Nemesis

What happens on one fine day, when you wake up to realize someone's permanent obliteration from your  life. That moment when it dawns upon you like thousand waves crashing upon an embankment, that the ever so familiar face will no longer smile back at you, hold you in a warm embrace, or shower you with unparalleled love A sudden painful thought you are grappling with, making it all the more tormenting. Unforeseen and unceremonious, the obtrusive absence,  carries a disturbing message, a terrifying clarion call..
' And certainly every soul shall taste death...'(3:185)
Life' s nemesis is just a breath way...

Jargon

Whenever I sit with a note pad and pen these days, it seems I am at a loss for words. It is not that my sensitivity has suffered irrevocable damage or that I am no longer capable of feeling the queer mixture of emotional jargon. It is probably a phase of temporary incompetence rather than stoicism, that I sometimes experience difficulty in expressing my thoughts in words. I would not say that it is a condition akin to writer's block. After a long span of elaborate pondering, I've realized that my sudden reluctance towards writing hasn't got anything  to do with and is neither remotely related to the symptoms of any 'disease'. It is simply because I do not wish to bestow myself with the honorable title of 'writer' yet, until I am ready to fully comprehend the magnificence of creating magic with words. For some, writing may be as easy as sitting with a typewriter and bleeding, while for a few unfortunate others, it may be what they call ' a privilege'. My aversion towards writing on the other hand compels to pick up a pen, which I assume culminates from the fear that a sabbatical from one of my favorite hobbies would lead to permanent dysfunctionality.
I have been experiencing flashes of certain disconcerting images nevertheless, for the past few days during occasional naps. Unsettling as they may be, I have failed to decipher these scattered and digressive dreams. There are certain characters within these dreams whom I do not wish to visualize, for they are painful reminders of wounds whose scars are yet to fade. Strong as I may appear on the outside,I am not ashamed to acknowledge  my vulnerability. But all in all, I cannot bear to see cracks appearing on my veneer.
It was and it is my pain. And  must therefore remain that way.

The Call.

How do you really define mercy? Or compassion?
 When you were a toddler, you were always up to some  mischief or another. Fast forward ten to twelve years, you're still the troublemaker poltergeist, except for the fact that the magnitude of your mistakes were no longer the same, and the enormity changed with time. Now does that mean your mother, who always manages to catch you red handed, embroiled in your 'not-so-tolerable' misdemeanor, chucks you out of the house and god forbid if your father is an accidental witness to your 'colorful exploits' , disinherits you ?  They will admonish, chastise and when needed hand out severe punishments. But do they ever leave your side or abandon you when you need them the most? Do they refuse to acknowledge you as their offspring even after you've repeated the same mistake, for the millionth time ?
They love you unconditionally, and know you better than you do yourself. They know you are vulnerable and prone to error. That is why they forgive, and forget. Their love is indeed their mercy.
This is why you are forgiven when you've sinned. Because your lord is compassionate. Forgiving,
Because he loves you. With all your vices and virtues. With the good and the bad, the black and white. Pure and Impure.
When you ask him to protect you when nobody else can, solve your problems when everything else fails, show you the right way when you realize you're stranded and lost in the middle of nowhere, grant you ease when the hardships and sufferings won't cease, strengthen you when you're frail and weak, give you courage when even the slightest challenge fills you with an unknown fear..
He knows you have come back to him. It may have taken you days, months or years..
But He knew. He always knew. That something inside you will change, that the misplaced key to your locked heart will be found. That your barrenness will become a fountain of faith.
All you need to do is ask. Call upon him.Open up to him. Reveal what you have sealed within you.
Indeed He is the Turner of hearts. And indeed the best of listeners.
So dial his number at least once in the next few days.He awaits your call.
And I promise you, the network is never busy.

Alone..

There will always be people who seem to be endlessly occupied or burdened. Maybe they are, in a true sense. Maybe they aren't. What matters is how they treat you when you are in need of their companionship. 'I'm busy right now' may sound like a few innocuous syllables but strangely it shows your place in that particular individual's life. That they will not go out of their way to ensure you're okay. Even if you had no intention to bother or perturb them and you're rather overwhelmingly guilty to share your inconsequential problems but the way you are silently pushed away reinforces the tingling feeling you've ignored for long, that no matter how much you try and convince yourself, you are not at all important or significant to them.
It is probably then you recall,that you were advised not to have soaring expectations from creations of God. Flawed and imperfect as they are, they will fail you one day or the other. Think of it like a report card. Consecutive straight A's catapult your expectations to infinity, so much so that the one tiny B that suddenly appears is earth shattering nevertheless. Don't expect people to be perfect , spotless report cards. Rather learn to lower them,from their pedestals so that disappointments won't hit you like bullets.
At the end of the day, you always ALWAYS have Him. The one who never abandons, one who is ever present and always listening. your most trusted confidante, and the keeper of all your secrets. Ask him, beg him to relieve you of whatever feels burdensome..
Maybe alone is what you have.
Alone is what protects you...

