"Hello. It's been a long time." Her phone flashed.

No sooner had she looked at her phone, than her heart skipped a beat. It was the same ringtone that she had assigned to his messages - keys.

Has this sensation been flowing throughout her body, dull all this time? Has it only just been magnified, like a negligent current amplified? Has she been impervious to how he actually made her feel?

A plethora of emotions assail her. She could feel her faculties rendered useless. The good, and the bad of lost connections, and the realization that - She doesn't own anyone. To reach out, or not. To give in, or not. Natural powers that perceive such sensations, flowing through her body, reveal a fact or two about what all of this meant.

She stretched herself over the turbulent waters, only wanting to cover the whole expanse of these emotions with her little body. She sat upright on her bed, contemplating, confounded, excited, awake - and alive. 

Wasn't it just yesterday?
What if I'd left everything as it was? What if I didn't bother to pick up the pieces?
Nobody would have said anything. People are always just silent spectators.

No one will ever compare to you - that was the magic of you. 

You made me a better person,

And now I'm struggling - to save our innocence, to save us from this cruel world.

So, the dismayed portrait stands still, collecting dust, while I feel the weight of it all.
My trust is broken.

I'm not a saint. You're not a sinner.
I'm a goddess. You're an atheist.
It was never supposed to work. 

When the world is sleeping,

yours is the only voice I hear,

explaining every note of the music to me,

I still cry listening to Roses,

thinking I'd be there again, saying I feel the same.

I miss you. But I don't want you. 

I still love you, because there will never be another you. 

I crave for the girl I was with you,

But I'm never getting her back either.

I miss you both terribly. So much today....that it hurts. 

I'll forever remember you, and perhaps, that's the only forever we're ever meant to have

একটা ছেলে মনের আঙিনাতে
ধীর পায়েতে এক্কা দোক্কা খেলে
বন পাহাড়ি ঝর্না খুঁজে
বৃষ্টি জলে একলা ভিজে...2
সেই ছেলেটা আমায় ছুঁয়ে ফেলে,
সেই ছেলেটা আমায় ছুঁয়ে ফেলে।

A Jogan is Leaving Her Country

 In this entire hullabaloo, a lot of words have been left unsaid, and unwritten. The white canvas that I would so lovingly paint with my emotions has been unable to contain my chaotic thoughts, all in one place. I kept on waiting, thinking that I’ll rue over it later, when I can make better sense of it all – but everything seemed to be kept on happening, without any certainty – at full speed. 

This was a pace I was never comfortable moving with, yet this is how, for a change – I went with the flow; because I had nothing to lose. While there is everything to “sacrifice” at one end, there’s everything to gain at the other.

As clichés go, today I paused; let the phone ring and let the flood of messages come.  Today I took no responsibility, and breathed, to write – so that I could comprehend everything.  So that I could finally let go and converse with the jogan (anchoress) that is my soul, the jogan that feeds my mind, keeps ME alive, and allows my kaya (body) to keep moving.

She has asked me a lot of questions lately; chiefly she asks if there can be no happiness, merely because a part of you doesn’t exist with you anymore? Do ghost of such happy moments then become melancholic inclinations, whose faded image you’ll call nostalgia? Why does distress seem so much more augmented upon addition of unnecessary worry and solicitude, why do I feel suppressed when that’s the case? Is it too harsh, to forget, and move on? If I remain hidden…will I wither and perish?

Of course, I have no answers to any of these questions. And of course, I do not want her to wither and perish. All I can tell her is that I’ll return, a better person – stable, balanced, passionate, and even more alive.

And this is where the jogan will always reside – between the present and the future; this is where she'll turn to, when she is ill-disposed to converse. She will live in another world, a world where she can hide, where all her fears and all her worries fade away as quickly as they had assailed her. I will not let her wither - ever. This is a part of me I will never let anybody touch. 

My Valentine.

My Valentine

 

Remember, when I was so happy,

Even the wind stayed as it caressed my shoulders,

Remember, how I was stuck in time,

With no rewind button,

But a future so carelessly imagined?

 

Remember, the books without any weight,

The nights without any fatigue,

And the light in my eyes, with my pupils dilated?

Remember, the little apartment in Paris,

And your scattered movie scripts

Mingled with my scattered designs?

 

Remember the fire, the passion, the thrill of being young,

The eyes that said too much, and the lips that moved on their own?

Remember when dreams were more important,

And acceptance was the dirt beneath our feet?

 

Remember…do you remember the love, the desire?

The soul that never wanted to settle…

…The wings that hadn’t been cut off?

