I crave a cigarette with my whole existence
Like I’ve never craved something before
My body aches, my joints feel heavy
My blood has stopped flowing
My nerves are dormant
My system will cease to exist without nicotine
Why is it that these getaways are all I have?
At the end of the day, I have no internal support system
Other than these fleeting moments of happiness
Why is that I feel as if I might combust?
I might tear apart anyone or anything
Because I don’t feel good about myself
And that statement is old and overused
But it is eternal and never-ending
Is there any other way to be?
I don’t want the things I used to
I have stopped trying to bargain with love
I have edged into the dent in the wall
Of sad guitar solos and sugary coffee
Of books that tell me how to breathe
And transport myself into another reality
Is it okay to be so far away from yourself?
To settle into stories like they’re all I have
Are these illusions all I have to proclaim?
When I’m 50 and they ask me what matters
I’ll tell them about youthful indulgence
And fictional stories, second-hand feelings
I’m trying to live like there’s no other day
But sometimes I feel like I should stop
And look myself in the eye and ask
“Who are you? What are your ideals?
What makes you who you are?
What do you desire?”
Playlists that make me teary
Late night battles with myself
Transcendence into places
I avoid during the day
Viktor E. Frankl said,
“The salvation of man is through love and in love”
How deeply you lived is how deeply you loved
Not just people, but life itself
The opportunities, the frivolities
And yourself
Imagine being stuck in a room
There’s constant knocking at the door
You can unlock the door if you want
But you’re unable to, you just can’t get up
And you hate yourself for it
Year after year, you’re in a war
That you don’t want to be a part of
That is how insecurities feel
Angst and rage swallow your loathing
You consider music
Baking, painting, writing
Make up, old dresses
Long showers, strangers
Mellow afternoons
Scrapbooks full of prose to make you feel alive
Create infinities
Within yourself, around yourself
By yourself
It’s like you’re trying so hard to run
From what? To where?
You don’t know
Just somewhere
Where the bells chime in solace
You drown your anxiety
Into Bailey’s Irish Cream and chug
Sloppy and smiling
Where nothing but the present matters
And you can stop running
The shadows you can’t face
The situations you don’t know how to handle
Are long gone, almost unreal
You look back and say,
“Thank god, I’m not that person anymore.”
Tell me that place exists
Tell me the city lights will feel like stars
Tell me that when I jump off a cliff into water
It will ignite my existence
I will be greater than myself
I will understand what it means
To go all in and not hold back
That even if it’s a bell jar at one point
It’s la vie en rose at another
Is there a philosophy to follow?
Am I doing the right things?
Are knowing and unknowing
Two sides of the same coin?
Can I hold your hand?
I promise I won’t fall in love
I promise I won’t give you my burdens
The phone rings but you don’t pick up
And I survive one more day
Without expecting anything in return
I know you’ll leave one day
And no matter how much I avoid feeling anything
I am not cut out for stoicism
But I sure do aim for it
Rainy evenings and windy days
Yellow flowers that scatter the street in front of my house
I reach out
For what? I don’t know
But sometimes, I feel something reaching back
Escapism and frustration
Bitterness and disconnectedness
Amidst all that
I believe in my absolute freedom
No matter how delusional
There are no circles that enclose me
There are fine lines I tiptoe on
On planes at wildly different angles
Searching for meaning
Distracting myself from the misery
Until it hits me unawares
Dostoevsky said,
“There is only one thing that I dread:
Not to be worthy of my sufferings”
And I feel myself to be of no significance
In the greater scheme of things
But as Lana Del Ray put it,
Hope is a dangerous thing for a woman like me to have
But I have it
Apr 27, 2020
Apr 27, 2020 at 6:09 AM UTC
Here is an alternate scenario
Since the ideal one is too clichéd
10 years later you walk into a party
With a girl who isn’t perfect but you love her for who she is
And I look and wonder why you couldn’t love my imperfections like that
Even though you told me I was beautiful at my weakest
Why couldn’t you love me for it?
