Alone above a raging sea
That stole the only boy I love
And drowned him deep inside of me.
You, soft and only
You, lost and lonely
You, just like heaven.
On your last day you called back to say goodbye. And you played me a rough but lovely piece on the grand piano in your nana abu's house. Despite the fights we'd fought before and the aggressive ways of our love, I knew I'd miss you.
Now seeing these pictures of shot glasses in your hands, shirtless girls in your lap and puffs of smoke around you breaks my heart. Pictures at all the bars and clubs, with the strobe lights and people doing obscene things to one another in the background. You're not even wearing a shirt and this girl dressed as an airhostess in a black miniskirt is clinging to you!
It's not that I want you or still love you like I did when I was a child, I just wish you didn't do these things.
Please don't do them.
I don't think you're much but I think of you so much.
Come back. For just one day. One hour even. One return into the past. One select moment.
And I'll bring the lollipops again if you promise to bring your lips.
...
From above we'd cut a slow eight shape
And much more
I'm folded in the bread you made
You're cold until my body bathes
You in the heat I kept aside
All these days.
I'm not afraid of anything even time
It'll eke away at everything
But we'll be fine
...
I'm cascading, tumbling downwards.
Into you, the pool, I am the water, in this fall.
You collect, collect, collect.
And we go on and on and on in concentric circles.
Producing ripples together.
In each others lives.
God. It just sucks so much that at almost-18 years old I believe in you as completely as a 6 year old does in unicorns and fairies. Every few days it hits me that you're not even real. Because you're not even alive.
You're not living. You're being lived.
You don't mean nothing at all to me. No.
But you know what it takes to set me free.
Oh, you could mean everything to me.
You broke me.
And I'm angry at you. For living relatively normally and leaving me like this.
But I know it's not your fault. I don't blame you. Only in very weak moments. Sometimes, but that shouldn't count.
We can not break out of our fundamental human mould. The one that makes us creatures of habit, flexible and adaptive. So we will not even notice the change.
We'll tell ourselves we could never forget even if we try but we won't even notice as seemingly ordinary everyday things take up most of time. So much so, we'll think about each other once every few weeks. And then perhaps I'll become to you a girl you knew. First love.
I guess some part of me will always love you, no matter what. Forever.
And one day we’ll decide that it’s time. Then we’ll both work hard to save enough money. We’ll spend hours with magazines, looking at pictures of bedrooms, bathtubs and kitchens. We’ll visit people’s houses for ideas. We’ll get one of our architect friends to help out.
After lots of searching, we’ll finally buy a little piece of land somewhere near where either of our parents’ live. And slowly we’ll watch as dreams turn into walls, ceilings, windows and doors. We’ll be there every step of the way; as each brick is set in mortar, as each floor is leveled, as each light bulb goes in. We’ll argue about what type of stain should go on the wood, or what faucets match the showers, or which artwork to hang on which wall. And I’ll let you win most of the time.
Once everything is complete, we’ll put life into those rooms. We’ll plant vines of romantic bougainvillea in the garden. We’ll get cute outdoor furniture to put on the terrace for when the weather will be good. We’ll throw a house warming party to share our happiness with friends and family. And we’ll remember always to thank God.
We’ll watch the children grow up, fight their little fights, keep us awake most nights of the week with all the million little things they’ll need. We’ll teach them to love and how to have fun. And when they’re at school and their teachers ask them to draw a picture of their most favourite place in the world; they too will draw a picture of our home.
I want your dreams to come true. And I want to be there with you to watch our lives unfold like beautiful paper roses.
Pyaar waala meenh barsaya karo jee, kaddi saadi galli bhul ke wi aaya karo jee.
We've achieved so many of the things we set out to do when we were thirteen years old. We made mistakes; we made friends and friends who turned out to be mistakes. Either way, we felt the world around us. We opened our eyes.
We became slaves of the summer. The sunsets. The colors.
We broke hearts and felt them grow back together between our fingers. We felt slightly scared about our sexuality. We longed for the touch of a lover. We made back and forth transitional journeys from childhood to womanhood to adulthood.
And today (actually yesterday) you’ve turned 18 years old. So I wish you all the luck in the world, because it’s not easy, apparently, to go to university, to find a husband, to be married, and have huge responsibilities. At least that’s what all the older girls say. And these things aren’t as far away as they seem.
