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.

If wishes were horses

then I would recede

into nothingness,

a hole in oblivion

into empty-

turn myself outside in,

and forget

and let go.

Alt Ctrl Del,

reboot and rewire,

rewrite you out of my

heart and do away

with whatever it

is that we have 

been and become

and will be.

reclamation is 

a lie we try to believe,

because you cannot

reclaim love, nor

a heart in it. 

I feel her breathe

on you and i

taste kisses that 

are yours or hers or mine-

i can no longer tell,

and i wonder if

you thought of me.

If wishes were horses,

i would be but a speckle 

incapable of 

love and

tears,

of this.

I am so exhausted of thinking. You never understand exactly how much obsession can gnaw away at you until you get caught without an exit strategy. It feels like drowning, like my thoughts will simultaneously cause me to implodeexplode.
I'm tired, and you are selfish. Even in my head. I wish I could exorcise myself.

"love like ours is never fixed"

i crumble and
shatter and fall
to pieces as

you
move away and
move on
and ask me
(quite nicely)
if i am okay

your manners
impeccable-
and i fall
again and
hope against hope
against hope

but never am
i right, nor
do you ever stay
beyond formalities,
beyond placating
your  conscience

while i
cling on to
shreds of what
you will give
(or take from)
me

and

i crumble and
shatter and fall
to pieces

you were always charming
i was always foolish

run

We run from love,

run-

as the vines of fear

and reluctance thrive in

and creep up

our hearts and

cripple and maim love,

coils of hesitance choking

willingness,

because love is cruel and

hearts difficult to mend.

Better then, so much easier

to not love altogether than

go through  excruciating agony

on account of unloving.

Of undoing what was,

dismantling

what-could-have-been,

forgetting maybes

and dousing flames in hearts that

burn and break

with freezing reality

checks that leave

nothing.

They tell us that love

is all conquering,

forgetting the

pillage and pain that

love (or lack thereof)

renders on the soul.

Forgetting

that conquest is never

calm, nor is it ever peaceful.

When victory is proclaimed

there are casualties aplenty.

Out-of-Body

They tell me I am

stepping beyond limits

again-

crossing lines that

I, possessing Womb and

Breasts and Hips and Vagina (!),

have no right loitering close to.

And yet, the audacity.

That I am a woman,

a woman and a Muslim,

 and because

“We don’t do that”

and

“We aren’t like them”

I become 'We'.

Without consent,

without inquiry about

selves that live within me-

Instead, the selves

I must mould myself into

are outside,

suppressing and stifling

my lovingly crafted universe,

preparing it for Propriety

and Culture and Expectations

and Womanhood-

surely, I should know my true place?

What does it mean to be

born the “weaker” sex?

When the adjective sticks

and stubbornly refuses to

washout-

 like that stain on

your favourite white shirt

that never quite disappears,

and you scrub away until

the fabric is worn, until it is torn-

but the stain,

the stain is resilient,

mocking  you.

That my strength,

my will and my

identity inconsequential,

that I am daughter and sister,

then I am wife and  mother,

but I always belong to others-

Because

god forbid I blaspheme

and declare Autonomy,

declare that I am Human,

proclaim my personhood-

equilibrium as ‘we’ know it

will shatter and

the world collapse.

When your moral universe

thrives at the expense of mine,

and I watch as you plunder.

This is what out-of-body feels like-

 asphyxiation and

slowly descent into death.

Turkey Sandwich

You show up in my memory arbitrarily- that being your one constant. You left on a whim, and even thoughts of you are selfish in their disruptions. How can I explain the sudden nostalgia that fills me when the turkey sandwich in front of me reminds me of the near daily ritual we'd go through. Thousands of miles between and a lack of each other's presence giving rise to the strange comfort of knowing your life, your habits, your food. Things I should have, but didn't, take for granted.
And now a sandwich is enough to throw me off, to cause what feels like an invasion of the walls I have so carefully built.

Wisdom from Sloane Crosley

"If you have to ask someone to change, to tell you they love you, to bring wine to dinner, to call you when they land, you can’t afford to be with them"

Nearly 9.

