We are all a little broken. The universe on our skin is empty from all the silence on our tongue. As a child, we could never imagine that all the real monsters in the world would be humans. Humans, who do not save each other but pretend to get lost in callous translations and self-proclamation. We have shed our skin so many times, the graveyards must be filled with the people we used to be.
Sometimes I wonder if we need air in our lungs when we cannot sing other people’s song!
Sometimes I don’t want to look back to the day I wrote this. Suffering from depression and anxiety, my days weren’t all merry and gay. Depression is not listening to Slowdive over a heartbreak or songs from The Smiths; depression is not smudged kohl eyes with tears dripping and drying in minutes. Depression is disastrous, it’s monstrous and it eats you up.
Depression had eaten me up too, unfortunately blessing me with another friend called anxiety. I have spent months in bed, unable to get up, burying myself in my pink strewn den but in complete darkness. I have cried endlessly but my voice had refused to scream. I cut all contacts with the outside world, never ready to face the numerous human steps zooming past me towards their own pinnacle of success. I felt stuck, the concrete walls of reality crushed the dilapidated walls of my worn-out life, creating a fortress of thoughts from which I found no escape. The gracious words from my well-wishers stuck me like thorns, my dreams had choked, feeling like a ghost breathing on my cold skin; I became the victim of my own paranoia. I tried to escape, the pain of it all, the heaviness of it all, the suffering of it all but all in vain. The silence was deafening.
You know what really spoke to my soul in those times – the words that were struggling to come out of me. So I took the pen and jotted them down. The handwriting looked a bit jumbled up but the page spoke volumes. From then on, I never stopped writing. It was an inner call. I endlessly searched for words, navigating the terrains of my flesh. The knots of turbulence and whirlwinds of insecurity that was gnawing my brain found expression through my writing. The edges of my blunted soul found expression through writing. My human body that was drowning every day, choking me till absolution found expression through writing. I wrote and wrote and wrote.
I was able to successfully turn my depression into inspiration, for myself and for many others who feel like they’re falling and utterly failing every day. I began to write extensively and shared it with people. With every attempt, my writing improved and I became the bearer of cheers and praise. Writing taught me a form of catharsis. Writing taught me to embrace life. Writing taught me to repaint my memories and live through it. Writing taught me to fight my demons and believe that they’ll get tired someday and eventually leave me. Writing taught me to have faith, to believe in myself. Writing taught me to seek help and I got help from writing.
Even in the worst of my times, times when I had lived in a hell-hole, I always had my pen and diary beside me where I rambled down my thoughts. On the contrary, today when I am finally living amidst the vibrancy of life, I still continue writing. Writing enabled me to become a harbinger of beautiful thoughts. “Courage, dear heart, courage”, it said to me. I have always been homesick for a place that I thought never existed. Writing gave me that space. Writing gave me back my voice with which I write forlorn songs that create impressive impressions. Although I don’t want to look back to my dark days, I won’t lie to you that the reminiscences of the past have opened the doors through which millions of feelings come and go every moment. And each of these moments find the light of the day through my writing.
Healing of a depressed soul needs time while my anxiety seems like a lifelong friend. But I have learnt to look at the best and live the most. Writing gave me all the strength. So Someday I want to lay down in the garden of my own words and stare happily at the stars.
Betrayals in war are childlike
compared to betrayals in peace
new lovers are nervous and tender
and they smash everything
still unafraid to love many more times.
We search for love in convoluted hearts and homely minds
and all the empty spaces in life,
meaning there is room enough to grow.
In the nights he wants to be found,
I delay my visit while he delays his love;
lashings of apologies all around,
‘You should forget me when you leave’.
We die, we die
rich with lovers and tribes
tastes we have swallowed
and words we have piled, one on top of another till they touch the moon;
bodies we have entered and
swam up like rivers
fears we have hidden in
like this wretched cave.
I know you will take me to the palace of winds
and lie with me forever
without betrayal.