The Enemy.

I fucking hate you.


For being the first post on this blog and the 50th. 


Thank you to everyone else that I can only muster adoration for. Overlooking content, 50 is a good number. 


Cheers. xx


- The Frozen Flame is now melting and nobody can save it. 

Torniquet.

"I learned to live, half a life

And now you want me one more time"- Christina Perri

You get inside of me and drain the life out of me.

You leave venom in my bloodstream.

You reduce my sanity to nothing.

Your ego beats mine and I can't even put up a fight.

But you always come back.

You come back to place me back on my high horse you so carefully constructed. 

You come back to wipe my tears.

You come back once you're scared you hurt me.

You come back, because you always know you hurt me.

You come back to plant a kiss.

But then you tell me things you really shouldn't be telling me.

You tell me you've loved me before I knew what it really even meant.

You tell me that all the things that happen around me, happen only because you make them.

You tell me I haunt your thoughts from early mornings to late nights.

You tell me you can't breathe without our daily fight.

You tell me you love me without the glow that surrounds me.

How you could even muster a love like this one is beyond you.

This is beyond me and it's beyond you.

You said you weren't coming back but you did.

You always want to disappoint me but you don't. You can't.

And you hate yourself for it and love me for it.

I don't know which I hate and which I love.

I don't know how long we're in it for but it's going to leave us both lifeless, of that I'm sure. 

I need to see you to feel normal again.

But when I do,

I'm going to come back home with blood-stained cheeks for where tears should have been. 

And a smile that reaches my soul. 

Loser.

"If I've been on your mind,

You hang on every word I say,

Lose yourself in time,

At the mention of my name,

Will I ever know how it feels to hold you close,

And have you tell me, 

Whichever road I chose, you'll go?" -Adele

Most times I don't even know who the culprit is. Which one of us is contorting reality and dreams and concocting a bottomless pit to trap the other one into, not necessarily out of spite, and which one, pretending to be the victim, is resisting every little bit of this, somewhat possible without self-destruction, alliance. 

But even in those briefest of moments where I can figure out the roles played by each of us in this convoluted yet such a simple way of life that we've temporarily chosen, I fall face flat because every lead in this 'investigation' hits me, and each time more forcefully, with the realization that we're both equally the criminals as well as the victims in this suspense. 

Who is to say which one of us found whom. Maybe you made me catch on to the trail you so carefully left behind, or maybe, I lured you straight out of hiding because I knew exactly what you were looking for and exactly what you chose not to see. Knowing your target's strengths and weaknesses always made you that much more cautious, that much more powerful. We both knew each others, so then again, who is to say, which one of us was chasing and which was running. Who is to say, who caught up first. 

This wasn't meant to sound dirty, and conspiratorial. I hold you so close to me that now I enjoy a smugness to do with buying your time, or your energy, love or care. I know that you do too, a lot more than you let on. Then where did I get involved in something that forces me to say that I'm 'In too deep.' I checked the depth before I stepped in. It was nowhere close to drowning levels, but now I'm not so sure. 

I checked the weighing scales too, they were fair and not tampered with. Then how is it that in no time my side is tipping heavier? How is it that you keep unburdening your side? That shouldn't be allowed. If you're developing baggage, why don't you let me see it? Why do you have me under the impression that I'm the one that needs to be saved? When actually I'd much rather save you. 

When we kissed today, it was a lot slower than it should be permitted. It was like you didn't want to stop, like you were gathering every sensation that you could while it lasted. So who decides how long it lasts? You, of course. You say that you're scared of how intimate we are, while we're soaking up the warm sun right across from the dazzling sea, the same one that belongs to the entire city, but somehow uniquely belongs to you, after hours of only soaking up everything we could of each other. Like it would be the first and the last time that we could give and take so much without a soul watching, listening, intruding. I laugh and say it's because of my warm personality that you've never done this with anyone else before. You don't contest that.

We're interlocked in a very fitting way. You make me whoever you want to make me whenever you want to, without changing the essence of me. And I enjoy these escapes from me. Especially because I can remember these experiences that almost seem like out-of-body ones. Sometimes what would work best would ensure that I could take you someplace else too, and I get the feeling that I already do. But it scares you to admit that I have the power to do that. And the novelty of this all scares you out of your skin, and I can see it while I'm watching you watch me. It's unnerving but I'm filing these memories away because something tells me it's all I'm going to have left of you. And it's not much. But it should suffice. 

