Twilight

(Written 16 March 2020, around 3:45 am IST.)

Silhouettes of a confused twilight:
Not yet morning, no more night.

Record Scratch

(Written 19-20 February 2020.)

The scratching at the end of the record. As hypocritical as it is, coming from one of a generation way beyond the record player, I think that’s the best description of what I am. What I feel. What exists. What doesn’t try to suit a mood, or fit a person, or satisfy the need of a moment or a lifetime. It’s just… what is, at the beginning and end of anything you want. An unapologetic dissonance of something of itself coming into being, and an arrogant, selfish unmelody of something that is ending… whether or not it’s ready to.

Yes, I Doodle Again

(Incomplete, from March 2015.)

Death and misery are the ways of this world. You inhale and you are miserable, you exhale and you die.

The goodness of a human being is ephemeral. So long as the quantum chances of circumstance are in your favour, you get to be good.

how can you know ugliness until you have looked at my face, looked into my eyes, looked unforgivingly at the tattered edges of the soul i do not believe i have?

all the goodness is in perfectly circular spots, boundaried by the awfulness of life.

goodnight, then, and the goodbyes and such.

can you forever die in that word of yours?

your face is the panacea. your cries are the epidemic.

i didn't do it.

i have broken you, and your kindness has broken me.

the scalpel to my jugular feels more pronounced.

have you crumpled the rose yet?

carrying the weight.

hot tears in cold eyes. painful.

Landmine 1

(19 August 2017, 7:44 am.)

So, here I am. Watching this show that has been making me wonder why in God's ungracious name Rotten Tomatoes rates it 93%. Wondering at the fact that everything I dislike about the show seems to be the premise and the pivot of the show. At the fact that everything I like about the show keeps trying to be overshadowed, in the show, by the central character, whom I keep trying, in vain, to find tolerable. Finishing my second beer after working till 5:00 am. Being awake for almost 22 hours straight at this point.

When...bam! There it is. There it fucking is. A kiss. A goddamn single well done kiss that has now connected with some goddamn revolting, involuntary nerve of ideal desire, idle nostalgia, in some deep, dark, dead corner of what I shall charitably call my existence.

So at this point, I'm 2 episodes down from that scene, because apparently my fear of processing, writing, pausing is so strong that continuing to watch the goddamn show is the only way I could get through the last 40 minutes, although my mind, my time, had ground to a dead halt. It ground to a dead halt and kicked into reverse and I fumbled through people, images, moments to confirm to or remind or convince myself that I've had that feeling before. That feeling.

And I'm going to go back now. I'm going to go back to that episode and that scene so I can grasp at more articulation this time round.

Here we go.

Alright. So I'm done rewatching it and I've started with the third beer.

I think I get it. I really think I do. I think it's the silence and the eye contact, together, that is more jellyfying than any physical contact, then I think it's the spontaneity and the lack of any warning of the kiss, that two people can give into in such a split second, in such a split second, that you question the physics of time. Weren't they always kissing? There's no way they could have been mid-sentence just a second and a half ago. Such fire in every pore that you don't know where or how to move your arms or your fingers. It's like you have glowsticks for limbs. And what the hell do you do with glowsticks?

Weren't we always kissing?

I remember. (Remembering feels wrong because it means it stopped, or changed, or ended, or paused, and none of those are acceptable.) I remember abandon. And surrender. And annihilation. And creation. And absolute zero. Absolute fucking zero, when it all stops.

I remember the strength it took to want. And being consumed by the want. And being consumed by and the ecstasy and the torture of that consumption. I remember the consumption.

So I suppose that's what the kiss was. One of some unknown number of landmines (invisible, until you either singlemindedly work toward nothing but uncovering them, or step on one and are blown to merciful smithereens) snuggled away in me, hiding under...whatever the fuck.

I hate remembering. Just give it to me, or don't.

Then again, words have left me behind, so memories, feelings, people leaving shouldn't be a surprise..

(8:30 am.)

Quotes

A book in quotes?

The Depressive Theory of Relativity

(2 December 2015, 4:12 pm.)

Time seems to slow the hell down when you're feeling like this. I just looked at the clock, thinking I must have already worked 10 hours today, and it's only 4:13 pm and I've worked 4 hours so far.

Obviously, realizing how out of sync your body is with reality only worsens matters for your head. It's like nature's own little spiral of fuck-you-i-can-always-make-it-worse.

It doesn't feel like an exaggeration to say that time and space both dilate painfully. Reaching 2 feet across a table to grab a piece of paper feels like someone thinks you're made of elastic and is stretching your arm from New York to California. Getting through 5 consecutive minutes of anything feels like someone made you hold your breath under water the whole time.

There's also a particular weight on your chest that is crushing, so maybe the relativity makes sense after all.

Mujra

There is a forgotten art in the tradition of prostitution. It is called mujra and it is beautiful.

Mujra is the ability to dance with your eyebrows, emote through the raising of an eyelid, and have sex with the tap of a heel. The curvature of a palm is the difference between giving up your life and receiving someone else's, and the bend of a wrist between pain and pleasure. The space between a dangling earring and the cheek whose movement makes it dangle is where the sun sets and rises, and flick of a finger causes stars to implode. The jut of an elbow is a deep thrust and the imperceptible reaction of a hip the deepest breath.

Every human experience is expressible through the minimal motions of a single, sublime, soaring, subtle human body.

For a fairly unremarkable-looking creature, I have always had a disproportionate interest in jewellery, and I realize now that it's because the singular motion of a bangle on a forearm can capture more human emotion than words can convey.

And for that reason, I am done writing.