Miraquill
Love in the Time of a Pandemic
Dear itchy-footed-nomad,
You found me in the canals of Venice, with sweet gelato dripping on my fingers, with old, tall buildings acting as my guide.
You found me in the remains of Pompeii, reminiscing the once thriving Roman city, now buried under meters of contortions of bodies, giggles of children, and ash.
You found me in the cobbled roads of Paris, staring up at the Eiffel Tower in utter awe, with a book in my bag, with a hand in my hand.
You found me in the noise of New York, with a ticket to Broadway in my pocket, with a yearning to simply sit in Central Park at sunrise.
You found me in Lhasa, the Forbidden City, amidst ancient wooden sculptures, with hidden inscriptions of the hushed Ming Dynasty, flying lanterns like fireflies in the open sky.
It has been quite a few days now that you have kept your windows closed –
The fragile glass panes, who have seen you break more often than themselves.
I will park the bicycle against your wall,
And gently tiptoe into your territory of isolation,
I will tell you how wonders of the world sit inches apart in your soul.
I will tell you how you've got the Budapest skyline in your eyes,
And how the Pisa tower leans in to whisper a secret.
Words spill out of your heart, like fairylights,
Spilling out of a personalized champagne bottle, from Amsterdam.
I will tell you how you sound like the tune of La Vie en Rose
That an old man played on an accordian in the Times Square,
And made strolling young lovers pause
To share a kiss.
Someday I'll walk into a postcard,
And cross oceans only to end up at your doorstep,
And into your arms.
Someday I'll walk into a postcard,
But until then, here,
Keep my words.
With regards and the last piece of macaron,
Love.
-Aishwarya Roy.
©she_writes
-
she_writes
124w
Read MoreIn case you don't notice, the cities mentioned in the first half of the poem belong to the countries with the highest number of Coronavirus cases.
Here's a small homage to everyone fighting this war, everyone combating this battle.
Love will find a way to you, no matter what. And we will survive against the odds, 'cause hey, we're in this together. ��
@readwriteunite @mirakee @writersnetwork @writersofmirakee #MirakeeWorld #writersnetwork #readwriteunite #reposter #pod #poetry #love #life #inspiration -
she_writes
134w
Read More
//They won't tell you fairytales
Of how girls can be dangerous and still win.
I guess to them
It's a terrifying thought,
A red riding hood
Who knew exactly
What she was doing
When she invited the wild in.
@readwriteunite @mirakee @writersnetwork @writersofmirakee #MirakeeWorld #writersnetwork #readwriteunite #reposter #pod #poetry #love #life #inspirationLadylike
"It isn't ladylike to raise your voice."
Her solitude has soured over the years.
It hangs around her in a rancid cloud of bitterness,
Seeping every now and then into her words;
Making her remarks sharp,
And pushing the sound of her laughter towards cruel.
"It isn't ladylike to look unpleasant."
She is a case of mistaken identity.
The ugly truth.
The need for cosmetic surgery and terrifying diets,
For breast enlargement and labiaplasty.
Her love has been reduced to a number in the Indian Penal Code.
She seeks justice from a woman,
Who wears a blindfold,
And turns a blind eye.
Oh, and she was asking for it.
"It isn't ladylike to fight with a man."
There's ash
Caked beneath her silicone nail extensions.
Castles in her bones, and coronets in her heart.
If you threaten her with a battle,
She will raise you a whole war.
So show her your kings,
And she will show you the queens that willed them, that bred them,
That taught them to be better.
'Cause the last time I checked,
This Ariel had no problem killing the two-timing prince,
And restoring herself to the giant sea.
-Aishwarya Roy.
©she_writes -
she_writes
138w
Read More
//Does my sexiness upset you?
Does it come as a surprise that I dance like I've got diamonds at the meeting of my thighs?
~Maya Angelou.
Here's an ode to all the women out there, slaying their own dragons and protecting the little princesses inside them, in the high castles of their modesty. ��
@readwriteunite @mirakee @writersnetwork @writersofmirakee #MirakeeWorld #writersnetwork #readwriteunite #reposter #pod #poetry #love #life #inspirationHeroine
She leans over the earth from the windows of the sunset.
A rogue page of yesterday’s newspaper,
Stained with the blood of some girl's violation,
Is chased by the wind, like a pigeon
With wings fluttering with feathers of rhetoric,
And melodrama.
The houses are paintings,
Cold in their rendered realism,
Merging on a horizon rapidly shrinking.
She lives alone
In a house across the street
That always looks a little unkempt,
Despite the absence of any visible clutter.
Sunlight settles slow
Like a paste of haldi on her cheeks.
She wears your lips on her face
Like fresh mangosteen.
She seldom looks complete without a piece of rectangular cloth;
Sometimes yellow, even blue, often red.
She is told to speak mellow;
She often senses the need to scream,
But rarely makes any noise.
You bring her a pair of anklets,
Hoping that they would weigh down her gypsy soul.
You press your tiredtrembling words
In her tiredtrembling hands
And tell her,
You can make it rain
If she stays.
But hers is a stubborn isolation.
Back in the immodest hush of her house
She holds carefully her words,
Along with sweat
In the creases of her palms,
Like a slow shattering henna pattern.
Her feet do not resemble the heroine who walks on her man's arm bridge to cross the water.
She walks barefoot
Through the ponds and puddles of her existence,
With sand and soil buried in the edges of nails,
Flaunting them ugly and scarred.
She tells you,
If they judge a warrior by his coated palms,
She'd tell them to judge her
By the meandering marks on her feet.
The walls don't scare her anymore
For she has painted her soul with the charcoal
Of silence,
And the weeds of colours inside her are fighting a war
Against darkness.
She is no roses and lillies and carnations
She is the wildflowers found only in fields shrouded
In the purple tones of a sunset,
Day after day.
Forgive her,
For she is no Jane Austen heroine
Or Nabokov's Lolita.
But watch her in the moonlight —
She is the mother;
Dancing around a tribal bonfire with the wolves,
And breastfeeding her children in public.
-Aishwarya Roy.
©she_writes -
she_writes
150w
Read More
//The desert weed lives on, but the flower of spring blooms and wilts.
~Khaled Hosseini.
Wrote something after a long time.
Something very different.
Something very close to my heart.
Read and let me know what you feel about it? :)
@readwriteunite @mirakee @writersnetwork @mirakee_reposter @writersofmirakee #MirakeeWorld #writersnetwork #readwriteunite #reposter #podThe Flowers I Brought You
You wake up to a blue ruin of old flowers.
The night has crept through your quietness,
Like a turtle inches to the sea.
You make a walk everyday
In distilled solitude,
Except for the songs
The fishermen's wives sing,
While they cook food in their huts
To send with their husbands
On their day voyages.
Even these tunes,
Are unwilling companions.
You sit on the stairs.
The riverbank is a sullen affair;
The wind is your mother, wailing.
And every sand particle,
A reiteration of each of your absences.
A stranger stands at your doorstep-
A wiry man in a great hurry,
Holding something paper-wrapped.
He thrusts it into your arms
With an unconvincing bow,
And turns more sharply than courtesy allows.
You unravel the threads and remove the paper-
Blue lilacs.
Stems are the hue of spring grass,
And petals so thin that even the air,
Made dim by the plumes of debris and smoke,
Can shine through them; bestowing an unearthly glow.
The windowsills and the furniture have been dusted.
The garden has no weeds.
The sleeves of your blouse gleam on your frail arms,
As the afternoon light runs along the delicate golden thread,
That is used to embroider intricate details on brocade.
You feel like your muse;
Weaving iambic poems in the air
That sails on the clouds,
And perhaps rain on somebody,
In another time.
