I find my God in broken characters and tattered books. My prayer is the hour before sunrise when I am bleary-eyed and all I can do is read one more page of this really good book. I worship all those who have been able to pen what I have wanted to say. I bow down to the way people string words together because quite frankly, I don’t know how to use words. And this is my religion. 

Blanche

There’s a wall that surrounds me. It’s too white sometimes. I can see my shadow when I face it. A black outline of my physical scars. It has started to define me. I have stared at it far too often. If you ask me to close my eyes, I can tell you precisely where my veins bulge. I can tell you how my skin folds when I move my muscles. I can tell you where each scar begins and ends, where each mole is. I have studied my body that closely.

If you give me more time, I may even be able to tell you how fast my blood flows.

But what I don’t know is my soul. I sit in a desert of solitude. I see the untamed waves of thoughts crash into the shore. I see them beg for acknowledgement. But I turn my back and walk away. I am too scared, you see. Terrified of the profound depravity I may possess. I have years worth of time. People ask for longer days, but my days? They’re endless. And yet, I am never done reading my silhouette. 

Heart

Here, could you hold this for a second? People tell me it’s my heart. Lately, I have been disagreeing. 

You see, I always viewed heart as this perfect shaped red object that could hold the entire universe. I thought of it as the place that refused to give up. The sanctuary that held all the truths. It’s been my escape for years. I would walk into it and forget the world around me. I would daydream and blame it on the heart. I would walk through its chambers and leave my feelings there. Right atrium, for my deepest sorrows. For it is the tiniest of them all. It was my way of limiting my grief. Right ventricle, for my dreams. To dream big for I refuse to anything but. Left ventricle, for my hopes. For it is the largest chamber and hope belongs there more than anywhere else. And right atrium, for my love. For I don’t have much to give. 

But you see, lately, it has all turned into this one giant mansion of chaos. I walk into it, trying to organize my emotions into chambers. I want to pick and choose where everything should go. But I can’t. 

So, could you just hold it for a moment while I fix my arteries and veins? They are mixing all my blood. I can’t breathe, you see. My heart is killing me.

Breathe easy.

Breathe easy. Take a second and appreciate your breath. Just for a few moments, think of the path your breath takes. Think of the way you inhale Oxygen. Think of the way it’s diffused through your cells. Think of the way it travels to every part of your body. This one breath, these Oxygen atoms-they know your body better than you. 

Can you fathom that? Can you fathom the beauty of this? Something so small. Something so negligible. Something so minute. It has the power to know you better than yourself. 

I just. It’s a thought I need a life time processing. Just wow. 

So if you feel stressed, think about this. Take a second to think about the depth of this simple action that happens involuntarily and yet controls your life (literally).

And then think about what you are doing. What you are living for. Why is it, what is the reason, that you want to keep living? Why are you letting something so small hold such immense power over you? Because to give something so small such profound power, you need a reason. Is it the fear of unknown? Or the will to survive?

Talk to yourself. Think of the reason why you will not cease to exist. Take that reason and become it. 

He is the warm jacket on a cold winter night walk. He is the mindless bantering. He is the bizarre video games, the ruthless murder of zombies in Call of Duty. He is the annoying interruptions right at the climax of a really good book. He is the empty pantry and countless cups lying around the house. He is the arguments at four am about existence of dragons. He is the same t-shirt for a week. He is the awful guitar notes and off-tune bathroom singing. He is the frustrated math problems and the intelligent scientific queries. He is the laughter when everything seems to be falling apart. He is the reason you know everything about Manchester United. He is the constant reminder to breathe easy. He is also the push to work harder. He is the chalked line in the car dividing the backseat into your area and my area. He is the coffee sessions and philosophical thoughts voiced at one am. He is the never ending Scrabble games. He is road trips spent playing “I Spy.” He is the lame knock-knock jokes. He is the childhood spent playing street Cricket. He is the first concert. He is the angry games of ‘Ludo.’ He is the Whataburger runs at two am. He is the best friend I could ever ask for. He is the brother I am too lucky to have.

Master, you have five minutes of order left. How would you like to spend the three hundred seconds before chaos? What does it mean to have a few breaths until the entire human existence screams your name? I want to know in exact words what it feels like to be you at this moment. Is it how an Oscar nominee feels in the seconds between the envelope is opened and the winner of the award is announced? Or is it the feeling you get right before you die when your entire life flashes in front of you? What is the burden of those seconds? Was Einstein correct in saying that all time is relative? Do these two hundred and fifty seconds bear the weight of seventy-five years of your minds work? Or are they simple the distance between uncooked corn and popcorn? Because if these are the most important seconds of your life then they shouldn't be called something so ordinary. You can change the entire fate of the world in a few seconds and you can warm up tea in a few seconds. How could two things with such different magnitude be measured on the same Richter Scale? Would you compare the speed of the clouds with the viscosity of a flowing river? Both are made of water. Where do you draw the line? Who gets to draw the line? Can I decide what I want to compare? Because if I could, I would compare the depth of these two hundred seconds left to the amount of comfort I feel in my mother's arms. But even then, I have a fair inkling that the latter would win. 

