Old Soul

View at Medium.com In case you cannot tell by what you see, I have an imperfect smile. Unlike the stems of roses cut seamlessly to fit the vase, I have failed at life. At 10, I was taller than I am today. And if it counts, I have no memory of who I have become, or how I walked this way. What is far from truth is that I have been absent half my life, Trying to fit everything in every second of the…

How much did I want it to be true – How much did it ache was a little shy from too much on the skin that bruised easy on a Sunday morning Waking up from love that didn’t know the pin-code to the new city. Yet it smiled a deep smile, And ran out to bargain the flight tickets, Only to come back home empty handed. A face that then forgot to brighten at the early noon But called home each time Always…

To the boy I fell in love with,

1. It called out my name in one breath. The sound of your voice against the swish of the wind. It called out for me in your name. Your voice against the waves of the ocean reminded me of my day at the beach, sitting on the shore, watching the tides convulse in each other. Your voice felt like rain and the calm of the breeze blowing the summer away. \

2. If I were to run away from you, I would find myself coming back to you in circles, watching myself slip in-between the diameter, measuring the circumference to see myself at your doorstep at 3 a.m, wanting to cry my eyes out, waiting to come back home to you.\

3. Sometimes I play your favorite song on my way home, humming the tunes wrong. Once home, I frantically look for something that would remind me of you. I have your sweatshirt lying on my work desk. It is the closest I can be to you. At that moment, I can almost say that you are sitting next to me until you are not. \

4. I know your favorite song on the tip of my tongue. Sometimes, I move it around my mouth to remind myself how you would taste singing it. It doesn't help me much. I still miss you just the same, and that one time we sat on the edge of a mountain. You looked at me, and I felt like the setting sun. \

5. You keep asking me what I like better, my hair floating in the winds of the mountains or my feet flirting with the waves of the ocean. I oblige the question by transporting myself to the places you mention. I tell you with all the honesty there ever is that all I could think of was you in those places where once lay nothing. I think of you when I think of my hair floating and when my feet wet; I think of you when the stars burn brighter than the night; I am you in those moments with a lingering taste of the coffee on my breath.\

6. The first time I met you after three years, it felt as if time had stopped in those frames, and it only moved when you and I were together. It ran at the speed of light when I was sitting by your side, reading myself Neruda in your name, so I wrote poetry for you. Time flew when I ordered a coffee for myself, and you drank it. I remember you didn't care much. But the only once when the time slowly took turns was when you were away. So I kept going back to that while when you and I strolled in the park at the dead of night. I remember you vividly and the dense fog setting in on us like the shadows of my past. You held me by my heart, and it stopped.\

7. Some days, night comes unabashedly, falling in my arms, curling against the crevices that once held you. I assume that it is you who called it in early. Unashamed, I hope that the cold air that blows against my body takes the touch of my skin and hands it to you. I wonder if you have forgotten what my skin feels under the palm of your hand and pray that you haven't. \

8. Sometimes, my pale skin turns into a color of crimson. Sometimes, I make it to the edge alive. Sometimes, I catch a whiff of your hair cream in the air. Sometimes, I think of you, and sometimes, I hope not to think of you. Sometimes I wish you weren't the center of my universe.\

9. I don't know how long they last or what is it that makes sciences of the stars transcend into a cosmic reality. But a star shines in my name. You named a star for me, after me. Almost telling me that the love you have for me is beyond the words that I ever bled on a piece of paper for you. In that one moment, I believe you. I believe that there is this love that tells me to hold on tightly. So I make a wish secretly when you close your eyes, calling in a deep slumber. I wish for the night to never come to an end, but you promised to watch the sunrise with me. \

10. Falling on my lips, the rays of the sun soon find you too. By the ledge, the sweet birds chirping turn to look at us and I to you. As I put my arms around you with unfazed eyes, you complain about how I am a light sleeper. How I almost tell you that I wanted to kiss away the demons for you. Instead I tell you that my dreams kept me awake in most parts. \