Your mother asks you to always speak good.
So you chant verses in a language you don't understand.
Your head bows down and hits the ground.
The hair on your scalp-
Thin, fragile, black,
Touches the soil mixed with sandalwood
And a tinge of Vermilion.
You feel like a prayer
That never left your lips
And died in your palms.
I see your honey dipped in tea skin
Akin to the ground beneath my feet.
It's raining in the wrong season
And flowers have grown in all the wrong places.
I uproot them delicately and place them over an old newspaper-
Blue lilacs wrapped with matrimonial ads for 'a fair and virgin bride'.
And obituaries.
A lover brought you flowers that afternoon,
Because he could not see them withering
Without a home.
-Aishwarya Roy.
©she_writes -
she_writes
215w
Read More
//We're made of all those who've built and broken us.//
Can a broken person be made to believe in love, again?
@readwriteunite @mirakee @writersnetwork @mirakee_reposter @writersofmirakee #MirakeeWorld #writersnetwork #readwriteunite #reposter #pod-Ruins-
Like an old man of the hill, the castle lay.
It's like touching history;
Like a world trapped within a building,
Like a time machine,
Connecting you to someone who lived
And loved so long ago.
You sit with your back facing the sun.
Beneath your skin's veneer
Lies cemented fear.
The shadow reminds you,
You're not only your soul, but a walking
Creature, treading upon this miracle,
Finding your way through things,
Without knowing what half of it is like.
The castle has broken locks,
One for every promise that wasn't kept.
Missing bricks,
One for every part the waves had washed away.
Gaping holes,
One for each arrowhead of old hilts
Of broken swords and armour,
That failed to protect.
Your body looks like a half knit sweater.
People come and leave with a ball of yarn,
But never halt to fix it.
There're signboards all over the castle,
Which say:
"DANGER. Fragile roof. Shaky walls.
Keep out".
You put billboards marking the freckles on your skin,
"Danger. Fragile heart. Vulnerable soul.
Stay...?"
Moss clung in the shade of the ancient walls,
Like a straggly beard.
The twisted locks and bars aren't oiled to perfection.
The castle crumbles in slow motion,
Only the sun and the moon themselves
Witness the steady deterioration
Of these abandoned turrets and ramparts.
You're tired of listening to "You'll be okay",
In return to a "Hi".
You're a masquerade of something whole;
A mosaic of broken pieces and stretch marks.
You burn too brightly,
And collapse into yourself every night.
I stand by your umbrella eyelids,
And watch them open to all the wrong season.
They say the castle needs to be demolished,
For the walls are too broken to last.
You say you need to escape,
For you're too battered to be loved.
And I show you my palms,
With roadmaps etched like tattoos.
Roadmaps that smell of warm coffee
And fresh beginnings.
Love is tangible;
Like the tired fingers that write poetries,
For someone they can touch the heavens with.
I spend the nights writing
Things I'd rather whisper in your ear,
Tiptoeing into your territory,
Stealing epiphanies.
The walls have defied eons.
The whispers of the ages,
The voices of old, the clash of metal on metal, And the pounding of horses hooves,
Remain cloistered in the castle dungeons.
When the loneliness gnaws at you,
I animatedly whisper to you
Parts of Hansel and Gretel.
Darling, you're not alone inside.
Today we took a trip to the ruins.
You lost pieces of your heart here and there,
Like confetti.
I built a home with those pieces,
And wrote a poem under the starlit sky,
Where we both stood at one-hand-distance,
Still making each other feel
The safe kind of alone.
And I let the broken window slightly ajar.
If you change your mind.
Just in case.
-Aishwarya Roy. -
she_writes
220w
Read More
//And in that moment,
I swear,
We were infinite.//
And I'm back. :)
*Major Post*
@readwriteunite @mirakee @writersnetwork @mirakee_reposter @writersofmirakee #MirakeeWorld #writersnetwork #readwriteunite #reposter #podSouvenir
Wandering through the aisles
Of a second-hand bookstore,
I catch a whiff of a perfume,
Very familiar.
"Are you ready?"
Words barely escaped my mouth,
When you kickstarted the yellow vespa,
And we rode
On dusty roads.
With outstretched arms,
Listening to the notes played
From the violin
Of a man
In an underground tunnel.
Blue skies and airplane trails.
Children made soap bubbles;
The lovers stole kisses.
And we.
We were like dandelion seeds released to the wind
Two little daisies in a vast field of roses,
We spent the afternoon
Writing letters to the ocean,
And the stars;
Reading the goosebumps
On our flesh
Like Braille.
My jhumkas dangled,
As I danced around whirlwind woods
Against the beat of the 50's pop song,
Playing from the mixtape you had made me.
Today, you and I
Are at the highest point of a ferris wheel.
We open bottles of our past
And share glasses of liquid sunsets,
As time collapses into one tiny speck.
Still in stillness.
Quiet in quietness.
Abstraction in blank spaces,
We take no form.
Bereft of any breath,
I sit down and rest my head on your arm.
We talk about
Favourite songs, family problems, and think
About how the earth was made.
Nothing grand.
But in the little moments one tends to ignore,
Our missing pieces started filling up,
Blissfully unaware
To the fact that we have secretly found
A roadmap to home.
The pitch-black curtain slowly draped
Over the sky,
And the stars made twisted, warped shapes Against the blackness.
The citylights started glistening
Like fallen stars.
Tonight,
We hug our fears good night
Across the bakery on the crossroads,
And navigate in the dark,
As if the map to the city
Is etched on our minds.
No classy dinner date,
A long gown,
A dozen candles or
A single long stemmed rose.
No scarlet lips, nor a perfect smile.
But a rooftop, cloaked in partial darkness;
Barefeet, dangling legs, and windblown hair.
Tonight nobody is watching as we walk;
The shadows of two colloquial hearts tangling, bare.
Petrichor lurking in thin air.
Tonight nobody is watching as we dance;
To no music,
To nothing but the beat
Of our own hearts,
Across every street and boulevard,
As the lamp posts paint us neon.
I took all our memories,
And pressed them inside my old diary.
You took all my jagged edges
And broken pieces home,
And placed them on your window sill,
As if they were some kind of souvenirs.
And no sooner did we part our ways,
Than we realised,
We've left pieces of our hearts,
Scattered like confettis,
In all the places we went to.
Maybe the city too likes to keep
A little souvenir of us.
-Aishwarya Roy. -
she_writes
226w
Read More
//We all are a little broken,
And that's okay.//
@readwriteunite @mirakee @writersnetwork @mirakee_reposter @writersofmirakee #MirakeeWorld #writersnetwork #readwriteunite #reposter#pod-Broken-
My mother used to say,
We take pictures of what look interesting to us.
You, standing in the farthest corner,
Took pictures, of wilted flowers,
Parched leaves,
And the sky broken up by tree branches.
Today the sky is nothing at all.
It's like a child began to draw
On it, with a charcoal pencil,
And then erased it in a way that
Smudged and spread the grey.
You struggle to get out of bed.
I don't remember places on maps,
But I remember the glitter in your eyes.
The tilt in your head.
Quiet lips and awfully loud eyes.
You hardly know who you are
When you are surrounded by people,
So full of who they are.
Your bones prick your existence,
As if telling you,
Just like that broken crayon,
That crumpled note,
That unsent postcard,
That unsaved photograph,
You don't matter.
You think you're made of numbers
Like pounds on a scale,
Likes on a photo,
Price tags on clothes,
T&C's on love.
But you don't realise
You're made of early sunsets.
Warm coffee.
Big sweaters.
And messy hair.
Of late nights, and good conversations.
Darling, you've more substance than number.
Silent mostly, you speak in rains.
