Could have been true, but they lied

They said, the wind is called the breeze.

It is gentle and soft just like a warm spring noon.

They comfortably left out the aberrant part,

That wind is what causes typhoons and tornados.

They said, the sky is called the infinite whole.

It is blue, and universal just like sum of all functional parts

They mistook to mention the typical fact,

That sky too can be grey at times, angry and sad.

They said, the love engenders all the infinities and beyond.

It is gentle and encompassing just like the utopia of absolutes.

They feared to mention it’s oceanic depth of encapsulation,

That it is a product of and produces the very abyss of darkness.

Struggling, existing, and essence

There is a hollowness inside of me. The kind that people cannot fill. At this crucial moment, i do not know if i am capable of filling it. My mind feels like a strict warden of my souls’ prison – controlling, stolid and mendacious in nature. Michele Foucault calls the body a prison while referring go the actual prison and the working of it but in relation to one’s body versus society. Everything is over rationalised. Everything is over thought. Everything is mechanical. Everything exists in shades of black and white, everything, that encompasses and is encompassed by this “modern” world and has led to what Max Weber calls the ‘iron cage’ of rationalisation. Modernity has enveloped us with its ideals of rationalisation, consumerist society, technological innovation and industrial (inclusive of technical, mechanical and vogue) revolution, all in the name of multiplicity of choices and freedom but what it has curtailed is the very sense of choice and freedom, especially in a country like Nepal which still reels from the traditional values. The perennial question in a society like Nepal is to navigate the parochial nature of the state and virilocal nature of the society versus the ‘western’ education we have been bestowed with. The struggle to navigate between the two contrasting ideology is a task daunting. If one follows the ideals of the latter, one is tagged a rebel, if one follows the former, the sense of “Self” disappears and what remains is bone and flesh with brain but no mind or soul – one is robbed off of the very essence that defines one’s existence.

Maybe I too am having just another existential crisis. Or maybe the lockdown (today is day 37) is playing with my head. Whatever the reason might be, the struggle feels real!

Prison and battle scar

My body is not mine: it is theirs.

They manipulate and are fallacious.

They goad me with chicanery.

They want me to believe what they want me to believe.

They never ask about me: impeding my opinions.

They’re ambivalent to my thoughts, my feelings.

Do I want to have a child? Do I not?

Do I welcome their opinions? Do I not?

Do I feel the need to know you? Do I want to ignore you?

Bottom of the bottle: my opinions do not count!

I studied too much: too much Sociology.

I speak too much English when I should be speaking ‘mother tongue’.

I listen to spiritual people and always have an answer to everything,

Said she, didn’t she, now?

Hugging her younger child and calling her the only child!

Did she stop to think what I felt?

I have never felt so family less, I have never felt so alone.

I do not know what lessons this quarantine wants me to learn

One, definitely that of self realisation.

Of oneself, one’s place, one’s position and one’s belonging

I feel like an outcast in the family

I feel burdened

I feel mayhem in me building up

A battle of sorts – you may call it

Between what I knew and how I was

And what I know, and how I want to be

An image of the imagined

An image of the real

A battle between the two

While imagined itself is a figment of the real

Then why is there even a battle?

Affliction of minds

Things i wish i could say.

Or at the least make a headway.

In the process of navigating,

The affliction of this mindless mind.

I’d take anything you give, 

Ink and paints, blank sheets and canvases.

Spoken words, and symbolic gestures, 

Unsung feelings with emotions underlined.

‘The darkness’, is an understatement,

Encapsulated in a void, so oblivious, so dense,

And i hold my breath, and i try very hard. 

I hurt, i scream, I’m close to crossing over the fence.

I’m not hurting. I am painless. I’m a haze.

Alarmed, “I’m here,  talk to me”, he says.

Another dawn falls and dusk rises, 

Symbolic or verbal, all gestures feel like a maze. 

Weaving clothes stories

Cover your breasts,

with clothes.

With more clothes.

Add on more.

I still see the shapes!

Wait! Hold them uptight,

I still see the shapes!

No, no, not like that,

Pin them down,

Not hold them uptight,

Don’t bloat

I still see the shapes!

You slut!

Wait, what? You don’t wear bra?

Are you a trans?

Do you even have breasts?

Can I see the shape?

Wait. What? 34D?

Seems like it’s seen a lot!

Would it like another visitor?

Deny, be called a whore.

Allow, be called a whore.

Right to life.

