Maybe.

Maybe you learned about me too fast. Of how I like my coffee all black and no sugar but how chiya needs to have a dash of milk and a tinge of sweetness. Of how I don’t have a favorite color but I want my Parka Jacket green and Skinny Jeans dark blue. Of how I am obsessed with everything check and stripe. And of how I like everything chocolate – the ice cream, the cake; the darker the chocolate is the better. Of how I seek space when given attention and how I seek attention when given space.

Like how you would mug up the course for an exam right before it, maybe you read me in a rush. Maybe you read me like a wooden lattice window or an old house in a chowk that we barely go to. Or like how I’d always tied my long jet black hair into a grandmother bun till I chopped it off. And how my glasses hides the chocolate brown eyes, that is too deep to look into for more than five minutes.

Like how you’d go through the maps before exploring new places, maybe you’d done the same with me. That you ended up memorizing each turn and twist of my life, of each hole and home too. Of how I have been beaten, bent and burnt, time and again by life and yet how I came back stronger each time. Of how I have a good support system, network of friends and families, who always have my back. Of how I want to save the world yet I am unsure about saving myself.

Maybe like how we move on from the things we’d studied for exams after the exams, the landmarks after we’d reach the destination, you too have moved on after knowing me so well, after reading me so well. After all, I am an open book and you are a good reader.

My coping mechanism is fucked up.

I was born to a father who drank his tears with whiskey every single night when his father died. When the sun spread its color across the western sky, I would find him drowned in the glasses of liquor I could never keep track of. If there was no bottle left in the house, he would leave, searching for a sip here and a sip there. I never asked why he smelled of alcohol when I put him to bed.

I was born to a mother who drowned her pain with work when her mother passed away. Even before the sun woke up, I would find her inside the kitchen cooking meals, tirelessly without a break. If there wasn’t any food to be cooked, she would be knitting, weaving, cleaning, sweeping, washing. I never asked her why she never rested her bones even when they felt sore with age, as they decayed slowly.

I am the daughter of both of them. Although I told myself, I would never touch a drop of liquor and I would never cook and clean and wash and knit, I found myself drowned in the world of fiction when my parents died. Right between the sunrise and the sunset, I would compare myself to the princess of fairytales and to the superheroes of comic books, because I portrayed myself as the hero of my story. And you never asked me why I got obsessed with fictions.

You thought I found solace in these stories just like I thought my parents found solace in drinks and chores. That I was healing with the tales just like they were healing with the spirits and with the works. That’s why you never asked me if I was okay just like I never asked my parents if they were…

Cleaning up the mess you left.

When you left without a word, I thought it was my destiny. For someone who obsesses a lot on goodbyes, it felt like it was what I deserved – a no goodbye leaving. Thinking this, I quickly locked your room without giving a second glance. I had no energy to look at the mess you’d created, the papers on the floor, the clothes on the bed, the broken pieces of my heart all over.

For as long as I could, I went on with my life as if nothing happened. Nobody knew about us to begin with, we were the secret stories our friends hushed over the movie. So it wasn’t that hard. I even carried on sitting across the table from you in the cafeteria and pretended not to notice your occasional glances.

“Are you okay?” you once cornered in the corridor to ask.
“Why do you ask?” I questioned you instead.
“Just…”
“I have never been better,” I cut you off and walked away, holding myself together more than ever.

I read a lot during that time. About men. About women. About relationships that lasted and the ones that never did. I also read about heartbreaks. About being strong. About not letting the ones who walked away to have the power to control you. I read books. I read articles. I read poems like my life depended on it. And each of them told me to be strong, to realize that people come and go, what matters is me.

So, every time you sat across me in the cafeteria, or beside me during the lectures, or in the same group as me for an assignment, I recited the stories and the poems to myself again and again so as not to open up to you. Not to let the comfort of your warm body melt me. Not to let you take a peek of my milky skin longing for your touch or how dry my mouth has been, thirsty for the taste of your lips. It took everything in me to not to let you see how much you hurt me. That if you must or by chance you did see me hurting with anger and sadness, I wanted you to see it wasn’t because of you but the homesickness I always felt once in a while when the tides are fuller or because of my unconceived child slowly leaving my body or because someone, somewhere was hurting and I couldn’t do anything about it.

