I would be busy scanning the shelves, my hands clutching a carelessly torn paper that mentions in your clear writing all that is essential to nurture tiny special things like childish loves and high-flying songs. I would walk down the aisle to the music of wedding march, to the noise of tiny wheels ready to dismantle, unable to find anything to save anyone. The remedies for a body that has known the laws of gravity too closely, the bottles that can hold happiness gifted by visiting dreams, the stickers of cracks to be pasted on the dams holding us back- they are no longer sold here. Like a typical maid running out of a ball, with no prince, no magic, no new fate tailing her shadow with my back adorned by lights of structures that now only sell numbness and the promise of easy breaking down, I face the streets that are oblivious to their own dissolving. I face your absence once more to remind myself why nothing works anymore.
The frame of winter breaks the snow drips, flows, and climbs like a relentless silver creeper, like a god finally on its way to end the reign and terror of heaven. Our eyes stare, amazed at the cold white spiders running across the face of the sky; the music and the metal dissolving the distant names, dissolving the knives we decorated our heart with. We could all feel an equal summer light embracing our backs silently.
Across this glass, across the tired melting clouds of mist, on the other side there are trees and homes and forests that are just like places on this side that I rest.
The places where I am not look as sad as all the places I have been. Everywhere, on every road there is always a person who knows a way to break my heart, and I always end up thanking them for it.
There are rooms where I put up lights and posters and curtains and lovers and music, those are the rooms I want to die in- with some beauty, with some consolation of meaning .
But always I find the reason for my end outside these walls. Those reasons live under the brightest light on the darkest road. And because I was told that the light that I don’t know of is the one that saves all, even the hopeless ones like me. So my legs forget how to stop, my hands forget how to let go, and my blood glitters for a moment under the light of lost hopes before it turns black, before it invites in the cold that I always thought belonged to the inanimate world.
I think of the room I won’t reach, and the songs and the faces and this world that I will not be given a piece of, to keep.
As the sky fills me up, pats me down, and tucks me in the snow across the white, I feel someone stir from sleep. The wail that my throat cannot make, finds a home in that other world, in the other me that unlike me knows how to cry and how to be loved for it.
the ground breaking into pieces too small to support any life, why the all the dragonflies weren’t dropping dead? why all the butterflies still exist in color?
why isn’t it like
lungs filled with tears or the dramatic beautiful drowning into myself. why am I able to keep track of time? why am I stapling and stacking papers with a preciseness i never had?
i accept everything way to easily, i suspect
maybe even the love that almost took my life was not that deep. maybe my limits were just as harsh as the room with broken air conditioner on the day of perfect weather.
but why? why then don’t I remember
the days of perfect weather where there must have been something worth crying for, breaking for, killing for. why doesn’t anything break me.
why then
are there open windows filled with light still stuck on the walls of my heart, why is there music in the world sadder than my own self. why do I envy everyone who gets to have a real grief, real love.
why is it so, that
it makes sense for the color of end to be my favorite. it makes sense that i am left with myself and i still feel safe and i still know hope. i wonder this numbness or cold heartedness – what it will do to me?
what will it do to me? what will i end up as? (i am avoidant and anxious and selfish and cruel and “never yours” already) what/who will you end up loving instead? (if you die before me, in the arms of someone who could see you better than me, should I cry or not? would you be still expecting my tears? when should i stop keeping count of what i owe to you?) what new thing will i learn to run away from?
i hear such words from my mouth a bit too frequently, for it to be just a mood. sometimes it all adds up. that all i can do is think of myself and end up doing a bad job at it just so that someone else wants to do it better than me it so looks like love. but it makes sense that it isn’t.
On my way to you, there is a world that I must walk through. In the dense fog, through the things truer than us, the steps that I take are the heaviest, the decisions I make the most difficult.