Nothing but dialogues

Turned to heated outrages

He says, there always is a

Right way to live,

I ask, with a narrative to weave

Is there even a right way to live?

Small window of unconscious bliss

There are days, still, when the most involuntary of process – breathing – feels like a task daunting. I wake up in the morning and almost every morning there is a small window of time, a few seconds at most when my mind is at complete peace. In those few seconds of time, my mind is free from all the persistent nagging of the conscious mind, free from all the angst and the worries of the days before, of the problems and of the very existence of yesterday and those that transpired. Those few seconds of window is the best part of my day. It is as if your inner mind knows of the day ahead and what lies beneath it, so helps you rejuvenate by giving you a window of a few seconds before the conscious mind catches up to the reality.  

I think the process of healing too is like this. There always comes these smaller windows of hope and faith, sometimes too bleak to fathom, but they come nonetheless. These smaller windows of emotive strength is what accumulates in the longer run helping you heal.

At the least, that is how I am still healing.

Emotional Twerking

This heaviness inside of me is too much to bear. I feel like I will explode. And one small feeble mistake and ever other maintained emotion that I had kept inside of me with much caution comes exploding. This is so not right. I should leave this place. But then again what’s the guarantee that I wont feel the same to where i go from here in? During moments like these I cannot help but wonder if running away is the best possible option. And that if escapism was a way of life, i’d be dodging barriers like a sniper dodging bullets. Why can’t we be emotionally bullet proof?

Why do we have to give in to the way of the worlds resulting in societal norms so much that it becomes the heights of mechanisation? And i wish to let the world know my pain, my sorrows, my barriers, my hurdles, my baggage. And now when I have found someone who accepts me as theirs, with all my flaws, i am dodging them in a manner I can’t dodge emotional twerking inside of me. 

Ephemeral Wish

The story of me is nothing unusual 

Until you consider the usual of everyone 

The unusual of the everyday 

Mundaneness surrounds me 

Banality of evils and good 

Norms and societal constructs 

Mental and physical state of mind 

All but one- always differing in spaces 

I am tired. Of this and of that 

And of the mundane that surrounds me 

I am tired of the emotions – too much 

I am tired of not feeling enough 

I am scared I will fall into pieces 

I am scared I will deny falling into pieces

I wish I could turn my back and leave it all 

To laugh, to play, to work and to live 

I wish … an ephemeral wish, at that!

The power of being Quiet

The power of silence, 

Does it exist or is it a hoax of some sort?

Be quiet, it heals, may be more than time! 

Be quiet, you learn new things

Be quiet, life becomes easier

Be quiet, people will love you

Be quiet, you will have friends and family 

Be quiet, cause it’s the very opposite of voice

What they don’t understand is that silence is a voice too

It has a voice, a quiet one at that

But a voice, nonetheless! 

My agency, my voice, my power

I will not talk if I do not want to

Utilising my power of agency, I will be quiet

Silence! 

The noise is too much, 

No, not from you, 

From within me, 

All the time, 

Every time

Voices of the same monotone, 

Thereateing and considering what-ifs,

Fear, so much fear instilled inside of me

Presumptuous analyses of behaviour

Consequences predicted without the causality of action

Fear, so much fear enveloping me 

Fear of how you will leave me too

Fear of being too vulnerable

Fear of being too open of a book

Fear of hiding things and facing the backlash

Fear of not being vocal enough

Fear of being vocal enough

Fear that either is bad and you will walk away

Fear that I will be misunderstood 

So much that I will be misjudged 

Judge? Who made you that of my life?

Fear that I am flaky 

And that I handover my life in a silver platter to you

Fear that you will walk away 

Fear that the power of silence is a hoax

Fear that if I don’t speak now, then when? 

Fear that I could have been okay, but fate had other plans!

Bearing the presumptuousness of cognitive life 

Engulfed in normative networks of feelings and thoughts 

I will never be happy, if I learn no to let go. 

I will never be at solace, if I do not utilise the power of my agency

The silence! 

The quiet! 

The power of calmness in chaos 

The life partner of sorts 

The thinker and the feeler 

The power of silence. 

In this busy-busy world of air-pod noises! 

Empty reflections

I want to write down exactly how i feel.

I need to write down exactly how i feel.

I stared at the empty screen for so long.

It stayed empty for the longest time.

Even if i had wanted, in all absolute,

I could not have portrayed my emotion

better than the Empty screen staring at me.