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An owner of dreams that are larger than her talent / Everything here is my original 'work'

"With youth and age brings expectations, but will I be able to defy them? I dream of days when my safety will not overshadow my individuality" / "The lights are on in our minds and illuminating our pages. The words spill out and the beauty shows, tangibly and in poetry."
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A debate of definition

In what manner do I perceive myself and the things in which I partake?

What are my motives? I find my mind and thoughts and tendencies

are not always self-explanatory or clear to even myself and for that

I don’t believe that anyone else should feel obliged to predict anything

that I may do. I apologise before it is wanting,

for I know that I shall err and indeed I genuinely do not want to.

I know what it is to love but I know confusion too,

and I do not know just what I am.

I’m sure I know who exactly I am, but what I am

remains a mystery. I have learnt in recent months that

there is a thin veil between what is true and what you believe to be true

and once you stop believing something is true

and you believe in what you once thought was untrue

it is often hard to tell truth from untruth,

opinion and fact. I very much doubt that anything I say or do appeals to anyone

or at least not to the one that I want it to matter to.

I feel that unrequited love is much to frequent and

that fairness and parity in attraction is a non-existent concept,

far removed from what we believe and experience to be reality.

I know a girl whom I seem to have fallen in love with

and I know another one that I misjudged. There are many people

that I have been wrong about in my life.

And how can one be right about anybody, really?

You can’t really believe any words that anybody says

or even anything you see before you. Your lenses are

and will eternally be tainted by your experience.

You are triggered by that which I feel apathetic towards.

I come into a rage at something you’re not even certain the meaning of.

You laugh at a certain joke with such fervency when I misunderstand it.

We know nothing of one another and yet we devote our lives

to gaining acceptance from those who don’t know us fully.

Please remember my love for you in hindsight if you cannot see it now.

I will never have a high school romance.

If fear and love are life’s great motivators, then

which one is stronger? For they both push and pull me

all the day long. I yearn for the touch of her hands on my skin

and simple lingering of any sort of contact.

This does not exist in a state that is pan-cardiac.

It is just enough to be defining.

more than a disposition, though

Again and again and again I find myself

convinced that somehow I can be a better person.

And of course I know that such a thing is, indeed,

remotely possible. I do not, however, have

enough courage in my convictions to become one.

Here I shall stay, alone and so at home and unhappy about it

because of the way I’ve wrought the life around me.

I do give consideration to my person and

to the way I give myself to those around me but

I do believe that I am a hopeless case

and there will be no end to my eternal erring. 

I’m not the most courageous person there is in many respects, and I feel afraid to tell her the way I feel about her, and that is one of my weaknesses, though it is understandable. What I’ve realised is that I do definitely want her to know the truth about my love for her, but I don’t want to be the one who has to gather up the courage and tell her. In fact, I’d would much rather her find out accidentally and me have to tell her.

I’m definitely afraid of rejection, but not only rejection. I’m also afraid of ruining the closest thing to romance I have with her right now, which is friendship.

again? again.

I wish that I could liquefy and bottle the regret I feel after every time I do this,

and keep the bottle in my room,

tucked under my sheets or behind some books on my shelf,

so comfortably inconspicuous and unimportant,

but simultaneously more important than can be imagined,

so that every time I had the urge or awful inspiration

to make this mistake once more,

I could take a little sip and realise

that I couldn’t conveniently forget all the wounds that I’ve dealt my soul,

and carve another in.

nameless

I love her, I love her, I love her. I love her more than I love myself. I love her and I want her to love me too. Her first name is my middle name and I beg for that to be a sign of something because I need hope that she and I are going to be bound together in a beauty and passion that only romance allows. I dismiss the platonic! I declare my secret! Or, I will one day. For now, it remains closeted. Oh, I love you, I love you, I love you. I love you and your middle name: Grace. And goodness gracious you bring me happiness and pain all at once! You touch me every now and then, inadvertently or intentionally (I hope) and  it gives me more pleasure than the rest of the day can conjure up. I will cry for you and lie for us. I beg for your dishonesty, I want to know that you have hidden a secret love for me, for I could not bear your apathy. Your eyes shone this morning when I looked at you for the first time in this particular day, and I wonder if you noticed the pure adoration in my gaze upon your soft skin and beautiful eyes and smile that can produce the loveliest laugh I have ever encountered. Do not fear me as I fear your rejection of me. I will hold you close and tell you all this, eventually, my love. But first I must savour every chance I get to see you and love you from afar and reach out my arms and feel my hand upon your hands and upon your arms or your shoulders or you legs…or your face…or your –

But I long to kiss your lips and feel you kiss me back and hear your giggle again and again in excitement  for all that pent up love that a kiss may let out. Please, hide something from me. If you have nothing to hide, if you have said all you with to say to me I will know not how to spend my days animated and happy from this point on wards. I am in love with an impossibility, or an improbability and a fantasy. But most of all, I am in love with you.

