To be or not to be

"I can't seem to write, sleep or do anything properly. My mind seems to be more scattered than usual as I sip on my coffee, with the warm air tickling my face. My head hurts trying to come up with things to write, things that actually meet my expectations."
She wrote these lines on a whim, just as she deleted them too. Her writer's block was just getting worse and her aimless and tedious life wasn't helping either. She seemed to be in a loop, where she just couldn't write something up. The train was full as the clock slowly approached 6:00 PM. Rush hour was dangerously bulldozing into the platforms, as her heart ached for the wrong things in life. Nothing she did seemed to make her forget. The more she tried to move on, the more she got stuck in that one loop.

Now when she finally had her life together, she felt a void. A void that something is going to come and take her world by a storm. 
Was it the fact that she was alone? Or was she just truly lonely?
She always liked to delude her mind into thinking it's her loneliness which made her alone. But being alone is not a consequence of being lonely. Being alone is a state of solitude where one confines into their deepest most blurred parts of their life, trying to acknowledge its existence and make way for its entrance, embalming it into one's roots. Isn't this where the world individualism comes from? That one defining moment, where you chose to let your confinement and inner self-worth to form something tangible and acceptable?  Acceptable, not only to other people, but also yourself.
She seemed to be questioning everything these days. Especially the kinda questions, she couldn't seek answers to without opening portals of anxiety and self-doubt. Maybe this is what growing up was all about. Accepting all the loopholes and portals that at first terrify the living crap out of you, but as you learn to swim in its vastness, you also learn to accept your inner demons and befriend them.
How did she want to be loved? What kind of person does she want to love? What kind of person would she want to be? How will the world remember her?
All these questions churned inside her heart, her core, her very soul, trying to get something out. Just like you churn butter, her soul was trying to churn out a map of existence. An existence where she wouldn't be so lost. But her mother always told her, "The process of churning takes time and efforts. You churn in continuous motions, steadily with firm hands. Sometimes your hands will want to give up and stop. But that's when you see the milk curdling, the foam of the milk, the thickened milk sticking on the ladle, and that my love, is when you know you need to continue, even if your arms might just fall off in pain. That is life."
She initially had never understood that analogy. But sometimes she wondered how her mother, for a person who hadn't stepped out of their tiny hut, knew so much about life.
She always thought that some earth shattering experience would turn her life around and suddenly everything would make sense. But in that anticipation, maybe she missed it already. Undervalued the moments she has had. Has she already lived the one moment, that one defining instance of her life? But missed it in anticipation for the significance that very moment?
Was it the moment her nose fit just right in the nape of his neck? Or the moment her parents held her together when she lost her pet dog or even the fact that her brother stayed up with her the whole night watching cartoons because she had a nightmare?
The more she thought about it, the more she realized the things she understated, waiting for things to happen, just as they were actually happening in front of her eyes. Her life was an intangible art where her feelings were the paint and her experiences the empty canvas.
Maybe that's why science doesn't like arts. Art is not tangible. There's no clear boundaries and limits to it. Similarly, arts yearns for the factual, calculated paths and ultimatums that science offers. She always thought that arts and sciences were the greatest lovers of all time, but for the balance of this fragile mankind, these two love each other just enough to be the co-exist side by side, and not together.
To be or not to be?

In the end, it's this chaos and rumble and that always made sense as her fingers slide over the notebook, etching letters and numbers across the page. Maybe she has finally won some time against her writer's bloc.

-fin

Inbetweens

I was his first friend. I was a figment of his brain's imagination. A figment, so perfect that we almost never fought. He always came running to me with the worldly frustrations of a child, when his ice cream fell over or when mom yelled at him. Nothing he ever did frustrated me. I was a living shadow, where only he could see me and hear me. I always had the right things to say, which was a sight of envy for him. Since he always seemed to say the wrong things to people. What he never understood was that I knew his heart. More than he knew his own, I had seen and lived in his heart in ways he never could imagine. Don't you know, I always had the upperhand.

