WARNING: Depression, Death

We never say the words we want to say,
we looked up in the dictionary for
the words synonymous to love, to us.
And when the time came
We couldn’t say the one word
we never searched for “GOODBYE”.
Had we met in the 70s
we could’ve saved our love.
Love isn’t always pretty fairy lights,
And laughter filled photographs.
It’s sometimes clumsy legs
and bruised knees.

The first time we met
You were crying over assignments.
An introvert ‘a stay-alone types’
Didn’t know what to do
When someone cried.
So I used the cliche line
I had learned from the movies, and fumbled
“Coffee gets sweeter towards the end,
Want to go for two cups of Macchiato”
You were amazed and said
“Anytime for Macchiato”
I was like shittt !!!
But it was a big hit and you grinned innocently.

When I looked at you
As we listened to the butterflies
fluttering inside us,
Skinny dipping in the pool of dark eyes
Naming cities beneath our skin.
I don’t believe in perfection, utopia
Happy endings and forevers,But
I see that my poems no longer
sound sad anymore.

Days-weeks-months passed
You constantly had bad days
Reckon we met in the 70s we wouldn’t
Have had to spend most of our lives
Worrying about what not.
And on the days you weren’t okay
I knew what works best for you
Running around with Two cups of Macchiato
At our favourite rooftop cafe
Atmospheric music in the background
Gazing perfect setting sunset
And a moonlit kiss 93 million miles faraway
From the G type main sequence star.

How you used to be nuts bout
The archaic Italian potteries
Especially the majolica ceramics
And various alluring whatchamacallit at bistro
I barely had any interest to give an audience to.
I still remember how your hair
Used to fall like a cascade of laburnum
And cloak your sun-dripped eyes
And ivory laden smile.
I encapsulated those fleeting moments
Of euphoria in dozens of polaroids.
I kept them as bookmarks
In my journal.
But I failed to see the dichotomy between
Your smile and feelings.

When you fled for Venice
(As It was your first thing to do in bucket list)
To explore the capital.
I wish it was easier
I wish there was a manual on how
Not to feel alien in your own skin
On how to save yourself from oneself.
There was no hatred between us
No love either
Just a sea of silence.
As each day passed as slowly
it reached our neck and we drowned in it.
This is where we ended,
This is where you and I began.

I gave a shot to every playlist
Watched most of the tv shows
Scribbled some pieces
Read books with heart
But ended with all the memories
Connected next to my brain.

The distance between my hands and my legs
Now are the longest.
Since one of them hold on too tightly
And the other walks away too quickly
From the things I’ve ever loved.

Last winter you returned after a year
And told me how you:
Listened to Ti amo d’Umberto Tozzi,
Sojourned ancient places
Witness the culture,
Wade through soupçon Italian slang
Strolled every possible streets and tried
Caffé, gelato scoops and Modica chocolate
How, How you were diagnosed with
Fever frequently and lied ‘I got wet in the rain’
You could go endless
Till I embrace you like a new born.
On spur of moment I glimpsed
The cut mark on your wrist that you
Tried to conceal under the bracelet.
I gazed at it hoping to find answer
In your emerald eyes.

You cried for a month straight
You needed a prep talk before
Throwing the old cards and adjusting.
I stayed till 2 am and did the best
Take you for two cups to the rooftop
Where you enjoy to the fullest.

A month later you have had your birthday
We made up our mind to try Italian cuisine
with proper etiquettes
From breakfast to dinner around the city.
And mutually argued for the place.
You would be dressed in
A yellow sweater,
A yellow scarf, yellow shoes,
And festoon hair with a yellow stripes.
You told me you loved yellow
I asked ‘Why?’
You said ‘It’s artistic’.

It was your day (maybe)
I planned to sneak in your place
To greet you with a surprise gift
You definitely would love it
A lustrous lucky wishbone necklace.
I noticed odd sorta silence
And your hushed parents
Drifted towards your room
And percieved discrete stillness
A deserted space with the tap running incessantly
Your dress was hanging yonder.
On the table there were
Some paracetamol tablets you always carried
Your beloved coffee mug and,
Two lines of cocaine.

I headed to turn off the tap
My sneakers got drenched in something
Denser than just water.
A blood tainted blade inside
The ice-cream container, It smelled of gelato.
And I soliloqued
‘Wish I could take her for two cups of …’
It always worked till today, when
I saw your lifeless body, lied ahead of me.

Love always feels like magic,
You’d say.
Maybe that’s why it disappears.
Had we met in the 70s
Our love wouldn’t have torn us apart
Rib by broken rib.
You might have chosen to stay.

You are the most beautiful page
In the book I call my life,
As much I would stay in them
I have to turn the page.
I have bookmarked our love in these words.
I will come back to it every time
Someone whispers “home”.❣️

– A true story.

Once the clocks on our hearts strike end and once a relationship has no meaning or function in our life where does it all go? Where do the feelings go?

I remember a certain “Sex and the City” episode in which Carry asks the same question and then says that it goes to their new girlfriends. I’ve often disagreed with Carrie’s outfits and I sometimes agreed with her theories but this one is an exception. I disagree.

The after part of a relationship has two possible outcomes.

The first one is the classic breakup we are all familiar with. You break up, start avoiding each other, start talking behind each other backs, go through mourning phases, text  each other, start again, fail, have rebound phases and so on. Here the feelings still exist but you don’t know how to get rid of them so you are trying every single thing except for dealing with them in a healthy way because let’s be honest the healthy way is the extinct and boring way. Mostly you just try to prove that you are great and that the breakup meant nothing to you.