Absence

When all of a sudden someone whom you've cherished till today for keeping  your deepest darkest secrets buried in their heart, for being the ideal confidante when you needed them,  for essaying  the role of a psychiatrist cum counsellor every time you suffer a heartbreak is about to embark on a new journey in life, you realize that this time, you're probably not going  to be a part of it. Marriage is supposed to  bring certain fundamental,  irrefutable changes to one's life not just on a temporary basis, but perhaps for as long as they breathe their last. Certain relationships become more vital than others, and are undoubtedly given more priority whereas some are compelled to take the back seat. Quite often people tend to overlook this intriguing bitter truth about marriages, that when one commits herself or himself to a lifelong and hopefully everlasting relationship which simultaneously results in a kind of abandonment of old ties. One is no longer answerable to those people  anymore and as time passes the distance between them proliferate.
 You are nevertheless very happy for that person. Their joy is contagious and you cannot help but smile at their anticipation and nervousness. But somewhere deep down you know it will never be the same again. No late night lamenting on how thick as concrete you are, hour long phone conversations that  ceased to end even  after 2 hours, and no laughing over absolutely frivolous jokes on sleepovers. they're leaving.  And they're  not coming  back.
But that's  okay. People don't accept  change gladly when it's  inevitable.  Once it sets in however one has no choice but to adapt. The absence of one person is soon filled up by the presence of another.
And one fine day, everything is alright. You can finally forgive and move on.

Pain

A few syllables. An untidily scrawled word. Maybe a phrase. Or a few sentences sewn together like a sonnet.

Maybe broken shards of glass. Maybe music that suddenly fills a void, breaking an unnatural, uncanny silence.

Perhaps an image or a figure. A fragrance that lingers. Or a delicious aroma. A page from an unforgettable book, or the first rays of dawn.

It can be anything. Anything that is a reminiscent of what you left behind. Like a fallen feather from a bird that has long eluded captivity, the moments resurface. They flicker feebly as if alive, disseminating a momentary warmth in the frozen tundra.

You feel time rewinding itself, and the hourglass turned upside down. The tears pour silently as you try to hold yourself from falling apart once again and draw quick gasps of breath.

Equanimity settles in after a moment or two. From across, you stare at the reflection in the mirror. Pain etched across the desolate face.

Pain that will recur..

Pain with a palliative..

But pain without healing..

I knew,,

I know. I know that I lied. I deceived. I know I pretended to be indifferent when I was being torn to pieces in the inside. I smiled while my heart wailed. I laughed when it mourned. I simulated normalcy when I knew I was fighting a long lost battle. I knew. I always did.

I faked courage when I was fragile. I concealed everything, when I possessed nothing. I was alive and had died again and again. But I knew. I always did.

Pain which is meant to be truly mine, sufferings whose burden I can never share. I have felt them just the way blood rushes in my veins, the way my heart palpitates, the way I breathe and the way I live. But they were never mine you see. They will never be my own. I realize that I have lived all those moments vicariously, like a parasite feeding off. I have felt emotions which were never mine, and now I must give it all back.  But I knew. I always did.

Yet I walked in with my eyes wide open, in all my consciousness. Perhaps I wished to delude myself for a moment. But I daresay I forgot. I forgot that a moment never lasted for an eternity. They will retreat. Just like waves merely caressing the sea shore.

And now before I finally, truly depart, now that I’ve stopped running away and now that I’ve come to my senses, I will for the very first and last time, speak what I have never spoken.

I have loved you, in a way I have never loved anyone else and nor I will I ever love someone the way I have loved you. Like a silent, unspoken bondage I was yours.

And because I loved you once, I shall release both of us from its chains. Once and for all.

You see, I was a moth drawn to its doom. The moth that was so blatantly magnetized by the perilous fire that would do nothing but extinguish it. I  was prepared to burn, to be perished.

All for the sake of something which was never mine.

But even if I was granted a hundred lifetimes, a hundred infinities.

I shall, irrevocably and inexplicably choose you.

But do know,

 I knew. I always did.