A letter to my broken self

My dear broken self,

Hi (whispers), I know you’re in there. There is no need for you to hide anymore. Here, take my hand, my, you’re so cold, yes almost there, come step out into the light. No, I’m not going to put the blinds on. What is it? Yes, I am finally acknowledging you. You see I have realized that being broken is okay. That is how the light gets in. Of course, it will take some time for you to get accustomed to the brightness. Me too.      

Frankly, I have been ignoring your existence for as long as I remember like you’re an ominous spirit but you’re not. I know it took me too long to accept that you are a part of me. You are me. I am you. We are broken. I am broken. 

Not the romanticised version shamelessly glorified in the captions of oodles of pictures floating around on Facebook and Instagram. Not like my muse who would inspire my art or ignite my creative spirit but more in a way that I am drowning or burning. both At the same time. Burnt and drowning. The burden of my existence weighing me down to the seabed.

You run your thumb over your rough edges contemplating how much harder you can press before it slices your skin like muslin cut neatly into pieces for its dexterity in stitching your superhero suit. Your armour. You don’t leave the house without it anymore. 

You’ve weaved your cocoon with the loose strings from every failed relationship. A pretty rainbow with the scarlet dyed with the lost love, parakeet green with your envious brooding, canary yellow with your eccentricities and a dark blue with the dying light of a flickering candle. 

The thorns as the mistakes in your life now embellish your fort wall. The moat around it reeks of disappointment and betrayal. You are now familiar with that scent to the extent that it feels homely. 

You trudge past the deserted streets of what was a flourishing town inside you once. Now all abandoned almost in haste, as if by the cause of some natural catastrophe, uprooting the entire settlement. What remains is a ghost town. Empty buildings, empty blocks, empty roads. 

You who left a “ You “ shaped hole in me.

As you take all your pieces and try to make meaning out of them by arranging into a jigsaw puzzle but you figure out that they won’t fit. You see some of them have gone missing. The Rubik’s cube can’t be solved as gaping holes stare at you from places where there used to be the coloured blocks. 

I have peeked at you lying down on your back with a lousy finger at the stars, connecting them like dots spelling D E S P A I R.

You’re a puppet, with strings attached and pulled by the information you've  acquired from a duly memorized manual of how to behave in certain common social settings and situations. “Oh thank you, yes, please. Smile, nod, repeat.”

Stale breath with repeated pleasantries.

You’re spending a lot of time by yourself lately. Alone time. However, I see that you’ve started to stray into the other side. You scout around the boundary of ‘alone’ before crossing to the pool of loneliness where you lose your way and seldom return. I have seen that it gives you a warm snuggly feeling of comfort to succumb into the abyss. 

You feel uneasy. A strange quivering sensation swallowing the entire body with a whirlpool emanating from the belly, feasting on your normal body mechanisms, to grow into a tornado rising up. I rush to the washroom. A gag reflex, a forward jerk in the neck, (gag reflex) huh…no vomiting. Again. False alarms again.

Nothing comes out.

Not even the tears anymore. They too have dried up. I hear the tear glands were rescued from the flooded areas as the water level had risen beyond the danger level. 

I have forgotten the trails of dampness running down my cheeks and their salty taste kissing the corners of my lips.

Smeared mascara like the hollow dungeons deep and dark where once your eyes would light up like the crackling fire in a cozy barn on a frosty night.

I think it is time for me to change my mirror. You see, it is not my reflection staring back at me anymore. OR maybe its time to change myself. 

To complete myself by accepting you. 

I, that is you and me, are okay. This is okay.

See, we’re even warmer now

Now let’s stop loathing in self-pity for you see,

I have mountains to move, and absolutely no time to lose 

So what if I’m broken, who isn’t?

A step out of home

It is a sinking feeling, this leaving home. I can never come to terms with it. 

No matter how many times I bid them goodbye and board the train, I am never ready for it.

It is similar to the fear of rejection of your first love, the fear of a failed examination, your best friend's betrayal or a missed train. The unfathomable pit in the stomach and the heaviest lump in the throat cementing my feet to the cold hard floor. 

The floor which was warm and playful, where Maa (mother) tells I took my first steps, in a blue white striped frock,curling my dainty fingers on hers, swinging from side to side barely maintaining the balance. 

I collapse under the power of her sweaty wrinkled palm on my bowed down head. I slowly bat my eyelashes to catch the sight of Dadi's (grandmother's) disappearing arched back as she hobbles around the house to collect my clothes so as to wash them again as the washing machine cannot do justice to the cleanliness she desires. 

Papa (father), my teleportation man for when I would sleep on the coarse sofa with one leg dangling in the air and wake up in a cocoon of white muslin sheets.My Santa Claus!

I try to swallow the lump to the abyss but to no avail. My lips are dry and eyes are moist. I cannot bear the weight of disappointment in the pleading hazel eyes of Bhai (brother) asking me to stay for another day. Bhai (brother) who would save money all round the year, coin by coin, to gift me my favourite pair of brand new shoes that I had been eyeing for a while.  

I convince myself every time before I leave my hostel to go home for the holidays that it is because of the good food, the clean linen, the hot shower and free WiFi that I want to go there. It is a well-rehearsed lie. The one I take to the bed with me at nights.

But then here I am on my last night home and the truth bolts for freedom through the tightly sealed emotional well. And it gets away with major intensity, never fails to break me down to pieces. Tiny tiny pieces.

This is a place where I can sleep. Not just rest my head on the pillow and stare at the ceiling till my eyes are sore and my brain can take no more. 

This is where I can lay my guard down because of all the places on this planet, I know and I know for sure that nobody here, nobody is trying to hurt me, take benefit of me, is jealous of me, wants to push me down or betray me. This is where I can be myself and no one judges me. This is where I am truly happy. This is one place where my success means more to them, than to me. 

I can laugh my heart out here, cry the darkest shades of black , shout at the highest shrillest pitch, throw tantrums like a baby and they will still bear with me. No, love me. They will stick with me because that's what family does, that's what home is. And it is never easy leaving home. 

The harsh reality dawns upon me as the turmoil builds up. The cruel world, the mighty tornado, waiting to suck me in , in a brutal dirty world of ugly two-faced people, poverty, epidemics and hopelessness. 

As a reflex, I recoil back into the warmth of Maa's (mother’s) chubby arms, safe arms. She cups my face in her lotus like hands and plants a big wet sloppy kiss with the muaaah sound being the sweetest symphony ever to have reverberated my ear drums. 

I let her familiar body fragrance engulf me, every cell in my body breathes. A prayer escapes my parched lips to the heaven above as I trudge out of the black gates with heavy footsteps and a hollow heart. 

Until next time, until next time.           

https://youtu.be/z3TRarAzHEI