//You scar me and call yourself a healer I cry myself to sleep at night thinking it might eventually get better, only for you to put the baggage of your ‘humour’ (read: insecurities) on my shoulders. I pretend to stifle a ‘scoff’ (read: sob) as i try to pass you by being dumbfounded and laughed at and my shoulders feel numb and tears threaten to fall. You push me to a dark corner i can’t retreat back from. With your hand around my neck i can’t seem to find my voice, I want to breathe, you’re choking me.
// I want to breathe, you’re choking me I can’t seem to find my voice with your hand around my neck. You push me to a dark corner i can’t retreat back from and my shoulders feel numb and tears threaten to fall, being dumbfounded and laughed at. As i try to pass you by, i pretend to stifle a ‘scoff’ (read: sob) only for you to put the baggage of your ‘humour’ (read: insecurities) on my shoulders. Thinking it might eventually get better, Lord knows how i cry myself to sleep at night. Yet, you scar me and call yourself a healer?
I lay awake at 3:07 in the morning I groan and wonder should i sleep? Can I sleep? I want to paint that one image I have in my mind for days But I can’t make myself to do so The colours on my palette seem to annoy me, i can’t look at them Yet I get up and reach for my brushes They feel so fragile and satiny between my fingers Like they might slip away just like my peace and resolve, So I hold them tight.
I stare at the blank canvas with unblinking eyes the crisp white acrylic paper looks unnerving. It isn’t the darkness in my room weighing down on my shoulders but the nothingness from the blank canvas that aggravates me. My thoughts are blurring out, Still I am able to make out indistinct letters in between the crease lines of the blank white paper.
Those letters seem to mock me For being a let down, for hating everything i am not supposed to, for being unappreciative of the people that still hold on to me. My head aches severely Lord, how I wish I could cry! But my tears probably have dried out. I want to scream but all that falls from my lips is a faint sigh, I wince at the sound of my own voice.
You see, anxiety is too chaotic, it fogs my senses but I don’t let it loosen my grip on my brushes I hold them, tight. There might me creases on the paper but my strokes are as smooth as silk. I can delineate my way through this nothingness into something graceful, I just get lost sometimes, Only to find myself back through fine strokes and elegant colours. I can flawlessly blend the crease lines with my hues to make them appear almost non-existing, I am skilled at it. So, you see it gets blue around me sometimes yet i paint the canvas pink.
Ghosts of your stories are breathing in the fire / I am sad just like every other person tells you, the only difference is I don’t complain about my life rather there are raged ghosts suppressed deep inside me, feeding on my sanity and slowly sucking the life out of me because of things which weren’t supposed to go wrong. I don’t claim to be broken, I prefer to call myself scarred for I have burned in self-vacillation for years now. Yes, I can heal if I want to but I don’t have immense emotional energy in me to try and little of which is left I need it for my “routined life.”
You hold the key to the light of your life / You tell me that you’ll always be with me, that we are in this together. I believe you because you treat me well, hold my hand when I’m cold, we fall asleep at night talking to each other on call. You preach about light of one’s life and the key to it but I reckon I have found it, in you to be more precise it’s you. You also write poetry about me and make me feel like a goddess. I start to think I am in love with you so I tell you everything, everything you ask me about my life, my darkest of secrets, my ghosts. I open my scar for you to perform a autopsy of my soul and I think I feel no pain because I’m so in love with you. I let you dig deeper and bring out the tiniest of things from within me till there’s nothing left and you write more about me? On me?
Oh, but you lie it got too hazy in the comfort of your love / It’s been a while and things are quite different now. Your eyes seem so cold and your words are distant. Is it your guilt or is it my inculpating eyes gawking at you wanting justifications for why you lied? It hurts to think how you plump out the bloody scarps of horror and misery from my soul just to make it look like yours. It breaks my heart as you place these scraps so carefully in between the words of your labrynthine poetry to portray the persona of a heartbroken and lost writer because people like a sad writer more and you can’t fit in that character because you never experienced misery. It amazes me how cleverly you vended my soul and vulnerability to prevent the death of your not-so-thoughtful “poetry” and I did not realise any of that because I was so hazed by the idea of what you described as love.