The second outcome is the fabulous let’s stay friends outcome. It’s not fabulous. It’s an overture for a disaster. Where there are feelings there will be weakness and there will be benefits. All of that leads to a drama more tangled than Rapunzel’s hair which will only end up in a fight. The whole concept of staying friends with benefits with you ex is completely stupid. It’s like being allergic to peanuts and eating a Snickers every day – it makes no sense. I should know because I was stupid enough to do it twice.

One of you broke off the relationship which means that the other one will feel the need to compensate for being abandoned. That person is often prone to pretending they have no feelings, trying to hurt you on purpose, acting like they own the world when they are actually miserable. One of you two will also be honest and just go with the flow. That person will develop some kind of feelings which will end up in sadness or rage.

Rage is my thing. I think it’s positive as long as people know how to point it in the right direction and what is most important – rage will make you make your breakup final. No strings attached, no emotions, no anything. Pure rage pointed to getting your life back on track. You will notice his/her flaws, you will realize what didn’t work and you will sure as hell be sure that the breakup was the right choice and, sometimes, you will realize the whole thing was just a strike. You will be fine with it when you realize you can’t change the past.

My advice to you is that you need to end things when they aren’t working out anymore. The more you keep on trying to build something out of nothing, the bigger the disaster in the end will be. When you click the X on your laptop you want to close something so do it in real life too.

I thought I understood,

What it meant to be depressed.

Repressed feelings, they told me.

I thought I could.

I should, I would know.

I thought, I knew,

What it meant to be you.

I’d got you, like a concept I could grasp.

With not even a momentary lapse in judgement.

Because I was every bit open,

to everything closed off in you.

I would get you, right?

‘Cause how hard could it be?

To see through your mask,

To live through your tears,

To scare away your fears,

To know you.

How hard could it be?

Because you were you,

And I was me and I was trying.

I was ready,

For your darkest thought,

For your most sinful deed.

For every seed of doubt that you had,

For every single bad dream.

I was ready.

That night you told me,

You no longer remember your sleep.

So you no longer have to remember,

To forgot your dreams.

I took your hand, and told you

How beautiful they could be.

Technicolor, a rainbow filled,

Bright shiny dreams.

You let go of mine. And told me that,

Even your sun wore a shadow that night,

Eclipses weren’t a rare phenomenon in your mind.

Casting a dark spell over everything.

Making even white a lesser bright,

Than the world had ever seen.

Than I had ever seen.

You didn’t want to darken me.

You held me in your arms,

And still an arms length away.

I asked you,

If there would ever a day come ?

When you’d look me in the eye,

And mean every word you say.

And again words failed me.

I didn’t understand you.

Read novels and stories

And heard podcasts too,

Did everything I could,

but it was just not enough.

Not enough, the way you felt,

Everyday.

Not heard enough,

Not driven enough,

Not loved enough,

Not understood enough.

Not good enough,

Not enough.

I stood there, watching you,

Broken and full.

Half empty,

Still bursting at your seams.

I wanted to make you

Dream again.

Love again,

Feel again,

Complete again,

And I was ready.

I stood there waiting for you.

You did not move.

You were not ready!

And once again,

You were you and I was me.

And in that silent storm hit me.

The reason you stood ground so firmly was because

You were already you need to be.

Not mine to fix,

Not anyone else’s to be fix.

You did not needed to be fixed.

I don’t know how else to tell you that I finally do understand Knowing enough was never meant for you.

She asks me why do I always write about pain and everything sad. I looked at her and saw the world staring back ; a question mark in the curve of her lips. ‘It’s not supposed to be there’ I said. I am used to seeing her lips curve up in a smile everytime she looks at me. But lately, I have seen her looking at me intently as if trying to find answers to the questions that have been nagging her for long. But oh dear, you are searching for them at the wrong place.

For there are people who come with an instruction manual, they know what they like and what they don’t. Ask them what makes them happy and what makes them mad and hear them rave about their lives. The ones who have a list of 101 things to do before you die. The ones who breathe passion.

And there are the ones who don’t need a manual at all. They bring the sunshine even on gloomy cloudcast days.

They are the kindred spirits people look at and reaffirm their belief in goodness.Like the roommate who sat next to you stroking your hair as you cried into your pillow the first day away from home. The school watchman who smiled at you everyday on grumpy mornings despite of his own grumpy job. The kid who drew a feather on your arm above the scar the previous night left behind. And oh you, the girl who ran with me in the rain. Remember, we were both soaking wet when we climbed up the tank. I laughed at you when you said you were afraid of heights. I don’t think you realized it then or even now that I was the wrong person to say such things to. Because I am the next kind.
The kind who laughs when it hurts too much. You ask me why do I carry around pain ?

Here’s a story: There was once a girl who held my hand right where I had cut the night before. She burrowed her nails into the scar that was bleeding still and told me I looked good like that. That the pain in my eyes masked the plainness in it. She wasn’t entirely true though. Because she like everyone else looked for burning red hot fire in my eyes and was disappointed when she didn’t find one. If she had stayed a while longer she would have felt it, the cold fire burning within me. I remember that day when you pulled away from a kiss to ask me why my hands are always cold and my mouth so warm. I smiled and simply kissed you back harder. And that’s my other forte, the way I can make you forget things by kissing.

I can now see all the questions rushing back. All the ones I tried to push away.
I saw them coming back long before. Before they even sprang up in your head. For questions always come back looking for me even though they know I hold no answers. I can handle them they know. I am a sucker for questions that carry no answers. But people get frustrated with them. People like to know. They like to find solutions to problems that are too beautiful to be solved and get rid off. I like to keep them unanswered.

I am afraid of question marks now. For they demand something I don’t have. I have started fearing you now. ‘Cause as I said before your smile has started to look like a question mark.