If you’re going through hell, keep going.
~ Winston Churchill

I chose the hellish fire over the heavenly showers, I knew to myself what the consequences would be, what awaited. But then, life was about a choice, just one perhaps. Boxes to be ticked, and questions to be answered, when life posed a rather difficult one posing one over another, I flipped out.

There have been but just a couple of important people in my life, both equally important, both women, both moulded me in what I would go on to become, and now what would remain of me. A reckless soul, with pieces of it trying to hold up and engaged in keeping other souls happy.
‘I am attracted to tragedies, so I attract tragedies’. Someone had once told me, it was as recent as yesterday and as I now sit back and reflect upon what I have actually done, a question pops up again. Have I succeeded in keeping other souls happy? If, Yes, to what extent?

I hadn’t been bothered by what was to come, I had always lived for today, I gave up on my tomorrow in my quest to live up to this notion. As, I now lie flat on my face, having fallen from the heavens I were once treading upon, the bruises and the scars don’t show. They remain within, lying deep, camouflaging everything I have been withstanding. I chose to lose out, I was the jockey riding my own stallion, as I now stand battered, this will haunt me for life.

It were just a call, not ordinary though, the consequence enormous and enormously scary, the nights now feel longer than it had ever been, the dawn might never dawn upon my life. Lights out it were, curtains down; the show’s over, but it’ll go on, ‘manage the show’; they said. Well, it will be managed, an obligation and not bound by reason or purpose, the futility of it all shall never make sense, for when it did I seemed to be at loss.

The crux of the matter: being good, doing good never happened. The stench, the rotten pus, all that had made way for my divine healing to take place, now back to infect the mind. ‘Tis shall stay, the infected heart now swollen with a void, a vacuum so massive that everything else now feels too miniscule to compare. The conviction of the mind that led to this now missing in action, analysis-paralysis !! Too devout to earthly decisions life had been, now all that exists has hellish attributes.

To live, to breathe, to die; all but the same, the gallows of life aren’t that glorious. But, it were me; all for me; the bow and the arrow: the string in my hands, shot by me and at me, as the heart now bleeds, all that remains is an iota of remorse: What if? But, then? Doubts and apprehensions, no scope for answers to arrive. The heavens of life, now my living hell. Treading and living through, breathing and basking in fire.

To have lost out, and to cope: Carpe Diem!!

I know what tomorrow holds, today; let me just burn again.

The bane that social media had turned out to be had struck me quite late, the never ending dosage of negativity that often had people glued to their feeds as if they were birds in a cage, being fed by whatever was posted online; from fake news to chain of texts announcing the supremacy of one thing over another, I had enough of it and it was time: I quietly quit it all, living the life of a fallacy had taken it’s toll on me.

As I now look back, I realise how lame I were back then, how narcissistic I had become and to what extent I had started to seek the validation of people who hardly mattered, whom I rarely met or who were just ordinary fishes like me in the cesspool that social media had become. And, I was seeking their stamp of approval on everything that I did: from what I ate to where I’d been, perhaps there was this sense of insecurity that had crept into me.

I had gotten over the life of my past, the idiotic stuff I would post online, they now seem lame, I have no qualms in admitting to the fact that I was lame indeed, the pictures I would post and the shit I would write were outrightly cringe-worthy, I cringe even now; thinking how lame I were. The shit you do in life can either bring back jolly memories, and make you smile or you end up hanging your head down: accepting the fact that you had no life at all, I for one, had no life; all that I posted online was just to celebrate the fact that I had no life which no-one else knew about. It was one toxic habit, it had developed into one; an addiction that made me succumb into living a life that was pretentious.

As, I now look at a 30 year old swinging in a swing and blowing kisses to her much younger partner: it strikes me, it amuses me: why on earth is all that effort for?? A few likes perhaps, for proclaiming to the world that love found a way through or maybe even celebrating a non existent love life in the first place. To each their own I know, but there’s more to life than flaunting it on social media. If at all, there exists a life in real: underneath all the gloss and the picture perfect joyride that supposedly is the life they boast about.

