In-Between

It’s the moments in-between.

To realize everything is in the angles.

That the destination is not as important as the journey.

In the journey, the ups, the downs, the in-betweens,

You get to find paths you knew nothing about.

You get to wonder in depths that fill you up.

You get engulfed in love without an end.

You get to control everything that’s uncontrollable.

Sometimes you stop.

Sometimes you miss a sign.

Sometimes you miss a turn.

Sometimes you get an empty tank.

But everything that you miss, gets you right where you wanted to be.

The more you grow the more you understand the destination is in all the seconds of the journey.

So in-between the laughs, breathe.

So in-between the cries, breathe.

So in-between the falling in love, breathe.

So in-between the stares, breathe.

So in-between the silence, breathe.

So let life take your breath away in simple things.

Like the smell of rain, like the sight of a flying bird.

So build your journey as you go, step by step.

Who said a laugh can’t lead you to greatness.

Who said a cry can’t create a path of success.

Who said falling in love can’t set the tempo of going up in life.

Who said the stares can’t show you the road to your next victory.

Who said silence can’t create loud miracles.

So in-between each moment, don’t forget the seconds are long enough for you to breathe!

I Want To

Journey of a thousand miles begins with one step. What if I want to go more past those miles? Life is never what it seems. At least I have learnt that in the past few weeks. I had the privilege of taking a step back. To see a bigger picture. Picture of a thousand white roses. Up to date, I hardly understand why I started loving such a phrase. ‘A picture of a thousand white roses’. A friend asked me why I thought people get depressed over small manageable issues. And funny enough my mind was in fact, depressed. I wish I was bold enough to tell that one friend, of my nights, crawled up at edge of my bed, on the floor, the coldness of it all gently warming me up. I wish I had the courage to tell that one friend of the mornings I spend in the shower, with nothing but tears running down. I wish I was bold enough to tell that friend that actually some men cry, get confused, and contemplate suicide more often than not. But what stops them? A hope for a better tomorrow? A prayer silently made in the depths of a man’s deepness? Yet, they wake up, show up to fight another day. I wish that friend saw the tears behind my eyes as I answered that question. You see, depression is never a matter of just a small thing that affects someone. It is the series of small manageable things piercing in the depths of your deepness, drowning you from deep within till the days turn into nights of gasping for a breath, till the nights turn into days of digging inside yourself for just but a smile for others. Yes, for others to see you are okay. You see, every day you wake up knowing you will slit your wrists, cut your ankles, slice up your thighs. But after each day, you go to sleep dreading for tomorrow. Because it starts all over again. A loop of some sorts. You close off, becoming one with music. It keeps one going, I should know. But one thing about thoughts clouding every breath is you just want to feel. It doesn’t matter if its pain, or not. The very essence of dark rooms, solitude, creeps inside you and settles in like a plague. It satisfies you. Even when your phone goes silent for a week, you don’t mind but it eats you up, driving you deeper into the depths of an ocean of solitude. I should know. I wish I told my friend all this and much more, but time is never so generous. Friends seem always busy, even when meeting, just but a few minutes then they are gone. And for those good few minutes, half of them is spent on their phone. You wish your phone was as busy as theirs sometimes. Maybe then you would feel wanted, but for now you are stuck with the coldness slicing through your wrists. You just want to feel, to understand. The feel of being wanted, of being needed. Then the same friends wonder why you rarely go out. It’s perhaps because everyone is always on their phones except you. It’s perhaps because friendship lost meaning along the way. It’s perhaps because people don’t understand friendship anymore.

But what do I know about friendship? I’m just seated here, writing this in my head word by word, as my dear friend chats on the phone even after such a depressing question. I can’t wait to go back my cold, slithering floor, at the edge of my bed, maybe then they will chat with me so vehemently. Maybe I just want to feel more than the depths of an ocean…

 

Burn

It burns inside, like lava soothing you from inside.

Picking up a blade to be slit down my wrist has never looked so enticing.

Deep down, I understand why that can’t happen again.

So my mind wonders, to the center of it all.

Where it all began.

An unforgiving solace through my wrists.

A burning desire to feel which I cannot.

In everything, I see darkness sipping through the cracks.

Not in, but oozing out of me.

Nothing but the sensational taste of tantalizing red wine, down my throat.

A new escape, perhaps.

Yet it burns with every swallow.

Waiting for the inevitable, to walk through that door.

I went straight there, as soon as I read it.

Hands sweating, heart beating slower than usual.

Stuck in a familiar offset balance.

We finally figured it out, incomplete creatures under the moon.

A need to be complete, together.

