#imperativeness

In all the letters I’ve ever written to you, I’ve talked about how I admired everything right from your smile, to how you slept with your slightly open eyes. I’ve written paragraphs about how your ocean eyes were the kind of brown that put all the other colors to shame, and every time I was asked ‘what is love?’ I’d utter your name. 

In all the letters I’ve ever written to you, I’ve painted pages with all the colors we were made of, right from that ridiculous grey shirt you loved and I hated, to that tangy blue mock-tail we’d buy only for me to waste it. It was during this time, that I got way too invested. 

I realised that right from my first letter to you, I’d only ever mentioned the pretty parts the world had already seen. Then, I wondered, that if there was a first letter, shouldn't there also be a last?

And my last letter to you may not be this colourful.  

I haven’t written to you, or about you in an eternity, but in my last letter to you, I will paint the pages in black, white and the same shade of grey as that ridiculous shirt. Reminiscing our time together felt as blue as that mock-tail that I’d still order every time at that fast food joint, so as to understand why you liked it so much, and I didn’t. I threw my guard away trying to fit into your idea of flawless, and little did I know, you weren’t all that spotless either.

In my last letter, I will make sure to remind you of the time when you chose to be a field of magnetic rocks instead of my compass, and watched my mind scatter all over the place, instead of giving me direction.

And let me ask you this, if holding on sometimes is really more painful than letting go, then why did holding on to you feel like I was fighting for my last breath as though it were to make me immortal? And why did letting go feel like I was deprived of the one and only moon this world was ever given, to live through every night dark, enough to remind me, that you chose to walk away?

My last letter to you will talk about how every memory of you is now stored in the least accessible part of my conscience, and I don’t look for excuses to flip through the worn-out pages anymore.

Because if you and I were a book, it’d be a one-time read that teaches readers lessons in the end. Lessons like, the tighter you try to hold on to people, the further they go, and all that glitters is not gold. In the end, I had to love you enough to let you go.

In my last letter to you, I will draw us a map to see how far we’ve come, from back when we planned dates that never happened, to now, when we’re poles apart and I realise, me letting go was difficult for you to comprehend.

And let me tell you this, holding on is more painful than letting go because immortality is a myth, and the sun still rises every morning reminding me that even the darkest, coldest nights come to an end. Just like we did.

My last letter will be the last time I write about you, because you’re not here anymore and my world still turns, the ocean waves still roar, and the trees still shed their leaves. You’ve started wearing that shirt again, I don’t buy that mock-tail anymore, and I now love harder than ever before.

So my last letter, is me expressing my gratitude to you.

I guess this was it. My last letter ever, to you.

- a writer who won’t write about love anymore.

TheRword

xx

One minute, I'm at peace. The next minute, I'm scared. Of? Something only known to myself. Something that walks in on my happiest self. Something creeping up on me as I write this. I haven't been able to write for myself for a while and I wonder why? I've been too good at letting go of things, emotions, people, whenever required. I look back at how some knew me for the longevity of my emotions for people. I know that this isn't the end of time, or the point where all of human labour returns to dust, but why do I feel like whoever I'm becoming, pushing through, will never let me go back to the girl who once felt too much? The human in me is fighting an apocalypse against my brain that's trying to kill the girl who felt too much, because a dead part of me doesn't want her to die. But then my dad told me, some days back, "It's never just a piece of you that dies. It's always your entire being. Because your heart realises you need a stronger emotional structure to fight what's to come. So it destroys the old you. Yes it hurts, and you'll always wonder why, but the answers will come when you're least expecting."

And somehow, these words made all the difference in the world that there was to make. But I'm still scared. Of? Something that's only known to me. It makes me want to put my heart and soul out in the open but then it also makes me wanna remember every time someone walked by, and steered clear of its way. Reminds me of how some took it, and gave it back half broken. Reminds me of how it's so bruised, yet so shielded at the same time, that it doesn't allow me to give it away anymore. I hate how I hurt people because of the way I am. It's not that I don't love, I do, but just not enough to give you my heart. The only person I trust with that at this moment, is me. And I swear, it's enough. You must be wondering then what it is that I'm scared of.

It's exactly this. Keeping my heart so close to me, so protected inside my cage, that I forget how giving it away ever felt.

- The R word

Hey, you.

I know your life started and went on like a mild version of Game of Thrones but, you were the one dying at every stage as it got worse. You stopped believing in happy endings, you practically hate the idea of people at this point, because almost everybody walked right out of your presence when they saw the scars and the damage behind that vibrant face. You either fall in love with every cell in your body, or you love them in a type of way that only you will understand. But it's definitely not in the way that you'd take bullets for them. Life hasn't been a happy song but you don't wake up every morning and ask why it had to be you, anymore. You dress up, nail that eyeliner and head off to college, where your chosen family make you happy. The only ones who know how you have lifelong scars, and how you don't want to fight anymore. But you still fight. Every damn day. I guess, life is one fight that doesn't end until you take that last breath and reach the flipside. Everytime you're trying to not get anxious, you feel like your heart is beating right out of your chest, but is a flatline at the same time. You feel so dead yet you're so alive. Your spark is dying but your soul is ablaze. You're slowly trying to accept this, so that you can change it. Your concept of different relationships is messed up in different ways so you try to keep everybody you love, happy. Honey, it's not your job. You're all you have, nobody else lays beside you in your coffin. Someone who barely knew you, told you that your pain was very visible when they look at your soul through your eyes, and you reckoned, your one super power, of putting the invisibility cloak over your sadness was fading away too. All you've realised is, there's people that believe in you. There are two men who would happily lay their lives down for you, and that's more than what most people have. It isn't the end, it never is. You're too far into the journey to turn around. Don't bail on us. Your stories are your medals and you have finally decided to narrate them for the world to listen. Setting your heart free, will be your victory. Wait for it. Wait for me.