“Rows and flows of angel hair And ice cream castles in the air And feather canyons every where Looked at clouds that way But now they only block the sun They rain and snow on everyone So many things I would have done But clouds got in my way I’ve looked at clouds from both sides now From up and down and still somehow It’s cloud’s illusions I recall I really don’t know clouds at all” –“Both Sides Now”, Joni Mitchell
“I embrace the world and take a quick, deep breath The stinging air that fills my lungs says it all Yeah, I who wanted to escape countless times The long times I suffered through, becoming numb Right underneath those times Everyday I pray that I can be a little better grownup And everyday I stay Because all humans and all the pains eventually die We have to face the wind to become numb” –“Everything Goes”, RM
There is a sky that sometimes waves at me, sometimes sings to me in rain, sometimes reminds me why I must stop. I have followed rivers as blue as this view to find a feeling resembling love in me, I have created a version of myself softer than these clouds so that it is only me who is hurt in the stories that I tell you when you find it difficult to find sleep in this world. Stories that you recite back to me, on the days my heart refuses to beat for anyone, even for you, even for me.
“Just when I thought a day As beautiful as everyone else’s Was about to start Clouds out of nowhere Gather to pour down their rain” –“October Rain”, 10 cm
“If I was only by myself If I didn’t know you Maybe I’d have given up Lost at sea” –“Heartbeat”, BTS
There are steps made of stone, a corner store selling smoke to kill or to cloud my heart when it gets unbearable, a house falling apart with a kid gone lost, a kid falling apart in the reckless pursuit of something better than the safe shadow of easy peace. I pass by them to the next road, pretending that I do not know the possibilities of great failure awaiting us all, especially them – those who wait for change with a heart of hope. I walk a bit faster, just as you told me. I do not let my shadow, the sound of my restless steps reach them. I think of you and keep my pace. I think of you who will make me forget this unpleasant afternoon, this misfortune of seeing myself before I was wrecked.
“I see Pinocchio wearing a poncho That’s me some time ago.” –“Tokyo”, RM
“Maybe I got stronger Maybe I got indifferent I used to cry only once or twice a year But now tears are coming On this hidden path” –“Nosedive”, Dynamic Duo ft. Chen
“If I keep walking around reality, impotently Sometimes, I feel like a ghost Loneliness is like a grave But you always take me out of it You’re like the chorus of this song” –“Nosedive”, Dynamic Duo ft. Chen
“You’re my painkiller When my brain gets bitter You keep me close You keep me close” –“Painkiller”, Ruel
“You seem like the whole of this world to me Harder and more painfully embrace me” –Best of Me, BTS
My heart is an enemy of hope. My hate for hope rises more and more everyday. It rises like a child filled with helium and happiness, it flutters like a flag of a nation I do not recognize and can no longer love. My hate for hope, runs through the carnivals, through the fields of futile dreams that my feet trample and waste away. It runs into your arms of firework filled with love. And you, you smile, confused if it is okay to have such a stubborn single-minded love born out of hatred for the world, wondering if you are bad for me. My heart is an enemy of hope that never wanted you, never dreamed of you. My hopes still sits beside me, telling me about the things I could have had and loved instead. Sadly, my hope never dies.
“I began to change, began to fall, and be steady.. since I have known you, I have started to move toward you..” –“Hasi Ban Gaye”, Humari Adhuri Kahani
“I can’t sleep, homesick, babe. I just wanna stay right next to you If I could choose my dream I just wanna stay right next to you.” –“Tokyo”, RM
“What kind of soul do you possess to have something that ties me to you like this? Even though I don’t even have old nostalgic memories of you?” –“Seoul”, RM
“Yeah, even if I want to fly, I don’t have any wings. But your hands become my wings. I want to try forgetting the things that are dark and lonely together with you. Even though these wings sprouted from pain, they’re wings that face the light. Even if it’s hard and it hurts if I can fly, I’m going to fly. Can you hold my hand so that I won’t be afraid anymore? Because if you and I are together I can smile” –“You Never Walk Alone”, BTS
I force myself up the uphill road. I cling onto railings and walls decorated with moss. I am never alone on such roads, I become everyone I face. I almost become someone you could never love. I am army of possibilities, an army raging against your reign. I become the person who, even under your closed eyes and soft breath, cries for all that ended up dead just for me to love. I become the person who placed his ears on the ground above your ribs, searching for a way out. I again become the faceless heartless entity enchanted by the the glitter of masks that demand a sacrifice, of you and me.