I am glad, I pulled out from the ruction that life had become, where social media had reduced me to be less social, where my judgements had started to falter, where my decisions had largely to do with the kind of information I was being fed, where beneath all the fixed and curated photographs being posted laid a different me: to that life which was then controlled by a login ID, I say good riddance. And, to the one who’s still swinging: make sure you land safe, another cringefest awaits..

There are times when you end up talking too much, speaking and blabbering out random stuff just to ignore the jitters you experience within, that rush of blood and that cold and numb feeling, and all on a sudden it feels as if all that isolation of self and thoughts has gone down the drain, as if there remains that minuscule bit of the feeling which you had nurtured, and now it nurtures you. Although, time and again you pull it from within to juxtapose it on the frame of actuality and get that reality check, but what if, if it surfaces up and comes across right infront you, looking and staring at you : right into your being and all that now remains.

Nothing remains, and everything still does, within that hidden compartment; still nurturing and tending to my thoughts, my existence: the last dream I dreamt, the nightmare I wake up to every morning. All real, very surreal but all so very out of reach. The irrational in the rationale, the very basis of my clarity and the foundation to my confusion. Well, at loss of words here, for it is too hard to comprehend something that has left the most indelible mark on my life.

The mind in it’s place can often coerce itself into reaching out to another of it’s kind, the variables of distance and space doesn’t hold good then, telepathy perhaps; it reaches out and makes a signal beep. I wasn’t convinced of this phenomena until it happened to me. It had been a long flight, the mind which was then occupied with thoughts of adventures that awaited me in a distant land had suddenly started juggling with thoughts of what I had seemingly left behind.

It is hard to comprehend, to realise and to even think of as to how we can reach out to what conspiracies the galaxies involve themselves in, one call and the very same voice that would brighten up my mornings had suddenly dawned upon the skies on my soul, it was a call: from the soul within, as if something had stirred it after long.

A voice, that would awaken my spirits, did the same this time again, it sent chills down my spine too. The voice still resonates within as I look up at the skies, near – far or wherever I might be, all within me it occupies the infinite that I so desperately seek every time I feel numbed by my surroundings.The heart fluttered, it pined at the same time, the sweet pang did make me feel alive; and as I write this; I realise how insignificant distance can be, that certain things can’t be devoured by destiny or the twist of fate.

The physical body can cross seven seas, you can find yourself in a different timezone but the mind knows no jetlag, it doesn’t suffer from one. The thought that remains the very cornerstone of all that is now existent and all that will forever be, a void that shall remain no matter how many seas are crossed.
While it is easy for the mind to camouflage the questions, the answers are just binary, a lot like life and love. The thoughts amalgamating into one, that very basis of all that was and would be.

To shrug off or to deal with it, to ignore or to live with it: will live, will deal and maybe I’ll write about it too, nothing precarious about the void in question; it’s my go-to zone; where I am me, where I am most vulnerable and where I can think and feed my mind’s rivulets. The waters haven’t dried out, the spring’s missing but the dark clouds are all over it, amid the encircling gloom !!

Another chapter to think about, to write about; time it is to take notes. The book of life is and will be about that one thought, the thought that holds me steady and rocks my soul each time it hits my mind’s embankment.

To have felt, to have been crippled and to have sought intervention isn’t anything to be ashamed of. I have had my highs and lows, phases when I felt too stressed and disturbed, but then; sweeping things under the carpet had become more than just an idiom. The need to feel socially acceptable, presentable and not have my sanity questioned was a far greater deal than sulking and popping anti depressants to calm the surges of anxiety and soothing my nerves.

But, then I was blessed to have ‘friends’, who would go on to pretend to care and pull off their masks when behind. Who said he’s depressed? It’s fake, ain’t it? Yours is the real depression, his isn’t. Well, the assertion being raised by an engineer and not a psychologist here, questioning the diagnosis of a psychologist. What felt like a soothing embrace then, reeks of hypocrisy now.

