to my dear ghostwriter,
or whosoever has to carry
the burden of my unfinished thought,

if you're nothing like me -
and i hope you aren't -
you'll make a list.
a list of the things you think
i would want to say
even when my voice is still not silent
and still echoes in sceptres
of my favourite words,
even when they come out of your mouth.
don't worry when the numbers
in your list start to crumble -
you see, even the ghost of my presence
does not like structure.

dear ghostwriter,
if you're nothing like me -
and i pray that you aren't -
your first step after writing
would be to edit what you just wrote.
thin peals of laughter will echo
in your ears when you do,
ignore them,
that's just me laughing at the idea
that raw thought
can be made more powerful
by taking pickaxes and hammers to it.

alas, if you do turn out to be
anything, anything like me,
dear ghostwriter,
know that you are allowed to wander,
your words are allowed to escape
and run amok,
you have the freedom
to do literally whatever the hell you want,
as long as your defiance is written down.
then, i suspect,
you'll begin to sound a lot like me.

yours,
in death and in shadows,
in spirit and in words,
shivani lalan.

i live on the line
that is supposed to divide
fury and peace,
but i studied theory,
and binaries are overrated.

i dance along the madness
of a zone where
functionality meets sadness,
and let me tell you,
i get so much work done
when i'm hurt.

i run across fields
where ruins of patience
are overrun with the
violence of life -
reds and blues and greens
bloom and disrupt
the unnecessarily calm earth.

i am a study in dualities -
of smiling rage,
of cold fury;
a filled laptop screen,
a blank page.

i find safety in numbers -
how many emotions can i fit
in my head and still survive?
i'll let you know when i do.

what seems like a superhighway
paved with ethics and morality
is more often than not
a testament to
the mortality of your own **** patience.

the high road may seem like
a one-way ticket to sainthood
but to buy the ticket,
you trade in tears and frustration,
some anger, some jubilation,
some friends out on some vacation,
some pacing around the house
with no destination.

forgiving and forgetting
sound like two different things,
but on the high road,
they make for unusual companions -
one sits wistfully in the back
of your mind's carriage,
and the other struggles and riles
against the very doors
meant to hold it in.

on the high road,
memory can be a painful mistress,
tempting long sessions of reflection -
turning into an affliction that
l o v e s
to cloud your sense of history.

the high road
was built on backs of practice -
a labour of hurt, a labour of defeat.
the high road
offers exits at so many points,
but they're all marked
with the danger sign.

at first,
i assumed that the universe
is like a table at one of them fancy conferences -
where the screens are shiny
and the water is packaged for no reason.
i thought i'd have a place card,
one shade darker
than the cream-coloured tablecloth
it rests on.
i thought that everyone at my table
had their own too,
placed as if by magical premonition,
or something even more abstract
like cosmic preordinance,
or something even weirder,
like fate.

and then i grew up,
and someone told me
that places and spaces
are found, not given,
and that i could make my own
from whatever i found.
i had no help from fate,
or cosmic preordinance,
or even magical premonitions.

you see,
i found so many places
and so many spaces
that all seemed like home.
you see,
it's not all pretty cafés
and painted nails,
it's also smiles and laughter
of the people you love;
it's also rain and hail
and a grey sky above;
it's also wide eyes
and open arms;
it's your love that lies
in lucky charms.

places and spaces
are everything that you want them to be-
the universe can always, always
make room for more.

stories often like taking strolls
sometimes in solitude,
sometimes in the company of
some others,
so long as they are happy and their
sentences seem to
subtly dissolve into one another.

stories talk to each other the most -
summarizing days and nights
stuttering on some horribly
scribbled words,
squinting at some alien scripts,
sure to trip on half-baked lines.

stories are the only ones who truly and
surely live in the moment.
somehow, they are fully aware that
sections of their lives may never
see the light of day.
still, they persist in haunting
sleepless souls burning all kinds of oil
so as to make their homes on
semi-wrinkled,
       semi-stained,
   semi-torn,
semi-ingrained paper.

stories often forget that they might be incomplete -
so they dress up,
stars and strikes and notes and all,
sashay down pages - company or alone,
slowly turn to you and almost
silently tell you to have hope.
someday, they promise,
someday they will return to you, in the
shape of an unknown familiarity,
silhouettes of a dream dreamt at 4 AM, or
shower thoughts
spelt out on walls and curtains.

stories have a habit of making
sure that no matter when they leave,
some parts of them will always be
safe with you.

stories don't mind leaving,
so long as you promise that their lives will always be
seen in the
shadows of what you promised you would write.

i remember moving
in my mind
as if it was just yesterday,
but my limbs seem to stutter
as i begin to utter the prayers.

there is a rift between
my words and my feet,
like a curtain
between the felt and the seen.

i want to write an elegy
to the way my feet knew
just how loudly they must land
to match the beating of my heart.

i want to write an elegy
to the unspoken oath my back took
to never let me look like i was let down -
to always curve and arch like
the weight of the world wasn't on my shoulders
at least for an hour.

i want to write an elegy
to the wonders that my hands created,
an assortment of fury, love, shame, and passion -
hypnotic
in the way they followed the music.

i remember breathing in dance
like it was the only air
in a sea full of fear and despair.
i remember feeling the floor change
into a sentient being,
giving me strength and joy as i moved.

there is a rift between
what my body remembers,
and what my mind wants to remember.
i can only hope
that i don't have to write an elegy
again.

instructions:

hold the door open when she arrives -
she will either storm in or hesitate,
and you must prepare for both.
she will either drift away or gravitate-
you must decide this,
for she can only move when you do.
her hands may be tied,
but her presence can both
arrest and resuscitate.

smile at her when she steps inside -
she will walk into your home,
not knowing the words you will use,
she might either be wound up too tight
or shaken up too loose,
depending on how right you thought
you once were.

let her breathe -
in anger or in exhaustion -
either way, she will wait for you
to settle down first,
and ask for unspoken allowances.
give them to her -
it has taken her time and patience and tears
to get here in the first place,
just like you.

say hello, and maybe throw in another smile -
the pain only stops
when your fears and her tears drop
to the ground.

hold her hand -
she is either raging or grieving.
either way, your hand on hers
means that there is a way out
from the cycles of loss that you find yourselves in.
(both of you)

listen to an old song with her -
when she is finally ready to leave,
she will either mourn you
or take comfort in you.
the words and voices of those wiser than you both
will guide you in this growth.
she is a part of you,
you are her home.

When Hurt leaves,
just ask that the next time she must visit,
she brings Hope along.
Three voices are less lonely together
than just two.