We reach the top which is quite steep, so you park and pull the parking breaks. My annoying friend leaves the car and I come out too. There is this iron frame on top of the hill near the bonnet of the car, there are two benches on it. You sit on one of them and I sit opposite, diagonally to you. You say that you may get into the third university that I mentioned earlier. I look at the car, which is now hanging as if its front tyres are clamped to the iron frame and there is no road to go back to.

--

S

4th Wall

I tried sketching the scene, I know it's bad but it was a dream and it's hard to recollect the exact details.

Dear M

My first letter to you. I don't know why I wrote it, I just did. I didn't want you to be distant. It was bold for me. I am courage the cowardly dog most of the time, but love, love I do with utmost honesty and daring.

Point of this blog is to digitised all my letters I wrote to you that I never could send. Title of this post is the day I sent the letter that I could. I don't have a copy, I wish I kept it but my hopeless romantic brain said that "you should have the original because it was meant only for you."

God! I am starting to sob, thinking about how much I love you. Strangely, I have a feeling that you know.

--