Missing Pieces

I like how when I click to open my Tumblr, it says "Open Missing Pieces."

Like it's all up to me and I am just not trying hard enough. It's nice knowing that I have the power to know myself. To count how many breaths I want to take and take one less just to prove my control. 

You know all the wisdom quotes about knowing yourself being the greatest power? Fuck, it is. It bothers me at times that I can't control the amount of blood that flows through my veins. I can't get up and decide, I feel like 4 pints today. I am less giving, I need my existence to scream the fact.

Do you remember the stupid status thing going around on Facebook a while back? The tbh one? I used to like those statuses. People always told me that I was sweet, nice, kind, etc. And I used to read those and think, how sad is it that so many people know of me but not me. Because I am anything but. I have always been anything but those things. I am filled with bitterness so extreme that sometimes my thoughts shock my core. I live on this awful principle that the world has been unfair to me. I lost my parents fairly young. People keep telling me I have put up with that fairly well. What they don't know is the hate inside me. 

In eleventh grade, my English teacher told me my writing was very raw. It's one of the many reasons I have a lot of respect for her. She hadn't known me for more than a week then. She had just read an essay I wrote. An essay that was sort of fiction. And she had summed up my entire personality in one word based on that. 

I am raw. So raw that if you were to slide your palm over my heart, you'd find thorns of a cactus fluffy. I'm the kind of raw that makes your throat bid your entire life for one drop of water. And when you get that drop? It feels like you're walking on broken glass. It hurts too damned much. 

I am missing way too many pieces of my soul. The reason I would be kind to you is not because it's the right thing to do. It's not because I want a heaven. And it's not because of some sense of morality. I am kind to you because I can't afford you looking at my missing pieces. So if I am nice to you, know this well, I am superficial to you. Because believe me when I say, I am a monster.

All these people in this town are liars. Did you know you could lie with your eyes? If a lie needed words, then the mute would be saints. But the mute here are the loudest liars. They know how to speak lies with their eyes and fingers and every other part of their body better than others. They speak it better than others. Their entire body screams of my sins. Every time they look at me, I take a step closer. I am walking towards believing them. Save me before I lose myself. I believe my feet have grown brains. 

Every time I think of you, my mind starts reeling. My blood starts to waltz when I didn't even know how to dance. My limbs feel like a nebula, they lose all mass when they hear your name. I want to explain my condition to the people around me. I want to tell everyone that I am not insane. That the reason I lose my words when asked about you is because my knowledge of words wouldn't justify the way your lips curve in a half-smile when you find something amusing. How could I use my words to describe the light in your eyes when you look at me? I can't pen the way your eyes talk to me. I am asked to put in words what our silence says for us. Do you see the fault in their absurd request? 

I want to explain my sanity but my voice shakes. I can't say your name without thinking of the way the stars would bow to your existence. I feel small, you see. Inconsequential, infinitesimal, worth nothing more than a grain of sand does in a desert. They ask me to sum up my feelings for you in words. They have lost it. You know the tiny rainbows you see in dried water droplets when sunlight falls on them? I see you in them. Because surely if something so tiny could hold an entire color palette then it must be love. How do you write about love that makes angels weep? You don't. You become it.

Sometimes I look through the window and see a child. A little four year old girl. I don’t know her. She doesn’t know me. I see her kicking a soccer ball around. Sometimes her brother joins her, but usually she’s alone. I just sit by my window and look at her. She looks so precious. I don’t know what gets into me but at that moment, I want to protect her from the world. I know it’s ridiculous. I know I don’t know her. I know it’s not up to me to do anything for her. And yet against all rationales, I want to protect her from what’s out there. I want to protect her from growing up and finding out the beauty of knee scars and slide burns. I want to protect her from getting her dreams crushed. I want to protect her heart from being snatched out of her body and stabbed until it ceases to exist. I want to protect her from finding out that the person she idolized was actually a pervert. I want to protect her from every painful thing in the world. I want to protect her innocence. I want to save her.

So I scream at the universe, don’t you see how fragile she is?

The universe answers, do you not see her tears? She is carved of bones and spirit. She is made of stars. The heavens and hell rage a war over her soul. And yet all you see is her delicacy. 

Do you see this storm raging in my heart? Do you see how my blood whirlpools and sucks your very entity in? How could you then ask me to ride with you on a boat that sails through that whirlpool? Do you think of me as so less of a human that I would lead you to the eye of the storm, oblivious to the fact that there is a storm that exists? 

My heart refuses to separate oxygenated blood from deoxygenated blood. All my arteries and veins are in a mesh. My body is going to kill me. See what you do to me? 

You’ll literally be the death of me.

A Love Letter

Hey you!

