An obligation

My friends say, "I'm proud of you! You're getting the help you need with medication and therapy", when I shared about my MDD, OCD and anxiety. 

But these little yellow and pink pills with the strawberry flavour, rips all my emotions from me.

I am now but a walking zombie, feeling nothing, dazed and lost, tired and drowsy with no tingles of anything other than the incoming feeling of a panic attack to send me heart racing like cardio at the gym.

I feel like my life is but an obligation to live.

I wish I had control over my vital functions like breathing and pausing thoughts, for I'd put a stop to them both at the count of 1...2...3...4; just like holding my breath in the box breathing technique my psychiatrist taught me. 

Hello darkness, my forever friend.

I love the darkness. It's comforting. It's safe. It's real. It's freeing. It's where my insecurities don't hide - there's nothing to hide them or shed light on. Truly liberating. It's my darkness at the end of an exhaustingly bright day.

Being there...A silent good-bye

I promise I'm going to be there for you in any/every possible way that I can.

But.

I can't be there for you the way you need me to.

I'm sorry.

But.

I love you.

Where do you go?

 ...and suddenly there was silence. My tinnitus has been quite the bother for over a ear, I mean 'year' now. The room goes blurry and wavy like I'm in some kind of trance. Such tranquility can only cause terror in me, and did, rightly so. I wasn't shook, but felt stirred - a truly 007 bond-like moment as he passed out slowly in his car - only here I was in my living room, floating, the tube light hurting my eyes as it blurred out and me losing my balance while desperately grabbing on (unsuccessfully) to the wall, the door, (anything please), whilst still deciphering what was going on. I was in this state for a few seconds but these episodes graduated to last for minutes over an entire week. A feeling of nausea lingering all day coupled with these episodes kept me irritated at almost everything and everyone. 

It's terrifying to be in a state of rest yet experience being in motion. A paradox or a cruel joke? Thanks to movies, misspellings have been tied to Dyslexia, but for a stickler for rules of language like me, it's nothing short of a nightmare to be unable to form a word with the right set of its spelling.

Sounds, lights, food, the slightest movements of the head, cell phone screen, everything added to my woe. Turns out it was vertigo.

Some people have height vertigo - when they look down from high cliffs or live in high-rise buildings. To me, it feels like I'm high on life - Stress, Dehydration and Sheer Dumb Luck.

P.S: If there's a typo in this article, you now know why! Spinning off! Bye.

Closure

 My stomach is churning. I feel an uneasy warmth crawling out of my skin, painful, yet it gives me the chills. Tears well up in my eyes -- I can't breathe -- I'm choking on my thoughts - all the bad ones.  What am I feeling? What is my body dragging me like this for? What is all my energy draining into? Oh, there it is - the hand that you see, you desperately want to cling on to - hoping it will save you from the imminent death (of your feelings) - reach out before it's too late - grab the hand.. oh, but wait... it's only a mirage...from your undying hope in humanity... unrealistic expectations that someone gives a damn about saving you from damnation, the very damnation that they imposed upon you - or was that your own doing too? Unconditional love to narcissistic people tears your soul apart, burns every sliver of hope from your system and you condemn yourself to a life of eternal (80+?) misery. As if the mental agony weren't enough, our bodies receive these bad, nasty vibes as food and feed on them until every nerve, muscle, joint, blood cell are burnt black and charred to the point of no recovery. In the end, all we look for is not solace in one another, but an opportunity for closure, the one eluding hand that will never grab yours back.

Misgivings of a pen

Ah the smooth flow of ink gliding over the paper with a lustre that could blind your stationery senses! The smell of varnish rolled out by a tiny little ball demanding your approval. Buying a pen is always satisfying - you know what you want, it's a quick buy and purse-onally speaking, very affordable.

We hoard our homes and office desks with pens of different colours, types, why, sometimes even rank (for those special occasion ones). Yet, it defeats inventory and logic that when you need one, it's never at your disposal. If you do spot one, hiding in some nook, it never fails to fail you - it just won't comply! No matter how much you scribble, it'll always leave you frustrated; I'd like to gently bring the adage - "A pen is mightier than a sword", at this point you might feel like destroying this metaphorical weapon itself.

And then there are days when writing would be absolutely satisfactory - you'd write pages and pages and just when you're about done, the feeling of dread freezes your tired fingers - you know it's happening, but it can't be happening, right? - the ink trails off and you wail in pain (mostly from all the finger numbing writing you did over the past hour or more) - "No, no, no". You beg and plead to the mighty pen, "Please don't give up on me, not now, please..."; Well, we've all been there, haven't we? We know how blotchy that ending is. There's no use crying over spilt ink.

Ink residue that smears your favourite/neatly drafted pages, soils your clothes (the best ones, always), nibs that tear through the page of your favourite notebook as you passionately scribble away; pens have their misgivings, like we ourselves do and sometimes one can't tell the difference.

In this age of technology where the closest thing to a pen is a stylus and paper is an application, the flow of the thought from the mind to the tip of the pen has lost its grace. From a time where the focus on was writing sensibly and staying focused on the task (writing) to avoid strikeouts, we've been taken over by autocorrects and typos, losing all that we've learnt, as basic as spelling a word correctly.

The author and the pen share a bond like no other. If we were to reflect on this, plenty conclusions may be drawn to human mood and behaviour, control and outburst, presentation and failure and a great deal of other things.