Peace and fear

Fear and all of its pains can be surmounted, in preference for its opposite, which duality would have you know is ‘courage’ but I will have you know is peace. Tantalising fear, with is poisoned talons and its ability to cause collisions and confusions and deep and frustrating sadness or guilt (or even both!) is more anathema to peace than it is to any sort or sense of courage. Courage and fear do not exist in a state of mutual exclusivity, I can assure you, yet days of war and terror - these instances bereft of peace - are true inspirations for absolute fear. 

"No, it hadn’t always been. She was still trying to pick up the pieces of what was her life for a ‎long time. She hadn’t had the easiest of times the same way most other people had, however, ‎she hadn’t had it as bad as a lot of other people had either. Perhaps a lot of the problems that she ‎had had originated from selfishness, but once they festered and manifested themselves, they ‎became so much more than that: a disease that seemed out of control, and very well could have ‎been. The way she had thought originally, when such ways of thinking seemed utterly ‎harmless, had spiralled out of control, and in the end her reasonings did not equate to what they ‎originally had, or to logic or to sense.‎"
by Excerpt 13

The reality of gravity

You can’t join the clouds, unfortunately. You have to stay right here, on Earth. Aeroplanes don’t count, you know. Why not? Because in an aeroplane, you are separated from the clouds by about ten centimetres of glass, for a start. You can’t feel the clouds or even  properly see the clouds. You can’t taste them either. Taste them? They taste wonderful. They taste like the freshest water you could ever imagine.  How could I know? Because I’ve tasted them. I’ve tasted clouds. No, I’ve never used cannabis. Or LSD. No, no, none of that! Are drugs the only passage to the impossible, in your mind? Is that why you take so many? I prefer imagination. So, I haven’t really tasted clouds? Well, it depends. Are you familiar with post-modernism? Then perhaps I have. Its up for debate.

I stood beside a cloud just yesterday. I stood on a look out, thinking I was surrounded by fog, but when I stared into the distance in this great valley over which I stood, I realised that the fog had visible edges. This cloud was so low – it had come to visit the mortals that it had entranced. It didn’t come very close, or at least not as close as I would have liked, and the people with which I was with did not want to stay for very much longer, but perhaps with a little more time it would have been more friendly and I could have embraced it and it me, before passing away into oblivion.

I don’t really know how clouds are formed, but I’m sure the scientist that could tell you wouldn’t really know either. Or at least, he or she could not tell you how they were born. The scientific principles and processes that hypothetical Professor Scientist could explain to you are little more than jargon  they don’t explain very much at all. If you want to know how a cloud is formed, perhaps you should go and see an artist, and ask them to tell you, because artists understand a lot more than scientists. The practical things are what scientists concern themselves with, and they are very good for that. But clouds are a little to ethereal for that. That’s why you require an artist to help you understand the origins of each and every cloud: they concern themselves with Eternity.

I may never know exactly why that cloud decided to join us on the lookout that day, but I’m sure he or she (I wasn’t quite sure which the cloud was) had something to tell me. I’m sorry that I never heard what it was. Or perhaps I have heard, and it simply hasn’t resonated just yet. Maybe I’ve already figured it out, but I wasn’t aware of it at the time. Clouds like riddles, or so I’ve heard; maybe that one left a riddle behind that the subconscious of my psyche is working on right now.

The American Dictatorship

I don’t remember the days when cocaine was a useful remedy

And a bit of added sugar was ice-cold sunshine.

Innocence lost is sad – but to be born into its absence!

And I cannot picture the little boy who had to get used to his tap water,

Who smells toxicity for breakfast.

America, can you?

Alone in your transcendence you were, America.

You achieved democracy and martyrdom

All at once. And oh, the pain you’ve brought.

And platforms few I struggle to address congress in my youth

And ask: do you believe that India has a soul, as well as you?

Surely your monopoly is not a game.

You sold poison in a bottle labelled ‘fertility’: was that a funny joke?

You did say, ‘have a Coke and smile’, I suppose.

But isn’t this treason? You are the eagle: a beacon of freedom to all!

Or so you say, and then you take away the right to live.

Much pride, little sense of irony, and no humanity.

But you will never carry this burden, America.

That has been left to the little children: brown skinned,

One of a family business patented ‘Slavery’,

Where a white skinned stranger cracks the whip.

History is sick and cyclical, America.

What was that war for? Another source

Of self-righteousness? Is that all, America?

But there is no righteousness where a child without water to drink

Brings a man in a business suit heavy pockets,

Instead of a heavy heart. Chief executive officers are

Chief executioners, murderers and criminals

Who are acquitted every day for the love of soft drink.

And what about the family of eight who will be sacrificed,

So that you can make your next billion, America?

The sense of pride must be immense to be the world’s number one,

Because fame and fortune is a virtue in this modern world.