- you.

The R word

She loves you, but you're an enigma. a paradox.

But i think she's always loved the unusual way.

she loves you like an ice cream on a December morning. You feel good even though she keeps falling sick, and in love.

I bet you dont see the glitter in her eyes or the way her voice suddenly softens when she tells you she loves you too, friend.

she loves you like her favourite novel.

She reads between the lines every time, knows every detail at the back of her hand, but still acts like she doesn't know what happens next.

she loves you like the sunset.

she admires you as you practice the most intricate colours on her heart.

But she also watches you set, while she accepts the darkness,

so that you can present the final canvas to someone else on the other side of her world.

she loves you in a way similar to that lethal meteor that looks bewitching from afar, but will absolutely destroy you to tatters if you let her close to you.

she loves you like the waves when they hit the shore.

she'll feel you all over her soul for a moment,

only until you sink right back into your thoughts of someone else again, leaving her with traces of you in her veins.

You talk to her about how you were sure you'd found the one who would walk through any broken bridge to come to you.

She smiles, seeing you smile.

She doesn't tell you that if there were irreparable bridges between the both of you, she'd sail right back to you.

Why?

Because she sees you talk about her the way she talks about you.

Like you're art, priceless.

Because she's just like you, and no poet talks about how similar poles repel, do they?

So if you're falling for someone else,

she'll stand at the cliff with a rope tied to her heart in case no one catches you.

She's an artist you see, she loves you in ways discernible to everyone, but still manages to keep it concealed away from you.

She will hold you captive in her art and you'll never know you're her prisoner.

This girl, she reads eyes. Yours, being the happiest book ever.

I promise you, she wouldn't change the end of this book even if she wasn't in it.

She's insane,

But I think she'll always love the unusual way.

Think of the person that feels like your perfectly brewed mug of black coffee on a rare Sunday morning, when you decide to wake up early. Think of how they feel like sunrise. Cautiously, yet gently illuminating your darkest skies, filtering the clouds away, reminding you that it never ends in obscurity, or tears. Think of every time you've stolen a glance at them like it's the last time you're getting to witness a sight, this extraordinary. Think of how that moment lasted an eternity.

Thank every other person who left you nothing but scars before them, for they came along knowing precisely how fragility should be transformed into power.

But, let's not think of heartbreak today.

Think of the times when you've desperately wanted to hunt your idea of solace, your home down, and how you've left a shred of your soul in every person or place that's even slightly matched that feeling. Think of that one old framed photo in your bedroom that brings back a million memories in a second, and they play like a movie trapped deep within one of the four chambers of your heart.

Think of everything right from your first kiss, to the first time you weren't too hard on yourself.

But, let not think of heartbreak today.

Okay let's think of that one song, you never get weary of. Isn't that what you long to feel for another human being? The one song you've had in your playlist for years. The song that puts a smile on your face every time it comes on. It makes you feel things that nobody could. That, is precisely what home would be to me, or who home would be to me. People like you and I, we weren't meant to keep up with the trends. In fact, in a world full of "IDFC" and "thank u, next" I want someone to "Be my mistake."

And even though the sky's weeping outside my window and I'm on my fourth mug of coffee with Hozier playing in the background, I won't think of heartbreak today.

Are we really not going to think of heartbreak today?

My mind's been slightly numb lately.

It isn't allowed to escape the walls it's locked inside. It isn't allowed to feel the clouds move through the sky, to sense the wind brush past it's deepest, most serene thoughts. It isn't allowed to think of how the sun feels on my tan skin. It isn't allowed to think about how beautiful the air smells when the trees are shedding their leaves and there's a slight chill in the atmosphere. My mind's getting sick of being locked down. There's a disease outside, they say. There's people running around, risking and losing their lives, and my mind pays the price for these casualties. I often find it pondering over how sometimes, days feel like years amidst this pandemic, but at the same time, I turn around only to reckon how we've survived a millenium, living like this. My heart shivers at the thought of not knowing how many more days the world's going to remain at a standstill. It quivers when it thinks that all of human existence may have to fend for itself this way, until the whole world lays six feet under.

This lockdown has forced my heart, mind and soul to get to know one another. All three of them feel differently. Six months in, and they now understand why they were structured, and built as three different safehouses for my emotions, in the first place.

I've had the time to accept, and heal every wound in my soul, every crack in my heart, and every anxious thought in my mind. I've been building a stronger frame for myself, one that I'm proud of, one that I drape all over me and show off, unapologetically.

One day, when the war is over and the world is a kinder place, when people have enriched their souls with love and filtered their minds free of the toxicity, I know that the sun rays will reflect off my frame in a way so beguiling, that opinions that used to cause me the most agonizing injuries, will fail to even enter my aura, and my mind will be set free. Just like my heart was.

- the-r-word