11. Loving you has been simple. It is simpler than the coveted dreams that keep me up at night. Mostly, I find myself huddled up in bed because I get scared that this morning that stares me in my face is here to take it all away. As I count my days to you, I wonder if you are it. If I am part of your dreams. If you'd one day find yourself unable to leave your bed because I am the extra weight you carry. Reminds me of the morning we met over a cup of black coffee you hated so much, and I introduced you to the baggage I walked around with. You drank it anyway.\

12. My mother has hurt me. She has hurt me in ways I refuse to let surface. She hurt me when she didn't love me the night I cried myself to sleep because I didn't know how to do life alone. Maybe she thought I needed to be stronger the way she was. Perhaps she felt that for once life shouldn't have its way. This baggage I carry with me found itself looking at you in the eyes. You decided to sing me a Coldplay song. \

13. You say, fixing me has fixed you as if I was the battle of Troy only it didn't go through. Though you did. When you found me by the window looking at the monsoon of June, you sat by me. You knew I didn't like when it rained, so you carried an extra rose in your pocket, waiting for my meltdown to unleash within my lungs. That afternoon, a blue smoke left my chest. \

14. Lying next to you is easy. It is like being in a tent. On a warm summer night with mountains around us, it is easy. The sky somehow looked a little blue with all those stars burning behind it. So you murmured a little something that sounded like an almost epiphany. It had something to do with you holding my hand when the roads turned rogue, and the car drove on the path of the river bed. Radiohead played in the background. We had talked about going places, but who knew we would be navigating the turns of water barefoot. \

15. You like your music, the way I love my coffee - loud and daring. Sitting on the front seat of your car, I often found myself getting lost in the white noise, imagining that one moment repeat itself. But my silence always made you laugh. I never understood the hysteria, and you would hold my face and kiss me. That night in a foreign city melting candle played hide and seek as I sat on the floor of your room. It was 4 in the morning, all I could manage to put together was poorly cooked noodles. You watched me dance at the car horns that evening, laughing at me, laughing with me. You told me the last bite of the food was always yours. \

16. When strong became my defining trait, I started to wonder if any sign of emotion will betray what I had become. Standing on the shore, I watched you. I knew who I was becoming in that moment. I told you the secrets behind my wounds. You guided my hand on my skin, and I could feel them heal. Now, I want you to notice when I am not around. I keep the last bite untouched. \

17. It is a feeling that creeps in like the last rays of the sun, touching the sky one last time until morrow. It leaves the night sky bare for shades of pink to transcend into my evenings with you. I wonder to myself if the thought of me finds you off guard. I wonder if you smell the air and it reminds you of my hair that winter morning. I wonder if you shake your head in denial of the love you feel for me in your chest. I wonder if you are right now where I am - in a blue cafe, watching me watch your game and lettering the word love on my heart. \

18. Last Christmas, you handed me the keys to your car. I don't know what you were thinking, but I remember your child like gaze looking ahead as we left the screams of your favorite city behind. I could feel your heart drop when we reached the road that led to the airport. You didn't kiss me goodbye, you didn't know how to say the words out loud, but I knew it in my heart. So when I was left alone at the airport, I paused and filled my lungs with the air of your city. I sat on the pavement counting backward, hoping that time would do the same. It didn't. \

19. I called you my home; shaking your head, you let a slow sigh leave your throat as if I was beginning to choke you. You. You had your mind made up. You. You said that you’d rather be my corner, the place I would go to at my darkest. You. A place that would hold me when my day turned grey and my night cold. You. I had always defined love as they talked about, written in the spaces between letters and words, or the verses of poetry spoken in the dark streets of Rome. You. I was your definition of love. You. Like your world ended with me. Me. \