Rage in storms.
Love in thunder.
Your struggle is relevant
Even if it means stepping out of your bed,
Looking directly into people,
Or showing up at a get-together.
You don't write poems on timelines,
But leave words
On tissues in cafes you go to.
Like a coffee mug,
You're poured out differently
To different people.
You comfort some,
Some don't like you.
But that's okay.
Not everyone has the same taste in coffee.
When you were a child,
You were taught life in tables and charts,
In chapters and lessons.
But you,
You believed in magic, and unicorns
And miracles.
With big bold eyes, and a brave heart
You painted the sky with colours
That don't usually belong there.
Today the sky is nothing at all.
Mellow blues and pinks blurred together
In a silver mist.
But the daisy sun finally shows up,
In the porcelain sky,
To remind you that even when
Your world is drowning in grief and hardship,
You can still be
Unabashedly brilliant, scarlet, hypnotic.
Beautiful.
Don't spend all your life
Being a little too sceptical
To be truly happy.
Don't have to grow fast,
Like flowers.
Grow like trees,
Slow. Ugly. But strong.
Live running against the ticks of clocks.
Smell the rose while you may.
Learn the colour of the sky,
The smell of earth,
The touch of waves,
The beating of a heart.
They'll make you realise that
This's what life's abt.
This's what it means to be,
Alive.
You're not some broken window
That warrants fixing.
You're a beautiful mosaic,
Made of love,
And every fracture caused
By the lack of it.
You're a poem,
With metaphors in each line.
Not everyone gets you,
But that doesn't make you any less beautiful.
Oh, darling. How long will you be afraid
Of your blemishes and scars,
When the colossal night sky, too, is freckled,
With stars?
-Aishwarya Roy. -
she_writes
231w
Read More
"It’s in the click of my heels,
The bend of my hair,
The palm of my hand,
The need for my care.
’Cause I’m a woman
Phenomenally."
-Maya Angelou.
To all my lovely ladies out there.
Happy Women's day! ♥
A post quite close to my heart. For it speaks of me. It speaks of us. Of the beautiful mess we all are. ��
Special thanks to @nachiketa for inspiring me so much, that I came up with this post. Check out his lovely piece written on the occasion of Women's Day, too. ❤
#womensday#2018
@readwriteunite @mirakee @writersnetwork @mirakee_reposter @writersofmirakee #MirakeeWorld #writersnetwork #readwriteunite #reposter#podShe
36-24-36.
A perfectly carved hourglass body,
Like that of two-dimensional photoshopped models,
Gracing any billboard or magazine cover.
Lips carefully tinted red.
Skin fair and flawless.
Wearing a form fitting dress
Of lacy hot pink.
Well, she has none.
She, is a mess, of burning chaos.
She stumbles on stars,
And wears the prettiest scars.
She has every freckle you hate,
And every scar you feel ashamed of.
She collapses,
And crumbles,
Marking not her destruction,
But her birth.
She wears her flaws,
Like a pair of
6 inch high stilettos.
They hurt,
But she'd make the pain look beautiful.
A perfectly put together mess she is.
She is synonymous for war.
Her hair reeks
Of rebellious streaks.
There's ash
Caked beneath her fingernails.
She is war.
There's no army more fierce than womanhood.
No breastplate more unfathomable than a woman's love.
She is a woman. With a notepad.
Scribbling battles onto paper.
Her brown skin matches with your favourite coffee.
She talks about stars and the night sky,
And gets high on liquid sunsets.
You take trips down her body,
And talk about the shape of her lips,
The outline of her clavicle,
But do you see beyond?
Her pupils dilate seeing racing cars.
Her earthy eyes
Hold all wilderness.
She unhooks the bra,
And bites her bare lips.
Her overwhelming presence
Sends chills down your spine,
Trickling all the way down
Into your deep waters,
And make tides rise.
She isn't intimidating.
But you're intimidated.
There's a difference.
She is a girl,
Not made of sugar, spice
And everything nice,
But with pieces of light, love,
History, stars- glued together with
Touches, smells, music and words.
A girl
Made of love,
And every fracture caused by
The lack of it.
But because of them,
She doubts her own liberation.
Questions her own limitations.
She dresses herself up in their guilt,
And pretend that it looks
Rather good on her.
Her opinions are like that old satin dress,
In a dark corner of your wardrobe.
Wrinkled, so far gone.
Never talked about.
Skinned knees,
Broken heels.
She wears a little-black-dress,
And tells that the bruises on her skin
Are because she slipped and fell.
Her voice is like music under a summer breeze,
Almost lost against the noise
Of the Monday morning traffic.
An outsider in her own country,
She seeks justice from a woman
Who wears a blindfold,
And turns a blind eye.
But she slays her own dragons,
And walks through fire.
She burns in stamps and labels, and
Her whole body goes up like a pyre.
She isn't just strong enough to withstand the storm.
She IS the storm.
She's art,
That doesn't need metaphors or abstract lines.
She is war,
Mess,
Madness,
And everything chaotic you see.
She has been you.
She has been me.
-Aishwarya Roy. -
she_writes
236w
Read More
"That's the thing about introverts;
We wear our chaos on the inside,
where no one can see it."
-Michaela Chung.
***Major post***
Very long, for it contains a lot of me.
Hope you relate? ♥
@readwriteunite @mirakee @writersnetwork @mirakee_reposter @writersofmirakee #MirakeeWorld #writersnetwork #readwriteunite #reposter#podDear Introverted, Overthinker Self
You're learning to be comfortable
Alone, on tables-for-two.
Choosing books over people for company,
On long train rides.
3:15 am.
"Did I lose you again?",
I ask,
Snapping my fingers at you.
And you're jolted into reality.
Blink blink.
You can't feel your body,
Until you touch your skin.
You pinch it, squeeze it, scratch it.
You look in the mirror,
At your puffy eyes.
Lips quivering,
Like the flickering of an old tubelight.
You smile,
Because you've always liked your face
After a meltdown.
When the blood washes
The bruises of your skin,
The scars on your arms.
Like a polaroid exposed to sunlight for months,
Memories begin to fade.
You glorify pain.
As if it's a cult film,
Artsy, intelligent.
Like you're superior
Just because you suffer.
The dark corners of your room
Have long dangling creepy fingers.
Your heart pounds so loud,
You feel like a boom box playing a rock song.
You cover every inch of your soul
In fairylights,
But you hardly realise
That even on nights like this,
When you feel cold and bare,
You can still be breathtakingly beautiful.
Darling, you're darn strong.
No, you don't lift weights,
You lift souls.
You don't realise,
Your crumpled yesterdays would be soon torn apart.
Your anxiety, stress and depression will leave
To a multi-verse.
When a thunderstorm will wake you up
And you are terrified that it's the demon
Inside your head,
It'll take you a few seconds to realise,
That it was never to here to last.
Just like the bad weather.
You've always been shifting
An inch away
From latching onto everything meaningful.
The moment you tried building a sandcastle,
The waves would steal it from you.
You picked seashells.
And when your hands grew bigger,
You only wanted more.
So you became a collector of things,
Memories, souvenirs, remains
Wilted flowers,
Unsent postcards.
Your body is like your childhood home,
A mosaic- pieces of light, love, history, stars
Glued together
With magic, music and words.
Your heart is floating in the sea,
And your hands still collecting
Silly, tiny remnants.
And most of all, pieces of your own self.
The most beautiful of things in this world
Find themselves in the most wrong places.
A rose in a vase at a dining table.
A bird in a cage.
They're all trapped in the wrong things.
But it doesn't matter,
As long as they know how to stay beautiful.
Bloom, for as long as you can.
Sing, if you know your voice stands for something.
