How do we fall apart?
How do we fall in love?
Where do we go when we feel pain?
Where lies the specters of ache?
The glimpse of a bliss?
The crest of sadness?
The edges of happiness?
The realms of marvels?
Between rising and falling,
Crushing and thriving,
The whelms and the peaks,
Where lies, the resilience?
The pose. The quest. The recess.
In the untold mysteries of life,
We unfold the untold,
Redeem the lost,
Rewind the present,
And plot the rest.
Something More
I know how to love when unreciprocated,
Unrequited.
Abandoned and depraved.
Not that I’m a sadist,
Nor that I chose to.
My heart felt deprived
Of the half life I endure.
Aches I sustain in my bones,
The pain I bear in my being
Would say otherwise.
I know how to love
Even when unloved.
I know how to care
Even when not taken care of.
In love, I know I can find myself.
In love, I know I can be myself.
Yet, in hate,
In the brims of bitterness,
I know I can lose myself,
Entirely. Completely. Wholeheartedly.
If love can hold my universe together,
Would I give it a chance for more?
Do I hate the world or myself more?
Do I intend to lose myself forever more?
Or do I choose to believe love and something more?
Just something more?
Warmth
I let the sun kiss my face today.
I let the warmth caress my skin
The beams to blind my sight,
The rays to hinder my being,
The shadows to caricature my lashes.
I retreated for the light,
I stayed for the warmth.
Craving the coziness,
Detesting the vile power
Embedded in the rays,
I hesitated. I tripped.
But, then, I stayed.
The warmth cracked the cold,
The ice cold in my heart,
The shield of my being,
The guard of my life.
Braced with the glow,
I uncovered myself for more,
For more life,
Forever more peace,
And for less of death.
O Pain, O Pain
Pain is a random stranger you haven’t met yet.
You think you know it.
You have seen the edges
And the depth of it.
The slithering aches you have experienced
Makes you think you have fathomed
The entire fold.
The complete world.
Yet, again, it strikes.
It surprises.
It pierces.
Unfold the untold.
Like a random stranger,
Like the one you haven’t met yet,
It startles.
O pain, o pain,
Would you cease to stun?
Would you stop to ambush?
Would you care to forlorn
Our consciousness alone?
Just Sometimes.
Live!
Just live, sometimes.
If not, always.
In death, we find
The meaning of life, engraved.
But it’s in life –
We find the whimsy of the dread,
The precipice of a grandeur,
A cruise of pain,
The path to peace,
If not, joy.
In whispers and sighs,
Within the breeze of the days,
The current raves.
Life, itself, survives.
Why, then, not live?
If not always,
Just sometimes.
Dare to Stare!
I dared to stare at the sun.
I envied to fly across
The rays and the warmth
Of the beams.
I dared to be Icarus.
I pride myself to steal the glimpses
Of the heat and the reeks
Of life, power, and finesse.
Only to settle,
For less.
For blindness.
For loss.
And mere humbleness.
I dared to tempt the gods.
To prowess before their eyes.
To stare them down, perhaps.
My pride reigns, at times.
It overwhelms.
Tempts the odd fates.
Only to crush beneath
The layers of the lights
In ever-growing darkness
To cruise in the abyss.
But, for a moment.
For minutest peaks,
I embrace. I let go.
I held. I loosen.
I fight. I surrender.
I recline. And then, I dare.
Today, I attempted to be Icarius.
I stared into the direct sunlight.
Only to tempt the fate.
And to dare my fright.
The Unfolding Magic of Music
Everybody listens to music. Maybe not in a strict sense of devouring every rhythm and beat. But yes, everyone listens to music. Little did I know, I used to underestimate this magic to the veils of logic and rationale. If only the firmaments of the world were built in sheer logic!
Well, music is magic. It is a whimsical vibration and collision of all the right strings in one. But more than the awe you experience within great music, there is an uncensored bond to be fostered. The pickles of rhythms are more than enough to craft a bold connection within the threads of everyday routine.