But still miles apart, in the same room.

She led herself in, sitting across the room.

Same room she threw her goodbyes from.

Our eyes locked, unlocking what was violently stored away.

You could feel her pulsating heart a mile way.

Her light blue turquoise dress, flowing on every inch of her.

Inches that once dripped with honey to be savored.

She wanted to confess, of a love.

She earlier excused herself, to wipe of her tears.

Previously my duty, not anymore.

Change is inevitable apparently.

Having silent conversations in-between the silence.

Her lips parted, pausing to allow the last burning wine down my throat.

I’m sorry, I can never live without you

Suddenly, my hands grew weak, letting the glass reach its final destination.

Pausing for a moment.

Because, I, more than anybody knew what the world was, without her.

Novelty II

She couldn’t keep her eyes off him, as she walked away. Something about him made it special. Perhaps a realization would dawn on her later, that her world is sequentially different without him. It was what she wanted at the time. She was tired of all the fighting, not the fighting for parts. A need to stop the bleeding, she was tearing up from within. Her walls were thick enough, never letting anything through. His love porous-ed its way in, deep into heart void heart. Like a dawn of a rainy day, the spasms of rays light up the sky. Creating spatial rainbows amidst tiny droplets of rain, what is rain really? She asked herself. What’s the use of flying yet chained? She questioned herself. She was chained to her heart, locked down by blindness. She cried for a well written story, not an unfolding one. She was but un-bothered that her story was still being written. Her heart felt cold with each drop of tear that stretched down her cheeks. He disappeared into his dark-ended street. Both oblivious of the street lights, trying to pave him an obvious path back home. What would be the odds? Of both their tears hitting the rugged uneven ground? He would have caught her tears, if she gave him a chance.

But in reality, it was she that needed a chance to save them. But she saved herself. A life of resilience and building from nothing wasn’t in her to-do list. A life laid out already was hers for the taking, a king, a prince of charms, or a well written story ready for her to be edited in. And in that moment, as the rain died down tired from all the down pouring, her phone rang. That well written story, waiting to be picked up. She broke down, tears torrentially pouring down. She knew then that all her walls had broken down, from inside, waiting for his love to do the inevitable, of leaving with him.

For her, as he walked away, she understood his story was just being unfolded. And she would have been beautifully written with it, not edited.

 

Novelty

…He wished someone came around and taught him, at that moment. As he walked away from everything he ever knew. As the chills made his spine their rocking chair, something beautiful happened in that dark moment. Willing to go the distance, he traded on. His heart sunk in, his brain shut down. The rush of a warm summer’s breeze filled the air. Even the rain wasn’t coming that evening. It knew better. Just the cover of light clouds dancing on a dark evening sky represented it. Then the street lights came on.

He wished someone came around and taught him, at that moment, how to love past the rejection. The fresh breathe of the first evening star took away the first tear off his right eye. All around were fellow living things, oblivious of the raging emotions crawling their way up his veins. But at the end of each step forward, he felt a sense of relief. His undying spirit: fighting on against oblivion of loathness. To him, she symbolized perfection; an embodiment of richness in serene beauty and breathtaking curvaceous smile.

He wished someone came around and taught him, at that moment, how to breathe in darkness and see the beauty of light seeping through the cracks, to feed his empty basement of a heart. So that one day, he may look up with his teary eyes, and smile.

That Tired Bench

In a clogged world full of noise, I just want to be immersed in silence.

The depressing, dark-filled silence.

For not many find beauty in it, but agony and pain.

But what is a world without pain?

Would we know love if there was no hate?

Would we know what it felt like being complete without being broken?

So in the middle of that evening, I sat on that silent bench.

As people rushed to catch their evening bus home,

Seemingly to their ever happy homes.

I knew why darkness was beautiful, at that moment.

I understood why the best of time comes after the worst.

It wasn’t the cold evening breeze that made itself felt,

But the promise of a beautiful starry night revealed itself on the horizon.

So I sat there, on a freezing bench, breathing in sets of fresh air with mounts of foulness in it.

It must have silently seen worse days pass by, as I had seen better days come to pass.

And grew tired of them.

Nothing is ever perfect, not even the sincerest smiles of the universe.

Its flaws ensure its beauty never runs dry.

Promise Me

It’s the last day of a long year.

Nothing has changed, really, to the better.

It is as it was, the first day of the year.

I’m still drowning in my own tears.

I can’t stop because of a heavy heart.

Everything in between the year was as beautiful as the universe itself.

A universe drenched in darkness.

As promises echoed through my veins, my smile got rearranged.

My laughter replaced.

