Stillness. If there was one word to describe the bottomless well of whatever it is that keeps washing over me, that would be the one I'd use. An inability and/or unwillingness to move, an attempt to block out all stimuli that give the sense of time passing, of things evolving, of life going on. An anger that I cannot stop any of it, and then my own resistance to time and life- Sitting, sitting, sitting for hours on end with palms tingling and flesh crawling and heart/stomach/head aching. Angst when the door opens, when an innocent question is taken as a taunt 'can't you see I'm busy'- but with what? What are you busy with?

Then anger and evasion.

How to explain that I am busy with nothingness, that I am trying to will stillness all around me so I no longer feel, so that all this (whatever this is)  ceases to register and I am numb and no longer caring and the tingling in my palms is no more.

you thinked of me

"I used to fantasise about a conversation we never had in which she said: Darling, I'm overstretched and this is what my work diary looks like, and these are the uncertainties I have to factor in. Would you mind if we kept our plans tentative? I'll let you know as soon as I can't make it. The dream I imagined would fill me with love. In the daydream, I felt wanted, cared about, I felt thought of. Once I met Marcy for lunch in London - this was before I started seeing Emily. Marcy was visiting on business. She had brought Josie with her, who was four at the time, and in fact I had arranged a babysitter so that Marcy could go to her meetings. I arrived with a present for Josie, a toy giraffe, giraffes being something of an obsession of hers. When she took the toy, this child of four said, with her soft brown eyes looking straight into mine and in a voice containing a tiny element of surprise that almost broke my heart, You thinked of me. The daydream I used to have was one in which I felt thought of by Emily. Life is short, as the old saw goes, and there is so little time on this earth, none of it, not one minute, ever to be recovered, the years of the locust restored not here if anywhere, lost time never to be found, time so dear that the respect for another's time must be the very beginning of respect, so that if a lover can't give you that first respect then...well."
From In the Light of What We Know by Zia Haider Rehman.

Fall of Junior year, post Economic Development at Hampshire. I remember driving back to school with about four other girls in the car, but no one whom I’d be comfortable shedding tears in front of. If you knew me even a little bit, which I sometimes doubt if you do- because you always loved, only ever learnt to love, carefully sculpted versions of me that fit neatly into your imagination of the idea of I, you would know that I hated, hate, being vulnerable. That I had let down certain walls with you in the blind hope that you would not violate what was behind them. I was, of course, mistaken. I’m still hoping, and therein lies my naivety (although I doubt it can be called that now, after all this time, and my own obtuseness.

That day we had an argument, and like most of ours, it was stupid. You told me you didn’t enjoy talking to me anymore, that it felt like a burden, that you wanted this to end. It wasn’t the first time you had said this, and it wasn’t the last time you would. I remember breaking down in the car, and I remember that no one knew what to do- what could they have done? Hand me a tissue and say “There, there, it’ll be fine”? How do you respond to ugly, uncontrolled emotion from someone who is normally so composed?

So they let me be. A pat here and there, but they left me alone. They never brought it up again, and whenever I revisit the incident in my mind, I am grateful for their understanding, for not asking. 

I got home and called you, that was the day I ran up a massive phone bill- which you paid for. $3 dollars a minute for a conversation where I was begging you to rethink, and we know that begging is a torturous, long winded process. A hundred and eighty dollars, eighteen thousand rupees, and God knows how many dirhams. And I suppose it was a transaction we made to absolve you of the guilt of my humiliation, the unnecessary pain you caused me time and again. 

Oh, love makes fool of all of us. 

Even now, you make me buckle down in front of my own demons.