Of course I slipped, like any human does. There were times when I got drunk and kissed you or if I remember correctly, I became so ruthless that you left the party without a word, a goodbye. Or that one time, when I refused to even say hello. Otherwise, I was good at pretending to be just fine. I remember how quickly we went back to become the perfect lab partners we were a year ago. I went on as if you and I never happened; like as if you never mattered that much.

But today, I decided to open up the room you left in hurry. There are spider webs all over the wall and layers of dust everywhere.Today, I told myself I am ready to clean the mess you left. I am ready to flood the room with my tears if they hadn’t dried up already after being held in every time they’d wanted to rain before. Today, I collect the pieces you left scattered and today, I want to put everything together. Some pieces still have sharp edges, the memories pinch me as if it was just yesterday, like our kiss under the full moon. And by deciding to finally mourn for the heart you left broken, I hope that I am on my way to healing, that I will be able to finally let go of your grasp, fully.

Sweet Talk.

Validate me with your sweet talk. Compliment on how my curls are working for me, each strand spreading out across my chest. Comment on my black dress hugging my body and its delicate cream flower patterns. On my red lips and my dangling golden leaved earrings. On how they make you feel, every inch of my skin, as my cold winter hands, slips into yours.

Lie to me on how you’ve never met anyone else, who would laugh with you in your jokes – on death, pain and sickness. Who could discuss with you on whether darkness is absence of the light or shadow is the darkest dark there is. On whether electron behaves like a particle or a wave (it behaves as both duh!). On the dominant genes you have (tallness, and curly hair are dominant by the way; not sure about your goofy smile).

Whisper to me how I excite you just by my laugh. How you can’t wait to dig inside of me, deeper than the darkest ocean. Explore every inch of my skin, vaster than the infinite universe. Love me like no man has ever done, nor will they ever do.

Validate me with your sweet talk.

For tonight, I will drink every word from your mouth as if they were sips of elixir I need to survive. I will savor your every move, from your hands to your eyes, undressing me inside-out. On this cold lonely night when there is a fire burning inside of me, of anger and guilt and hatred, I will take anything you give. Because right now,  for me, five seconds of the superficial bliss is better than spending a night full of self loathe.

#angerpost

 

Timeline.

Thirteen and half years old me wanted to travel around the world and write. She wanted to be a single mother by the time she was 30, she didn’t care if she ended up being alone. She wanted to fix the climate change. She wanted to stop global warming and prevent the earth from being destroyed by humans. She wanted to know what happiness felt like.

Sixteen and half years old me wanted to preserve the endangered wildlife, the tigers and the lions, the snow leopards and the elephants. She wanted to go to Africa and learn about chimpanzees and lions. She wanted to go to Siberia to look at the birds during summer. She dreamed of having adventures of a lifetime.

Nineteen and half years old me got her first heartbreak by an almost best friend who ghosted her when she was far away from home, sick. By that time, she’d wanted to save the world – prevent wars and abdicate hunger. She wanted to be a wanderer, roaming around aimlessly at times. She’d started doubting if happiness even existed.

Twenty two and half years old me realized she was afraid of being alone and single. That when she was alone, she almost gave up because she was not ready to adult yet. She also decided that motherhood is not for her. She didn’t want her children to know the pain of losing a mother. “The more people you know, the more pain you get” became her philosophy. So, she shut herself off and pushed people away only to realize her solitude acts as venom. She thought that happiness isn’t worth it at all.

Twenty five and half years old me wants to travel the world again. And write. And learn. And experience it all over again. She wants to be a mother, and isn’t scared about being  single. She is ready to be a single mother before she crosses thirty three; because, otherwise, complications. She is finally sorted in her life. She has friends who stood with her when she completely fell apart. She knows what she wants to do in her life (i.e, travel and write and be a museum curator if possible) and how to do it (hello master’s degree!). She, for the first time in life, has Plan B if Plan A fails. She is in love and still heartbroken but she knows that at the end of the day, she will be okay. She is finally happy.

Thirteen and half years old me is kinda proud of twenty five and half years old me. Because sooner or later, I will have done everything I’ve wanted to do as a kid. Maybe, I might do them less frequently than I’d hoped and wished for but I will still be reading, writing, traveling and growing. Because I will not have given up on my dreams. Because I will find happiness. And that is enough and will be enough. For now. For always.