You asked me out for coffee and I said no. I think you got offended when I said no. Please let me explain my situation to you. I said no because I am too shy. I said no, not because I don’t like you, but because I am scared of my feelings for you. I am scared of not being good enough. I am scared of doing something embarrassing. I am scared of how you remind me of home; a home I never knew could exist. I say no because I am terrified to take my heart out of that steel cage I buried it in a few decades ago. I am terrified because lately I wear a stupid grin on my face everywhere I go. I think people are starting to notice. It frights the living shit out of me that now my mind aimlessly wanders to you. I would be sitting there in the middle of a test about genetics and instead of thinking about the phenotypic ratio of the peas; I would start thinking about your beautiful smile that reveals your crooked teeth. Damn it. I don’t want to think about the fullness of your lips and how mind-shattering it would be to kiss them while I’m talking to my dad about Obama’s presidency. You are living in every part of my brain and it pains me to think that I have no lucid thought left anymore.

It doesn’t make sense, you see. People say that when two people are in love, they’re good for each other. You are no good for me. I can’t write something without writing about you. I can’t eat without wondering whether you’ve eaten something too. I can’t go to bed without looking at the stars outside, pondering whether there is someone out there who wanted our stars to cross just one damned time. I take a shower and start humming a cheesy love song thinking about you. Shit, see? This is another piece of writing that you have taken over. Don’t you see how you have taken over my life?

It sickens me that my thoughts begin and end with you. My dreams? Let me tell you what a joke they are now. My dreams are promising me that we will have a small house in the suburbs of a big cold city. My dreams tell me that I’ll have a small living room with walls covered with bookshelves. There will be warm fire burning in the fire place. A love seat right in front of it. We will be sitting on that love seat, your arms around me and we will be talking about life. Shit, I don’t even know what’s wrong with me that’s how much of a goner I am.

You know, I used to be able to sit down and write satires full of angst. I used to write fiction. Words would just pour out of my head on a piece of paper and they were filled with rage. The anger in those words could kindle a fire big enough to burn every single forest in this world. But now, I can’t fucking write a piece without mentioning you in it. You know why that scares me? Because I read somewhere that a writer loves you if they write about you. I have not been able to write about anything but you.

You see why I am terrified? Because I might have fallen in love with you.

I struggle all right. The incessant threat of my words to spill out of my eyes never ceases. I have worn my heart on sleeve. They told me I needed to sew it back to its rightful place. I refused. They then told me to put it in a steel cage and bury it along the coast of Normandy. I refused yet again. 

They mocked me for my resilience. I fought the urge to fight back. I fought with all I had a war I couldn’t win. They asked me to bring a jar with me. They then took me to the Sahara desert and asked me to put every single grain of sand in that jar. Would you believe me when I told you I did my best to do so? Well I did. I started with both fists, hoping it would hurry the process. Then as the jar started filling, I used one to put the sand in while the other to level it. I wanted to put in as much as I could in the jar. Then I started choosing just the grains that looked shinier than others. But I just couldn’t put the entire desert in a jar. 

I wanted to ask for another jar. For many other jars. But it wouldn’t have been fair. There was a queue of people behind me, all holding empty jars. They wanted to accomplish what I hadn’t, knowing against all rationales they couldn’t. I wanted to scream. You just can’t put the damn desert in the jar. But would they listen? Would you?

Such is the price of sadness.

You know what sadness is?

It’s knowing pain. The kind of pain that brings you goosebumps when you hear about it.

It’s this evil evil monster that resides inside you. Kind of like a Dementor. It feeds on your wishes, your happiest memories. It brings about your guilt and then soon that is all that resides in you. For a few moments, you doubt your entire existence.

Such is the price of sadness.

Imagine, just for a second, your worst nightmares. Now imagine them in a pile. Now imagine if that is all you see.

Can you live with that feeling? Waking up and realizing that it’s another day you have to get through.

Such is the price of sadness.

There is a blackness that surrounds you. A deep, intense, darkness. Not the kind where you can see the stars and wish upon them. The kind that has no light at the end of its tunnel. Its a tunnel that keeps going on and on forever. You want to escape it. You wish to escape it. But you can’t.  

It’s a horrible feeling.

So horrible that it hurts to exist. So horrible that for a mere fraction, you want out of your skin. But what if you get used to it?

Too many emotions. I feel like I am grappling on to hopeless threads. Threads that will lose their strength with my touch. Threads that are best left untouched and unbroken. I’ve been feeling this way lately, like whatever I touch, I end up breaking. Is it a bunch of minuscule probabilities added into a gargantuan of misery? Sometimes I feel as if my failed digits value more. I don’t know what any of these words mean.

I am thoughtless. I am overflowing with thoughts. My brain is ready to explode but my mouth betrays my brain. Can parts of your body be at odds with each other? Can one part of your body be fighting a battle against the other part? Can one lose a war within self? How do you explain that, though? 

Hi, my name is _____ and I lost to myself. The blood that you see? It’s because my heart didn’t agree with my brain and my mouth raged a war of silence on my brain. 

Grotesque images of pointless words.

I am not even sure why I write anymore. I used to because I thought I could. I used to because this was the only ray of light. But now? I am not so sure.

I have nothing to say. My verbiage reveals only this statement. I have nothing to say and think. My verbose should burn in fires of inferno. But I think, the unnecessity of my words will be chunked out.

I have given up, I deem. 

Listen

It’s one of those nights that sits heavy on your shoulders and coerces you to question your answers. Why do you believe that way? Who gave you the right to form an opinion just yet? Where are you headed? Have you fully paid your debts?