“If I could make sense of it all All the hours I don’t understand, the time we can’t go back to, the moment filled with nothing but regret – it seems like all those times will go flying I don’t know how to cope with the feelings that I’m feeling without you now” –“Insomnia”, DA￦N feat. YAYYOUNG
“Sometimes I’m disappointed in myself I willingly trample on myself “Is this all you are? Have to do much better. You have to be much cooler. If you’re gonna lose, might as well die You have to win, you you you. You.” –“Uhgood”, RM
“I’m now so tired of you Your constant ash-grey expression No, no, I’m afraid of myself Because I’ve already become a part of you.” –“Seoul”, RM
“But I can’t give up the “me” that you know of. I can’t let go of the “me” that I know of.” –“Uhgood”, RM
When tomorrow comes, How different it’s gonna be? Why do love and hate sound just the same to me? –“Tokyo”, RM
My way to you is a world always in turmoil. It is also filled with glowing breadcrumbs of your love. I could never lose my way even within myself.
“But I believe, even though it’s unbelievable Losing way Is a way of finding way” –“Lost”, BTS
Even if it is the path I chose, and everything is a fate that I created Even if it is a sin that I committed, and this whole life is only about paying for my sin. Walk with me. Fly with me” –“You Never Walk Alone”, BTS
“I have not seen “the end” for me yet either But if that [end] existed, wouldn’t it be you?” –“Best of Me”, BTS
“What can I do? I speak with your words And I breathe your breaths I’ll be you You, who are holding me, I kiss your sword” –“Best of Me”, BTS
“On rainy days Lying down, not a single word Gazing with our eyes closed, everything becomes ours” –“Everything”, The Black Skirts
the trees sway behind me they tower and droop and die above the cold parked cars. i hear the sounds that i couldn’t till last night it is music to my ears and “warnings of ruin” to my mind. the green monster, the metal carriage, and their lonely helpless master face the direction of ocean. if we were bigger, if everything before us could melt, if i could understand distances, if i could drive we could have met a love by that ocean, we could have called ourselves friends in that molten world, i could have told them about the human dread of dying, we could have laughed over it, and the tree would have held me and my broken and beaten car in its motherly gaze and we wouldn’t worry whether this happiness could heal us or not.
universe fireflie has tagged me in this really sweet post about ten things that make me happy. I will try to answer them to the best of my ability, but it is going to be tough. If you are aware of my writing, you would have noticed that I am more than capable of writing about sad depressing stuff. So writing about things that makes me happy is a bit weird for me. So before I make this more awkward…let’s start!!! WARNING: This is a really really long post.
In no particular order…
My Sister When I think of happiness, my sister is the first person that comes to my mind. It would be an understatement if I say that I am extremely fond of my sister. She is my favorite person in this world. I love how sweet she is, how much curiosity she has for the world, the genuine interests that we both share. Any day, anytime spent with her is bound to be filled with happiness- may it be the serene calm type of happiness or laughing out hearts out type happiness. She is crucial to my happiness. I am lucky that I happen to be the sister of my best friend. 🙂 Afterthoughts: My sister draws really well. I am so proud of her that I can’t help but promote her work here. She will probably kill me for this though. Here are the links to my sister’s work, if you are interested : WordPress, Instagram, and Youtube.
Books I love to read. I am not sure if what I read is intellectual or refined enough. But I like what I like – mostly fiction and poetry. I think reading is what led me to have love for words and even for this world. Books make me believe that there is a meaning in everything, that life is meaningful. It is the kind of assurance that life by itself has never been able to give me. I wouldn’t categorize books into a means to escape from life, but rather a new layer to life that makes me more tolerant of people and world. I love buying books, reading them, finding more books to read. Even the sight of my bookshelf, the thought of all the books that I am yet to read, even adding a new book into my “to read” list makes me feel excited. Afterthought: On that note, here is a quote from the book I am reading currently: “Running might take her forward, it could even take her home; but it couldn’t take her back–not ten minutes, ten hours, not ten years or days. And that was tough, as Hely would say. Tough: since back was the way she wanted to go, since the past was the only place she wanted to be.” ― Donna Tartt, The Little Friend
BTS I will try not to make this too long (because I know I am fully capable of turning this into a 8 hour presentation on BTS). I love BTS. I love their music, their performances, their passion, their ethics, their character, etc. I cannot possibly explain what effect they have had on my life. I would say they have deepened my passions, made me believe in the goodness in world, and made me believe in the goodness that I am capable of. My life is thousand times better with them in it. They have touched and changes millions of lives through their music, through their existence. I wish they also find the happiness that they want. I low-key love ARMY – BTS fans who have showered them with all the love they deserve and who try to protect them as much as they can. Afterthoughts: I think almost every person has one artist whose works resonates with them. BTS just happens to be that artist whose work has most effect on me. I think we should treasure that, always remember that feeling of looking at life with a person who just happens to think about life the same way we do. It is not about supremacy of one artist over other, about loving the artist that made you understand and love ourselves.