But does that pride run out, at the sight of a thirsty toddler,

Who could not be described as so, but for the drought you’ve caused?

When you decided, America, that you were

Worth more than all the water in India,

What measure did you use? You knew that

The loyalty you don’t deserve would be preserved,

Forevermore – you are America’s real choice, after all.

But what terrible danger there is when those in power have it,

Absolutely, and entirely without accountability.

Your ammunition is yourself;

Your target someone only you appear to see.

Words to deaf ears

Morality’s worth is placed entirely upon its place as a catalyst, it seems.

All the boycotts and embargoes, blockades; all the

Stand-still days of total chaos and absolute peace…

It’s non existent,

In this life and time. I fear for our humanity, as

The life of a life-liver and a life-giver diminishes and meanwhile

The time for pleasure comes sooner: a taste so sweet

And so refreshing, worth more than an entire life, so bitter.

And why is it so easy to deny India freedom?

India free from the Man named West someday is

Entirely a fantastical thought, bereft of possibility.

But Coca-Cola does demand a certain loyalty called addiction

And a deafness that only you can alleviate from yourself,

Dear Everyman. The dollar, or Rupee: a breath of life

To a god of war, and you are the rooted tree, never told apart

From every other. Do you realise, average Joe, that you are being used,

Just as much as the average Aarav from next door?

But next door is a different world, and not your own.

Is than an excuse for unconsciousness? 

All they see of year, dear Tree, is the green you shed when you need some comfort,  

Whilst you see nothing at all. 

It’s a choice though, Everyman. I know that

Your drug of choice is total apathy – the dealer ignorance,

And its killing you slowly. Your mind is like the muddy water

That they have to drink. But, Everyman,

What about your conscience?

It is blocked out by the fog of the chimney fumes, I suppose,

The ones by the Ganges River. You are afraid to know,

I’m sure. Afraid to ask.

Is there Holy Water inside that aluminium can?

Is that the language of your life, that only a factory can translate?

You worship in a temple of consumerism so devoutly,

Monday through Sunday.

But could you sacrifice that Holy Water

For an invisible man to take some for himself? Or,

Is he insignificant because he’s unseen?

Affluence would clarify his picture.

It has yours.

Your words are uttered and allowed no suspension.

But are they distilled?

His defy gravity – they hang in the air, never noticed, never reacted to.

Sunlight pours in through your window and you see

Minuscule particles of dust hang in the air – they make no impact.

They only float through all the empty space, and you have never cared to ask

Just what they are and where they come from. They come

From Bombay, out of the lips of that invisible man. They are

The words that he has to dare himself to bring to audibility,

But you choose not to hear.

When water was turned into wine, it was a miracle,

But when water is turned into death, it is too common to be miraculous.

You held your tongue of questions, and can you speak?

If so, what words come out?

You receive the poison and in your mind you are

Beyond any reasonable doubt that you are a good person.

But the alleviation of ignorance is no relief.

Or would you rather not know?

Heart and Mind

I feel as if I live in a constant state of cognitive dissonance. I feel and then I form an opinion, but when I think, a new one forms and it is often opposed to the first. I love to be alone, but I love to have someone care for me. I love men but I love women also. I forgive but I cannot forget. Duality, I suppose, can make all things seem like they only ever exist in mutual exclusiveness with their pair: whatever is opposite cannot coexist. I have trouble making up my mind about what I am to do, although I am always certain about what I believe in, if whatever it is does not challenge simplicity.

An observation

I waited a while for my bus and whilst I was there I witnessed a game of soccer going on with some little children, obviously training for their club team. They were only six and seven, and as often happens with children of that age, they lost control of the ball, and it began to roll down the little slope that raised the park from the rest of the street. As it tumbled down, a man who was coaching the children ran after it, but it was clear that the ball would make the street before the man made the ball, and it would be flattened under an oncoming car. But then - on the very corner of the park - the ball hit an electricity pole, stopping it and sending it back into the hands of the man. I saw this and smiled knowing the happiness of the children, who wanted to be able to continue their game. What a thing to be thankful for, such simplicity but such preservation of childish energy and love and laughter. Such a triumph of coincidence it was. I knew then that the primary purpose of that pole was to bring joy to the children and salvation to the ball: that was of higher importance than electricity.

Untitled

I was with people.

I was alone.

My presence was irrelevant.

I was seen but not known.

"And what if she took control over her death the way she couldn’t over her life? Perhaps it was her destiny to fall in love in a year or three. That person, whomever they were ‎and wherever they were, would be left without the person who would have fallen in love with ‎them. Of course, they would never know that, but those paths that could have crossed would ‎never do so.‎ Perhaps it had been decided that she would save someone’s life, not that she knew it now, by ‎being in the right place at the right time. That person’s life would never be saved but instead it ‎would be taken, and then there would be two lives that had dissolved rather than none.‎"
by Excerpt 12