Write, if you know your words make an impact
Because even if the world forgets you,
Your song will find a place in someone's favourite playlist.
Your poetry will be someone's cure.
This, is a world of half finished sentences.
You'll find words
Hidden under beds,
Thrown around on the street.
In crumpled notes,
With crushed expectations,
And thrown away bouquets.
I know,
You've given a lot to this world.
You've stayed up nights for people
Who won't stand with you for two minutes
In the rain.
You're vulnerable.
Just like those raindrops,
Which fall so effortlessly.
Without the slightest promise of a safe landing.
Stop encaging your thoughts,
For they're like the lions destined to roar.
Stop being silent, because I know
You still find stories in the people you meet,
And your heart still aches to be a part of one.
Let people come, even if you fear them leaving.
I know it'll hurt,
When they'll get off the chair.
Parts of you will break,
Leaving you a total mess.
But then, you're gifted
With an OCD for cleaning.
And trust me,
A similar lover will soon walk by.
You're not a 5:29 pm sunset.
Or that perfect cup of coffee
People can't stop talking about.
You're the type of chaos
That gives birth to stars.
You're wild,
Like the ones left alone in the forest
Collecting memories in their firefly jars.
The best form of love,
Lives right inside you.
Darling, don't ever give up on that.
Love always,
The-voice-inside-your-heart-you-never-listen-to.
-Aishwarya Roy. -
she_writes
242w
Read More
A bit late. A bit long.
Nevertheless.
Merry Christmas, you beautiful people! ❤
Would heart your feedbacks. :)
#rwu_christmas @readwriteunite
@mirakee @thebackstory @writersnetwork @mirakee_reposter @writersofmirakee #MirakeeWorld #writersnetwork #readwriteunite #reposter#podThat One Christmas
The disappointed look on his face stayed.
It's the Christmas eve.
The enormous Christmas tree,
Adorned with glistening ornaments
And glowing fairylights,
Looked brighter than his own house
Ever did.
Draped with lights his father could never afford.
His father-
The Santa Claus for others' Christmas parties.
Until last year.
They said he couldn't play his role too well,
For he was thin and lanky.
So this year, a more suitable Santa
Has replaced him.
Scent of freshly baked Christmas cakes
Is coming from a neighboring bakery,
Amidst the bustling streets
Of the Christmas Market.
The hand-crafted greeting cards
Made with papers which smell of jasmine,
Folded with warm smiles
And stitched with love.
More love than the little boy
Has ever received.
Stalls tossed freshly roasted,
Golden brown chestnuts, carefully
Into paper cones,
And added generous layers
Of whipped cream.
So many lights.
Scents.
Flavours.
Beaming grins.
And synthetic love.
The little boy hated Christmas.
To him, love never came in a box,
With a pretty ribbon, and a prettier price-tag.
As the evening sky faded away,
The pink and orange hues were replaced
With dark shades of blue, whilst the amber light of the street lamps
Spilled on the stone-paved streets.
He dared to lurk
Behind the inky black curtains
That hid reality, and saw children
Enjoying love.
Children, whose hearts and his were born
In the same corn fields,
That danced in the winds.
And the little boy laughed at how
They must've been dusts from the same star
Or the waves of the same bold sea.
Never calm.
The boy craved simple things,
Yet dreamed complex dreams.
Dreams that were like a crumpled piece of paper
You're too lazy to throw away,
So instead you put it in a drawer
Never to read again.
Dreams like daisy flowers,
Lone specks of white and yellow,
Growing precociously where
They aren't supposed to.
Unwattered and lost
Without sunlight,
Struggling to wake up.
Life was a carousel of little adventures
And he was a silly kid on sugar rush
Not knowing it was a sin to dream.
Valleys grew deeper and mountains inched higher,
But the little boy and his eyes,
Full of gleaming hope and delicate dreams
Were like a hamster on its wheel,
Kept running away stationed to the same place,
Moving not an inch.
The giant church bell rings.
It's 12 o' clock.
Skies tainted in nostalgia.
Trees hazed,
Like his father's vision.
The boy begins to miss his father,
Father, whose arms were warmer
Than the thin blanket in their house.
His lullabies and tender sighs.
Their entangled limbs, untangled minds.
The boy chokes and crumbles,
As he hears a terrific thud,
The sound of black boots falling
Fom the earth's heavens as they slid
Down the chimney,
And covered the white floor with grey ash.
The outside as dead as the dreams
He's still mourning after.
His face glowed,
And so did the cuts, the scars,
The deeply etched marks on it,
Like on the barks
Of a tree,
But only some you could see.
The little boy hid them well,
In cobwebbed corners of his mind.
"Santa? Is that you?"
The dark room illuminated with the blinking of his eyes.
And when Santa's numb fingers found his,
The way braille finds the blind,
For the first time,
He felt a tinge of happiness
That for once didn't slip
Through his little fists,
Like quicksand.
The gift-wrapped diary felt like
A friendly neighbour
On this forlorn land.
His father, after all, was never too thin
Or lanky,
To be his child's Santa Claus.
That was the best Christmas he ever had.
-Aishwarya Roy.
-
amsterdam
48w
Read MoreWhen was the last time
you truly believed in yourself?
When was the last time you didn't?
PS.
Time check: 5:05 am 09.13.21
I can't believe I woke up to THIS. Tbh, this isn't my favorite post but then, thank you a zillion times! ��
Thank you, @writersnetwork @miraquill! Mwah! ��Come on, Sense!
Sunday
is a trigger warning
sulking on a
bleached poem.
A strange weather in your eyes
heaves a deep sigh
and your anxiety is talking again
without subtitles,
Reality assaults your nostrils
with the stinky truth
that you can't save the world
by lunchtime
and you could only
watch your dreams go in flames,
like a movie teaser
that scares the lights out of you,
Some days steal the air
out of your lungs
and lick the neon flames
out of your breath.
They are empty death threats
that robs every ounce
of your leftover common sense.
And when you wake up
from a deep slumber
that pulls you away
from the borderline of fiction and reality,
You realize that sometimes
it's better not to tame the flames.
09.12.21 -
kaetkey
74w
Read More/Paper plane of happiness/
There goes a paper plane swirling and racing away with the butterflies. It tore the air which scattered, falling down like the confetti and touched the cheeks of that happy little kid. It reminded him of the paper plane decoration from his last birthday he spent with his grandparents. He wore the smile drenched in memories, they left behind for him and felt proud of himself for making a perfect plane almost like the one his grandpa once flew and the one he dreams of flying some day.
/Paper plane of despair/
There goes a paper plane made of half burnt paper, actually a letter. Which held a few heartbroken words, “Promise me that you'll take care of yourself and keep smiling even when I won't be there around, when I'll be gone in the stars.” The plane and her signature with a doodled heart beside was saved from the flaring flames. The plane bearing heaviness of tears and a freshly painted heart, crashed far before escaping the atmosphere and her daughter yelled, “I hate you, mom, for not accepting my this heart either. I swear I would've looked better than you among the stars!”
/Paper plane of love/
There goes a paper plane wreathed with petals and thorns in unison. It flew gracefully with the cool breeze of winter, flew among the warm sunflower fields in summer and got soaked in drizzle and petrichor of monsoon. It went knocking on her windowpane and she let it in. Opening it, she found a love cladded half written poem. She pondered upon every single beautiful thing she has ever come across just to find appropriate feelings and not just words and completed the poem. She was never a poet but love made her one. They weren't any lovers of poem but she made them so.