But I know you’ll do well. You’ll be a good friend, a fun wife, a cute mommy and an incredible person. And you’ll keep growing, with every passing year, you’ll look back and be proud of yourself.
They might take it all away. The money, the things, the remaining ounce of freedom. But I'll keep one small secret. Easiest to keep. Because your voice brought with it an idea. Perhaps you'll continue with this fight where I gave up. Where my almost-eighteen-years-old mind decided it couldn't handle more. Maybe you'll use your beautiful strength and determination to be that knight in shining armour boy coming to save his damsel in distress girl waiting atop a tall tower while her life is endangered by fire-breathing dragons who want to eat her up.
In all likelihood you will forget how the colours played tricks on our eyes and the dew clung to our clothes and hair under the watchful, silent stars. But if you don’t, you’ll understand one day when God will bless you with a daughter of your own. One who waits and waits all day long for you to come home from work so you’ll take her out for ice cream like you promised, and refuse to go to bed without a story. She’ll grow up. You’ll teach her about music and religion and sex, no matter how much you dread talking about the latter. She will be your entire world wrapped up in glorious glowing young skin. And you will be careful, because you don’t want that day to ever come when she might not listen to you, when the voices in her head will tell her to do exactly the opposite of everything you’ve tried to instill in her. The fear of that moment will make you understand. Understand completely.
You forgive me now, and I forgive you too. And once God forgives us both, everything will be as good as ever before.
Like the crash of waves against a shore, so punctual, we lay ourselves down. Our measured, calculated awareness elsewhere like lost baggage upon these stations and stops we stand waiting at. Crossing from platform to platform, with our deceiving faces, we just fall, face down, on train tracks and ask to be flattened under the weight of an accident.
Every mistake isn't a lesson learned, but an encounter, a show of resilience. We start to wonder if we've been born in the wrong house. I feel as sorry for myself as I do for you.
Then there are those who walk with no intention of ever coming back home, but they end up even farther behind the starting line than before the race began.
of teeth against lip against skin.
And the words that flow off your tongue so easily, so simply, against my heat.
Wherever from, your entrances are grand ones and all I can ever do is to celebrate my helpless hurting heart cradled amidst half-trapped breaths.
Don't remember when
days were divided into
those with worry and those
without.
With a choice,
or no way out.
On exceptionally clear nights, when the soft darkness of the sky outstreches beyond its usual grasp and reaches us, I like to point a finger toward a supposed heaven to count stars with a bright wish in my heart for you to join me. And you were right, I do want to recreate all the fantastical scenes we watch in movies, not because I believe in them, but because I want to live every minute of every day, awake or asleep, in a new world.
So I like to dance in my dreams, I like listening to songs with dirty lyrics, and I'd kill to be a little like Lady Gaga or Katy Perry. I like painting things in the colours of the rainbow, I like zoos, I like telling strangers about the intimate details of my life. I take pride in wearing my heart on my sleeve. I like banana flavoured ice cream, and talking about things without stopping, I like jumping from the sofa to the armchair to the footstool to the table and back to the sofa again. I absolutely adore teeny tiny fuzzy-peachy bundles of joy and warmth, and the scent of a certain particularly gorgeous boy.
My purpose? To try everything.
I might be like everyone else, or unlike anyone else. There's little I understand, but I'm certain a lot needs to be done - priorities to be straightened, growing up and serious thinking to be done. For now, though, I'm lazy and liking it.
But what am I, if not experiences? If I can't create every feeling there's ever existed in my head? If I can't fall in love with you over and over and over again every time? If I can't make you happy in ways that lovers before us couldn't even have imagined? Even in their unaware dreams. They couldn't have.
You know so well, I'm extraordianrily crazy for you.
When I forget how to speak, how to think, how to breathe, I still manage to remember you. You are irreplaceable. An unparalleled lost treasure, you could turn anyone into gold. A treasure safe from time. To infinity and beyond.
Don't answer each helpless question correctly. You might not leave anything behind. But put your pride away, inside my palm, because I'll only break it to build it up stronger than before.
Turn
me
into
your
work
of
art.