 

Because I remember it all,

In my big room, with my big books,

I often fall,

On scattered and desolate dreams,

Of yours, of mine,

 

But I’m shining bright, alone,

Collecting the torn pieces of our identities,

My eyes still shine bright sometimes,

And the wind makes me laugh a lot,

The difference is that...no one is here to see it,

Not anymore

24.

If twenty-two was a hurricane, twenty-four is like a slowly rising wave, breaking up on the shore. And in this frothy blissfulness, I have found my present. I have found the neglected and abused pieces of my identity, the shattered and grief-stricken soul. Turgid, from being exposed to the constant palaver of the sea, the soul now lies in wait for all that could still be.

Being almost a quarter-century old, I am becoming more comfortable in my own skin. Not that I never was, but I’m realizing that I always was my own person. I was responsible, for my peculiar way of life, which I relinquished half-heartedly. Yet, I found many ways to tie my true identity to half of my heart.

Half of my heart now beats when no one is hovering over me; it is elated when no one is around. The passion within me burns brighter when I’m alone. And if this is the case, it doesn’t imply that the other case has to be true too – that I do not enjoy the company of other people.

Upon reading several articles on Introverts, I’ve found that there was never anything wrong with me, as I had always been made to feel. Clearly, I am a homebody – but not unadventurous. I simply care more about where I utilize my energy, after it has been half-drained by my work.

Ironically, I understood the power of being alone, when I moved away from home. I understood my limitations, and reaped the gifts of time. I understood that my friends, who enjoyed sticking together, were different from me. I realized that their anger towards my personality was not unjustified, but the guilt that arose in me was.

I realized how much I loved stillness, calmness, and silence, when I sat on a hill with another introvert.  And like a staccato arpeggio that lets the music breathe, our voices never disturbed the sound of nature. I understood then, how there was no such thing as awkward silence for me, because small-talk drained me.

And now I am 24. When in the past, these realizations might have casted shadow over everything that I did; this reflection is now my only strength. I was never angry, but I always was, and am, fearful of what people are capable of doing to my psyche. Like the guy I loved, who twisted my own personality for his own convenience. But I am stronger now, stronger than I had ever been before. I am alone now, but I’m never, ever, lonely.

Because the older I grow, the more I crave for myself, the more I crave for that small empty space with that one good person. The older I grow, the more I see myself taking a few steps back, the more I lose touch with reality, the more I want to un-settle, un-adjust.

I am looking at life through the rose tinted glasses of mine, I am growing old backwards. I am accepting myself. And making my world peculiar for everyone else again.  

Anthropomorphizing

It’s freezing, and it has been raining incessantly for the past three days. And even though the weather has been despairing and gloomy, I’ve happily found a reason to stay in bed. My eyes have become accustomed to the darkness. With the sun sequestered behind the clouds, my heart is oddly warm, and my mind, fuzzy.

And I’ve realized (1) how the sunlight streaming through my bedroom windows is always a blatant alarm. There were many times when I didn’t want to wake up, yet the light which would fill every corner in my room, diametrically reminded me of the fact that, I need to.

Now as the rain falls heavily on the pavement, I’ve realized that (2) the sun didn’t enliven me. It was the cold, the rain, the cliché romantic stories, and the plaintive clouds – that were all an inlet to a world of creativity. And, love. Because maybe, after all, that was my true aim in life – to fall in love with myself.  So with this temporary full stop, I feel closer to myself than I ever have. It has given me a reason to hide (underneath my warm blanket), slightly in pain and slightly because I don’t ever want to do something that makes me feel cold in the cold weather (both literally and metaphorically).

I have truly felt warm while flipping through the pages of a trite romantic novel, and pondering how utterly silly life is, and how utterly mundane everything else is, and how pathetically dramatic our lives are, aren’t they? As I did everything I could to entertain myself, and entertain the idea of love, it struck me, that it is not what happens to us that hurts. It’s not the heart that breaks. It’s only the mind playing tricks, receiving and transmitting what it wants to receive and transmit. And nobody ever wants to get hurt now, do they? Then why, I wonder, do we get hurt.

Anyway, it is pathetic fallacy that I’m drunk on. And I never want to stop reading. At least until the sun tarries awhile. Or until I find all the answers, played out in real time.

In the Arms of Nature

The carousel of time never stops turning. At this wonderful time of the year, I found myself surrounded by nature. This was the first place I wanted to go to, a place of Elysian beauty, a balm for my distrait and weary soul. A place where I knew that silence would wash over me like an analgesic, a place where my best crony, solitude, could accompany me too.

Stripped off of all responsibilities, and the anxiety which comes with the palaver of daily life - I could tell, this was where I was me, where I could be just by myself, stand tall without any guilt.