Within the sphere of melody, one can carve out the liveliness of life itself. Unfolding the constant waves of music can be the gateway to heaven we all desire. Truth, wit, harmony, and thoughts are thoroughly lodged within music. To console the broken, to caress the open wounds, and to shield the forsaken into the safe haven of life. Within every rhythm, the magic incessantly unfolds. The melodies sync to restore what is lost. To thrive between the creases of the valley. And when you find a thirsty soul like yours, a match is made in heaven.
Life is captured in a sound. Joy has a rhythm. Sadness is bound in melodies. Art is reflected in tunes. Loss is echoed within the raves of tones.
Music is the universal language we all utter. Within the range of beats, we salvage our breaking hearts. We hold the fragmented pieces of ourselves together. We embellish the words not to conform but to take us elsewhere. The place of understanding. A place where loss is grieved. Pain is deeply felt. Love is truly imbibed. Sadness and joy are truly traced. Within the tales of music, fire is ignited. Passion is burnt all the way through.
The sensical rhythms you share with each other create a bond you can not really speak in words. Yes, friendships are random treasures we usually stumble upon. But shared tunes are the secret ingredients of life in nurturing the unquenched thirst of living. Life goes on. Always. But music provides a solace and a buffer towards life itself.
The magic unfolds every step of the way. Music, life, friendship. Come, hither follow the tune to have it all!
The Untold Byproduct
During a random conversation with a friend, the phrase, ‘untold byproduct’ captured my attention. Individualism is the new trend these days. The untold byproduct of the age. A few centuries back, people would fall apart if they weren’t founded on the deep roots of society. But nowadays, we are much more self-centered and rooted in our own realms. In all honesty, it seems to be working. With the haste and constant chaos we live in, it is a bit of hard work to maintain society itself. With individualism set as a trend though; we exist, we attempt to live, and then we die. There is probably more to it. But how would we know anyway?!
Yes, it is a shared concern that society is failing. The communal values we had built our essence on are becoming a source of mockery, lately. Are we ever going to be able to salvage the dooms we are trying to survive? Can all the questions of life be answered with the advancement of technology? Can we summon the flails of life with restructuring the customs? By reforming culture and tradition? Or have we, yet, to realize we are living our life on a sinking ship? The ship is sinking. Life is doomed. Why not chant away our lives, anyway?
In a world where the premise of individual lives matters more, families are becoming brittle forces of the community. The values we assign for the things that matters the least are the ways we die on. The things we are consuming; physically and mentally, are the reminders that we are thoroughly killing ourselves while polishing our surfaces.
Maybe we have a fetish of a world ending. A giant apocalypse that could take us all.
Meanwhile, with a failing society and thriving individuals, we are all dying a little more. We are thriving while dying. Within the realms of postmodernity, the advancement of technology, and the liberal Western democracy; we are being restructured in a different way from before. And I am conceding to the sayings of sociologists and ancient existentialists – the individual is the untold and undreamed byproduct of the age. We both as a society and as individuals are getting consumed inside our brains and getting drenched in the emptiness of it. We no longer have wide green grasslands and barns and sunsets and large families, and loyalty, integrity, accountability, and responsibility. We no longer see our lives as a thing that matters less and the lives of others that matter more. Love has gone so cold. And life has lost its warmth. Within the superficial crescendos we craft ourselves, we are doomed to die with no cause.
But, remember, in the midst of death, life persists.
6 Feet Under
Down in the pitfalls of the cavern,
I hear the echoing silence,
Not a hiss of crickets,
Nor a fuss of insects,
But, the silence.
A serene of quietness.
It’s been a while now,
At the bedrock of the hollow.
I, sometimes, think it is a burrow.
Other times, I feel the tides
Of the waves and the breeze.
Maybe I’m 6 feet under
In the dark, cold water.
I’m lodged in the middle of nowhere.
Stuck far from the shores.
Callings, I hear.
Distant roars, I listen.
I sought out myself
To find where I kept me .
But only I hear echoes.