Sometimes I ponder if there is such a thing as a guilt-free conscience. I wonder how much the thoughts of those who have wronged legally, weigh. Is the anchor of their deeds enough to bring their entire ship crumbling down? Or despite weighing thousands of tons, it still floats painlessly? 

I wonder if the darkness has ever felt the need to prove itself. You and I, we keep blaming darkness for what resides within us. We keep associating darkness with unknown, guilt, melancholy. What if light is the real culprit? Should darkness not be praised for following light everywhere? Just think about it, you can bring light into the dark, but never dark into the light. Darkness sits there silently as light breathes into the darkness. It sits there silently as gradually light erodes darkness. It replaces it. It becomes it. It bears silently the burdens of our fingers. It never speaks. And yet, when light betrays us, darkness holds its ground. It cares not for what you may have said or done, it serves its purpose of being dark. That is it. It keeps serving its purpose. 

And really everything does. Light keeps invading darkness. Darkness keeps returning after light. The sky keeps being blue. The sun remains yellow. The grass grows. The waves crash into the ocean and then retreat to crash again. The birds chirp in the morning without failing. The earth keeps spinning and revolving. How true are Newton’s words when he says that an object in motion stays in motion-it never fails to serve its purpose unless or until affected by an outside force.

The entire universe sings its songs. All we have to do is listen.  

On Time

Unspoken words. Silence penetrating every pour of my sour body. I am laughing and crying at the same time. There is a boulder on my shoulder. I need to understand its weight but I can’t seem to find a beginning. I decide to work backwards but I can’t find an end either. It’s a chaos of middle and I need a way out of the center of this massive ubiquity of self. How do I do that though?

I know that I need to carry this boulder with me. I can’t just abandon it somewhere and forget about it. There are things in life that need t be carried along. You just don’t forget to bring water with you when you’re travelling. It’s a necessity that you just can’t rid yourself from.

Time is such a necessity. You just don’t dump memories in an ocean and forget about them. You don’t just put hopes for the future in a cardboard box and bury them, in hopes that rain will decay the paper fabric of the box. You don’t just burn who you are and start afresh. You carry it with you. You pride in it. You learn from it. You write about it. You sing about it. You paint about it. You teach it. You embrace it. But you don’t get rid of it.

Such is the burden of Time. You learn to carry the weight of your past and future in your present.

Absurd

The real absurdity of life lies in the fact that late night hours, when a person is supposed to be sleep, arouse in one the most artistic thoughts.

The absurdity lies in the fact that a person depends on a conversation to spark within self a peculiar desire to create.

The absurdity lies in the fact that words written by another soul on a similar hour in the other corner of the world kindle within one a fire to do something. 

The absurdity lies in the fact that one fights and struggles and tries to survive on a land that never belonged to one.

The absurdity lies in the fact that thousands of years ago someone decided to take what belonged to someone else and to this day no one objects to it.

The absurdity lies in the fact that life depends on the social norm.

No the absurdity lies in none of these things and all of these things. Who is to say what’s absurd and what’s not? How do you make that decision? Is there a council of people merely appointed to differentiate absurdities from the norm?

How absurd is the word absurd? Who decided that absurd shall carry the meaning of absurd?

Wouldn’t it be just incredible to meet such people?

Heck if I had a Tardis, I would gather all the great minds Earth has experienced, and would invite them over for a coffee/tea party. How absurdly awesome that would be?

The Art of Letting Go.

I am tired. Most of the words I write end up in a trash can. My thoughts refuse to unravel. My ideas have all been used. I think I will create something today. I think that after so many days of tormented emptyness, my letters will form words that make sense. But the universe is known for having a sick sense of humor. Every time I try, I fail.

But it’s okay. It’s okay because as I sip my coffee at 2 AM, I am reminded of the countless writers before me who lived such nights. They tried and tried and tried and I don’t even know if I have the right to call myself a writer when I can’t even figure out my own words. 

I read flawed Literature and cry. I read Classics and cry. For the same reason that those who wrote those words cried. My words appear to be on an intergalactic highway that leads to a world far far away. But if they don’t make sense in my world, then there must be a world where they do. And with that in mind, I bid them farewell. For I have known the art of letting go.

Alone

You know what kind of writers are my favorite? The kind who’re able to express their thoughts through everyday things. Like I love those who use metaphors that we can relate to.

It’s like the thing with being alone. You think you’ll never find someone who understands because you feel you’re so twisted and chaotic that it might get tiring for the other person but then all of a sudden you find that person in some aisle at a grocery store buying your favorite cereal or eating Doritos with ketchup. And it’s like someone gets you. You think of the odds and the countless defenses you put up around your heart because you think that certainly no one in this entire world could put up with you but there is.

I mean you honestly believe that everything is at a war with everything else. You try and try to bring peace to one part only to find that every other thing in the entire universe has started a World War. You think you’re doomed to fail. I mean isn’t World Peace part of that Utopian world satirists rage against. But then you find that someone who understands you. Who understands the exact meaning of your “um…like…I mean to say…”  Who reveals you through the silence you’re sharing. It’s just so strange and wonderful that you start believing it’s a dream. 

