ritika jyala

There'll be a moment when you realise you're 27 when yesterday you were just 17; and you wouldn't be able to tell how a decade passed away and your life got divided into before and afters. The fury of youth will subdue and nothing will really change but everything will feel different when you look at old photographs and blurry videos taken on cheap mobile phones. Scents will remind you of childhood and certain friends you don't talk to anymore, hangouts will become reunions and mom's burnt pie will become the best food you ever had. And I know on some days you won't be able to show anything of those 10 years but I hope you remember to breathe, and let go of the knot in your chest. I hope you go out in the sun and live a little, because tomorrow is 37.

The cost of loving someone includes the possibility of suffering the greatest sorrows. The cost of loving someone is to allow the horrors of the world in, it’s like a vampire standing at the door, whispering– won’t you let me in? You risk your flesh and your blood for the chance to be kissed. The cost of loving is to smell the faint blood and still opening the door.

and I pretend my left hand is not my hand and touch my forehead and I pretend my lips are not my lips and kiss the back of my left hand and I stand under the shower for a little too long and play music I barely listen to. This loneliness haunts my bones and all I can do is pretend.

Being aware of your sorrow and it’s origin is like standing on the deck of a sinking boat- you see water creeping in, lights going out and the slow descent into the unexplored abyss beneath. I watch the embers fall from the streets of Pompeii, ash all around, knowing exactly what’s happening. I watch like the dinosaurs, what did they see? Was it just a girl on the brink of madness? When they saw the meteors fall- did they worry about not brushing their teeth? Not getting out of bed? Did they too, doomscroll until sleep blanketed their senses? Being aware of your sorrow and its origin is like a dinosaur, waiting patiently, while the sky crumbles.

And I sit by my grief and nurse it like a sick child. The days are grey and the nights long, and the inside of my body aches- with people and places and childhood, an amalgamation of a life lived. There is grief where there is life, there is grief where there is love. It’s a reminder, a keepsake, a fridge magnet. There are boxes in my heart which I open on rainy nights; there are gorges where my grief runs swift, meadows where it’s quiet. It comforts me and chokes me- dichotomy of a life lived, of love. It rains a lot now and I sit by my grief.

I’m 20 and some days it’s like a thorn in my heart. I’m 20 and some days it’s like tender mornings of childhood long forgotten. I’m 20 and I don’t feel it- suspended in some limbo of young adult. I roam the world to find the colours I saw in childhood, look at monkey bars I used to climb but my feet touch the ground now and I try to find the peace of adulthood but maybe peace appears in hindsight, in retrospect. I’m 20 and I don’t feel it- not a child, not an adult- like a wolf-dog, always in between.

I ask him what his biggest fear is and he tells me he worries he won’t grow up to be like his father. I ask him another big fear and he tells me he dreads that he will grow up to be his father. Our fathers house more than the crevices of our DNA, always a shadow looming. And the fears flow, a constant oscillation, pendulum of beliefs- I wish I was like you, I wish I become nothing like you. And in the middle, a child suspended, a child frightened.

They cut down my favourite tree, the tree of my childhood. Lichen grew on its trunk and squirrels climbed its branches. And they ask girls why we’re angry, so full of rage, dormant volcanoes. The tree was my childhood and its branches my god, the tree was my childhood and its roots my tether, its leaves my dreams. The tree was my childhood and they cut it down. They ask me why I’m angry and I ask them to regrow my tree, give me back my girlhood.

and nothing helps, no amount of rest, no green teas, no walks in nature. I bleed on paper and it smells like roses, roses full of thorns, thorns digging into my chest, and I bleed on paper. And the next morning, I find the words too cringe and the roses look like dried blood, clotted into me, heart full of clots. And the night comes again, and you ask me how I am. I tell you nothing helps, not the walks, not the teas, no rest. And I bleed on paper.

As I kid, I wanted to be a savior, trailblazer, the prophecy child. I wanted a big life, with ups and ups like the breasts of mountains and lows like the depths of valleys full of forgotten debris. I was convinced the great flood was knocking at my door, beckoning me to become someone bigger. A juvenile fantasy, a hazy dream.

I know the sunset will not last longer than a few minutes, I know the leaves of summer fall but today I gather the fleeting moments and wear them like a choker around my neck, today I capture all the smiles, all the rays of the sun and swallow them whole. I know all things end but today I breathe in all of the beginnings and wait for another sunrise.

"...when you love someone, they give you peace- it's like the first flowers of spring, it's like finding your religion and kissing your god."

how would you define love?

It's been raining all day. I'm not old yet but I'm not young either- stranded in a limbo of young adult. All my friends are cities away, and I'm wondering who I am. My friends are photos and texts. My friends are video calls on Friday nights, most anyways. My friends are one call away but my bones remember the miles between us, hundreds- even thousands. I'm not old yet, but my shoulders bear the weight of countless goodbyes. I'm not young either. I can place a call but I stare at the rain. I can send a text but I write a stupid poem.

It rained all night and I miss my childhood. It's a short poem, I've had a long long night and a short life. I've been trying to remember my grandpa's smile but memory is a treacherous thing. It rained all night and I miss everything I've forgotten.

The weight of memory drags my shoulders down. I take a string and stack everyone I've ever known and loved like beads, pearl on pearl on pearl. And when they leave- because leaving is one certainty we're burdened with, and when they leave- I clutch the pearls and try to breathe. I remember it all, even things I've forgotten. Some nights, I dream of smiles and faces and laughs, my best friend at 7, the first boy I ever liked, my grandma on the patio- pearls on pearls on pearls, boxes full of necklaces stacked in every corner of my heart. The weight of the world on my shoulders- is that what is left of us in the end, memories stuffed in pearls, waiting to be worn?

Mama I don't want kids, I say. For the hundredth time. Mother has this look on her face, it sits still- something between disappointment and bewilderment. But who will take care of you, she says, when you're older? And that is a rotten feeling. To believe that a child is only as good as what it does for its parents. To believe you are only as good as you give. To believe you owe someone, only to feel love. Who deserves this? Who deserves this wretched snarling beast sitting in my chest, whispering, shrieking- give, give, give.