And distant cries –
Of my name,
Who I used to be,
The ‘me’ I murdered,
The inner person I devoured.
And then, it passes.
The agony of superfluous.
The calling settles
To return my serene.
My deafening solace.
It is quiet, now.
When I’m far away.
6 feet under –
In the middle of nowhere.
The Damned Souls
We are the damned souls. The ferociously judged. The slightly heard. But faced the world for the full wrath.
The repercussions of our mere existence can never be avoided. For us, living is the hell we have to be drenched in. Life is what we have stumbled upon to know what it reckons. If we had died, we could have had a better hell. Perhaps. But who is to say?
For the great minds we possess, we have been judged. For thinking the way we think, we have been crucified. For the world is devoid of senses, humanity, and reality, we have been cursed. Hushed to be subdued. We are damned for outliving the world through our minds. We are damned for our heightened senses of pain. For the world crisps our agony to atone us for the eccentricity we have unlocked. For the socially constructed bricks, we have spattered into pieces. Our minds might not be the greatest treasuries, but the world banned the likes of us. Damned us to mediocrity and relishes of the superficials.
For the bitter lashes we have received, we are doomed to be an apostate. An exile from life. Our souls soaked the worst of fates, the rages of the rules we live by. If pain scorched us to become what we have become, why are we still damned? Why are we being flogged for the ache we have endured? All we asked was to deserve love, kindness, and patience. But we have succumbed a damnation for what we are.
For the whims of life we have perceived, we have been damned. For the glitters of the world we have abandoned, we have been stricken harsh. For the full darkness we have imbibed, we have been disavowed of the light we need. Our transgression is the sadness we felt. Our fault was the agitation we endured. The panics we have overcome.
What am I saying? Am I meant to judge the world? Curse my way out of life? Blaming others for the faults of my own? Embellishing my pain evermore? Most definitely not.
Yet, this is a sheer wonder. A trial of life for the verdict of pain in our lives. Does the world have a place for the sad and bruised? Are we meant to be caressed for the scars we have plunged on ourselves? Are we to be treated nicely for the share of trauma we have absorbed? Is there a place in the world for the damned and bruised? If we can’t overcome /outlive our pain, do we even have a chance to survive?
Within the whelms of agony, we breach our shields. And we receive the grotesque parcels of existing. But when we find each other, within the depth of our pain, our hearts rhyme. Perhaps, the world is for the fools. But within the strings of our aches, we exist, too. Damned to life, but still, we exist!
Oh, For the Love of …, Should we Monetize Everything?!
I suppose not.
In the realm of creativity, where shall one find the value of good work? Within the praises of others? In utter satisfaction of your audience? Or the thought process you got to unlock?
Yes, we write, paint, and craft for the people. But is that the marker of our value? Does that put the right standard and value in our work? Why can’t we keep doing some of the things for the love of them, though? Just for the hell of creating. If life was to be bound with the flares of the return on investment, do you suppose we would’ve gotten this far?
People drive their inspiration ubiquitously. Some find it lodged beneath the layers of self doubt proving the worth of their craft. Others may find it on the rims of their ego making them suppose to have produced the best there is. (It might or might not be the case every time.) And there are others who create to appease the god of creativity embedded within their soul. I am not bounding the types of people into three, nor am I conceding to know how the mind of a creative works. Yet, there are common mantras that almost all creatives suffer through.
Monetizing has its perks. (more than perks.) Nobody wants to become a hungry artist in this day and age, that’s for sure. But it has significant quirks, as well. For some, if not for most, the moment money becomes the center/goal of their creativity, it reduces the quality of work they produce. For instance, if you tell someone to create a design without leaving any room for creativity, they feel hand tied to your orders. After all, the order (getting paid for the work) is on the line. But, imagine this scenario a little different from the first. What if you go to your designer and tell him your ideas and ask what he makes of them? What if you tickle his creative mind to add insight? What if you get him to co-create with you? I bet you already know where I am getting at.