And maybe it is. Who knows? But in that pandemonium when your world is coming crashing down around you, when your guts are battling each other, when your two hands are holding knives both at your throat; you find that one person who understands you and you know that your problems are far from over but you also realize that it’s nice to know someone who can empathize.

(P.S. These were my thoughts after reading The Truth About Forever by Sarah Dessen)

You know what I recently realized? Books teach you to empathize.

I mean normally you’d hear that someone killed someone and you’re likely to condemn the killer. You’d see it as something black and white. But when you read a book, from the perspective of a killer, you realize that you know maybe the killer was provoked. Not saying that the victim should attack (although idk about this….hmm). But what I am saying is that books make you realize that there are a billion fucked up minds out there and that there are a billion fucked up reasons for doing the fucked up things. And all the fucked up reasons are immersed in a gray cloud. And sometimes that gray cloud is lingering towards the white side of the color palette. And that makes you question your lifelong held morality. It shakes your world. It’s like growing up your entire life thinking that sky is blue but then realizing that the blue is really every color but blue because blue is the only color that light reflects. 

I am rambling now. But sometimes when I read books, I can empathize more with murderers than with people who appear to be like me.

This has been a post. In other news, it’s about to rain. It’s beautiful.

The Words I Write.

I am writing all these letters. These jumbled up squiggly lines on a crumpled piece of paper I found lying on the floor. I am clenching my fist, my nails digging my palm. Frustrated. Annoyed. I am trying, believe me I am. I just can’t get the words out.

They are there. In my brain, my thoughts are there. I just can’t reach them. I know two languages fluently, maybe three. But my words need a language that hasn’t been invented yet. My words need a funnel that will enable them to flow neatly without spilling into nothingness. But where do I find a funnel that channels the abstract? 

Fucking abstract. The vague, the unknown, the blob of mushy gray. I hate it. I despise my lack of creativity. I loathe writers. I hate them for using the words of a known language the way they do. I hate them for appealing to ethos and pathos and logos when my writing is mere bathos. Writing? I wouldn’t even call this piece of shit writing. It’s like the USB cords that secretly get jumbled up at night. I don’t know how to un-do their mess. 

Oscar Wilde says that life is really years defined in chaos. I hate him for saying that. I hate all those who say the truth using lies. Because that is the worst kind of truth. If you feel something, you’re guilty as charged. If you don’t, you’re still guilty. The perfect catch-22. 

Life is a chaos. Everything is a chaos. Is that why we desperately cling on to any conformity or normality we find in ourselves? Because we can’t fucking find our way out of this pandemonium.  

They tell you to live your dreams. They tell you to live. How the fuck are you to live when you can’t even fucking survive? It’s like they’re coercing you to fly high just so they can watch you fall and break your skull. Sadistic creatures. 

So as I sit to type this up, all I can say is, I despise the nature of truth. 

I am cleaning shards of a broken glass. Piece by piece, but they seem to have been spread everywhere. Some more invisible than others. Some sharper than others. Some capable of piercing through my skin and gushing the coursing velvet liquid out. And some merely reflecting the sunshine that falls on them. 

I apologize to the shard that just took my blood. I apologize because I see it is gnawed from the edges. It has been broken. It was a part of something, and now? It just lies there. Helpless and waiting to be thrown away. 

My Poetry

Old melodies, frivolous words, and late night coffee,
Too many books, thoughts, and anchors,
This is poetry for me, my poetry:
Sentences without verbs, 
Sentences with fragments. 
A dirty room, a basket full of laundry, and 
Chipped nails with scraps of blue.
What defines life?
There is only one thing-the constant
Rise and fall of sternum,
As I exhale carbondioxide and inhale oxygen.
This is life in its raw fundamental Self,
Not Art, not Poetry, not Beauty
But human breath-nothing more. 

Crushing Weight of Words

You look at me for consolation. You want me to tell you that things will be okay. That broken hearts can be put together. That the burning sensation will be over soon, just like a slide burn. 

I want to tell you that. Believe me when I say that, dear. I want to tell you that life is not a sticky web of intricate complexities. I want to tell you that good things will happen to you. I want to tell you that the wind that blows lacks humidity and that the day you decide to wear a skirt is the day it won’t rain. 

I want to tell you that you will be recognized for your deeds. That if you truly try for something, you will achieve it. That you will be immensely loved one day by someone. That your brows will never be creased with worries again.

It is today, while writing my last words, that I have realized the crushing weight of words. I always thought that writers were gods, right next to doctors. One heals the physical state of being and the other, the metaphysical. How absurdly did I believe that the two were on war? When all this time, both were making your survival easier.

Dear stranger, I want to tell you too many things. But I am speechless once again. My thoughts are like the starving people of this world. There are just too many to save. How do I give precedence to one over the other? 

You are probably looking for some formula to survive life. If that is the case, this letter will be your biggest disappointment. It does not matter what variables you use, the answer will always be one-death. 