P.S: I did consider publishing a photo of this article in writing, but woefully, my pen gave up on me midway.

Bring Me To Life

 

Fall season - it ought to mmm...

 

Demons

Demons -

They draw me in, 

deeper and deeper...

I weep in sin,

wishing for the reaper.

This familiarity, the comfort

of darkness engulfing me all over again

This is fight or flight.

But in their embrace, I feel nothing;

I mean - I feel like I'm nothing.

Accepting, settling in my damp bed...

I withdraw and close out.

Tonight, I bed my demons once again,

For their whispers are my sweet nothings...

Rest

Rest, if you must.

The steel in you rusts from lusts of pitiful desires.

Exhale.

Forge instead - strengthen from the sparks arising

from the embers of your brave, burning heart.

Rest, if you must. You must go on. 

Perhaps...

Perhaps materialistic attachments are addictive because of the control over their discard as opposed to human attachments and the lack of control over discord.

Racing Thoughts in my Shower

Hot Girl Summer

Restless & screaming children,
Sound of the fan blades whirring,
10 hours of head numbing cicada calls,
To a constant hum of the most raided refrigerator.
Everybody wants to be heard;
Nobody wants to listen.

The high pitched mating calls of cicadas compete with
The loud, unpleasant thoughts inside my head
As if the heat and humidity aren't already patronizing me enough.

Dry spells everywhere, yet beads of sweat
Send shivers down my body..
I look up to the pink and purple setting sky for respite,
He turns away and -  instant darkness...

Until come the rain, pattering -
She brings thunder along, wiping everything clean.
A flash of light, too,
Illuminating the silence.

A calm so suffocating,
it can only be a hot, summer's night.

Blush

The sound of the water running as I shower,
Drowns out all the noise in my head
All I can feel now is the goosebumps on my soaked skin;
Perhaps, a naughty thought of me in your mind crept in -
Perhaps, it was a memory of us,
Perhaps...and I jolt aside as I feel,
the sharp burn of hot water, almost as if it was
reminding me...
...as i look down my hot, blushing skin,
that we cannot be each other's, even in 5 min fantasies...

Breathtaking

I want to look into your eyes.
Cup your cheeks in my palms.
Kiss you softly on your lips;
And write my "I Love You" on them with mine,
So that you remember how it feels,
When someone whom you love and care deeply for,
Says that they love you - 
To feel their vibrations on your lips,
And remember it was those moments of breaths that were taken,
That made them the most breathtaking of all!

Vital Statistics

My vitals were stable, but I could see, feel and hear my life fall through. My vision was blurry, the nurse said it was a side effect of a drug he had administered a few moments ago, but I knew the real reason behind those swollen eyes - tears.

Tears - the uncountable noun.

How do you statistically show how much you hurt?

"I cried one glass of tears for you, maybe a bowl"?

If I had collected all my tears in a large jar, maybe I'd have at least a year's supply of organic salt for my kitchen, every year.

What percentage of people living amongst us, amidst us,  have experienced or are experiencing depression, anxiety and other mental illnesses? How many of us are suicidal?

If I gave you the numbers, would I be accounted for presenting a statistical speech? Are we aware that these numbers are growing and at a frighteningly fast pace? It's a race between humanity and time, the final ribbon is either life (a do-over, a second chance) or death.

Who understands?
How much do they understand?
Do they even understand?
Insensitive, ignorants, iridescent (not two-faced, but multi-faceted)

 • Grief

That Sizzling Heart

Can you hear that sizzle?
Yes, the one where my heart burns deep red,
It burns in agony
It burns in disgust
It burns in the absurdity of mindless actions
"Put your heart into it", they said
It burned and burned, with roaring flame after flame
Until one day, it could not burn anymore
For it had run out of air
It sat there in its heat - bloodied red, fuming
Until what seemed like drops of water
Was in fact an ocean of tears
Can you hear that sizzle?
It's getting louder and louder
There's smoke now, I'm choking
Coughing and spluttering and blind
And then it all settles
The heart is red no more
The heart is soft no more
The heart is now black
The heart is now hard and cold
Like a lump of coal
Only waiting to be hardened
Into what I'll soon wear as
A diamond on my finger
A girl's best friend.

Or did you just hear me sniffle?

Unworthy

No, I will not accept it!

I do not believe for one moment that I was worth the way you treated me.

I do not acquiesce the lies you tell yourself about why you did what you did.

In the end, if all that was worth was taking from me what I had, so be it!

Be the ungrateful slime you are;

But I will not believe for a split second that I was or am unworthy of the love I deserve.

So, crawl back in to the pit of deceit and shameless grave you dug for yourself, for one day, you'll feel the damp earth beneath you and cold rain pour over you but not a soul to even flick the earth over so that you may rot in the open, your stench reminding others of the kind of people they are, for they pass by you, only to see how you've done in life and in grave.

Morning Person

It's the sound of her silent echoes
piercing through the night
that keeps her up -
and yet here you are, calling her out
for not being a morning person.
Little do you know
she rests when the birds begin to sweetly chirp
for that's when the crickety noise
from her unbearable silence breaks,
laying her to what she hopes is
her final rest.

A coward's crown

The ringing in my ears 
won't stop as they drown
in the silence of screaming fears
of decibels that crown 
a coward's upside down frown.