It felt like heaven, the darkness itself.

Somehow it turned into my light.

Something about drowning,

Something about hitting the bottom was liberating.

Something about it was unexplainable.

The only way after hitting the rock bottom, was up.

But I needed to take my rock bottom with me.

For it fired me into everything I was.

A new being, facing anything.

I yearned for everything in-between the darkness and light.

Ships sink for letting water in, not mine.

Sailing with the gods, to let the darkness in,

For it was the source of my light.

Until when I’m full, I’ll drown in her darkness, her broken promises.

And my broken pieces will be liberated into the light of the darkness.

But just promise me to pause, and enjoy the liberation.

Ropes

It comes rushing in.

Like a beacon of hope, of a cure long waited for.

Like the ranting, of a populous crowd, suddenly stops.

Like a warm ambiance suddenly being ice cold.

Like a tiger finally breathing in, holding on to a breath before jumping on a prey.

Nothing else seems to matter.

Like blood boiling to its temporal points.

It pounces on you.

It doesn’t matter if you called to it.

It just rushes in, devouring every inch of every nerve.

It is more than a want, less of a basic need.

You didn’t need it, but now that it’s there, you can’t seem to go your lifetime without.

You’re courageous, but it seems not to recognize that.

On a constant feeding, never ending to your limits.

Sweat builds up, bringing satisfactory feeling.

Of a position you wanted to be in for so long.

But there you were, next to the edge of the bridge.

Sure with each passing inhale, and exhale.

So you jump.

Sure enough you won’t fly, but trusting enough something will pull you up.

The rope tied to your body.

A security of assurance that once it’s over, it’ll be scrapped off your bucket list.

That rush of adrenaline, the moment you step of a bungee jump.

Realizations creep in, there’s a limit of how low can you go.

The sky has never been a limit.

The cringing limit of how low you can go before bouncing back up is the real question of your ropes to answer.

 

Walkway To His Heaven

“I still remember the day I left him.

It was cold.

Not your typical cold weather, but my heart was cold.

Full of anger and possibilities of fun, I convinced myself he didn’t need me.

He didn’t need my loved-filled heart.

He needed to blossom.

And the only way was if he didn’t have my baggage.

You see, my beauty and think what baggage would I possibly have?

My constant nagging, my constant drinking, my constant shopping, my constant male friends!

You see, my heart was cold, and full of fun visions.

His was warm, and full of visions.

Even constant calls wasn’t enough, he still texted, cared, loved me.

But I didn’t need him, apart from the occasional steams of passions.

He was amazing, I wasn’t.

He said I was 99% angel and cared less of the 1% devil.

I said he should worry. The 1% was part of each of the 99% angel.

He forgave my young heart even when I indulged deeper into pleasures.

I needed more roughness around the steamy edges.

Then, I saw him walk by the other day!

Lovely strides I thought.

The kinds that make you want with desire.

Then a lady approached him, simple to the eye, sophisticated to the mind.

I never saw any beauty that matched to hers; I’m still impressed, to date.

She hugged him, kissed him lightly on his soft lips; I remember their taste so vividly.

How I wish I had them next to my neck, breathing gentle warm air as he talks about his world.

I was destroyed, crumbled from within.

She, all the while carried a small child, seemingly theirs.

My heart grew softer, warmer.

A tear dropped right out of his heaven’s gates.

Yes, he called my eyes the gates to a walkway to his heaven.

I turned around, and walked away to the path I came with.

Holding on tightly to a shopping bag filled with a drunk’s shopping.

A faint whisper of a child calling him daddy broke my heart.

Carried by the winds, to torment me I presumed.

It broke, to a thousand pieces.

I guess that’s how he felt when I left.”

Seconds of Composure

At times we feel lost,

Sometimes those times feel like forever,

Lost in a world that doesn’t exist,

Our minds wonder to the edges,

Edges of sharp bends and dark corners,

We can’t say we know where we’re going,

Neither can we say where we are,

And we hardly remember where we’re from,

All we know; our feet are moving,

Always moving forward,

Never stopping to catch a breath,

Scars that tell endless stories,

Of what once was,

But never is,

Scars of what tried to break us,

Trading all for mere seconds of composure,

We wish we had it all,

Of course we did,

Once upon a time,

They help with the insomniac nights,

Those tale-lies we lullaby to ourselves at night,

Anything goes to not stay awake in our dreams,

For they came with iced-darkness,

Yet no one knows who let it in,

The flash of shimmering light!

When we know,

We’ll open our dusty old war-room,

Ready to fight with the light,

In a battle that doesn’t exist!