I see you two dancing in the low light
And I look towards my best friend
And she says **** it man
And I say yeah man, **** it all
And I get drunk even though alcohol is overrated and pepsi is much better
I do it because the haziness makes it funny instead of heartbreaking
And I’m laughing
Dancing on my own
A complete mess
And then I start talking about how I never got guys
And then I start crying because I want to be her
Gosh, I want to be her and alcohol doesn’t help at all
And my best friend has to take me home and tug me in
I wake up the next morning
We’re back to who we were
I never say how much I love you
You never realise how much I love you
And I get back to saying
“You know, I wonder what it feels like to be in love with someone who loves you back”
Maybe you loved me back in an alternate universe
Nov 24, 2018
Nov 24, 2018 at 8:17 AM UTC
Once there was a white boy named Austin
Who wiped his hand after I held it
This black of my skin is not dirt
***** I have more melanin than you
So I'll bring you flowers in the hospital
When you get skin cancer
And I wouldn't
Nov 5, 2018
Nov 5, 2018 at 12:22 PM UTC
My body is a temple
My bleeding is divine
My womanhood is spiritual
In ways that an intolerant devotee like you cannot understand
So when you barr me from entering Sabarimala
Remember that you can't stop a goddess
Saraswati is wise but her rage is wild and merciless
Lakshmi will create earthquakes that will devastate
Durga will pierce your heart with her spear
Parvathi will leave her abode and run into the streets
Kali will destroy you in unimaginable ways
They reside within us
We will cut our feet on your shattered glass
We will shout till our voices become hoarse
An army of neglected women will create a tsunami
Till you're on your back, crying
Till you give up your apparent 'religion-saving'
Helpless, wailing
And bleeding
Oct 19, 2018
Oct 19, 2018 at 1:33 AM UTC
Your love made me believe for real that our world is not a simulation
Because how could your touch be as binary as zeros and ones
When I feel the whole number line inside of me
How could you program a machine to be as random as my heartbeat when I see you?
And what about the butterflies -
What about the ******* butterflies?
Aug 29, 2018
Aug 29, 2018 at 1:16 PM UTC
I would rather be
A slam poet or a graffiti artist
I would rather be
A dreamer
Who loves the way the air hits their skin
Or believes that traffic signals are an intersection of stories and not vehicles
Than someone who
Dreads every moment
Anxious, doubtful, scared
I would rather be someone else
Jul 27, 2018
Jul 27, 2018 at 4:23 PM UTC
You are my pillar of strength
You are my tomb of rest
Life would not be magical if you weren't there
Hell, it would not be worth living
I miss you
We're both just one call away
But I need your presence
It's like fate tossed a coin and we both ended up together
I say I don't believe in destiny
But I know one thing
You are written in the pages of mine
Even if nothing else is
Jul 17, 2018
Jul 17, 2018 at 5:05 PM UTC
Turn me into a metaphor
Any metaphor, I don't care which one
Either I'm the raging storm or the silhoutte against the moon
I'm the sunshine on your wet hair or the rain drowing you
I don't ask for your love
Just make me into a literary device
Pen me on paper
That is the only way I'll feel alive
When your words caress my presence even if your hands don't
When I will be immortalized in your works
I don't care if you stay with me for eternity or let me go
I want you to remember me and construct me into prose
Which maybe people will recall
And feel something, anything at all
I want you to use me to create that warmth
That sensation that the lonely strive for
So break my heart
Use my pieces to scratch out words
Use my blood to ink them into sheets
I don't care what you do to me
Just turn me into a ******* metaphor
And store me in your poetry
Jul 12, 2018
Jul 12, 2018 at 2:03 PM UTC
How many sunsets does it take to feel like you actually belong somewhere
How many awkward conversations does it take to feel like this is home
How many wet pillows and repeated hellos does it take
How many seen-zones and ignores
How many ‘from tomorrow onwards’ promises
How many written poems and spoken word performances
How many “hey, you’re the new kid” labellings
How many corners and books to get lost in
How many sleepless nights and midnight walks
How many rotations of the earth
How many revolutions, if that’s what it takes
Till I stop feeling miserable one day
Mar 4, 2018
Mar 4, 2018 at 2:01 PM UTC
Dear future significant other,
So I finally found you
I know I act like I don't give a ****
Like I don't buy all this love drama
But that's because my past experiences tore me apart so much
That I chose indifference over affection
I'm not telling you to give me flowers everyday
But tell me I'm beautiful every time you get the chance
Even if I scoff at you and tell you that I don't believe it
Show me that you appreciate the beauty that lies within
Which I have been nurturing all my life
But to no applause or avail
Tell me that you've never, ever met someone as crazy and wild like me
But don't smother me with praise either
Tell me I'm a piece of **** when I'm being one
But do not pick on my imperfections
I've been picking on them for too long
I stand in front of the mirror and analyse my each and every flaw
Thinking that I'm too ugly, too fat
Too whatever-boys-don't-like to ever be loved
Draw the curtains on my insecurities
And know that even though you don't see the scars and tears, they're there
The world made me rough, told me to not talk and shut the **** up
So be a shoulder during my weakness and help me deal with this madness
I probably never told you but
I imagined you during each romance book and movie, each 2 o'clock fantasy, each love song
I've been waiting for you throughout my life
I didn't want to but I did
That's just who I am
Let's go on adventures and do things no one has ever done before
Because we are anything but routine
And, in the end, leave me if you must
But do it with decency because I've had too many ugly heartbreaks
I will not be able to tolerate another jerk
Leave me, even if it will hurt
Even if it *****
But do it with with respect
And I'll thank you
For teaching me things I could not have learnt otherwise
With love,
Hopeless romantic
Dec 8, 2017
Dec 8, 2017 at 8:48 AM UTC