lagaya dil

the one in which the ever-aiming to be cool girl who is more than an internet persona on your phone fucks it up big time in Real Life. i will get better even if it kills me

Grief is not love but it is like love. This is romance’s estranged cousin, a cruel character, all sleeplessness and adrenalin unsweetened by hope.

It strikes me that it is like love, a trance of two that is broken by a third.

It has been my belief that the only way to know something is to experience it, that the truest forms of knowledge are personal.

— Aftermath, Rachel Cusk

_jpurnalsandjunk_ on ig, found via pinterest

That summer everything was on fire. The air cackled, and my languorous body cut through it as I made my way to places that were more comforting than my bed. Everything was about to come to an end. I could not stop thinking about what had happened to me, everything that I had done. The stillness felt like paper on which the heat emanating from my body spilled like liquid, a letter of memory wounding around the entire campus.

I remembered a vulgar fight on the road, the vulgarity coming from us losing our inhibitions and letting the world see how much we were bothered by each other. I turned away fitfully and made my way back. Back where? Was there a place I could go? I crushed millipedes on my way, a sign that I was no longer going to be gentle. I touched them with the tip of my shoe, and when they curled I stepped on them until they felt like my heart crumpled on the floor of my chest. 

I cried on my way back, more about losing another fragment of childhood in me that cared for the vision of god that was reflected in all his creations. I had stopped feeling like one of his creations a while ago, until Wanting took over me and I slipped on the floor, waiting. 

One afternoon, we went on a scooter to a place beyond everything, and walked through a neighborhood, pretending to be adults, looking for a house to buy. On our way to a place so green it would make my envy appear riddled with autumn, I cut the back of my left leg. The gash wasn’t deep, it stung only when I did not think of you, and I thought of you always. 

The wound reminded me of a similar one I acquired on my right leg, years ago. I was waiting by the road with my Ma, waiting for my uncle to pick us up to go to my Naani’s place. I wandered a little and the dried grass cut me. It stung more when I touched it with my dusty hands, but blood is a fascinating liquid, it’s the closest you can get to anybody. Do you remember when you tasted mine? I still have that cut on my hand, the wound is fresh after all.

The promise of rain made us sit on a rock and look at all the trees that looked like something Alive had gone into hiding. Veiny trunks, giant footlike trunks, feathery and spidery branches. That was a different place, and time was suspended. I could not bear it, the beauty. I asked you to drop me back. I came to see you literally hours later. 

The cut on my leg turned purple, and now it is fading. I have half the heart to keep cutting away at it so that it stays. So that I have proof that you once witnessed my hurt, that I am capable of getting hurt instead of just inflicting it onto others. 

It didn’t rain then, the faint teasing retreated itself when we looked up too earnest, too hopeful. 

That summer, I turned restless inside the edges. For the first time I understood what it meant to let go of everything. How it can all drive you to a madness that is a whirlpool; you get flung around and it is just you and your feelings following each other in circles.

I thought I could be careful, contain everything within the edges. We had something juvenile going on, like two children discovering things in the privacy that they created away from the grownups. On a terrace, on a bed when everybody else is asleep, on a bench. Cigarette burns on each other is safe, inflicting any hurt that allows you to touch each other is safe. It is not love, it is erotic by its own means. You watching me in pain is the closest to fucking we can get, we could get. The day I sleep next, I will still be in pain, and you will be a witness in my head.  

You told me we were going in circles. Ouroboros, I said. California Dreaming was playing outside your window, early morning, in one of the bathrooms. We used to listen to this stranger’s playlist whenever we stayed up too late, too tired.

Ouroboros I said. We were going in circles, hurting each other, but I ended up eating you. I walk with you sitting heavy in all my empty places, and I do not want to let go. 

I did not write much that summer. I did not process anything. I woke up and I wanted love to take over, like madness. I was possessed with something not normal, not human. I could not explain. I do not want to explain. It is hard to speak up, to admit feelings and thoughts and ideas. I’d rather be dishonest. I’d rather be branded a liar. Everything scares me. But when I think this way, I know it is not right of me to ask for love and care and compassion. You do not ask for people to walk next to you when you are walking on a knife.

I wish I could say I am growing up. I wish I could say I do not know the end. I know it has ended already. I am still hopeful. Because that is what I am made of —hope and an embarrassing need to be understood without opening up. When you open up, you spill on their mattress and then nobody will clean you up. The blood dries up beneath you and reminds you of how bad you are, fundamentally. I taint everything I love. 

When I talk of last summer, I am talking of the summer that has just started. When I speak of you, my heart is divided. I decided to be mean to everybody, because I could not bear what I was receiving. But I wanted it. Wanted it enough to give in, slowly. Being my own person made me keep everything to me.

I was going to own it all up. But as usual, I am always a little late, a little liar. 

हमेशा देर कर देता हूं मैं 

ज़रूरी बात कहनी हो 

कोई वादा निभाना हो 

उसे आवाज़ देनी हो 

उसे वापस बुलाना हो 

हमेशा देर कर देता हूं मैं

हक़ीक़त और थी कुछ 

उस को जा के ये बताना हो 

हमेशा देर कर देता हूं मैं 

— Muneer Niyazi. 

Basically, whenever it matters, I always delay things. 

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This is not the end. I will be back. Hence, such a haste ending. Here is some poetry that has kept my company today.

poetry