/Paper plane of hate/
There goes a paper plane remained behind, made out of forgiveness unlike the stack of planes made out of hate which were threw with displeasure. Many reasons to hate but a single reason to forgive, the only way to get atleast some of the lost peace. The forgiving last plane gently pushed into the sky, left a half rainbow like curve on his face. And over a few inches, the crashed planes of hatred got buried under his feet. Those decomposed into nothingness and the other one reached his enemy, who smiled for a moment for recognising a plane made by his once friend.
/Paper plane of hope/
There goes a paper plane crossing a bridge and reached a wrecked soul standing on its edge. It was just another letter undelivered, from a teenage daughter to her parents. She had wrote words drowned in holy waters of hope for them. Reading the lines, “No matter what I'm here for you. Everything will be fine.” a feeling of deja vu rose in his chest and he stepped back to recall a scene occurred few hours ago. He ran home clutching the plane tight, slammed the door open to see his parents standing there with the same two lines in their eyes since yesterday night. A paper plane and hope, both made their ways into his heart.
/Paper plane of a writer/
There goes a paper plane made by a writer. Adorned with an unwritten story on each crease. Some laughed while some cried who couldn't make a perfect one but atleast tried. Like a writer they felt how important a piece of paper can be. They all saw something in it what no one else could see. Never knew a thin sheet can hold happiness, despair, love, hate, hope and other feelings left untold, cold.
©kaetkey
PS: Even if there's nothing written over them, paper planes are still letters.
I hope you liked the caption more than the concrete. If yes then I'm elated to recieve your reposts. Thankyou ♡ @writersnetwork @mirakee ^_^/Paper plane of a writer/
.
th
- ere
goes a
paper pla
-ne mad e by
me.adorned with
an unwritten story
oneachcrease. some,
laughed while some c-
ried who could n'tmakea
perfect one but atleasttried
Like a writer , they felthowcruci
alpieceofpaper can be.theyall
saw what none couldsee
Itdid hold, happiness
lo- ve, despairhate
ho pe and other
f ee li -ngs
le f t un
to l d
col
d.
©kaetkey -
dopamine
90w
Read MoreMy ma's been buttering me with love ever since her egg turned into a zygote, but the people around have been scalping off love with razors that left behind cracks. Once I was walking on a street full of humans, self doubt then settled down like dust between bones, my ma ran towards me with a cloth to dust away the toxin, but before she could reach me, the wounds were sewed and I was tied to a window while my ma broomed around the house that had its own layers of filth, conspiracies, lies and politics. As the sun sets, she'd make piles of all the garbage she's gathered and would turn to me with more love, but before she could reach me, the trash was thrown on her. I was tied to a window, with self doubt in my bones- the hair that grew on me were of hatred, no matter how many times they were waxed, they'd grow back again. My dad called me strong, and I asked ma why'd he say so and she told me because I'm a warrior but I didn't tell her that every warrior is not strong and warrior just might be an overstatement, for someone who fights with life in day to feel like they belong in it, and with demons at night to feel like they don't belong with them is a warrior ? And did I add the word, fails? Pimples on my face, and I call them failure and self loath for they too won't leave. There's skin and there are scars and there's more skin over them. It's then coloured with rainbows and smiles, tears don't wash away the colours but they do smudge them a little, so the layers on the top, they're beautiful. There are holes in my soul from the thumb pins that were stuck in it everytime I was heart broken or I broke a heart which was later filled up with ignorance.
I never knew who I was, there were way too many layers and I'd been pretending they are a part of me,and now I have forgotten who I am.
Can love help me find my way back to myself again? If yes, will you butter it on me the way ma used to?
-
dopamine
#layersLayers over all these years
Who am I? A pile of layers.
-
dopa -
thehemantkashyap
92w
Homesick
Here, I tell a tale
more ancient than the woods that I
left so foolishly behind; at least I
knew the way home among
those trees; the oaks were
all earmarked, the cedars
were all laden with flowers
of spring and the rosewoods carried
the aroma of home.
Years and years later, here I am
in an ocean, bereft
aboard a raft, adrift
I had carried some twigs with me
just to be sure of the way back
and a rope from the hut in
the backyard.
I used my souvenirs to build my
deliverance, a deliverance that I never had.
Adrift, I found myself in this
expanse of poison
With only the sun burning skin
off my back and the land that
only seems a few feet ahead of me.
Oh what a cruelty; a watery desert
with no hope of reprieve
On nights like these I look up to find
some shred of familiarity; I realize
that the nostalgia
had been poisoned
with an assortment of
those foreign stars that I
have nothing to speak of
Aliens danced upon the skies as I
watched my own descent
into the abyss.
I found no shore for
a hundred eternities, for
a hundred more I suffered
the fate of a marooned mariner
the only crime I was guilty of was a
thirst of adventure. Little did I
know I would be grieving as if
my town had been
burned to the ashes
by some invader of
the cruelest kind and
my people slaughtered for sport.
I wondered if the streets
remembered me still, or was I
already forgotten
as if I was
buried, six feet deep
in the warm embrace of
the earth; alas
I was destined for a watery grave.
©thehemantkashyap -
hoshi
93w
Read MoreIt's been a while, hasn't it?
I didn't know if I would want to write again, everything felt so different. Yet, the need for closure for the Old man made me write again.
Autumn is here, and a lot has changed. Days are getting shorter and colder. The leaves are orange, roads covered with them.
Someone recently told me that I remind them of autumn. That's nice, that's warm, yet it's what mirakee is.
I hold warm memories for all of you. For this platform. Yet, in a way, it doesn't feel like home anymore.
I made some beautiful friends here. Friendships, which are way too important and close to me.
Perhaps this is the end.
Or a new beginning.
Someday, I just might write again, on a blog or a different platform.
And I might peek in here from time to time.
But, as I close another chapter, I hope you go through his words again. :)
With warm regards,
Hoshi.
All other parts: #teatime_recollectionsTeatime Recollections #7 -Finale.
A letter dropped in the mail today.
A letter. Not a text, not the instant messages. Heck, not even an email. A letter, with yellowed parchement on a Sunday afternoon, with mist in the air and flickering sunlight from amidst the clouds.
With trepidation, I opened it.
It read,
Good evening, Lad.
I hope you're doing okay. I'm writing this with a heavy heart, barely getting anything down my throat.
Before I get into anything, will you grab a cup of tea for me? I don't think I can offer it to you from here, so please acknowledge my wishes for one last time?
I hope you got that cup, lad. I hope you did.
Lad, it seems that the end is here. It's difficult to explain, complex emotions rage within me when I think about it. A certain premonition of my end coming soon, I hope it's during my sleep. That does sound peaceful, doesn't it?
It's amusing. For years, when I was younger, I craved for my life to end. In my teens, I used to chuckle somberly and whisper about giving up. In my twenties, when the war broke out, I woke up every day thinking that it was the end of the line.
I always craved to give up, to just lie down and never get up. Now, that my time seems to be coming to an end, I don't want to let go. I want to have you over for one more time, slurping your tea while spilling crumbles from the biscuits all over your lap.
Do have a sip, lad.
Heh, even in a letter, I seem to be doing all the talking.
I don't want to go, yet, I must accept my fate. So, I'll share with you a story, a story of how my entire world-view changed.
-x-
It was the second year of the war. I'd been drafted with my pals. War, lad, is funny business. Your orders are usually simple, yet, difficult to uphold.
Ours was to hold the line. No matter what. Our lives, our dreams, our thoughts came second. The country came first.
I didn't mind that.
The food was meagre, the water was brown and dust kept falling due to rampant bombings. Trenches were filled with bodies and it was left to us to let our comrades pass on to heaven.
Look at me rambling, please bear with me for one last time?