I remember the countless conversations he and I would enact amongst ourselves. Confrontation was never our forte, but it never stopped us from talking ourselves into it. Maybe everyone always coloured you as this little perfect boy, little did they know your chaotic thoughts that ran through your mind everyday. I always knew he were much ahead of his years, a little old soul. He never seemed to defy authority because he was never one for the pointless little fires. He and I both know, he doesn't own matchsticks. He's more of a flamethrower.
Maybe he's too social to be a wallflower and yet enough of a wallflower to ever be social. Just like me, he like to exist in moments of inbetweens when his heart wanted to exist and live in all moments. His wit and charm is an acquired taste, a taste worth acquiring, just as I am. He knows he's my only friend and loved one and I'm weary to be fading away so fast. But such is this world we live in and my time has come. Change is the only constant while for most parts of our early life we were each others constant.
I know as I watch you grow old, my existence is supposed to fade as you find people are exist in real time. But just thought I'd leave some advice for his world. Let me voice my thoughts instead, for old times sake.

It's been a pleasure knowing him and thank you for creating me. He were the best friend I could ever ask for. I hope when he thinks of me, it'll be nice thoughts.
To the girl who will have his heart, treat him well. He's been waiting all his life for you and know that they don't make boys like him anymore.
To his family, who for the most times questioned my existence and yet let him be, thank you. Know that his kid loves you more than he lets on.
To the rest of the world, be kind to him.

To him, take care of yourself. Thank you for letting me exist through you and let that wild imaginative creative mind of yours run free. It was because of this trait, I exist and boy am I glad I do.


- You first friend,
Mr Murf.

PS
Context: Here is a letter an imaginary friend of a boy is writing one last time for the boy's growing old and so is his memory of his imaginary friend, Mr Murf fading away. 
I read it as a writing prompt as thought of it as the most peculiar and yet nicest story to write on. Here is what was written; "Your a kid's imginary friend. He's growing up and you're fading away."
So I hope you liked it.
Until next time reader xx

Parts of me

Nothing of me is original. I am the combined efforts of everyone I've ever known. My arms and face and body are the only things the world hasn't changed. But the person I am today is a combined workforce of all the people whose lives have touched me. So I ask again, am I really an individual? In a world of millions or even billions. Is anyone an individual? With the multiple galaxies and parallel worlds, with so many somebodies and nobodies, is there an individual? There can be only so many numbers in an infinite. Even though the very essence of it is never-ending nature, there's got to be an end. I mean there's a start for an infinity but not an end? Every action has an opposite and equal reaction. Isn't it? So if there's a start there's got to be an end. So I ponder as to what extend will an infinite number of possibilities will cease to exist even with their special eternal function. 

Is everything I stand for a combined effort of the universe to make me an algorithm of logic and reasoning? I am a numbered individual with parts of many other individuals. Does that make sense? Or is this another effort of the world's social conditioning to confuse till everything turns lopsided. My heads hurts thinking about all these possibilities and conspiracies and efforts taken in my world to come together with the other worlds of the worlds. Do I make sense?

Do I really make sense.
You are too the combined efforts of me as I am of you. I've left little pieces of me in you and you in me. Maybe that's where the concept of treasure maps and hunts are founded. We leave little by little in people and places we never knew we did, as we search through our whole lives trying to be whole. The person who is whole, is someone we call as saviour as he has achieved what we spend our whole lives searching. Is that what God and faith is? A faith we can't question and a god on whose names wars have been fought. Then is there really a point in being whole?

Life is so strange sometimes. It's almost been programmed to be a shit storm and the beauty of the human way is to find beauty in moments that aren't so shitty in a colossal of a shit storm. Maybe that's why it's called a beautiful life.