I want to tell you, more than anything, that you will survive death. But you will not. You can accept that as a fact of life. You can delude yourself and neglect it. Or you can fear it. The fact remains uninfluenced by your perception. It never sought anyone’s approval and it prides in not seeking yours.

So why do I write these last words? Ah, alas. That is a good question. Questions, to me, value more than answers. The beautiful art of not knowing and wondering, what could be more intriguing? 

I write this letter to tell you that I empathize. I don’t know you. I don’t know of your feats and errors. But I want you to know that I empathize. I understand that you don’t feel good today. I understand that you are hurt. I understand that you are confused. I understand that you are happy. I understand. 

That is all my friend. I would like to thank you for being the accomplice of my last words. I now bid this world farewell. I will be back soon, who knows in what form. Until then however, it is a goodbye from me. For a goodbye is necessary before we meet again.

Yours truly,

A.

(P.S. This is fiction.)

Take it away from me.

What am I doing? I am quietly bearing my time out. I have nothing left to do. No words to say. No thoughts to think. My mind is a place void of matter. Mind over matter, they say. There is no matter, no mind left.

I remember the days I used to find thoughts while watching the grass grow. Something as mundane as the crumpled paper on the floor enticed within me a desire to think. I used to long for minutes that would allow me to think. My brain craved for some solitude that would help me organize my thoughts.

But now? Now, I have all the time in the world. I am lying on a white bed in an excessively clean ward. And I am devoid of thoughts.

I meet people everyday. I talk to them. Most are nice to me. Some are coerced by their disease into apathy. But I can empathize. If I was going through their life at that age, I would probably be worse. It’s not fair you know. They don’t deserve it. They should be worrying about which prom dress to wear, not which round pill to take.

But life never made that promise, did it? If I could, I would give the rest of my days to them. They probably have a million thoughts when I have none. What life is worth living if it fails to think? No, they should think. They should worry about petty things. They should fall in love. They should wait to wear a white dress and walk down the aisle. They should spend sleepless nights taking care of their infants. They should wipe the tear as they send their children of to college. I would give my breaths for their days. I don’t mind that.

We will not matter.

The constant battle between following-one's-dreams and working-hard-will-lead-to-success baffles me. I am stuck between the two. People are split between the two. Some say that as long as you work hard, you succeed. Others say that if you're following your dreams, you succeed.

Perhaps, their definition of success differs. Comfort v/s Fame? The whole division of those who want to matter and those who want to survive, that John Green redundantly brings up in his novels. I guess those who want comfort, those who deem hard work to be the key are the ones who want to survive this world. While, those who want fame, those who follow their dreams are the ones who want to matter. Of course this is a very general and highly unscientific division of people.

But how true are Green's words when he says that there will come a time when none of us will matter. A time when Shakespeare will be forgotten, not because someone more important came along, but because no one to remember him will exist.

Our cognitive capability deceives us into thinking that the universe was created for us (human beings). Or maybe it's just that we wish to be important. But in reality, we are infinitesimal. We are nothing to the universe. It needs not acknowledge our existence. If a hypervelocity star decides to blow apart the earth into tiny bits and pieces, it shall. It won't stop for us petty human beings. We are inconsequential, or as we so graciously put it-collateral damage. The star won't care if Shakespeare could write in iambic pentameter or if someone inIndia could raise his hand for twenty-six years straight as a form of worship for Shiva. For that star serves the purpose, in that single instant, to destroy the earth.

And yet this is a melancholic thought; that the brilliance of Einstein, the art of Picasso, the music of Beethoven, the leadership of Alexander the Great, the stories of Charles Dickens, the words of Robert Frost, the cat paradox of Schrödinger, will all cease to exist. How narcissistic are we who can never stop pondering about our future when a day will come that we might have not existed at all. We will not matter.

I finally know why. Sometimes I say things without realizing their true meaning. A few months ago, in my college essay, I said that knowledge is power. I now understand why.

Knowledge is power because the lack of it scares us. The unknown is scary. Isn’t that why we fear death and darkness? Because we’re not sure of what we will find there. That is precisely why knowledge is power.

My satire on Tumblr!

Tumblr is a blogging website that has twirled the cyberspace around its fingers. It suffices to be a new method of procrastination-as if we needed another one. But let me assure you, it is much more than a simple blogging website. It’s like Fightclub, you can’t speak of it anywhere besides Tumblr but everyone knows about it. Looks like I just committed a peccadillo but I suppose I can justify my actions under public welfare. I think as I read this, the Tumblr users in this class would either be nodding their heads along with me or shooting daggers at me through their eyes. If you do neither, I will consider myself successful.

The Tumblr community can be neatly stereotyped in a few categories. My favorite category is called Political Correctness Activists. I think they’re definitely pièce de résistance of the entire community. These are the ones who feel the need to debunk everyone in this universe for their misuse of language. You can’t have a normal conversation with them without becoming the bane of their existence. For example, if you say cats are really cute, you will be attacked for making such a definitive statement. I mean, you should have said that “in your personal opinion cats are cute”. Moreover, cuteness is usually associated with appearance, and by calling a cat cute you are being disrespectful to the cat community which shouldn’t merely be judged by how “cute” they are. Saying that a cat is cute is also kind of racist or animalist (if such a thing exists) against other species of animals. Although it is important to avoid aberration in speech, casuistry ideas can’t be applied to every situation. And that is precisely what these people are doing.