20. I am always desperately looking for something to keep my hair out of my face, a pencil, the keys, or your hand. You taught me patience when I needed it the most. I told you how I loved your hands, so whenever we fought, you would wave them in my face, waiting for me to give in. I don't think about you when I call it a day. I think about the things I have on my list, or sing the last chorus of the song stuck in my head. I think that is when I knew that the love I had for you didn't know mundane, but it knew patience as an old friend. Only sometimes, I go back to the concert in August. You were singing at the top of your lungs. Now, you are inevitable. You are one day at a time.\

21. Time holds no true meaning. It manifests past events like a blip, and a melody heard too much, too often. When I told you that I had a black box inside of me, you made me count the number of steps it took for me to reach courage. You picked me up and carried me with it. You found it, the hole between my ribs. You tore a piece of paper and wrote a love poem in red. You reminded me how fragile my bones were. \

To the boy I fell in love with,

1. It called out my name in one breath. The sound of your voice against the swish of the wind. It called out for me in your name. Your voice against the waves of the ocean reminded me of my day at the beach, sitting on the shore, watching the tides convulse in each other. Your voice felt like rain and the calm of the breeze blowing the summer away. \

2. If I were…

Suffering doesn’t seek validation

It isn’t quantified

Neither is it looking for a resting ground

But it mimics the push and the pull of the waves

Almost touching the moon a little

Every night

And every morning

It hides behind the glaring sun rays

Hushed at the monotony of time

Waiting for it to set

On the sea shore …

Suffering is you

Calling out for me.

Do the bones

Beneath your skin

Hurt like mine ?

Do They ache

At the sight of love?

Because my bones

They holler at me for choosing you

Calling you in the name of love

They pierce at my skin

And make me run

Away from what it was

To what it become

If I were to ever meet me

I wouldn’t like me

I wouldn’t like the hurt I carry

Nestled within my chest

Like a cacophony of everything left unsaid

The words that never leave my skin

Are scars, coloured green

And your name like a sword

Cutting through me

If I were to ever meet me

I wouldn’t like me

I wouldn’t like the hurt I carry

Nestled within my chest

Like a cacophony of everything left unsaid

The words that never leave my skin

Are scars, coloured green

And your name like a sword

Cutting through me

Do the bones

Beneath your skin

Hurt like mine ?

Do They ache

At the sight of love?

Because my bones

They holler at me for choosing you

Calling you in the name of love

They pierce at my skin

And make me run

Away from what it was

What it has become ….

Id rather be incomplete In my own skin,  Than find myself delusioned  By the intricacies of your words  Cacconed in the threads of promises Which only stretch like a trampoline  Never holding me tight enough As i fall   For i fall,  And I fall too often never meeting the ground … 

“What love looks like ..?” I sat there pondering over my question, as she watched me talk to myself. She gave me a miserable look and walked away. My mother couldn’t tell me what love looked like but to me it looked exactly like her.  To which I think to myself, of all the times I cried myself to sleep, only because love made no sense to me? And so what if a guy couldn’t keep up to his words…

” I’d rather put myself first “, he said as I stood in the corridor staring blankly at the sky , numb with utter disbelief of our conversation. Unable to put the receiver down, or muster the courage to stop him or shout at him, after all he was just putting himself first. And who was I to stop him. He spoke again, though by then i was introduced to the idea of silence because somehow my brain had…

Love left us, High and hollow  On a deserted road  After Raiding everything we ever dreamed of..  Between words that came out in far too lost whispers but no sound And cries that lasted  Until the dead of the night  Hit us, on our callous faces With everything that was left unsaid. Because You and i Were left ,  In an empty parking lot,  As the eyes didn’t meet  With hands that didn’t touch  For…

I’m a recovering addict.A little too helpless by the night, When I don’t find my fix  Washing in my blood  Pressing against my lips Numbing my soul  Finding my secrets deep within;  Which are often too heavy to surface,  And too shallow to drown Unmelted within my veins.  I find myself wanting,  Needing.  But I’m a recovering addict  Mightier than it sounds  For there exists no other hit  Nothing…