It was the seventy fifth day of my deployment when the enemy charged. We lost. Somehow, underneath the pile of bodies of my comrades, I survived. Cowardly? Yes. Even though I wished for death each day, I didn't go with my mates. It felt wrong to just walk to my death when they had given their lives for me.
So, lad, there I was, surrounded by enemies, underneath a pile of bodies. Looking back at it, all I can think is, "Devon, just how did you survive?!"
Heh. Perhaps I'll never know. But I did.
I don't know how long it was, whether it was day or night. I was woken up by another man, just one look at him and I knew that it was the end for me. It was an enemy soldier, probably ten years elder to me.
With his hand on my shoulder, taking me towards an alcove in a grove of trees, he sat down beside me and offered me some food and water.
No names. No tears. Nothing. At least, not at first.
I, lad, am ashamed to say that I did burst into tears at his act of kindness. It felt surreal and magical. It still does.
He only said a few words to me. I don't even recall what they were, apart from his last words.
Walking away after providing me food, he just turned back and said, "Go. Go and live your life. Make something out of it. You couldn't hold the line here but you can hold it for your own life. Kid, all the breath in your lungs is stronger than the tears in your eyes. Don't give up. Go."
Those words, lad, changed my life. It was another chance for me, with the most unbelievable story. I don't know his name, where he came from, but he saved my life.
-x-
That's my story, lad. The story that changed my life. Gave me the will to live and do something with my life.
No fancy words or phrases as before, lad. I can't muster up the will for it. Just make this life your best. Hold the line, even when the world seems to be falling down. Become the old man for someone else. Carry on, when the paper houses come crashing down, when winds ferry the ghosts from your past.
Just. Hold the line.
Now, I'll place this letter into the contents of my will. I hope you do receive it. I want you to live out your life and make it a wonderful one. Gather stories, memories over money. Do anything which makes you smile and laugh.
As that wishy-washy wand waving kid once said, "Death is but the next big adventure."
It's my time to experience that.
- Hoshi -
saith
136w
Read More(Hello again)
For almost a decade now, I've woken to the smell of warm toast and coffee.
My daughter had a love for coffee, which to her disappointment, I didn't share. And she made her displeasure clear every once in a while, clucking as I sipped on fruit juice and saying the words that I could now recite in my sleep.
"You need some caffeine to shake you awake, Maa."
I'd grin, and as she'd look at her newspaper from over the rim of her cup, I'd steal a glance at her, this beautiful daughter of mine who grew up beyond her ears long before she should ever have, this beautiful daughter of mine who switched roles with me, in the ripe ears of early teenage, when she saw me struggle with home and work.
On some mornings, she'd catch me staring wonderingly at her and I'd see a glimpse of my little girl. Or maybe it was just wishful thinking.
When I had held her in my hands the first time, I found myself in a rush of elation and fear. How, just how, could I tell this child as she grew up that the man who was supposed to teach her how to walk, who was supposed to be in the picture that the nurse had gifted to me, never made it back from work one evening?
I had stared at the phone for long, my mother's number staring at me from the screen. I wonder if this was the time to call her up, gush over the phone that I had a beautiful daughter and that I was happy but I was scared. I was scared I wouldn't do her right. I was scared I wouldn't be able to raise this beautiful child.
When I had left my parents' house five years earlier, I had left it knowing that I could never come back to this place that was never home. It had taken me years, years to gather the courage to stand up to my father and say that I had had enough of him, his tyranny, his beatings. My mother had clutched at me, begging me to stay, begging my father to let me. I had whispered under my breath, a question, almost like an apology "Would you choose me over him? Would you keep me safe from him?"
We both knew the answer. We had known it for years. I walked away.
I hadn't made the call that afternoon. I had never made the call. And even though I was terrified, I found my way. With Alice. For Alice.
The first time she said her name, the first time she said mine, the first time she went to kindergarten, the first time she went to the school with the bus and the fancy uniform, coming back with stories so happy, they made me wonder if they were all really true, the first time she told me she had a boyfriend and the utter mess that the chap left her in. How I had rolled my eyes in my mind, knowing this was coming and how she rolled hers a couple of months later when she claimed "I'm over him. God, he was stupid, wasn't he? I was stupid."
Our trips to the mall, and realising how most of it was too expensive for us, we had taken to stitching clothes a lot of times and doing a pretty neat job.
I told her all of my story, about all the people that were ghosts in her story, unlike in the other girls'. I told her how sorry I am that she didn't have a grandmother who'd force her to have beetroot, just like she did with me, and a grandfather who'd always tell her to exercise, just like I knew he would. I told her everything and she held me, her warmth enveloping me in the feeling of home that I had only found in her.
We went to see my mother that winter. It took her a moment, incredulity and age keeping her from responding for the space of a heartbeat before she broke into tears and hugged me and then looked at Alice in wonder as she saw my eyes, her eyes, in Alice's face.
During her years in college, away from me, I'd only see her in summers, each time thinner than before, and I'd tell her in vain to eat well. My mother would keep telling me to bake her biscuits and cakes and send them off with her so she'd always eat. And she'd wave it away saying there'd be no space in the room. I remember worrying as she stayed up nights, doing lessons and projects and juggling boys.
I remember how she had squealed over the phone when she got her job at the publishing house and the dinner we'd had that night. It was mushroom and steaks.
My mother wasn't there to see her get married. She'd looked beautiful, in the white dress and the flowers that she matched not with the dress but with the tinge on her nails. And I had felt both happy and terrified, thinking how would I ever be without her. But then I saw her smiling, holding hands with David and talking to the small group of people we had come to know us family, some of her friends and some of mine. And I knew in my heart it was right.
It's been three years to that day and I'm smiling looking at the pictures on the cabinet. A lot of Alice and David. A lot of me too. I'm smiling as I realised that despite my worst fears, I had never been alone, not since Alice.
In the kitchen, I smell Alice's coffee again, her low hum reaching us, me and the child I'm holding in my arms.
Alice steps out of the kitchen, placing two porcelain mugs on the Formica topped table as she croons and takes April from my arms. Over the rim of my mug, I see her stealing glances at her daughter. And when she catches me staring, I place the mug down and smile gently, tapping her knuckles and I hope. I hope with all my heart that she knows that she'll never be alone, and that together, we were going to give to her daughter everything I always wished I could give her.
-ShabnoorTapestry
-
saith
135w
Read More
(Mirakee was so long ago. Two years, nein?
I'm forgetting things. I'm finding them too. And God. I feel old.
The moon and my favourite company made this one happen.)
CHLOE
You know people say happiness is an inside job and all those things. But sometimes, I quite believe that happiness is sheer dumb luck.
I'm staring at the man standing in front of me at the altar, blue eyes dazzling against the black tuxedo. I'm staring at him, hearing him, hearing myself, repeat the vows.
I do. He said and kissed me.
I do. I said and melted into the kiss.
I thought of school and how I'd come home every time, and rush into my room before mum saw the blood on my shirt. I remember hiding away every little thing I ever wrote that would give any inkling to anyone of how I felt. In retrospect, I think it's a good thing I hid them and threw them away. They were all terrible, really. For what it's worth, I was only in high school. I thought of all the lunches I had alone in the cafeteria, looking at groups of friends, wondering if I could ever laugh and be like that with people who'd love me, and accept all of me. The dead frog they'd leave in my locker would tell me the answer.
I remember mum looking at me, questioningly everyday, worried as every mother would. I remember staring at myself in the mirror for hours wondering why I was like this, why I couldn't get a hold of myself and my thoughts.
I tried a lot to change myself. Most of it, out of hate for my own self. My wrists still have the telltale signs of those trials. I would run until I couldn't hear anything from the bloodrush and nausea. I'd scream in the afternoons when mum would go with Chloe to the park, after asking me if I'd come. I think a part of her always held herself responsible for how I'd become. I wish I could tell her it wasn't. I wish I could tell her everything. I wish. Oh I wish.