Passion, integrity, and creativity thrive together. One cannot survive without the other. And if monetizing your work is hindering your integrity, ruining your creativity, and averting your passion, that is probably an SOS call for you to take a pose and reconsider. For money could devalue your worth rather than nurture it. Just monetize carefully. All could be good in time!
Awake, Again.
I am awake. Again.
To roll my boulder.
As high as further.
Only to roll it back down,
To the depth of the cavern.
And sometimes,
I push my boulder,
So far, far away,
It skips a beat in bounce.
Reaching the pit,
In fierce.
And in the middle of the night,
I dig myself out,
From the depths of the pit,
Only to raise myself to the peak,
Up, up on the top.
So, yes. I am awake.
Again.
Raising from the drain.
The exhaustion.
The deep pit.
To raise my boulder higher,
As high as further,
To dig my pit deeper.
Treadmill Tales: Change is the ONLY Constant
Do you remember? When we were kids, we had our lives all figured out. From start to finish, we knew what we were going to do. Back then, what you had in mind was possible. Nothing seemed impossible. The more you grow older, though, life starts to get real. It becomes inevitable to avoid change, reality, and the byproducts of life itself.
It has been a few years since I gave myself a little resolute from the life I was supposed to be having. In a way, I was in between lives (I still am). Many people ask what happens in between. In short, life happened to my life. Reality unlocked its bounds to relieve me off the fixed chains I was absorbed in. And yes, everything has changed, yet feels the same.
Throughout life, change is the only constant. I have learned that in a harsh way. As someone who dreads change, it always takes a while for me to get used to it. Not only is that change a constant, but in my case, it almost happens every step of the way. I barely could pose to take a moment and breathe.
If you want to see how much you have changed over the years, take a little joy ride down memory lane. It will enlighten the distance you have come across from then to now. Your perspectives will shock you. Your styles will amuse you. And your innocence warmth your heart.
Change is the ONLY constant. Everything changes. We change. Other people change. Sometimes, we wish if they change faster. Other times, we would like to freeze the moments forever. For now, right at this second, I wish I could freeze the moment. But life, huh? It keeps on going.
Wheel of Scars
A scar is born
Out of an apthy torn.
A numbness, unfolding,
A coldness, unyielding.
In a bold attempt of fighting the cold,
Unwinding the endless knot,
Follows the thread of the cut.
The surge.
The impulse.
Satisfied. And gratified.
The appeased god of numbness,
Engulf the pain of existentence.
Fries the coldness,
Only to enrich with warmth.
Igniting pain, spreading ache
All over the dead.
Indifference is disarmed.
A wound is invited.
For twinging pain is alarmed.
A wave of healing is inflicted.
Leaving one to wonder,
If only healing was painless,
Or granted.
Pain thrives while healing sprouts,
Wounds thicken.
Agony is sown.
And, a scar is born.
Marking the pain.
Declaring the mend.
All is well,
Until numbness swell,
The looping cycle resets.
The wheel of scars –
Is completed.
Burning
Within the blazing fire,
Crackling and hissing afar,
Melting and bending window panes in my sight,
Cracking of the walls all around,
Suffocated by a mist of smoke,
I’m sitting in a chair.
Amidst a burning house,
Lively, actively burning house.
Has it not been for the flames,
I would have run.
I suppose.
Has it not been for the smoke,
I would have screamed.
Maybe.
Has it not been for the locked door,
I would have escaped.
Probably.
Has it not been for my smoked ego,
Or wounded hypocrisy,
I would have screamed
Of the top of my lungs.
I think.
If I were not busy falling apart,
I would have stood and walked.
If it wasn’t the blazing fire all year round,
I would have tried to put it out.
Yet,
The panic of living in a burning house,
The exhilaration of fading in the ashes,
The fright of being muffled by the smoke,
The forlorn of asking for help,
Hazed out in the abyss,
Of a burning bliss.
I live in a burning house.
Till the fire absorbs,
I, myself, and my chair.
Unabridged Manuscripts 