Ha-ha

The last laugh was always his, even the first time they met. He laughed while she just stood there, head tilted with annoyance and lips curdled in fake anger. He laughed as they lay cradled in each other’s arms, not knowing how else to show he heard her over the wails of birds protesting the dawn. He laughed when they were together, hoping the sound would bring her concrete defences crumbling down. He laughed in loneliness, knowing the empty hysterics were his only solace. He laughed as she told him everything about her because she revealed nothing at all. He laughed when she repeated those lies over and over again. He laughed not because he believed them every time, but because it was supposed to make her feel better. He laughed when she broke the many promises he pretended to treasure. He laughed to show he didn’t care that she did. He laughed when she walked through the door the mascara running dark rivers down her beautiful face, fed by the tears his laughter had wrought. He laughed as she yelled that he was insane. He laughed because he already knew it. He laughed when she beat upon his chest, her tears making little patterns of sorrow on his favourite shirt. He laughed while she turned away and slammed the door on his contorted face. He laughed so it would drown the echo of her footsteps. He laughed so it could murder the memory of her. He laughed with the mirth of madmen, because sadness was the only thing he’d ever known. After all, the last laugh was always his.

Golden goodbye

A suffocating silence lay between them that night, demanding to be heard. It spoke of the absolute incompleteness of their equation, displaying the worthlessness of words by exhibiting their inability to fill the void between them. It laughed in their faces, mocking the very fabric of their relationship. And it teased them with the simplest of solutions, whispering illusions of being broken so beautiful things may be built. It begged them to be shattered, to be completely destroyed so that the answer may become clear. While it seethed and quivered with growing rage at the weakness they so easily succumbed to. It even threatened to choke their adolescent feelings, hoping that fear would give them strength.

Yet they foolishly fed the silence that was drowning them. Letting it surround them like a cage, as it tempted them with an unlocked door. All it asked for was words to be uttered and it would willingly disappear, taking unfulfilled promises and the hopelessness of dreams with it. But they fought their muted war, each waiting for the other to muster the courage that would set them free. They waited in vain for the hand of fate to lay the path before them, hoping that a passing miracle would throw the solution in their faces. Until the silence grew so overpowering it endangered the very balance it was born to keep. And it was finally unmade by the innocent click of her bedroom door closing behind him for the last time.

Inspired by

There’s something about us. The distance we keep physically brings us closer and closer in the subtlest of ways. The rarity of our rendezvous makes them seem almost illegal. It seems at times we’re forbidden to discover anything more about each other, for fear of losing ourselves completely. She's like the wild wind, a soothing caress one moment, a whirling tempest the next. I know I’m wrong for her. And we know it applies both ways. But that’s the aching irony of it. This apprehension we hold for a future that will never be seems completely foolish at times, yet justifies our very relationship.

It is a relationship after all, this wishing to meet despite not wanting to. The times I’ve berated myself for being too busy, then making the excuse that it means nothing anyway. That it’s only temporary and the feelings will pass. I know that. I’m not in denial, just incapable of accepting it. But that doesn’t mean those stolen moments were worthless. It doesn’t mean the nights spent in silence together were without meaning. In fact it makes the memories more precious. Their rarity is what makes her my muse.

Writing is an OCD

Writing is a condition that exists in people, a psychologically healthy disorder of some kind. The by-product of which is this urge to express yourself in text, no matter when or where or why. It can happen on a boring Sunday night sitting alone in the kitchen with the city’s sounds playing a perfect background score. It can hit you in the middle of a crowded intersection sending you grappling for a pen and paper, any paper, as long you can write on it. It can appear unannounced in the middle of falling asleep, just as the darkness is about to take over when a few words will light up and string together like a row of Christmas lights suddenly making sense. You can’t really control it, this premature inspiration. You have to fight your tired body and your unhelpful surroundings to find a way that you can relieve this naturally-born addiction.