It was in high school that I told Chloe I'm gay. Her eyes had opened wider and her jaw had slacked a little in a poor attempt of a pretence of surprise.
Chloe knew. She'd always known. So the moments that followed after I told her were something I could easily expect of my sister. Smiling, uncertain but warm. And stepping close, embracing me in a hug.
She said "Tell me about the boy who loved you in a way that made you accept yourself."
"Well, I can tell you it wasn't my first love."
"For what it's worth, it wasn't mine either." She had rolled her eyes at what I was sure was a memory of Gideon Briggs.
I laughed, with my sister. For the first time, I really laughed. For the weight off my shoulders and for sheer joy of having a sister who'd understand me. I laughed and thanked God for the stepfather I hated that gave me this sister of mine.
When I was leaving for college, Chloe was all the anchor I had to home. Chloe was the only person I had ever truly loved. For every boy I slept with and cried over, Chloe had come and held my head between her hands telling me how all boys were asses and I was going to be just fine.
And when I'd tell her, glumly that I was a boy too, she'd say "Then you're an ass for interrupting me."
And even through the mess I'd smile. The time I had come home with my nose bleeding from a guy who punched me because I had refused to answer "How do you guys do 'it'?" Chloe had been so furious, her tears spilled over and pitter pattered on the soup she had made to comfort me.
It was scary, leaving all that. Knowing that the only person who loved me as I am, was behind me and walk away from there. But you do what you do. And I did.
College was both merciless and beautiful. It didn't allow me the time to think, and yet I grew. I grew up, my soul reconciling with all the pain I'd weathered, and survived. I found friends. They were few. Fewer than the fingers on one hand. But I had never wanted many. When I went home that summer, Chloe told me about the boy she was going to the library with, and "he wasn't an ass." She had thrown the pillow at me when I asked her if it was really the library she was going to with him.
It was when I had just passed out of college, living across the bakery shop that I found James. The blue eyed boy who'd always get the chocolate muffins on Saturdays when I came back from office. We finally talked when one day he had knocked on my door late in the evening asking if I'd let him in just long enough so he could wait out the storm. And from there, began our slow beautiful journey of finding love.
You know people say happiness is an inside job and all those things. But sometimes, I think I quite believe that happiness is sheer dumb luck. Like I found mine. With James.
When I lost my baby sister to the flu, I had fallen on my knees and cried until I was wheezing. I had held mum, in what must have been years, as sobs wreaked her body when they lowered her coffin. James was my rock, for all the months that followed. Holding me through the nights when I'd whisper her name into the air willing her to come true all over. He held me through every day until I could look at Chloe's pictures again, knowing that as long as I was, so was she. And I promised never to let memories of her become tinged with gloom or bitterness. It was Chloe. It had to have warmth and happiness. Only that, for my baby sister.
That summer, I visited her grave for the first time. And that day, I finally told her. Because I finally had something to say. I told her about the boy who loved me in a way that made me accept all of myself. I told her about mum and how she'd gotten into gardening now. And she had found her peace. I told her about the man I was and how I didn't feel the need to hide anymore when people asked me "What is it like for you?"
I told her about James and the life I lived now. A life I knew she wanted me to have. A life I knew she'd be proud of. I knew because like her, I had started believing in miracles too. I knew because on her epitaph were the words that "The fact that Chloe lived is evidence that miracles exist."
- ShabnoorChloe
It was in high school that I told Chloe I'm gay. Her eyes had opened wider and her jaw had slacked a little in a poor attempt of a pretence of surprise.
©saith -
saith
135w
Read More
The night is beautiful and I dearly miss my best friend. I just felt like saying that.
*smiles*
Grandpa was a lot of things. But of all the things he was, he was a storyteller at his best, at his happiest. He'd live for stories, my grandpa. Living in a country house looking out at rows and rows of maize shooting up from the ground, he and I would sit on the steps on the porch, listening to the sound of farmers in the field, of wanton birds paying no heed to scarecrows and distant households. On Sundays, there'd be the musical ring of the ice-cream truck in the distance. We'd always get the orange popsicle not just because it was the cheapest, it was also Grandpa's favourite colour. I'd always ask him to tell me the story of why it was. And he'd always say. Sunset, Ellie. Sunset and your grandmother. She loved the flowers like her own children. She took weeks to grow them, watering them every evening, chipping off caterpillars and weeds. There were these flowers that she looked at the most affectionately. Right there, underneath the window ledge. A patch of calendulas. Orange reminds me of my Trudy and her calendulas.
Grandpa had always been my favourite person. Even now, half a country away, I could hear his voice beside me as I sat staring at the screen, feeling parched off words. You'd think stories would come naturally to me. I write for a living, after all. But for every story, I had to go down a mine and dig in. Sometimes, I'd be the canary that'd die right there in the depths of the mine, looking for a story, getting lost in the hollows. On those days I'd hear Grandpa say "Ellie, my darling girl, remember that wherever you go, you carry stories with you. Everyone does, really. But the ones who retell them are the ones who live forever." Grandpa always had stories. He always believed and made me believe that I could be a storyteller.
As for me, I didn't want to live forever. I just wanted to pay my rents. So that's what I did. Scraped stories that paid the rent. Trying to keep the canary alive.
You don't know all the things that your mind holds until it's being forced to close like an overstuffed briefcase.
Despite being a writer, I'd always been a bit of a cynic. But the thing about cynics is that we're all just one spell of magic away from believing. For me, this magic spell came in the robe of a road accident that took my life. Well nearly.
You know there's this thing that parallels death and black holes. Nobody quite knows what it feels like. Even when it's upon you staring in the eye. You know the moments before. Not the during or the after. Whatever gets close enough to peek, never gets to turn around. Maybe this is why I'll never be able to write a story about death, or afterlife. And this isn't one about it. What this is about is life. All the lives inside me.
They say I was gone for days. They say grandpa and Jamie stayed up all night fearing they'd miss a moment, one moment of life, one flash of movement, my eyes, my fingers. That's when it happened. Through the blackness in my mind, I heard a voice. Unlike what happens in stories, it wasn't Grandpa's voice, reaching out to me through the dark, trying to haul me back into consciousness. It was a voice I recognised. And when the blackness faded into mist and the mist into clarity, I found a little girl in dungarees, pigtails hanging on both sides, with teeth that grew on each other like vines proudly on display as she grinned wide. I realised with a shock it was me. Ellie had a tube of toothpaste clutched behind her back as mum went on and on about how terrible it was to suck whole tubes of toothpaste. "For goodness'sake Ellie. It's not even chocolate!" I heard my mother's voice, both in my memory and in this film playing out in my mind.
"But mum, I like how sweet and cold it feels!"
I grinned. I don't know how my mother brought up a kid like me and still had the courage to have Jamie.
The picture fades and the voices garble up into another. The television in the background. And a man, sunburnt skin and grey eyes, lying on his front watching the news reader go on about how the rains would be late again this year. Dad buries his face in the pillow. Little Ellie climbs on top of the bed and does what she knows Dad loves. She takes off her socks and gingerly, stretching out her hand to the wall for support, steps on Dad's sore back. Dad sighs. "You gonna have to wait for your shoes, sugar. The corn won't grow without rain."
Ellie kept on stepping carefully on his back with her little feet. Later, in the evening, they played hide-and-seek until dinner. After all, hide-and-seek was best barefoot, wasn't it?
