Mild Reflections

There is this darkness lurking around me,

Like a panther on the hunt.

Waiting for my mind to slip

So, it can pounce.

I can hear its steady pace,

Soft pattering paws,

Patiently inching forward

Ready to claw into my soul.

But I am always a step ahead.

I do not sleep.

I do not allow myself solitude.

I numb myself with work.

And I smile to show it that I am not afraid.

But then at times I wonder,

Would it be so bad

To let its teeth sink in

And let the darkness engulf me.

Would it be warm?

I wonder how much worse could it be,

Than this life.

Wanting a heart,

And I got it.

Now I am bruised,

Bent in, and recycled.

No one really tells you

How to return a heart.

In the hustle and bustle of the everyday grind, it is hard to take a step and look at life as a whole. Here is a #curatedpiece, a study on happiness that spanned over 85 years, and studied happiness for lifetimes. That's right! Imagine studying entire lifetimes from adolescence to old age to understand how happiness shifts and changes. You may be surprised by what they found.... check it out at Curated Pieces.

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Here is the story: I have often bombarded my friends with interesting topics I have found on the internet, sometimes to the point where they have had to ask me (respectfully) to cool it. So I was left with three options, respect their wishes and have all this pent-up excitement about my discoveries, disregard their wishes and risk losing some solid friends, or expand my friend circle. With this newsletter, I aim to do the last one of the three and expand my circle, with all of you.

So here is what you get from Curated Pieces: 1. An interesting topic every day. 2. One curated pick, i.e. any resource that covers the topic well. I go through a lot of content to pick the right one for you. 3. A small 2-3 mins easy to digest read, covering the topic in a nutshell.

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Years ago I told you I had never experienced snow,

So you wrote me a poem and showed me what it is like.

I feel it is only right,

For me to write,

About the man who now trains in the dense white covers,

Where water freezes 30 times over,

And gray the world's favorite color.

My friend, you do not fail to inspire,

And I write this to you as a reminder,

That in you I see a fire,

That shall melt the cold,

And bring out the sun.

-Mild Reflections

There is a wall ahead of me, And I cannot get past it. I push, but it won't budge, I punch, but it won't break. It stands firm on the ground Asking me to do my worst.

So I drill holes and put a photo frame up, And in it, a picture of me. Then more and more I put on the wall, of all the dreams I did not keep.

You see, there is no wall inside those frames, The pictures are of a different me. It is a world of a different kind, A world where I haven't decorated my defeat.

-Mild Reflections.

Hi everyone,

It's been quite some time since I have posted on Tumblr. Truth be told life got busy and it got hard to write consistently. I know there are a lot of writers here, some of whom I have interacted with, and some of whom I have adored for their work. I know it can get really hard to write and you can sometimes feel blocked and demotivated.

Drawing from my personal struggle with writing, I am building something for us writers. It is a tool to combat the dread of staring at a blank page and I need some help from the community here. I would love to be able to chat or speak to you about your methods to keep inspired. And to bounce my ideas and version zero of my product. If anyone is interested in trying it out, you can find the version 0 here: https://penpalai.netlify.app/

Please note, that I am working on it as I go, so please save your work separately too. (currently available on desktops/laptops only)

Do let me know if you would be interested in talking about your experience with the block too. I would love to get to know your process. Looking forward to interacting with this wonderful community!

Best,

I was alone.

I came down to the bustling streets of the city.

I was alone.

What a strange feeling,

To be the same

Yet a day at peace

The world spins.

Words are still stuck at the throat,

Suffocating..

Tomorrow never comes.

We wait for the perfect time,

The perfect life,

But tomorrow never comes.

It hides behind daily patterns,

Crawls upon the needles of a round clock,

Slowly ticking away,

As we wait for miracles,

But tomorrow never comes.

It knows better,

It has seen people’s methodical cruelty upon themselves,

It has seen them break away at what they hate,

It has seen them waste what they love,

And yet we stare at the mirror,

Hoping to see a better shape,

A greater self,

But tomorrow never comes.

It simply waits,

For today to end and start over again.

If the world could hold still for a moment,

Then maybe we would trace with our fingertips

The lines on our skin that have aged against the sun.

****

 If all was silent,

Maybe we would hear

The songbird’s sorrow masked beneath its beautiful harmony.

The scream behind a complaisant nod,

The wails of an unfortunate parent smiling for their dying child.  

****

 And if nothing moved,

Maybe we could see

The pain on a stranger’s face,

The joy in an infant’s toothless laugh,

Regret in those who lived longer than the ones they loved,

Maybe we would notice

The dance of shadows on the wall,

And the stars that have never missed a night.

Maybe we could feel

The angst of a caged soul, wanting freedom,

The lover wanting love,

The dreamer wanting dreams,

Maybe we would know

What it means to be alone,

What it means to have someone,

And how loneliness can have you shaping clouds into something they are not.

