The only person who has power to destroy you is you. The only person who can make you suffer is you. The only person who can perfectly ruin your happiness is you. The only person who doubts your ability, who tries to kill your dream, who thinks you’re worthless of any good thing in the world like love.
So don’t be the villain in your story.
Starting now.
He and I
are always at war
with each other
but most of the times
with ourselves.
It all starts with a slight change
in our schedule
in our daily lives
in our routines.
And he is always the one who changes things around.
I have someone to take care of.
I end up letting someone go.
I end up realizing letting go was a mistake.
I lose someone forever.
Right when I am coming to my sense
right when things are falling into places
right when I am finally making peace
he comes around with a bang
and the world crash down upon me
and we are back to square one.
We are in war.
Sometimes I feel like I am Afghanistan
I am always in war
I am always in ruin.
He and I
could’ve been bestfriends
but he always breaks my heart
and leaves
right when I am getting used to him
he always comes around with a sorry
right when I am getting used to without him
and everything starts all over again.
We end up being at war
with each other,
but mostly with ourselves.
Dear little girl,
I don’t know what it likes to live with a scarred face. Not that I don’t have scars in mine, but they are little and most of the time, invisible to many. I have an average face. A face that gets lost in the crowd because it’s neither pretty nor ugly. A face that doesn’t get much attention. And I am just thankful to the crowd.
I realize that you might not be able to get away in the crowd now. Your friends will ask you about the scar in your lips and even give some comments about it. Your crowd will always talk about your scar, your neighbors will tell a story about it to their kids and your teachers will ask you every year when you go to higher level. There will be people who will laugh at it, people who will give an awkward smile because they feel sorry for you, they will murmur to themselves with a pitiful eyes and some will just remain silent.
You might find yourself alone in those times. You might be jealous of those pretty girls with flawless faces that have no scars. You might hate all those attentions your scar brings to you, all for the wrong reasons. You might get angry at yourself at times, at your fate, at your face but mostly at your scars. You might cry to sleep, you might think your mother and brother doesn’t understand you, that no one really knows what you are feeling.
But believe me, you are not alone. And I am not just bluffing or telling this in a vague term. I have a friend with an incomplete cleft in her upper lips and she shares how she is scared to meet new people because they will be asking her about it. Unlike those people are me who simply doesn’t notice it till she mentions. I have another friend who loves counting scars on his face and recount the stories. But reaching to his level will be a long and hard journey.
You will have to pass the point where you are affected by comments from people. You will have to accept the scars and even love them. Be proud of them. You will have to believe that people will love you despite those scars. And not doubt them at all. You will have to learn how to love yourself, over and over again. To reach his level, you will have to have patience and endurance and they are one hard thing to have. But that doesn’t mean you will not reach that level at all. You will, one day. If you let yourself to reach there.
And even if you cannot, even if you feel insecure and inferior and utterly helpless, know that you are not alone. Even if you feel unpretty and ugly, it’s okay. I will forever remind you of how this will never matter, how this is just a stupid perception people have, you have. How, what really matters is what you are from inside – a strong, independent, creative genius – who is loved by her people.
Know that what you look and how many scars you have isn’t a really big deal in this world. The big deal is how many people smiled because of something you did or said, how many of them feels great when you are around because you are always making them laugh with your silly antics and dances and how they will always love you for this.
I hope, when you are my age, or even before that, you will realize that all this flawless beauty is fake. What is really beautiful is scars and wounds. What is really real is being human with flaws, who is not afraid to make mistakes. What is really perfect is being imperfect.
Love,
Me.
When does a loss sink in? Not when the exact moment you lose someone. You still are in shock. You will be in shock for another day or more. While the days are spent taking care of your mothers and grandmothers, you will wait for him in the evening. “This all is a mistake,” you tell yourself, “he will come anytime soon and say that this was all a mistake. That we had a wrong body and wrong person.” But you didn’t get the wrong person. The police did hand over his recorders, his phone, his diaries with his handwriting, his comb, his pen, his earphones and all of his belongings that would always be in his pocket. You wish you had it all wrong despite seeing him, lying in the hospital bed – dead. And when he didn’t arrive the first day, you prayed that this was all just a nightmare. That when you wake up the next day, the day would start all over again but without the incident.
The loss doesn’t sink in for the next ten days for there would be people you need to meet and greet. There would be rituals to perform, rooms to clean, dishes to wash. There would still be mothers and grandmothers to soothe down, cousins to talk to. But on the tenth day, when your grandmother, who has always worn only shades of red throughout your life, emerges wearing a plain white-cream sari and brown shawl, the loss sinks in. When your aunts have returned to their homes after the thirteenth day, when you are with your mom, dad and grandma, basking in the sun, when there is a space where your grandfather used to sit reading newspaper, the loss sinks in.
The loss actually sinks in only after a year or more. When, during one of those over thinking nights, you try to remember your grandfather’s voice calling you “Maiju” in the morning and you can no longer hear his voice even in your thoughts, the loss sinks in. And you will realize that it’s too late to mourn for the loss because all this time you’d been busy trying to move on, take care of your mothers and grandmothers and pretend to be stronger for them, that you haven’t really cried your loss off.
The loss will sink after many years of the loss. It will always be there as a hole in your world which cannot be refilled.
sudden demise (noun)
– unexpected death.
– when your 83 year old grandfather who is way healthier than you
dies suddenly somewhere you don’t know.
He was perfectly fine when you left him in the morning.
suskeraharu 