I saw Ellie and Grandpa tip toeing in the middle of the night and lick jam off jars, while trying to be as quiet while slurping as they could. I saw Jamie and Ellie dressed up as Dora and Boots on Halloween as they ran about from door to door tricking-and-treating. I saw Ellie massage mum's foot on the porch swing. I saw Grandpa and Ellie water the garden, and the calendulas. I saw Ellie run between the bedsheets hung out in the sun to dry as they flailed about in the air. I heard mum's laugh ring through the air.
And then I saw Ellie and Grandpa on the porch. Ellie had her feet sticking out in the sun, the rest of her in the shade. Grandpa was talking between popping oranges in his mouth "Ellie. Wherever you go in this world, remember that as long as you take yourself, you'll never be alone. As long as you take yourself, you'll always have stories. And as long as you have stories, you'll always be alive. Leaves fall, flowers wilt, the sun goes down. But souls and stories stay forever. Let your stories find you, and you'll never be lost."
And that is how, in the midst of the blackness I had been plunged into, one that I had been in for days, I realised how I was never without stories. How Ellie and Grandpa and Jaime and mum and dad, every story I ever lived, every person I ever was, every Ellie that existed were all trying to keep me alive.
And just like that one moment that played in my mind while I was in the abyss, when Ellie had fallen asleep in the closet trying to hide from the monster under her bed, and come out after Jaime and dad called on for hours, I woke up. I woke up to Grandpa and Jaime and Dad all huddled up around me. I woke up to the beautiful emotion on their faces, one that you have when you can see the outline of your home in the distance after a long day. I woke up to all the stories, and all the lives I had ever lived. And I realised, I wasn't ever going to die.
After all, I was finally, a storyteller.
- Shabnoor
@hoshi
I don't know what I'd do if not for you. Thank you for making me write again.
@allbymyself
It's been ages, Avitaj. AGES. I haven't done this in so long. How old are we?
@divokost
When are you going to come here? Come here already! I miss you. Hobbit wants you here.
@_nishtha
I wish you were here, my darling girl.
@iwrotethatforyou
Shweta. Hello. The last time we talked, you were telling me about rains, remember? And you had been reading a book. Kafka on the shore?Stories and Memoirs
Leaves fall, flowers wilt, the sun goes down. But souls and stories stay forever. Let your stories find you, and you'll never be lost
©saith -
_nishtha
155w
There are places in your being
that are yet to be visited;
why do you say that you are
an empty distortion?
If there was a coin for
every (untrue) fault you
find within yourself
there'd be a pile too big
to go through,
if I could tell you of the
poetry that I find within
your eyes, how many
tries will it take for you to
really believe me?
There are thoughts inside
your head that you've
hidden for too long,
afraid of what the world
might think of them;
if I tell you that the world
is only waiting for you to
take a step forward and
breathe, will you come to
believe yourself?
I wish I could tell you
that someone has it easy,
but nobody really does.
Aren't we all trying to
simply breathe
and not give up?
If you only try
and see it for
yourself, you'll
find that there is a
silver lining,
still there.
©_nishtha -
saith
133w
Read More
Hello.
Wherever you are, I hope you're warm. I hope this gives you something to smile at.
WHERE ARE YOU?
When my sister was leaving for college, I tried to be happy for her. I was, actually. I was quite happy. But a part of me was moping in a corner watching my little sister leave the warmth and familiarity of our home to go to this new place.
I wondered if Tris had felt the same several years ago, when I had been leaving. Then I felt a pang of jealousy. Tris had the privilege of holding onto Mum and bawling and throwing a fit as I tried to get my clothes out of her grip. I wasn't the kid and we didn't have Mum anymore.
Somewhere, in the middle of packing the boxes, Tris looked longingly between me and the birds we had painted on the wall and I glimpsed the little girl who had put up sticky notes on these very walls the day I was leaving filling it with "I love you. Please don't go.", "I promise I won't steal your Chapstick.", "You can take my cookies."
When I smiled at the memories, I felt the taste of tears on them. Tris had never made things easy.
She was still sitting on the floor, leaning against the bed that will soon be cold and barren. I brushed that thought away, pushed the box and sat down beside her.
We had this game we played. Whenever we needed to find each other, our ourselves, whenever we were lost, we'd sit beside each other and ask "Where are you?" We had played this game so many times over the years. When mum had passed away, Tris had told me. I'm locked inside a closet, and no one can find the keys, Eva.
And I had held her, as we sat against this very bed. "Hear my voice through the door? I'm calling out to you, Tris. We'll find the keys. I'm on the other side. I'm here. I'm always here."
So when I asked her this time "Where are you, midget?"
She smiled, and closed her eyes "I'm at sea. The ship is rocking. The waves are huge, really. It's beautiful. But it's scary and it's making me a little dizzy." She looked at me.
"But the skies, Tris. The skies are clear. They're blue. We love blue. And the sun is bright, so bright that my skin is all red, the way that makes you laugh. And we're wearing straw hats looking at the horizon because you know what? We'll soon see the island. Wouldn't that be wonderful?"
When she laughed, a part of me wanted to wrap her in a hug right away and tell her everything that I couldn't put in words.
That night, she crawled into my bed, falling asleep to Simon and Garfunkel playing on mum's mixed tape. I stayed up late, willing all my warmth and courage into my baby sister. And some, into the letter.
Dear Tris,
You're about to start what is going to be your life from today. There's so much I want to tell you. There's so much I want to protect you from. But I know that they're all going to be your stories. So you'd have to write them. They could be gifts, they could be lessons learned from mistakes, but they're all yours. So, my darling, I'll tell you this.
It's going to be beautiful. It really is. You'll find friends you'll keep for life. You'll also find people you'd never want to meet again. You'll run out of money all the time. You'll eat a lot of cold pizza. And drink a lot of coffee. You'll skip deadlines and you'll somehow always run late. You'll miss out on sleep a lot of days, and some days, you'll sleep through breakfast and lunch.
I know you're already smiling, and you're slightly slackjawed imagining all that. And I know you're both happy and scared. I know you're scared of getting lost, or getting hurt. And chances are that you will. But would you let that be your story? You'll get hurt. But I promise you you'll also get better. You'll learn to dream, and you'll find your feet to chase them too.
And you'll find people. You'll find your people, people who make you feel like you belong. Even if people is just one person. Or two. Or a handful.
You'll fall in love, Tris. And you'll realise, maybe with time, that it's the little things that matter. You'll realise that contrary to what we always think, it's not the big things that build or break a bond. You could tell someone you'd die for them, you'd cross oceans and fight everything and take a bullet for them. But you know? The bullet never comes. And it's always easier for people to love you when you're alive, than dead. Because what matters is that you're around. That's the magic. Being around. Being there for the little things. The little moments. When you trip and fall, and you're having a bad day, that is when you want someone. When they're staring out into the dark, at two in the night, thinking thoughts that are gnawing at them, that is when they need you around. When you're lying in a heap of tears and loneliness, wondering if this is what it will always come to, that is when you want someone.
Don't wait for the big things to define your life, Tris. Don't wait for death or bullets to make you and the people you love realise you love them. Don't wait until you're out of time to do and to say the things you want to to the people you love. Take the little moments and make them big. Make them yours. Be there. Show up for the little things, Tris, because they're going to be the big memories when you look back. The little things, midget. Always the little things.
Be there, even when you have to wait.
I promise you they'll find you. Just like I had found you. Even if you're locked away in a closet. So that whenever you ask each other "Where are you?", you can both say "I'm here. I'm always here."
Love,
Eva.
- ShabnoorWhere are you?
Don't wait for the big things to define your life, Tris. Don't wait for death or bullets to make you and the people you love realise you love them. Be there. Show up for the little things, Tris, because they're going to be the big memories when you look back.
©saith