Now on that note,  slightly dark and somewhat positive, I wish you all a happy new year my dear readers. I started writing this post without a basic plot and let my fingers run wild. So welcome to the chaotic world of the inner workings of a person who likes to write. :))

Fin.

Nineteen

Dear 19-year olds,
So I know for some of you, the world's your oyster. You've got it all figured out. Everything seems to be going okay. For some of you, you're just taking it slow. One day at a time, while others bulldoze into your future, working round the clock, just the way people bulldoze into the platforms during rush hour. Some roam around aimlessly, trying to find their purpose of life. I guess whatever the age, we're always trying to find some purpose in life.

You're trying to establish yourself to an identity which should be fully functionally by the time you're 21, so that you can be an "adult". You try to build politically, socially and culturally apt ideologies to follow through when you will be an fully functional "adult". You're at that at that blurred line between adult and teenager, where everything you do, affects how you're seen as a teenager and haunt you as an adult, but never as an individual at present. Everything that seemed unaffected to you a year ago, you suddenly need to have opinions on. You're at that precarious stage of either totally wasting your last teen year, or living it outrightly. Either way, it's your last year of being a teenager. I suppose, being twenty isn't as different from being 19. Twenty isn't spelled twenteen and that's all there is to that.

19. That means you're mostly in college, juggling a social life with academics. That is something you'll be juggling either way in the years to come too, but at 19, it's the starting point. There's more pressure to keep a buzzing social life so that you don't feel you wasted your youth or "teen" years. There's a ticking clock, reminding you of being a "teenager" and all the amicable stupidity that comes along with it. The relationships in our lives seem to be more complex whether it's family or of the opposite sex. But that's unavoidable and continuous in the years to come, but relationships just get messier as mentality gaps get wider.

You start to see the world with a little less flowers and more dirt. You start to call out the bullshit in all the things you believed in a few years ago and pick bones with people who don't. You rather voice your opinion and bullshit facts, than agree you're wrong. We listen less and hear more. The overload of information thanks to the internet, is also an overload of anxiety of how truly revolting people can be. Wars are being fought, millions are dying and here I am wondering where can I get wasted with friends at night. It's a walking paradox, where we do truly care about issues but at the same time indulge in frivolous whims with the overload of information along with constraints of being social. Information where we truly don't know what to do with or act upon. Not to mention some people do act upon these causes, while we applaud in awe.

Some seem to have everything sorted out while others are in a chaotic rumble to figuring where the hell do they want to do? We yearn for freedom from our family. To be light from family constraints and to venture out on our own. We seek freedom but still depend on family to create our belief systems. Confusion is that one itch in your body, that never seems to leave.

You also start to come in terms with the fact that life will never go how you want and people you never thought you'd part with, you part. Your friend circle starts decreasing as your bond with the ones you have start increasing. You become ignorant of issues surrounding you, while our generation gets isolated and more lonely. Depression is a term you don't want to say, but personally understand in more one than one. To be indifferent and yet feel, to live and not exist, to be independent and yet dependent. To borrow a phrase: The unbearable lightness of being. To be or not to be.

Personally, 18-20 years is that age gap in which we try to form our identity for the age of being a fully functionally "adult" by 21. 19's an age of self-exploration, which can be polarising, but in this time and age? Name one issue that isn't polarising. That being said, personally I try to hold middle-ground to avoid heartache. My mother always said, "Everything in excess is bad" and she couldn't have been more right.

So in all, I'm just another 19 year old, stumbling around for some foundation to hold onto and get past to be an "adult".  19 is that stepping stone, where you can still be called a teen and pave your way to become older as you start to also see the world in a darker shade of grey than before. It's a lonely road as you part with being a teen and start being adulting.

Maybe you believe in nothing. Maybe you believe everything, but that depends totally on how you have self actualised as a person to be what you identify with.
So my dear fellow 19 year olds,
Live. Be happy. Question. Seek answers. Self-actualise. Explore. Create.
Most of all, be kind to each other. Support each other. Only you and I know what it's like being 19 and let's not make it harder than it already is. The world's crappy enough as it is.