Strange is the way chemicals fuse to elevate or suppress mechanisms of the mind that is way beyond our control and understanding, dopamine and serotonin, ever heard of them?? Well, my ‘friend’ in question hadn’t for sure, that’s equally depressing.
I have had my sanity questioned before, it’s not an entirely new experience, but to have been held in embrace and then made to choke and suffocate, that was a new high. The ordeals of the mind, the calamities of the reality that existed and the vanity of thoughts which keep on spiraling is to be countered and encountered.
Not everyone who is depressed feels the urge or necessity to see a counsellor, and the one who does, he knows for himself about the consequences he faces if he doesn’t, proving a point to prove the existence of sanity in someone else is out of question.

To anyone who feels depression can be faked hasn’t lived through it, perhaps the coping mechanisms in people vary. Some choose to vent out, some even change cities, and there are some who withdraw into a shell and become incommunicado. And, there are some who pop in pills to manage the show. It’s never about you versus me, who’s more depressed??
The magnitude or severity of it is better gauged by the person concerned and the one qualified to, fire fighting skills may make one a savior, examinations and trainings and being on the job and reading and gauging minds; perhaps make a psychologist.

Assertions and opinions are welcome, all served free, while footing bills for pills for the momentary secretion of chemicals involves courage to accept, to wake up and make that call. Depression it is, not the garbage on the road that you litter, no one would sweep it clean for you; no putting it under the carpet, time to dust !!

The rains are here, flooding the gates of my memories; all that I can see, sense and feel around me is the sound of the showers, the wet drops of the heavenly tears on my face and a vision of her making up everything around me.

The last time it had rained in the city She were here, life wasn’t too different but we were awaiting a death to all that existed, it didn’t deter us though, for we had chosen to celebrate all that we had, all that we had created – good times, good tales and memories to hold on to for life. I had sent her a parcel of Thai food, I still remember. She was busy packing, She was leaving the city, I knew to myself then: all that existed would go away far, far away from me, all that I would hold on to would be her, shades of her: black, white and grey, all very dear to me. There hasn’t been a moment ever since, that I haven’t missed or remembered her, and as the skies now opened up, it brought her along, rained her down upon me.

She was busy sending me pictures of her luggage, She had stacked the books neatly, her clothes all arranged, She still had the sparkle in her eyes as She blinked and giggled, She did seem excited about leaving the place, She was faking it, I knew it and She knew it too; it is strange as to how we unassumingly do things assuming no one would get a hint as to what we hold within, She was being herself and who’d know her better than I did.

The skies had darkened then, it was about to rain and it did. The heavens weeping for it knew She would be leaving, I did shed a tear too, but it was a choice I had made, She knew it all along and I had seen it coming too, you can control and tame the mind, condition it into believing that things would turn out to be good, but fate? Who could ever control the outcome of what destiny had in store? The downpour now got heavy, the thunders resonating within the deepest core of my heart, shaking whatever was held, as I chose to hold ground and let out a smile.

“Did you receive the food parcel?”; I asked, She complained yet again that it was too much, but then; I knew it would be last time I was sending something to her, She would be away and gone and would be taking away something that had always been a delight: seeing her smile when the food arrived. All I could do was to capture the moment and freeze it, keep it safe within the locker that my heart had become, treasuring all that remained of her. The moments which would never come back to delight me, I would have to dig deep and pull out the pieces of her to calm the chaos that would run in me during her absence.

She sent me a video too, showing how dark it were, the rains that had started pouring down. All that I loved in one frame: the rains and She, and all that would never stay too. The sun would be out soon, burning and drying out all that She had made me see through her eyes, isn’t that what life is? The wait for the skies to darken again, for it to rain and for the land to turn fertile and signal the harvest. She would stay, She would rain and She would be the harvest of my mind.

And, as it rains again, I know She is at it again, tilling my heart and seeding it with her thoughts. She’s here and so are the rains..

“You can’t hold on to hate for long, someday you will realise, you wouldn’t write about it then.”; She had said and now I know it is true. I was this; out of love guy who had been ditched, and ditched badly, although it did make me bitter and cemented the base of my mind with trust issues, I knew it was draining too. To wake up every day and recharge the battery of my mind with angst and hatred wasn’t helping me, I would crack jokes, often lame and write stuff to keep myself going, it would often end up in spiralling my own mood down.