Nothing would have to change this if it wasn't what you were set out to do, and what I should be setting out to do. So just in a few weeks, I'm going to lose something special, something beautiful and something I didn't think I would ever have, only because it's so free of the shackles that usually accompany something so pristine. And you know what the worst part is about losing something that's like home to you? The fact that you know exactly when you're going to lose it and even worse, that you're going to be putting away the next decade of your life on hold just waiting for it to return. After all, it's home.

TickTockTickTockTickTock...

From Spring, With Love.

"Unanimously chosen song to be entered here"

Dear Gorgeous Seasons,

The only souls that I can remember being constants through the oscillations that my past forty-eight posts have been, are, as a matter-of-fact, the only ones I haven't written about. I guess that only re-asserts the fact that the ones that are the closest to your faint heart, the ones that have been life-changing, the ones that are absolutely impossible to do without, are the ones you tend to overlook. Not because you care for them any less. But because you care so much, that somewhere over the years they became a part of you. 

They became the second layer of your skin. 

They became every alternate breath. 

They became half the pain you felt.

And double the joy.

I call them souls, because no other term, could even strive to describe the connection. I called myself 'Spring' because nothing else would ensure that they would follow successively, and that the cycle would repeat. It's reassurance you know. Beautiful habits like them, die hard. 

I'm going away. I know it's not half as dramatic as we're all making it out to be. But that's just how we roll. I'm waiting for one of you to slap me as soon as after you read this. But I'm willing to risk it. :)

To Summer,

I swear, just as I typed that, a gush of warmth went through me, and a cloud of tears blurred my laptop screen. No. It's not that strange defect my screen has. I think you're the one that brought this about in the first place, so in a way, you are to blame. When I first met you, in my long pink skirt that's gathering dust somewhere now, I didn't feel any sparks. I didn't think we were going to ever even share a cup of coffee, let alone sob stories, most cherished wardrobe items, laughter and complete lives. If I had to pick my own teacher, someone who could guide me through everything even when I just didn't want to budge, it would be you. It would be your incomprehensible bundle of energy, warmth and adrenaline that makes you so full of life, so brutally honest, so perfect that you would pick out your own flaws and sit with them for days with a needle and thread and then pick ours up for all the serious patchwork to be done. And once you were done, we shone bright, because you picked the prettier embellishments for us. But somehow you were the most gorgeous, I don't understand how that worked. When we picked you as the season right after me, I was jealous because you got to be the name of my most favorite character. But I'd only let you have it. Because truth be told, you're a much better character than even she could ever be. Also because she wasn't the one that smacked me hard on my head when I had tears pouring down my face, she wasn't the one that told me to stop feeling sorry for myself, and she wasn't the one that held my hand and let our stilettos pierce through red leather sofas, alcohol being the only excuse. You were. And just thought you should know, I'm taking you and your strength, gonna store it in one big chunk of me. Yes, you can be the speaker. Forever.

To Monsoon,

Your unpredictability, caught me off-guard too. I'd expected mucky, bickering weather. Instead I got the most open-your-heart-out-and-dance-till-the-day-ends season I could have asked for. You are my happy place, and you've been around the longest. Longer than anyone has ever been. I was told to either hate you, or love you, and I would have ideally liked to pick both just so I could experience all of you, but I was told I could have only one so I chose to fall head over heels in love with you and I'm not complaining. Because you've never disappointed my love, in fact you've made it dramatic, outrageous, pathetic, sappy, grand and most of all, so bloody pure, that I've got all its worth. My eternal journal (and I'd only say that to you because you excuse all my corny-ness), that you are, always wanted to know every nook of how I was feeling, went scurrying there slyly like a kitten even when I tried keeping it hidden behind layers and layers of curtains, hidden in the dark. Slowly the darkness went. And then all the fabric. Sometimes while chatting with you, with our feet propped up on the Barista table, or our shutting out of hundreds of people in the madness that is our college, or while stealing tequila, or even while being engrossed in Music and Lyrics, I couldn't tell which one of us was which. I could as easily be you as I would let you be me. In fact, I have a feeling, you might be a better me than I ever was. I'm taking you with me, just because I want to do some real living, with a hint of mystery, a dash of refreshing thoughts and a dollop of what-you-see-is-what-you-get attitude in it.