PS: I swear I'm not this preachy in real life. Had a major writer's block and this is what I churned up. Hope you like it.
Until next time readers!
XXXX

An ode of love

Do you see what you do to me? Making me crumble and doubt myself every time I try to do something on my own, or all the times my feet feel asleep only to be woken by the feeling of pricks and needles jabbing into them as my hands searched for you over the books. My head feels like it's going to explode every time we meet but also longed to keep meeting again. And again. I like to hide underneath your beautiful looks and your spoken words to keep myself from drowning. Why are you so cruel and yet so strikingly radiant  that I seem to only focus when it comes to you?

People have spent their entire lives, dedicating themselves to you, and when I'm with you, I feel that I can somehow, conquer the world alone? I look into the world, trying to search for you. I spend all my time trying to figure you out. Time, a place where all broken souls come to heal, but I spend all my time looking and loving you. Why is it that I feel most comfortable under your shadow? Am I under some kind of a spell? Or a trance where I only see you? I don't even know your real name, your story, your background or even if you like me back. All I know is that you make me think in ways I never could and express myself in more ways than one. When you're not here, my head churns into a mix of all the places you could possibly be and where I could find you. The world till now, has shipped us in more way than one, but that's just what the world does, it creats an allusion of what can be falsehood. I know I am definitely not one of your first partners and won't be the last. But when I do see you with other people, it makes my heart sink. How is it you never glowed so radiantly when you were with me, or spoke such beautiful poetry when you held my hand. But at the same time, I wonder in amazement of all the people you inspire to write.

You were the reason for all my favourite people to express themselves in pages and make you their muse. Only you could help people to think and express their passions and stories in ways the rest of the world never could. You cause some of the greatest pleasures and displeasures to people who know you and have loved you. You're a walking juxtaposition, one nobody can get rid off, or not love.

I never knew you when I was born, or remotely thought of you until you creeped onto me on the pages of stories long written but never forgotten. You met me in the novels I read and in the poems you helped people write. But most importantly, we kind of fell into each other's arms the moment I couldn't speak and you needed to speak.

So my love, here's to you. A walking contradiction of the devil himself but also one of my greatest loves and faith. Thank you for existing and thank you for finding me. Thank you writing.

This one's to you

Love

Manasi

PS: If you didn't understand who's the person I'm addressing this to, read between the lines or re-read. I like to be very subtle in these things and hope you get what this is all about. 

Thank you readers, until next time! 

 

Sunny Days

Her father had a way with worlds. Even in the lowest of times, when the bombs flooded her home with blood and human parts of loved ones, he would simply just wash it off and move on. He'd always turned and look back at her, point towards the big ball of fire in the great heavens above, laugh and say, "That's where they are. Look up! It's so shiny there, look child, look!" She'd smile as his laughter melted into hers. She never quite understood why people were leaving Syria, and going to the big ball. But nevertheless she wanted to go there too, but her father didn't like it there she guessed. Maybe that's why he never took her there. Her mother and sisters had already left for the big ball, so couldn't she?

Even when they crossed the big blue ocean, he never stopped talking about the great big ball. It always hurt when she looked at it. But she never did stop dreaming about it. Even when their tiny boat was almost swallowed by the chaos of the ocean; not even then. She imaged the big ball as her fairy tales described it, with all the girls in their shimmery long gowns, all the boys in their best clad clothes, as the big ball swayed in happiness in the presence of all her loved ones. Every night, she prayed for the mornings, even though the big ball burned her skin most days.
Her father never stopped telling stories of all the pretty balls taking place up there. He never stopped. 