****

 And if time could be stretched,

Maybe we would understand

What it means to live in the moment,

To have truly lived a complete minute,

A complete hour,

A complete day,

What it means to have peace,

Silent, beautiful, still,

Peace.

There is a silence in this world,

A lonely, solemn darkness.

And it stretches as far as the oceans,

It breaths as much as the wind.

It hides behind innocent smiles,

Empty happiness.

*****

There is a silence

Among bustling crowds,

Where people sit and never speak.

Between families that have forgotten to share,

Between lovers who have forgotten to love,

In the hearts of poets,

Who have forgotten the meaning of words.

*****

There is a silence,

Alive and alluring

Calling us all to sleep,

Putting our lives to rest,

There is a silence here,

As quiet as death.

I had a dream,

And in it

I was running.

I didn’t know what was chasing me,

I did not feel fear,

Nor was I insecure,

But I was running,

Faster and faster,

Until all was a blur and nothing made sense.

The trees were wild with rage,

The sky was red with pain,

And time went backwards.

Future fading into the past,

The past becoming the present.

But each day that I lived again

Was the same.

Dusk to dawn

Akin to dawn to dusk.

And I was running,

Faster and faster

Towards the beginning.

And there were voices

Speaking in strange tongues,

Screaming at this unnatural sequence,

Warning, foreboding,

But I continued running,

Faster and faster,

To the point where everything froze

And there was no movement.

No matter how fast I ran,

I was still.

Only silence

A surreal emptiness.

And then I slept,

The deepest sleep I could ever sleep.

And in my dream

I was running forward,

Faster and faster,

Towards the end,

And everything was the same.    

There is a t-shirt stained with turmeric,

And its stains is all I can see.

Little blobs of yellow,

Ugly imperfections on a once good fabric.

I don’t like to wear it anymore,

I try to hide it,

Try to throw it aside,

I despise it.

*********

Beware my disease,

We all suffer from this common illness.

We love in fragile wholes,

But hate in fierce pieces.

And when the faults appear,

We see nothing else.

We forget all that we loved.

Like a child craves candy,

We obsess over the mistakes

Until the cracks widen,

The lines broaden,

And our love falters into stained fragments.

*******

We are a world of eyes,

Eyes bend on destroying everything they see,

Eyes wanting only perfection,

Eyes that say one color is better than the rest,

And those with their minds and limbs in a bind,

Are freaks!

Unnatural beings!

*******

Do not let these eyes win,

Blind them with turmeric showers!

Let them be afraid in the dark,

Afraid of these broken parts,

Us broken people.

Let them fear

The tenacity of a failure,

The redness of scars,

The fault in eyes,

The grind behind the dirt,

The effort behind shortcomings.

Let them know,

You are imperfect,

And that is your perfection.

Each night I sit down

And think that I will make this the greatest night of my life.

I will bring all my heart

And write the most beautiful lines.

I will read the works

Of great artists.

I will find subtle stories

That hide between the eyes of people.

I will gather all pain and sorrow

And make heartfelt poetry.

But I lie to myself.

I do not have the wit of a poet.

I have not known sorrow,

I have not read enough,

Nor heard the callings of my heart in ages.

Each night passes by,

And all I can say is that

There is going to be tomorrow.

But the truth is, 

Each day I hate what I do,

Morning through noon,

I do what I hate.

And at night, love finds me.

And she is warm

She is kind,

She is dreamy like mirages in dreary sands.

So I lie,

Just to feel loved.

A love birthed from dissatisfaction,

A love born of shortcomings,

A love that fills holes.

Every night I live in this dream,

This vision I have of me, 

My greatest lie,

My only truth,

Between what I am

And what I want to be,

A vicious loop,

Life.

Stumbled onto a video of a couple dancing in the rain, felt inspired, wrote a song.

Drive link: https://drive.google.com/file/d/1NLVRXuwp1hreQat1F5b0gN-j_36ArLFY/view?usp=sharing

Lyrics:

Take my hand,

Let’s lose ourselves into these streets.

And all these grayscales,

Let’s paint them with, you and me.

And oh its time,

Autumns gone with all its crimes.

The silver lines,

A vacant spotlight for you and me.

 ****

And all the storms to come,

And all these problems,

Yeah, they don’t seem too strong,

When I have you in my arms.

 ****

So let’s kiss,

Let’s dance.

Let’s live in this moment and forget the past.

Let’s hope,

Let’s cry,

Let’s make our lives,

Our lives.

 ****

Let’s scream our names,

And mix our voices with the rain.

These hollow spaces,

Let’s fill them with you and me.

 ***

And all these city lights,

Wavering like these times.

Yeah, they don’t seem too bad,

When I have you in my hand.

 ***

So let’s kiss,

Let’s dance.

Let’s live in this moment and forget the past.

Let’s hope,

Let’s cry,

Let’s make our lives,

Our lives.

Let’s make our lives,

Our lives.