Consequently, away from the bedlam of a metropolitan city, these paradoxically disorderly spaces invigorated me. Every step I took in silence spoke to me, of a wonderful future. .  

Absolute silence, it is all I need. Solitude, awareness, happiness – are all that fill the void for me. Happily tangled up, in the myriad dreams I have for myself. :)

The Ice-Cream Date

She ordered some coffee and sat down at a table in her hotel room, it was already past five when she had left the conference. But she oddly felt more energetic now than she did in the morning. The scent of the room and the crepuscular scenery from her window were both, salubrious to her.

Her phone rings as she starts working on her laptop. She is indifferent at first, but after a moment’s hesitation, she picks it up.

“You left your pen with me.” The voice at the other end says.

“I lend you one? That’s unlike me.” She said, playing along, relaxing in her seat, her face slowly contorting into a smile.

“I’m happy to be an exception.” He said, in a calm mellifluous voice. She rolled her eyes when he said this, biting her lip. He was relaxing on his bed, with his laptop by his side. And the first thing that he did when he freshened up was call her. She imagined it all, and couldn’t help but feel important. And in thinking that, she felt that somewhere he was important too.

It was impossible for her to get out of the habit of attaching certain thoughts to everything, she was consistent. A part of her wanted to be polite, yet a part of her would always commensurate politeness with something else.

“I would need that back though.” She said, and got up from her seat when she heard that the waiter had brought her coffee.

“You’re at the hotel?” He asked when he heard the bell, sounding curious, as if she could be anywhere else than at the hotel.

“Of course I am, where else would I be?” carrying her coffee with her, she lay down on the bed. She was amused at herself, and shook her head in disbelief. This time, she rolled her eyes at herself.

“I thought you went to the ice cream shop you were telling me about, the one with the longest queue?” He chuckled.

Oh, she thought. She remembered that she did tell him that she wanted to go there, and might go right after the conference. She wondered if he had figured that she implicitly suggested that she wanted him to come with her. But he never said anything about it.

She felt her chest tighten, flushing at her irrational wish to spend her night with this man whom she lend her pen to. Truly an exception as he had realized.

“Did you think that’s why I left early?” She laughed, like it was not a big deal, trying to act cool, like she didn’t want to roam the streets of this strange city with him.

He laughed, running his hands through his hair, and turning on his stomach as he took the phone in his other hand. “No, I was wondering, um, if you want to go now?” He asked, biting his lip.

She smiled, but she was confused. She thought about why he hadn’t responded when she’d told him that she would go. So before she could answer him, she asked him.

“You never asked me. I didn’t want to force myself upon you.” He answered, sitting up on his bed, feeling a light abrasion from this friction, yet, feeling as if he was becoming a part of something.

“That’s right,” she laughed, of course that is why, she thought, “I’m in room number 203, you’ll come?” She asked him, getting up from her bed. She realized that she was still in the same clothes from the conference, an emerald green dress with a jacket. She looked at herself in the mirror as she waited for his answer.

“I’ll be outside of your door when you’re ready.” He said, as he got up from his bed, hastily running his hands through his hair, making a few strands to fall on his forehead.

She heard him rushing, as she said ok. And smiled at the thought of him being eager to meet her, when all this while it seemed as if he was the cool indifferent guy she’d never talk to. She eyed the conference brochure which sat on the side table, and wondered, what were the odds of her meeting all these people, just to feel a connection with one. It was a conditional probability of some sort.

He took his wallet and got out of the room. In his white crumpled shirt and Levi’s, he looked more like a teenage boy than a man of twenty seven.

She didn’t want him to wait, so she got rid of the jacket and washed her face. She put on some lip balm, took her wallet, and got out of the room as well.

“Hey.” He said. He was leaning on the wall opposite to her room, and sprang forwards when he saw her. His green eyes were glinting under the yellow light of the hotel corridor.

“Hey.” She said, smiling broadly at him, but nervous at seeing him outside of work. She felt reckless, and confused, at the sudden eruption of butterflies in her stomach. Not knowing whether it was out of fear, or something else, she thought that maybe he was slightly more than a crush. 

She only just noticed that he had green eyes, and that he oddly smelled like coffee. Like he had drunk enough to keep him awake all night.

He came forwards; his eyes never leaving her face, and then pulled something out of his pocket. She was confused at his sudden movements, and then laughed when she saw what was in his hands.

“Here’s your pen,” she took it from his hand, he smiled, leaning in to say thanks, then he motioned with his other hand, saying “Let’s go on our ice cream date.”

Shocked at his forwardness, she gave him a disapproving look. He shrugged his shoulders, scratching the back of his head, a sheepish grin forming across his face. But it was a date she had definitely said yes to, she thought, and then she smiled to herself.