Music My love for music is equivalent to my love of books. Maybe I love music a bit more than books. Each song that I love or like is an experience in itself, those few minutes makes me forget myself and sometimes remind who I am and who I was. I can listen to the same song many many times and only to love it more. I do not have a favorite genre or anything. I think it solely depends on the song. Afterthoughts: -Even though I try to explore as many songs as possible in as many language as possible, but most of the time I am not aware of the “popular” stuff. You might even think I am living under a rock. Now, I do not believe that popular songs are bad or good. I am not a person who is against mainstream music. It is just that I am so caught up in the things that I like that I do not get time to even look at other stuff. I sort of live in my own bubble. – BTS gets its own separate point here, because my love for them is on a whole new level. Their music is awesome. But they are so much more than their music. Stanning BTS is a way of life.
Writing I think I am a person who has zero confidence in herself. I do not think I am especially gifted in anything. I am not particularly intelligent or beautiful or funny or creative. And I take writing in the same spirit. I do not think I am exceptional at writing, but I love writing. I love the fact that I can write average good stuff some days. I love the 2000 lines of drafts that will never make to a post. When I write, I love how much clearer and focused my head is. I love my writing more when someone else find comfort in my words. I agree that writing with a regular job is difficult and bit pressurizing but writing gives me such joy, that I don’t think I can possibly quit writing. Afterthoughts: I once heard about a rule that one cannot estimate themselves correctly. So I am probably worse or better than what I think I am. I hope my writing is better than what I think it is.
Internet There were so many things to list here, so I collectively grouped them as “internet”. But then who doesn’t love internet. It is sort of basic thing that a lot of us take for granted. Having access to so much content, so much information makes me happy. I love the hour that I uselessly spend on looking at memes, the hours I spend playing and upgrading stuff on games that will take me nowhere in life, the hour I spend on watching videos, all the silly hilarious stuff that I retweet at 2 am, binge reading everything about MBTI on Quora, reading random articles that I will end up forgetting anyways. Though it is just a stream of easy to consume media, but still it does make us happy in some ways. And that happiness is significant in itself. Afterthoughts: I am aware everything is not picture perfect on internet. Internet depresses us also. But with I have learnt to leave online spaces that make me feel bad about myself uselessly. I am not good with interacting with people online, that is one thing that I cannot enjoy. It is not about whether these people are friends or strangers. I just have a feeling that I have nothing to say that the other person would be interested to know about. (That’s the reason that I silently like your posts rather than leaving the comment you deserve.) I don’t like to stay online for long also. The moment I finish doing what I had in my mind, I switch off my data. Because I just can’t handle all the notifications. I like the dear old SMS to communicate rather than the new efficient apps with awesome features.
Series/Movies/Stories Watching series and movies is another joy to me, something that I spend a lot of my time on. Every thing I have watched, every character that I have watched is equivalent to a life that I have lived briefly. I don’t do binge watch though. I like some time to think over everything. That is the pace I am comfortable – to watch something and reflect on it, think about it, to anticipate what is yet to come for the whole day. I think that feeling the story grow in you as you go about your everyday life is an essential part of the whole experience, a part that adds more importance to what I am watching. Afterthoughts: Again as with music, I have no idea of the popular stuff. I just see what I end up finding. I do have list of stuff to see but that is based on word-of-mouth suggestion from people who like the same things as me. I do not have a favorite movie or series or book. Naming favorites is too tough for me. For each story, each actor, each director etc. has their own charm. That would be like comparing apples to oranges.