As they neared land, she knew her father was half the size he was back in Syria. When they hugged, her hands never felt so empty and worried her father was leaving. Leaving to get ready for the big ball. She asked him if he was going to take her there, to which, her father just smiled and said, ''No. I have to prepare the people in the big ball for you. The people of this land won't be able to withstand the shine of the big ball if you came child, for that I might leave you here, alone. I'm so sorry!''. She didn't know what her father was saying sorry for,  but felt saddened of the thought of her father leaving, but also happy he was going to her favourite place.

Her father didn't last more than 3 days at the refugee camp. But in those 3 days, he had already informed her of the colour of the ball gown he was going to prepare, her shoes, jewellery, everything. She told him all of her heart's desires and how she had pictured the ball in her head to be, as he promised he would make it all come true.

On the night that he died, she remembered the next morning being the hottest and most sunniest day ever. Almost the whole of mankind on earth wailed and cried about the warmth, but she didn't. "My father's in that big ball up there and almost my whole country is up there celebrating him. He's the most beautiful man they'll ever see and that's why they are celebrating him. Isn't that just wonderful?" she'd tell everybody, as she laughed and closed her eyes to breathe in the magic of the sun and all the people in it, celebrating her father. 

And what a sunny, sunny day that was.

Side note: I'm trying my hand at short stories. Let me know if you think this is any good in the comments below.
This one's for all the refugees in the world. I'm sorry that this is happening and hope you find this in good health. I hope you find your sun in this darkness.
Sending love, hugs, warmth and sunning days to you,
Love
Keen Blogger.

With all my heart

I guess, I never really thought of the superhero she thought me to be. I was just a part of her, working non-stop, daily to keep her alive and did my best to keep her safe. She never wanted anything from me, apart from the fact that I never stopped giving her the strength and will to live. I never stopped trying to prove my worth and I guess.... she knew that too. But everyone knew, that without me? She'd never have made it this far.

I'm not saying that she didn't return the gesture. She did. She never once complained when she had to cook taste-less health meals because of my poor condition or the money she spent on my medications. I guess she blamed herself for my condition and was frightened that I would leave her. Little did she know, there is nothing in the world that'll ever make me stop loving her and caring for her. I have been through everything with her, right from an infant to the 70 year old graceful woman she is today. Although, I never stopped working, never stopped fulfilling my duties towards her, never stopped loving her, she still blamed herself. Didn’t she know? God had programmed me for her. A slightly neurotic workaholic who'd never stop beating my body for her every whim. I was the reason of her existence and she to mine. Ours was a love affair for the movies, and yet I don't think she ever knew of my love.

I still remember the days she tried to keep herself happy even though I knew she wasn't. To all the boys and friends and loved ones who broke her heart, I've never met you, but I sure know the importance of your being in her life as you left me to pick up the pieces. But I guess the heart wants what it wants. I remember the happy days when she lifted her child for the first time or the day she graduated. I even remember the sad days when her father died or when her dog Bozo passed away. I guess I remember everything as I was there in every step of the way.

But I don’t think she ever knew about our little romance because I never was one for the camera. I did what I had to, to keep ourselves afloat and never complained. But I never gave up on her. I'm glad out of everyone in the world, we chose each other. I hope she can forgive me for when I’m finally getting too tired. I know her body is failing as old age catches up to her and I may not as strong to support her, but I hope she had a nice life just as I did, beating for her.

 -Love always
Your Heart.

 

Note: Since it was World Health Day on April 7^th, here’s my twist on it and hope we can start looking after our bodies and be healthier, for as long as we live. In this case, the heart. This is how I think the heart if it could speak, would speak about the uncanny romance it has with each of us. That or I have a wild imagination.

Side note: How many of you thought this as a story of the heart and his preceding human being? Be unabashedly truthful and let me know if I can write such stories without giving away the suspense and be too mainstream, losing the plot twist.

Also if I should try to write such things more often? Let me know in the comments.

With love from the bottom of my heart. (Literally and figuratively in this case)
Thank you for reading.

Until next time.

XXXX