Your absence is a void that becomes bigger and bigger with every passing year. I have often sat through conversations with friends talking about how much they are like one of their parents, how much they see themselves in their mother or their father. I have listened, aware that even though you were gone before I could find out how alike we were, you were the one I took after in ways both good and bad. I usually don't know how to contribute to those conversations.
I write tributes to you every year, and if not those, then think of that night you never came back home, but instead went to chacha's loaded in the back of an ambulance. On to wherever we're supposed to go after we cease to exist in this life. I remember the last time I saw your face, wondering how the most powerful force in my young life could have been reduced to this. The way I couldn't quite understand your love for me in all the glory of my teenage awkwardness. I still don't know if I cried more over losing you, or because of the disbelief that you could even be lost.
I never felt the lack of a father more until I came to college, because everything has been an opportunity for a missed conversation, possibilities that could have been but were struck down by the simple fact that we have been worlds apart for nearly a decade now. Walking into your office is both painful and a relief. I still expect to find you sitting behind your big desk, your laughter filling every corner of the room. But you only exist in the books you have left behind- and that's how I reach you, knowing you and I are the same in so many ways. Knowing that everything about me, from my academic leanings to my humor, have been given to me by you. Even our disagreements were those that can only arise between two people who are so similar that it forces them to see their own flaws.
The heart ache has dulled over time, but I'm not quite sure how long the damned thing will take to heal completely. It probably never will. I wonder if you leaving behind so much of yourself in me is what contributes to this feeling of being but never quite belonging. I color in what I can, but something fundamental is always, always absent, and all I can do is wistfully try to recreate you through memories that can't even mimic the complexity of your existence. After all, teenagers are notorious for all angst and no depth- and I lost you when I was nearing the prime of my angst. But I am grateful that you were unforgettable in so many ways, not just for me but for everyone who knew you. What I found embarrassing as a child has become a source of comfort and pride.
Children are silly in that they march to the beat of their own drum, but expect to fit in all the same. I sometimes wondered why my Baba couldn't be like my friends' dads. Younger, aloof, quiet, not talking to their children's friends because they were, after all, children, and inherently of no value. You refused to be that kind of father, and for that I am now grateful. I couldn't have remembered you as well as I do without memories of you having an in-depth conversation about cricket with a 6 year old, of sending our friends into peals of laughter and of plotting with me repeatedly as to how we could get kittens into the house without Mama finding out. I remember our excursions to the the book bazaar, and your pride in my first poem.
Part of my faith in God and life after this world comes from a purely selfish reason- I cannot and will not accept that you are gone forever.
So until we meet again. Thank you Baba.

The more I let you in, the more you let me down.

It beats in surrendered corners and
in shreds scattered through the wind and
In ashes that fed the bonfire we lit and
(It was never so bright before)
within us.

An inkling of the cracks,
this is the surface too but
it's just inside, I'm just here, but
it's unknown to you and
you are within me, deeply
as I am outside the world that
is you.

Wait, they don't love you like I love you.

Reach out and extend arms,
inward please, not out,
but no- that's not right-
You can't reach in,
And I can't come out.

2011

"They write of love as if there is nothing else. I smirk in hushed, polite tones. At the eventuality of these things, at the quick collapse, at the necessary process of making it amount to something. At least we've got pretense."

look back,
deja vu and recollections
of having seen this before
and often.

kairosclerosis

kairosclerosis

n. the moment you realize that you’re currently happy—consciously trying to savor the feeling—which prompts your intellect to identify it, pick it apart and put it in context, where it will slowly dissolve until it’s little more than an aftertaste.

 kairosclerosis,
every moment with you
was kairoscelrosis.
 
do you remember that night
that day,
or even that moment,
a fraction of a second
when you told me
that forever couldn't 
describe how long you
wanted to be with me?

maybe, maybe i
constructed that,
i constructed the real,
and not-so-real
the carefully painted greys
that i am now living
and dying simultaneously
as i live out this love
on my own.

how many sorrows should
i pen?
i am curled up into myself
curled up in memories
curled up in nothingness
and i am edging out of your mind
the more i draw myself in,
exhale to make space
in my stomach,
i cannot make way
in my head
i cannot empty it of you


 

The Dictionary of Obscure Sorrows

liberosis

n. the desire to care less about things—to loosen your grip on your life, to stop glancing behind you every few steps, afraid that someone will snatch it from you before you reach the end zone—rather to hold your life loosely and playfully, like a volleyball, keeping it in the air, with only quick fleeting interventions, bouncing freely in the hands of trusted friends, always in play.

  nodus tollens
 n. the realization that the plot of your life doesn’t make sense to you anymore—that although you thought you were following the arc of the story, you keep finding yourself immersed in passages you don’t understand, that don’t even seem to belong in the same genre—which requires you to go back and reread the chapters you had originally skimmed to get to the good parts, only to learn that all along you were supposed to choose your own adventure.
 nighthawk
n. a recurring thought that only seems to strike you late at night—an overdue task, a nagging guilt, a looming and shapeless future—that circles high overhead during the day, that pecks at the back of your mind while you try to sleep, that you can successfully ignore for weeks, only to feel its presence hovering outside the window, waiting for you to finish your coffee, passing the time by quietly building a nest.
 adronitis

n. frustration with how long it takes to get to know someone—spending the first few weeks chatting in their psychological entryway, with each subsequent conversation like entering a different anteroom, each a little closer to the center of the house—wishing instead that you could start there and work your way out, exchanging your deepest secrets first, before easing into casualness, until you’ve built up enough mystery over the years to ask them where they’re from, and what they do for a living.

adomania 

 n. the sense that the future is arriving ahead of schedule, that all those years with fantastical names like ‘2013’ are bursting from their hypothetical cages into the arena of the present, furiously bucking the grip of your expectations while you lean and slip in your saddle, one hand reaching for reins, the other waving up high like a schoolkid who finally knows the answer to the question.

tilt shift

n. a phenomenon in which your lived experience seems oddly inconsequential once you put it down on paper, which turns an epic tragicomedy into a sequence of figures on a model train set, assembled in their tiny classrooms and workplaces, wandering along their own cautious and well-trodden paths—peaceable, generic and out of focus.

the bends

n. frustration that you’re not enjoying an experience as much as you should, even something you’ve worked for years to attain, which prompts you to plug in various thought combinations to try for anything more than static emotional blankness, as if your heart had been accidentally demagnetized by a surge of expectations.