Ever felt like you are being yourself and not being yourself both at the same time? Like you are sweeping in a whirlwind of emotions of what’s right and what’s not and what’s supposed to be? To be honest I know, we all felt like that even for once in our life. You know a new day brings new hope, new ambitions and it’s like a spirit is ignited once again within you to make you work for what you dream and to standup for what you believe in. That’s the thing about dawn right, it’s like you find yourself once more. Like you step out from the dark into light, into hope.
But what if you feel a little lost during daytime? The dawn which was supposed to bring you light also brings in insecurities? What am I wrong? The self consciousness that sometimes envelops you from the fear of getting judged and not being enough, in the broad daylight. Didn’t you ever felt that, even for once? You know this is confusing, I am myself finding it hard to frame the sentences. And I know many of you won’t accept this. But accept what? Let me tell you. Night, yes at night. You know they say that night brings the darkness from within you, it’s during this time you cry, cry for what happened or what’s happening. You cry for yourself because you can’t show your scars during the day you can’t be vulnerable during the day.
You see it’s easier during the night, it’s easier to be yourself, it’s easier to live with your demons. You wear your heart on our sleeves during the night and the conversations seems lighter and easier. Though there’s this constant fear somewhere within you, of your heart getting crushed and being too vulnerable that you end up regretting later. But this is the thing about night, you feel a little more and a little less both at the same time. It’s like adrenaline courses through you and you take risks, risks of being who you truly are, risks of showing your dark side, pouring your heart out and being too vulnerable. But it’s worth it.
This is how you end up finding light in the darkness. The things you can’t do during broad daylight, the one you can’t be, the things you can’t feel, you end up doing and feeling all these at night. I know there are pros and cons of it but at the end there’s the joy and the peace which you get through this and there’s no denying that. I know you are sacred of this vulnerability backfiring at you but for a time being be the one you wouldn’t be infront of everyone, feel what you want to and care a little less, save that for the next day. Let that adrenaline surge through you and let yourself feel more alive and the scars you’ve been hiding so well let them heal.
Then close your eyes and you will find the chaotic world getting blurred in the background and you drifting off to sleep with your heart beating gently from the sound of a soft music playing in your ears, the music of peace. And the next day will begin with hope and light and you will find yourself standing strong for what you believe in. Despite everything that has happened or will happen, you will make it because you can.
Okay umm, I want to write about “You.” So let me tell you the time we had was great even though it was for a while. I never really dreamt of a forever with you and honestly I didn’t exactly love you, not in a way people in love do. I never got all those butterflies they talk about. I know you didn’t either. Yet there was a feeling that surged through me, I don’t know what to term that as, fulfilment? or adoration? or a gleaming light of hope that makes us believe in ourselves, makes us love ourselves, that heals our scars, makes us happy a little more? Or all of them? I don’t know. But it felt just right. I felt more alive, more hopeful. It was because of You. You made me find love and joy in little things, things that revolve around us maybe without us knowing that and things that makes us who we are. You made me realise that flaws are nothing but through which we hurt ourselves or the people that surround us intentionally or unintentionally. It’s okay to have flaws and it’s okay if you make mistakes because that’s what acceptance is. You can’t be happy and make everyone happy at the same time, even if you can it takes time. And we need that time. You and I, we never held hands let alone those hugs and all. But the way you perceived everything, the way you framed your sentences, your sarcastic humour and the way you fiddled with the hem of your shirt and sighed deeply too often everytime you talked about your favourite book or recited the poem you loved. That was enough to give a warm, fuzzy feeling. A feeling of hope. Maybe I am using that word too much cause that’s whatyou were ‘Hope’, that makes us realise the worth of ourselves and makes us love a little more, hold on a little more and dream a little more. And also makes us let go sometimes. But you weren’t a forever you said that I remember it. I believed it myself right from the beginning because you, Youfelt like home but probably not meant to live in.
ink and ashes 