Moving on, my second favorite kind of Tumblr users are the Anonymous haters. There’s an option on Tumblr where people can ask you questions without revealing their blog URL’s and let me tell you something about anonymity: it gives people a chance to voice their opinions without it being held against them. Now, usually this malcontent audience is fun to deal with because mainly they chastise you for your opinions. But my favorite part is when the person they’re sending lackluster hate mail to turns into a cantankerous baby. It’s so easy to lose temper and by doing so, the person ends up pandering the anonymous hater’s purpose i.e. to incite a reaction and depredation. The funny thing is though that hate mail is assumed to have a direct relationship with popularity. In some bizarre way, the amount of hate mail you get equates to your fame on Tumblr. So there are people who deliberately make statements that would get them hate mail instead of empathy. I suppose hate mail serves to be a way for hedonism for some.

There’s an unsaid rule on Tumblr that is very similar to the Miranda warning: everything you say can be and will be held against you. It matters not if you acknowledge that your statement was ad hoc to the given situation, it will face an unofficial trial by the Tumblr audience. For instance, if you dare to say that in your opinion Ron Paul is the best republican candidate, expect a mob of people to enlist his flaws for the next five centuries. Keep in mind that people on Tumblr are there to procrastinate and thus lack a life. So arguing back wouldn’t be wise unless of course you have homework to put off. I guess the good thing about this is that it makes you think twice before forming an opinion.

The Tumblr community is very open-minded. All opinions are welcome as long as your opinion coincides with the norm. The moment you deviate, all mellifluous words will be forgotten and you will be put under the limelight until you remand your opinion. Even nepotism wouldn’t work in such scenarios. I guess freedom of speech only works if your speech is not, de facto, free.

You learn a lot from Tumblr, especially terms like “Special Snowflake Complex.” It sounds like a disease but in actuality it’s a fake syndrome where you think you’re a special little snowflake because you think or act differently than others. It’s funny because you will see a lot of Tumblr users making fun of people with the aforementioned condition when they themselves are indeed a victim of this complex. There are also those who claim to not believe in labels and yet have a billion labels typed in their “About Me” section.

Sometimes I feel like Tumblr is a harbinger for generations to come. If so, then we can expect a lot more talking and less doing by the people. Of course, what I describe is bathos of the scene. I am a part of the very community which naturally gives me the right to jab at it.

Mask

It took me four minutes to peel my mask of. I examined the remains of glue hanging from my face as I recounted my performance in my mind. Timing? Perfect. Anxiety? Intense. Silence? Intimidating. Lighting? Daunting. This was followed by the fervid kudos. People inveigle me with their tautology applause. What they believe to be my heyday is in reality my rock bottom.

It surpasses my intellect. This emptiness, that is. I feel like a tree infested with fungi; so hollow and void of real thoughts. The irony of the situation is, however, that I put masks on to make a living. Each persona I wear should be beatitude that fills me up; something that erases nothing. But with each act, I lose myself. I believe I have started to live my performance. And every time I remove my makeup, I remove my own skin.

It’s easier that way, you know. Being someone else, criticizing someone else. That way, you know the ending to your story. It’s the uncertainty that I fear. What is to come? What will be? Oh how very terrifying it is. Why else is it that man fears death and darkness? Unknown is terrifying. Known bodes the mistakes of future. But mystery builds a new infrastructure and sometimes it can have dank foundation. Through my work, I neglect life. I truckle into my persona to avoid confrontation.

I miss people. I crave for friends who’re not two-faced sycophants. I yearn for company that would eliminate the fetid air of my house. I am tired of the prolix silence of my mind. Take this lagniappe away from me. I don’t want it. All these prototypes that I’m asked to follow are piling emptiness on me.

I look in the mirror and see a bête noire. As the crimson color from my eyeliner runs down my cheek, I begin to see myself. I am an incubus that wakes children up from the haven of their beliefs. I am the cold haunting merciless antagonist feeding on greed. I am the despairing forlorn lost beggar pleading for penitence. I see tears in my eyes. I am crying. But over what? For what? Maybe at myself, for becoming what I am today. Or perhaps at what I see from where I stand.

They say self-apathy is the worst. That the one who suffers gargantuan amounts of mental torture finds physical torture mundane. I can vouch for that. All these years. All those ecumenical performances. I was trying to build a life for myself when all I created was a lie.

Home.

I wonder how long it takes to transform a house into a home. How many cups of coffee need to be made before the smell of the paint goes away? How many socks need to lie around to show that it is more than bricks and paint?

It’s weird but I see so many people around me just waiting to, in rather colloquial terms, get the hell out of their homes. It just makes me wonder, do people seriously think that escaping to another place would make life better? True there are some perks of moving to a different place. But in all that glamour also resides raw sadness. It’s not the kind of sadness that you can cry and get over with. It just lives in you. It inhales your oxygen and exhales your carbon dioxide. It stays. You get over it but that’s not the gist of it.