They make a desolation and call it peace.-

Agha Shahid Ali

Note to self (and anyone else who needs it)

Know that you are blessed, loved, and cherished. Learn to see and recognize the beauty around you, instead of dwelling in the past and living with regrets and remorse- you did what you could, and there's nothing more left to be done. Forgive yourself. It's okay to lose it sometimes.
 It's okay (more than okay) to love wholeheartedly and unselfishly, because it shows you have the capacity to give and care beyond measure, and understand that the ability to love unconditionally is a blessing. Those who do not let themselves, those who are incapable of it, are losing out on a kind of beauty that lights up the entirety of someone's universe. Leave hoping that those you loved with everything you had will remember you fondly. Pray that they find their way, and that you find yours.
Keep telling yourself to let go until you convince yourself to actually do it. Until you wake up one day to realize you really have.
Realize that better things await you, that you cannot hold yourself accountable, and that, as the cliche goes, if something has to be a part of your life, it will find its way to you no matter what. But please understand that some doors are better left closed, because that's the only way you will be able to heal.

Let us forget with generosity those who cannot love us.- Pablo Neruda

And if love was

the last mountain left

to conquer,

then here is 

my admittance of 

defeat,

because we

are nothing,

as if we never

were.

Alt.

Ctrl.

Del.

Spend every moment consciously putting on an air of nonchalance and carefully practised joie de vivre. live in perpetual fear of the sense of failure that threatens to fill you should anyone find out that this deliberately cultivated devil-may-care-ness is truly the most fragile thing about you. that it's all in the interests of recognizing that no one wants to hear about your failed love story any more a year later, not even the object of all your unrelenting, self-effacing, single minded, heart-mind-body-soul consuming love. realize that you have not just beat the proverbial dead horse, but dragged it around in hopes that one fine day it'll suddenly sit up again and your heart will mend. act like it doesn't matter that the sting of what-was-supposed-to-be an anniversary hits you again and again, act like you don't remember what he said and did on this particular date at that particular time when he left you.

laugh it off now because it seems like the graceful thing to do, and what are you if not graceful about these things? laugh it off as your friends tell you he doesn't deserve you, that he wasn't ever worth it. that no one who loves you will put you through that kind of hell. laugh it all off, hear yourself change the topic because fuck your life if he was (or rather wasn't) all of those things, then why do you still talk/think/dream about him? 

go back repeatedly to the moment when you sat in front of your shrink and cried before words came out of your mouth, and cried for an hour, and the second of your 9-free-appointments was when you actually began your story. go back to those mornings when you would walk out of counselling services feeling hopeful maybe for a day until your resolve crumbled. when on some days you felt like you were living only because there were too many people who loved you and you couldn't let them down. notice you still feel like that a lot of the time, and then remember his disdain for you when you told him that all you wanted was to wake up next to him for the rest of your life. big mistake. he took your earnest love for lack of ambition.  

and now? even now, letting go is not what you've done, not what you're doing. if there are words for this, for what you are doing, you'd like to know them. how do you articulate the deep, cloud-like sadness that engulfs you, when you have to make sure your face doesn't betray any sign of what is going on in your head? how do you stem the grief that comes from having tried it all, and giving up because there is nothing left to say or do beyond whatever you did? how do you move on from living a life where everyday is washing over you, and it's all the same. here's a secret: even when you've convinced yourself that it wasn't because you weren't good enough, it doesn't matter. nothing cuts deeper than refraining from sending a message because an automatic light goes off in your head and again and again and again it flashes "what's the point?"

laugh at yourself when people tell you you're mature, wise beyond your years, when you hear those platitudes as you impart your wisdom about their failed romances. laugh, because you can't tell them you wouldn't wish your broken heart on anyone. because no one is supposed to know it's still as broken as it was that day when he walked away from you.

laugh because there are bigger problems in the world, but you, you are stuck on the only problem that matters to you: him. 

poem # 843402263107

This is the one
where i say i love you
for the millionth time
when inside me
there is no more
left to be broken,
when i am tired,
so tired

It makes me wonder
whether i would have
been worse off
had we held hands
more often,
had i been able to
curl up against you
as much as i wanted,
needed,
instead of cursing at
the continents and oceans
between us and
thinking up novel ways
to prove that
We were and that
i did not imagine you and
Us,especially now that
you are quite decisively
 just you
and i am making the
aching, heartbreaking
journey towards
i.