To Autumn,

Full-stops. I couldn't get past them in your life, for the longest time. But once I did, boy was I glad! Beauty in it's truest form, and I didn't exaggerate, although I know you're already thinking that I'm full of shit. Ironically leaves are the most beautiful when they're falling off their life-support system. I look at you and I'm calmed. Soothed. And somehow feel sheltered and protected. Even though, I just want to drop everything and shield you every time I can see something approach you, anything even mildly capable of altering your nature, and more often than not I see it much before you do. You're transitional, dear autumn, but I want to know how you still manage to hold your own. I'm mystified and charmed by your capacity to keep everything bottled up and not let it spill out of the safe valve that you keep it in, out into an audience that would never appreciate and understand the intricacies of so many things close to your heart. I'm glad that when you picked the recipients, it was us. Because your stories, your thoughts, and your concerns are precious. And I don't understand how nobody saw that before. I could have you around me and my mundane life for days, months and years at an end without feeling the need to fill the gaps of silence with any words. But I would probably burst into uncontrollable tears the moment you were removed. You are my ego with a mind of it's own, and you know when to boost me and when to bring me down and somehow amidst all the smoke, boys, the city that's our launch-pad, and the emotions that are our backbone, you managed to trick me into making you my favorite song, just the one that I'm never going to get sick of. Be transitional, but please don't shift, because I wont know where to find you. In my head, you can do no wrong, and even if you do, I could never punish you. For now, I'm taking a little bit of you as my balm.

You compose my years, my life, and define everything that is even half worth defining. It scares me to think that this is the first word in our goodbye sentence. I shudder to imagine, hypothetically, what my life would be like, if I couldn't so much as sense even one of you around. The only existences that I can shut my eyes and picture if ever I wanted to be comforted. The only forces that will keep me going, no matter what. The elements that come together to form the most beautiful tapestry that anyone has ever seen, so much so that I would think it a joke to trade it, even for a second. There's probably a reason why God made four basic elements and directors put four leading girls in every chick flick (I'm sure there's more meaningful stuff to the number four but this is as far as we go). I love you all. More than I am capable of loving. More than I love myself... And that's a first. :)

That's it. I'm not going. 

Soul-Splitting Love,

Spring.

Home

"Tell me your secrets,
And ask me your questions
Oh let's go back to the start.
Running in circles; coming up tails
Heads on a silence apart."- Coldplay


Dear Knight in Faded Armor, 


Your attire was always too uncomfortable and uninviting for me to form any bond with you that went beyond awe and admiration. It kept me at arms length, and soon I learnt, that that was exactly how you had always intended it to be. 


It's been a long and painfully stretched out 25 months. But like I've been repeatedly told recently, I've come a full circle. But this time when we met, you had your guard down, probably knowing that two people can never repeat the same mistake. Two people can never really form anything when they once tried, and effectively failed. Unassuming.


You rendered yourself malleable. Let our interactions, physical, verbal and on so many other intangible levels, take their own course. I guess we've learnt not to stop and contain something pure, and beautiful when it finds its way to you all on its own. We're not ashamed and we don't think ahead of ourselves. How could two people transform so much and not see it until the entire, drastic transformation has fully taken place, even while they've been in each others' peripheral vision the entire time? 


I can call you a friend. And with such warmth, that I suddenly feel light. You're slowly guiding me through a crowd, while your hands stay firmly on either side of me. And you retract them just in time, so I don't get too dependent on the support system that you are. You tell me that kissing me is like walking, talking, eating, or sleeping. It's comfortable beyond measure, but it's all that you need to do to continue breathing. I look up to you when you level life out in front of me, and in the next moment chide you for not knowing when to stop. 


I try deciphering why you push me so much for my own good, but stop short of trying too hard. I try understanding the amused laughter, when you push me around and get me childishly agitated. I try to reason why I don't worry about not seeing you ten years down the line, or why everyone around us, intimate and distant, has formed something out of us. It's something I see too. And it's something that makes me smile. At the time of the shining armor, and the damsel distressed by her own notions, we challenged the time and ended up with bitterness. What we share now, is as good as a sad smile. There's irony in the happiness that we've created in a tiny bubble and don't know what to call. So instead we focus on enhancing the minutest of details that compose this bubble. Rush of blood to the head.