 It doesn’t matter how you handle the situation. Some choose to do it the old fashioned way, taking the sharpened edge of 2B lead and touching it down on the sinfully clean paper. Applying just the slightest amount of force, enough to leave a clean mark but not so much as to tear the fragile canvas. Then you begin giving a form to your thoughts, slowly at first, but with increasing swiftness as the words start taking the discernable shape of an idea. Or you can try the cleaner .doc method. Just replace the pencil with a keyboard and trade the freedom of flowing movement for the precision of typing. It’s when pixels become the pills that satiate our psychosis. And eventually as the episode subsides the flow of words comes to an end and you’re never really sure if any of it makes any sense. That’s when you realize it doesn’t really matter, as long as the ritual left you feeling normal again.

The end is near

It's after the haze clears

That you see what happened here

How she left your mind clouded

And your heart choked with fear

Of the welcoming darkness

That floats in her eyes

And the sweet tinge of sadness

On her lips that breathe lies

The beautiful muse

Spells bad news

For your sanity

Until you find a jagged cliff

And surrender to gravity

Things best left unspoken

There’s this problem with my voice. It doesn’t really translate the things I’m thinking very well. Somewhere along the line the words and sentences get jumbled up into something that means anything other than what I want it to convey. There are just so many thoughts going around in my head at the same moment that organizing and presenting them in an instant is humanly impossible.

But thankfully, my writing doesn’t face that problem. In this form my words are uncensored by what other people might think. While writing I have the luxury of organizing my thoughts as they skip around like fleas on a mongrels back. My writing is when I’m saying the honest truth, in a confusing way. At a simplistic level, when I say ‘let me put this in writing’, what I mean is ‘let me explain something’.

So let me put some things about me in writing. I’m not normal. Most people I know have this dark past which supposedly haunts their every relationship; it’s not a unique phenomenon. But it’s something I rarely dwell upon. That doesn’t mean I don’t have a history, if anyone spent time in my past they would lose their mind like I did. This is why I stay as far away from it as possible. All I’ve learnt is that the past belongs in the past, it doesn’t concern the people in my present and it definitely doesn’t concern the future.

Speaking of which, I think it’s pointless to postulate a situation and then try to guess how it’s going to turn out. At best you can imagine every possible conclusion to a story and keep changing the ending as the situation keeps taking unexpected turns. You cannot predict the future. Each story is just as improbable as the next, so there really is no way to play things out ‘correctly’. Which is why I pay most attention to my present and to the people present around me.

I don’t anticipate things or dwell on what happened before. The simple fact is that I’m too busy grappling with my present tense to be concerned about my past or our future. I know my worst fears lie in anticipation and my darkest demons wait in memory. I also know that happiness is a day-to-day thing, and that’s the best we can hope for in this temporary world.

3 + 1 = 2

The concept of first world and third world countries has always been entertaining to me. First world countries seem to be this evolved place, where things function and life is easier. The basic necessities are covered with ease, but that doesn’t make them free of their own demons. Though ‘first world problems’ makes for an entertaining meme, it is an actual occurrence. Because the countries there have evolved so fast, they’ve become dependent on that technology. They actually find it problematic to deal with disconnection. The effects resemble claustrophobia, where the firewalls seem to be closing in and there’s no one to hear you scream.

But this mass hysteria seems to be spreading around the globe these days. It’s even landed upon the shores of supposed third world countries, like our own. India is still referred to as a third world country, a grimy place with poor people and a mismanaged government. But we really aren’t. India is a second world country. It is third world in many ways, but the people here are trying too hard to become first world citizens. We have these stark contrasts in ideologies and lifestyles that bloom from our ‘00 generation – today’s brand of urban yuppies who can’t wait to grow up. We still have issues with basic necessities, but they find comfort in investing time towards temporary indulgences. The result is a generation that stands on the edge of oxymoronic claustrophobia, that feeling of being crushed by loneliness despite being connected to the entire world.

It’s not all as bad as it sounds though. Open access to the first world has erased a number of our third world issues. We’ve managed to make our lives simpler by growing beyond the limitations of yesterday’s technology. We are slowly growing aware of the power we hold thanks to the first world. We want access to information, even though we may not know what to do with it. Our problems now are a curious mix of first world idiotics and third world challenges. Though the Zero generation seems to be simply thrashing about, there is still hope that time will show them wisdom. Until then we will remain a second world nation, a country that knows the power it holds but does not have means to use it.