When Darkness finds me

I can feel you. 

You don't have to shout any louder, run any faster, be any heavier or any more anything, not even lesser. I can see you from the corner of my eye and sense you with every beat of my heart, creeping towards me. 

Your grey vapours only chase me harder when I run so I chose, this time, to brave your wrath, to cross my fingers and wait for you to pass me by. 

I chose to believe the false promises I made myself and I chose to believe the false comfort every disconnected whisper offered me because I was hiding from you in plain sight. I was hiding from the person you are conjured up by the recesses in my mind not deep enough to keep me safe.

I hate that you caught up. I hate that you chose the brightest day, in a room most filled with love in a voice I cherish deeply to wrap your vapourous trail around me and inch your way up to my mind while I stood paralysed- without even a whimper in self defense.

You know your own ugliness. 

You know I will succumb to the power you have over me. You enjoy the chase and it was longer this time than ever before. I didn't miss you. Not one bit. If I could wish you away I would. I let myself believe that is all it would take but you have proved me wrong. I will congratulate you on your victory, ever the graceful loser. You have taught me from practice, I will even thank you, gratitude flowing out of the wounds you stab into me. 

I wonder if this will be my last memory of these months in the rainbow. I stand here immobilized by the crushing weight of the knowledge you bring. 

You call it the truth and I want to believe you but it is difficult to have my mind reconstruct reality to suit a whim while you are twisting your knife deeper into my heart making sure I can see you through the haze of tears I won't shed from pride.

After all that I have sacrificed- laughing little floaty bubbles and flitting through reality, my pride is all I have and if you asked nicely I'm sure I would give you that too, but not while you suffocate me and watch me bleed out so clinically. 

It won't do. I won't give you that satisfaction, not because I don't want to- for you I would give anything, but because my pride is the only oxygen I will find in the dark lonely grave you have dug for me.

I will dream of flight and wine and dancing and sleep through the worst of this. I will wake up in another season having befriended my nightmares again. Companionship more reliable than your promised smiles in the dark- I am blind.

Dear Pen

My dearest pen,

Courtesy of http://www.penherostore.com 

I miss you. I can't put words to how heavy my heart feels at the thought of replacing you and yet I must.

I loved you the minute I set eyes on you- my first true acquisition. I wonder if you could tell how scared I was about losing you as I had everything else dear. He said I had earned the right to have you, that nobody else he knew would take care of you as I would, that you and I deserved to be together from the first salary he ever drew.

Oh I loved you but I was so scared I would lose you. For a whole year you lay in my draw with jewelry and cameras, only used at home. You dried out so often I would wash you out after every use and search the internet every time for proof I wouldn't destroy you. I worried and worried and worried that I would ruin you- that you would be like all those perfumes Velliachan would bring back for Ammama from his travels across the world, stored away until they turned putrid. Oh but I loved you; I loved you so much that I couldn't resist your demand to see the world.

I remember the first day you came to work with me. We were writing lists, boring boring lists for a production house that I would later discovered, I loved. I remember being asked about my handwriting, you- you always gathered so much attention it almost took away from the work of art you are. Oh but how we flew- you me and stacks of magazines, the sheer joy of writing...
I also remember the first time I couldn't find you- the panic and tears, the prayers and amusement on the other end of the phone. You were you and so much more. I wonder if it is the same relief parents speak of, the feeling of my sins being washed away on your discovery the next morning, exactly as I had left you, on my desk the night before. We had our adventures didn't we... so many. We traveled, you found words for my tears and stoically refused to speak of our travels, so many letters bear your mark mistaken for mine.

Today somebody else said I had earned a pen. I was so happy, discussing the details in giddy excitement as only those who labor over a nib for a year and a half for the perfect angle will ever understand. We were discussing the weight of the nib and I could only think of you love. I couldn't replace you but now I must, I've earned it, she said. You will always be my favorite discovery but I hope you know I had to let you go. I couldn't bear the sight of you anymore if you weren't all of you. It wasn't you love, it was the world and that is the tragedy of it all, that mighty as you are, you weren't allowed to have your say.

I remember when I decided to let you go. I felt frozen until I washed your ink out in water just the right temperature and wiped you down one last time. I can't remember if I kissed you and held you tight, if I whispered my words of regret as I packed you away for the last time as my world shattered around me.

I hope you're happy. That you are treated with the love and respect you deserve. That he understands you need love and care, some adventure and some bravery. I hope you have ink and sunlight, paper and solemnity; I hope you don't miss me but know how much I miss you, how much I will always miss you.

You were my wings love, I look up into the blue for you- always, always.

Some days

Some days I wake up convinced I will be fine.

I'm woken up by the ring of my alarm instead of another dream of you. I'm chained to no memories- not good nor bad. My clothes- washed over and over again since you last saw them, bare no smell of you on this morning. I don't feel the phantom of your touch every time I feel the wind on my skin nor hear your sigh in every rustle of leaves.

I know for certain on days like this that I will be fine; that it will get better. I have reason to believe that with time I will find every shard of my crushed soul and glue it together transforming into somebody more breathtaking and complete than you ever knew.

On days like these I'm told there's a skip in my step and a tune to my laugh.Nobody asks about the colour of my eyes or why I won't smile. They ask instead of my childhood- whether I climbed trees and pulled pranks. I laugh in response, my love for the universe bursting out of every pore of my being- gratitude for the many gifts I have received that I haven't earned, the many opportunities that seemed gift wrapped with my name on the label. The world is perfect under the bandage I've plastered on and I feel the mile deep gashes in my soul begin the slow process of healing.

Just as I settle into my peace, a corner of my mind unlocks- I see an image of the inevitable future. A future I want with all my heart for you to have of happiness, success, joy and most of all, of peace. I see that future without me and that isn't what reminds me I will never heal, it is seeing somebody else in every dream we shared. And so I begin again, from the very bottom, tying again to forget, not hope, not believe and to stop praying to Gods who won't listen anyway.
---

I'm listening to Wish You Were Here by Pink Floyd

Fear

I wonder what it is like to live in fear, to bind yourself  to that devil and make it you. How do you cope with every day knowing no decision you make fearlessly is even worthy of discussion? How do you cope with being so scared of your own thoughts that you won;t say them out loud?

I want to pity you. 

I want to teach you to be brave. I want you to love every thought of yours like I do. To be brave for the person you are. To encourage your honesty. To teach you the exhilaration in fighting a battle you believe in. The independence in believing in your decisions.

I loaned you my wings to fly but you lost them in your paralyzing fear. Now I don’t fly either and you’re sorry.

You sacrificed me to your fears and in my mind I’m now dead. In yours my throat is slit a million times with every apology you don’t mean. 

I want to wish you unhappiness but I can’t. I don’t know what is more foolish, your fear of everything or my all consuming love for a weakling. Your fears have shattered my world as much as my bravery has alienated me from everybody. I spent my whole life waiting and now I don't have wings. 

I wish I could live without hope, it would be less painful if I didn't hope you would gather your courage and find my wings.