I don't know the answer to that question that repeats itself in my head. I don't know why. I don't know why we can mould and emote and be ridiculous and laugh at how non-ridiculous it feels. I don't know how we end up in one place from another. I don't know how I can bear with you being obnoxious or how you can deal with little subsidiaries of my life. I don't know how we ended up there that night or how we continued feeling and becoming more and more a part of the already formed foundation without much changing. I just know that I don't want it to be taken away from me. Or for that matter, what I would ever do if it was. 


More often than not, I have not heard of very many happy endings to something this beautifully untouched... Just saying.


Love,
The Equally Vulnerable.

Just Mystifying Conformity

"They tell you where you need to go
Tell you when you need to leave
They tell you what you need to know
Tell you who you need to be

But everything inside you know
There's more than what you've heard
So much more than empty conversations
Filled with empty words"- Switchfoot


Rights of admission reserved. 

Contorting that a little bit, admitting something is one of the hardest things to do. So reserving the rights to it, doesn't make life any simpler. For you of course. Everyone else is always trying to make you 'admit' to something. Doesn't matter if it's true or not, just admit it. And you, poor, cornered soul, admit whatever there is to admit anyway, just because it may be the right answer. But it never is. It changes the face of your interrogator within seconds, almost like the light changed from a calm blue to a piercing, hurting red. As for you, the admission suddenly changes everything around you. Just like I'm contorting the initial phrase to base my pathetic rant/argument on, your surroundings will start merging, then distancing, amalgamating, then solidifying, discoloring and then forming their own unusual palette. All of a sudden, you don't know what's the truth anymore. You don't know how you felt in the first place and how you feel now. And whatever you feel, is it a stand-alone thought, unique to your mind, or an amoeba created with now-there-now-not-quite thoughts of these ever-changing minds around yours. How in that case, are the rights reserved with you, pray tell? This is what it actually meant, not on placards and the back of VIP passes, but in the foundation of a social disaster-scene. Reserved with whomsoever shotguns. Shotgun.

Let's not be social monstrosities and lead our own lives and stop drawing invisible lines for others in our heads, and then just conveniently forget to inform them about them. Let's stop becoming unbecoming property assumers on another frivolity-through-life companion. Stop. Let me be. Let it be pure, and plain sweet. And comforting. What will it take for you not to take it away?

500 Days Of Each Season.

What happens when occurrences in your life, one after the other, do nothing but confirm, more and more, that you were, are, and in fact always will be, an outsider. What's worse, is when you find out that you're on this side of the glass window, somehow still intact but probably on the verge of shattering, only because of your naivety and sheer innocence. Or maybe it's just a skill you acquired somewhere along the way, of blindfolding yourself with an invisible emotion every time you thought something was coming at you, that didn't quite fit, or the time for which wasn't quite right, or it wasn't quite as bearable as it should have been. Quite. Quite foolish you'd have to be.

When you're in love, you're supposed to be a fool. Why? Because it isn't reality. It's a fantasy. One that was created as per your own convenience, and composed of your little, fragmented obsessions at the time. But nobody ever talks about how foolish, and vile life itself can be. How foolish you could be while undergoing the process of 'growing up.' But sometimes the process stagnates. And you feel like you'll never learn. Like how many times could you possibly suffer, until the suffering teaches you a lesson. Like how much could you possibly endure, until the last vein connecting your heart to your brain is yanked out. Limitless.

I'd stay a little while longer, if only I could be assured that this time, or the next time, or the one after that, will not end in tears and severe reconciliation of not just the surface skimming factors, but of the soul. 

I'd stay a little while longer, if only the truth was told to my face, and with a trust I couldn't look away from. 

It's like it was said in one of my most favorite movies, of all time. Every time we look back at something we're having a hard time recuperating from, we're probably only looking at the good stuff. The next time you look, look a bit more carefully. 

As I said, I'd stay a little while longer. But that's only if I thought there was something more this place had to offer me. If only it hadn't taken and given to me everything that could have possibly been taken or given. If only my life could turn out the way it had to in the duration of my favorite movie, not necessarily with the same script. If only I could sit here all day, not bother about frivolities that take up my vision, touch and taste, and watch this movie, some brain waves intact. Some nourishment intact. And then... Summer. And soon. Autumn. Throw in a certain Monsoon will you. 

"The scars of your love remind me of us
They keep me thinking that we almost had it all
The scars of your love they leave me breathless
I can’t help feeling..."- Adele