You know the cliché saying, ‘home is where the heart is’? I wonder how many people leave their hearts behind in hopes of escape. Conformity is dangerous. Change is inevitable. But using change to seek happiness, that is not right. It’s kind of like giving up on something to avoid failure. Why face the darkness when another road is illuminated-be it from the light of the train bringing your doom.

Too many metaphors and not enough points.

Three Words.

You know what surprises me? The question asking you to sum yourself up in three words. Three words. From thousands of words, you are to sum up your entire personality in terms of three adjectives. Three adjectives that describe your thoughts, your feelings, your actions, your past, your present and your future. How absurd is that? How do you even answer a question like that? A question that is as open as the universe. I look at myself in the mirror and see so many faces absorbed in one.

I love writing. It's my passion and my escape and my reality and my fantasy. I write to discover. I write to understand. I write to empathize. I write to find peace. I write to create. I write to know myself. I wouldn't say that I can't live without writing but I will say that my soul would die without it.

Do I believe in the soul? That's another facet of me. My beliefs. I am willing to take a leap of faith here. I believe that there is such a thing as soul. There is something that dies within us when we die. Something beyond the activity of our heart. How could there not be? But then the term soul could just be a misnomer for something else. I don't know what. And that brings about another side of me.

I don't know. I don't know things and I am usually okay with saying so. This might be why people who pretend to know everything frustrate me. Because no one can possibly know everything. And the people who pretend otherwise are only deluding themselves. What is so wrong with admitting that you don't know something? Why is the person looked down upon for not knowing something? Now mind you, when I defend those who admit they don't know something, I am not defending ignorance. There is a very fine line between the two and must be acknowledged. And this brings about the side of my that is always wanting to understand things.

I want to know how things work, how people work, how our minds work-metaphorically and physically. Life is limitless. It's no Calculus problem, although my Math teacher would beg to differ. But it is a curious thing to ponder on. How can one even function normally while being unaware of the magnitude of what we don't know? And yet we do. Because the here and now precedes in priorities. And so it should.

You probably don't expect an eighteen year old to talk about mysteries of life over the latest episode of The Vampire Diaries and perhaps you're right in doing so. I do love The Vampire Diaries. And I also love Philosophy. I have a profound respect for books and artists. Science blows my mind away. Music incites a craving in me only to be fulfilled by Mozart or perhaps Beethoven. I secretly want to be a badass agent for something like CIA or maybe go on a hunt for horcuxes. Do something that would change the world someday, you know? And then I think of myself in terms of our universe. It makes me realize how small I am. It is then that I am reminded of my existence as a very small probability and of the fact that the world I live in is infinitesimal in comparison to what's out there. And here I am marveling at my inability to define myself in three words.

Which again brings me back to my question, how do you define such a huge spectrum of oneself in mere three adjectives? Do you begin to invent adjectives that cover the dominant side of yourself? Isn't that unfair, though, to the side that is there but not in the limelight? But is there even such a thing as injustice to oneself? I would apologize for digressing because I tend to do that a lot but then again, isn't that the point of this writing? I just wrote a little over 600 words about myself and I still can't decide on three words. Perhaps I'm a philosophical-teenager-who-wants-to-make-a-difference-in-the-world-while-watching-cheesy-tv-shows-and-listening-to-classical-music-who-also-loves-to-write.

But that's not an adjective.

I don't know what this is.

I refuse to give up.

People tell me over and over again that it’s hopeless. My cause for the fight is pointless. My aim is only achievable in some dream. That what I am working for is an Utopian world. That there is too much distress in the world and I should end my abortive mission. That I am doing is nothing more than chasing clouds. That I might as well try to bottle the ocean. After all, who am I to question the way things are?

“It’s a cold, bitter, world out there son,” they say. “Not worth the trouble. Go home and survive. That’s what we are all doing.”

I say so be it, my friend. So be it. And with that dictum in mind, I keep moving. I refuse to give up my iconoclastic task.

Some say I am stubborn. Some find inspiration in me. And some just laugh at my maudlin nature. But they don’t bother me. I’ll be damned if I take those contumelious words to heart.

My black hood juxtaposes my motives. As I tread down the street, I am ignored. I am nobody. I ensconce myself into the corner of a busy street, hidden from the eyes of people. I hear people bruit about each other. Some waggish stories make me chuckle while some vitiate my belief in humanity. As I move further along, I see the traumatic aftereffects of poverty. I see the internecine anger in the eyes of victims. These victims of theft have been robbed off their soul. I feel sorry for them. After all, soul is the most precious thing to man. And if the soul is modulated with, what has he left?

My maladroit tactics prevent me from doing most things but I am fairly observant. I have no prescience of the future but I can read signs from the portentous history. And what is present but an in medias res of the two?

I’ll be honest though, I doubt myself. I question myself every single day. The saturnalian thoughts in my mind just might destroy me. Some say that having your own thoughts is a touchstone of the wise. But nobody talks about the curse it carries. It has no salubrious effects. In fact it’s a quid pro quo for sanity.

And yet I refuse to give up.