Everything emotional/sentimental/sort of spiritual I do not look like an emotional person, but I am. I am an INFJ with Cancer zodiac, what else can you expect but an over-sentimental person. I like anything that seeks to explore or talk about these sentiment, anything that values human emotions and shows how complicated and simple it can be. Similarly, I have same feeling about works related to spirituality. I enjoy the company of people who genuinely have something to talk on these topics. I am not into talking about people but talking about ideas. Not the ideas that change the world, but ideas that helps me understand why we feel the way we feel, ideas that give me insight into the tiny limited world. Afterthought: I think I am not one of those people who can or want to change the world. My mind never wanders into that direction. All I think about is my understanding of world and how to perfect that understanding. Sometimes I think I am a narcissist and self-absorbed person because of that.
Lazing around/Sleeping I don’t react well to stress. So I am always looking forward to a good sleep or a day without schedules or deadline. A day that I can waste away makes me happy. Even though lazing around for me again means books/music/series etc. Even when it is not busy it is still a busy life.
Being Busy As much as I like lazing around, I like being busy more. Because of my sense of being less than average and constant feeling of not being good enough. I don’t handle free time well. I feel that no one needs me, the world will work without me also. That I have nothing to offer to world. It is a very sad feeling. So I try to do my work properly, try to do by best in everything. I like the days that I have work myself to point of losing all my energy. So that I can enjoy all the things I love (everything mentioned above) without guilt. Afterthought: It is not that I cannot sit still or introspect without driving myself to the point of sadness. I like introspection a lot. But having days and weeks of time for just introspection makes me feel like a useless person.
Things that almost made to this list but didn’t (and why):
Food I used to enjoy eating a lot. I still love good food. But I can’t eat or enjoy it as I used to. Something has changed in me, maybe I am growing old. Now I don’t have that much craze for it.
Friends I don’t think I am good at friendship. I loved my friends while I was with them. But then apart from the brief time of companionship, there nothing much left of those time now. My expectation from friendship I think is a bit too much. I think in the long run friendships don’t give me happiness.
i am in love with the woman who sings and becomes the background of my every night.
i like to listen to her voice as she takes my every second keeps it out of my reach, teaches me some really suspicious ways to keep myself safe from the her demons.
she glows in the darkness that she sews only for me, for me to hold her hand the way she will never be held, the way i will never be held.
i hate to cry, i have cried for a long time for people who called me their option when i was out of earshot my tears are cheap, now all they do is make me feel equally cheap but the tears i shed for her life are beautiful the tears i shed for her (who feels like me) stops me from taking pills i don’t need.
another lover of hers sat opposite me few days ago. she looked so much like her. it made me wonder if i looked like her as well. i wonder she knows her lovers are running amok in the world that she paints with her pain. i wonder if she knows that we are catching all her fears, staying away from guys who speak like her ex, staying away from the patterns she has pointed out.
i wonder if she knows that we tell strangers “she sings well, she writes well” when we want say “she made me embrace the woman in me that i have been trying to kill for a long long time. she stood in my moonlight counting all the daggers that make her bleed every day, the same daggers that i fear to acknowledge, telling me about the exact number of days it takes to collapse again, about the face, her heart, and her womb that are for anyone’s taking, about her rage, her mind, and her will that she was allowed to keep. how she wanted to give up last night. how giving up can become a concept of life every easily but she didn’t want that, because she didn’t want to be the sad pathetic corpse of the woman that the world said she would eventually be.”
i am in love with the woman who wants me to be more than a silent background.
years from now i hope my living room has a space for a lovely piano. i hope my fingers would play something beautiful on it. that here i would smile and not know of the passing time. that i would learn to love my walls as much as the world that stands on the other side. as my child misses me, cries for me, tries to keep me alive when i am not, i hope she feels this music she can’t hear, i hope she sees the future i couldn’t finish living, i hope she knows that my warmth is more than my skin and my blood running under it.
he sings the most beautiful song. so beautiful that the sky becomes a reflection of the heart that he can barely carry in himself. the words on his lips they break, they sound different, feel different, they sound like the first cry of a baby- the violent coming to life. they run and collide and shatter against the rough indifferent surface of this dying world, a not-so-bad world. he becomes a not-so-bad singer. as he runs out of breath and love someone places a coin of gold in his hands. he means to feel grateful for this compensation, but all he can do is hold his tongue, hold his tears. hold his bitterness in himself and sing another song dreaming, waiting for an honest reply, a genuine care, an understanding gaze in return for laying bare his humanness.
it rains in my heart 