She was trying to make me see sense in something I had for long considered insensible, so great was my magnitude of hatred that it had choked up the way for any reasoning to make it through. She had this knack of blabbering out silly stuff, and then going silent. “You will hate me too, and write about it as well.”; She said. A silence then prevailed, She knew I wouldn’t, I knew I wouldn’t too. How could I?? Her argument wasn’t backed by logic, never had it been; but her silly talk had deep connotations. I could sense a million things were wrong, wrong in me. I had held on to stuff which were insignificant, I was writing about stuff that hadn’t helped shape me into anything good and I was bothered by things I had no control upon.

She had once again very subtly made sense seep into my mind, although the silence still prevailed. I hadn’t written anything substantial for a long time, it had been months actually and I was too occupied in finding content which would satisfy the hunger of my hateful mind, I hadn’t dived deep within myself or looked at my surroundings, I hadn’t just made any attempt at discovering the magic spell that had been cast. Her chatter could move me, her silence often provoked my mind to think, and this was magical. It took me 100 days finally to find out what I was lacking, to cast away the writer’s block that had taken over, the nonsense was finally segregated.

From commenting on my blog to that reaction on the Facebook post and now inspiring me to write with her silence, She had come a long way; I did too. A new flight awaited, the lost zeal found and I had a muse, not ordinary but something my hard luck had finally been gracious enough to bless me with.

She would tell me tales, mesmerise me with her magic and stun me with her silence, the impact of all of it would be found in whatever I wrote. She wouldn’t necessarily agree to whatever I thought, rarely She did, her defiance helped me too, provided me with enough content to think and jot down. I could scribble randomly, think phrases and connect them with her. All her shades, all her contours and everything She had making me think, making me feel and making me write.

The hatred could be sidelined, the angst finally done away with, with hope and life and words now blossoming in the gardens of my mind, She walked in and spring set in, She carried the winds of change, She was the wind of change, the air underneath my wings as I tried to now soar towards her, in her quest.

The bitterness now replaced by all things sweet, the silence that held me in tight grip and her chatter drowning out the remains of all things dead, She had descended upon the barren land of my mind to sow and to reap it with her magic.

Her silence still prevails, her lips unmoving; the wind still blows. I look out again. Ahh !! She’s here.

“You don’t always end up having the life you feel you deserve, it was your want, and the one within you is your need. Keep it safe, and keep writing. It’ll keep you afloat.”; read a comment. It’s good to have people who read and relate to your blog, take time out to understand the context and comment. It was one such comment, something which hit me, I don’t know the person who left the comment, the only thing I know is that she has been following my blog for some time now. While, it was not something very deep, yet it was significant in it’s own way.

Want and need; it mentioned. And, doesn’t everything in life boil down to just this? Our never ending wants, at times the greed of it over shadowing what we perhaps need in real. My life hasn’t been extraordinary, it hasn’t been devoid of ups and downs, while, all the while I would sit back and shed a tear or two thinking of what I had gained and lost out on, I didn’t seem to understand the basic fact that I’d rather be happy if I were to think of needs and not focus upon my wants.

To want something would deprive me of the joy of having something when I would have it, I might give up on it too; the need however stays; it’s constant and continuous. Like hunger and to satisfy it is a human need, to crave for donuts is a want; it might end up upsetting my tummy too. Enough understood, enough reasoning in the head to calm the heart and focus upon whatever I am left with: be it the broken pieces of my dreams or my blood soaked heart that still beats, the beating is a need, to want the pain to subside is just an ordinary want.

She remains my need, She will be, not something I want for now or for life; no desperation here. To have her beside was my good luck, to have her absence and to feel the pain of it is now but a need. Life had never been holistic, it is now; with every need I have not subsuming into anything else but her, to have in the manifold of all the veins that run through. A need She is, a need for life, for the sustenance of it. Her chaos now the only calm I seek, the only need of I have, for life.

Not a want, never can She be, all within me; for what remains more to crave for? The need will be met, for She will continue feeding my mind with words, and visions of her setting things in place.

P.S: Cobwebs of the mind now seem clear, there runs no greed within; all things I have and shall forever need; none but She. She remains, She’s my only need.