I spent the whole day being glum in bed. I did not sleep, I did not even bathe until the last light of the day had packed its bags. I ate breakfast in the morning at my usual stall. It was raining, a constant stream, the punctuations between the droplets erratic and confusing. The back of my legs was splattered with flecks of mud, the sensation so slight yet so heavy in the moment.
Ruminated over the past that has evaporated during the span of time between that present and the current one – the Present is ever evading, ever flirtatious. The people from my past are now on a different planet altogether – the one whose atmosphere does not favour me. We are forever going to be a part of the same solar system, but there’s factors that make us ever so slightly changed as time warps around us.
Words have been seeping through me and settling at the bottom of the shallow stream of my daily life. The sun reaches the words still, but they evade the passersby in my life. The stream goes on, carrying a faint gurgle. Stop and see, stop and see, stop and see.
Recently, the weird complexes that I had developed during my university time returned, like a dull ache, in places within me that are still unreachable. These complexes are like a vast expanse upon which I stand – alone and undecipherable. The gravity tugs at my heart, displacing all organs under it, and now my knees feel lust more than the pit of my stomach, and I take that as a sign to pray.
I went back in time, picked out some of my history and spread it on my bed, analysing it, like a tarot reading I got to witness offhandedly yesterday. It led me nowhere, nobody is right enough anymore to confide into. I dragged somebody else out from that cave of time, and rolled the rocks. The conversation took a turn, a newer thing came out of it. Resulted in noting down the 12 steps of AA on my yellow legal pad, and tucking it away in my brown wallet, with my lipstick and a grey rock that could be the higher power I must submit to.
Now that my laptop is at 27%, I am rushing. There is a pressure knocking on the walls of my bladder, but I shall not move. This is meditation to the point of torture, something that is supposed to be a testament of one’s devotion.
My teenage years were spent watching reruns of Anna Farris’ Mom on television simply because, so I was already familiar with it, however having recently read Notes to John, I approached the 12 steps with a formal apprehension. I thought of faith, and what it means to me, and how much of it do I have left. Do we ever run out of faith? Is it okay to put all your faith in one person? Does it matter if faith is reciprocated? Will my prayers for a person translate into their lives even if they don’t believe in everything that I do believe in? Is faith the same thing as time, and can we make it for each other?
Currently, I am agonizing over the ninth step – …EXCEPT WHEN TO DO SO WOULD INJURE THEM OR OTHERS. Do not try to make amends when it will hurt the present. Do not mess with the timeline by pulling out the past from an exit wound. I need to live with my reality that some things will continue on as preserved in their damagedness, and the damage was caused by me. I need to make space within this reality that I too, am capable of breaking, akin to a porcelain doll. I cannot put my hand through an exit wound either, if I want to keep my fingers; for future piano lessons. The sooner I do this, the better. An open wound that is tampered with constantly, leaves room for newer hurt to grow.
Enough of today has been spent in a manner best left for somebody who has access to the sea. I look around, and I think about the life I have created; it is in a shape that somebody long gone would understand. But I am getting the order wrong – Somebody was long gone before my life took this shape. I end back where I was. The wound stares back.
But the field is calling, the clouds have gathered overhead. When I feel an ache in my knees, I plan to sit down, alone and undecipherable to perhaps everybody but my ownness, my own personal inventory of my own personal history that also involves you, you, and you.
The knees have started to ache. It is time to pray. 6th step of AA. GOD, REMOVE ALL THESE DEFECTS OF CHARACTER.
we love u aandhi
this is so wonderful i love the way your writing flows? weaves? idk it's gorgeous