A.V

It's 2:30AM With no signe of sleep The fan blows fast In this dimly lit room by my fairy lights Arodred with butterfly of paper. My mother, father and brother sleeping soundly. Father often readujust, perhaps his nose is irritating him. It's been a month, since they came hear. We have had operation of mothers ear and fathers nose. Brother too showed his spine to the docters. A month of being surrounded by docters and roaming around rooms filled with white and blue. Hearing the rattling of alluminium in medicine wrappings. It's been an experience.  Been some time since we have spent so long together. And now in a few hours they will leave. I have not been good to them.  I have not been kind, like I promised. And I blame myself for it.  But perhaps I do think a lot Perhaps I do compare a lot. I am not a good child right? I see my hanged creations swag. Mother sleeping besides me. I guess families are ment to Messy And in the end it's the choice that matters Th...

Here I am again, in a place I know all too well. Down in the dumps. Awake, fighting sleep. Unable to do anything. Feeling unworthy of even the warmth of food. Too awkward to reach out. Too absent to step into a room. Too hollowed to hold another person's warmth. Too frozen to let anyone in. And all I can do is repeat a mantra that tears apart my wings: I was never good enough. Perhaps it was better if I had not existed. Tired I am. Of living sometimes. Wishing to disappear  not loudly, just the way dead autumn leaves do, carried off without ceremony. A.V

 I often see a couple, a couple, parents to two boys, whom they raised living far apart. They fought, they cried, made up. They learned to love, to be what the other needs, not what the other wants. I see them. For what they are, because only stories reached me from their past, those they chose to tell, not their mistakes, not their conflicts, only the lessons from them. I remember stories where mother would cry over something father said. She would hide beneath beds, and father would apologize in tears. I know they saw things together— death, old age, sickness, business. They dealt with things together. Like the times mother would rage over something others said to father, while father remained silent and only smiled, hearing mother reply to the inconsiderate comments. Even if they lived most of the time apart, rearing children in different cities, not being able to be with each other all the time, they still grew together, witnessing the wei...

“Kya soch rahe ho?” Her voice rang softly into my ears. “Kuch nahi, soch raha hoon if it's better to leave or stay.” “Let’s leave,” she replied to a question I asked myself. I nodded with a soft smile. Leaving this crowded place late at night, we walked home. Cold winds blew strong as spring was taking over winter slowly. The leaves rustled, some fell and skittered along the road, some crunched under our shoes and sandals. It was a full moon, yet the sky was overcast, almost clement for people like us. Lightning flashed lucent from behind the clouds. Clouds that threatened to fall any second. Wind whispering, “A new season is about to arrive,” as it breezed past us, teasing our hair. We walked, as her metal bangles rang in one hand, sandals tapping the road like a metronome. She was in a white kurti, hair resting down from her small shoulders. Lightning reflected from her silver earrings peeking through her black hair that framed her face. Eyes jaded from all that ...

It's hard,  being kind to oneself. When every cell in you screams  you don't deserve the softness, the warmth of comfort.  When your demons rage  to engulf the small soft corner  you were nurturing. Everything comes tumbling down, like dominos, one after another. Your feet freeze. A weight settles on your chest. Breath shortens. Vision blurs. Then they fight. It was just a mistake, you're allowed to be human. Fuck you. A mistake is something you’re not allowed to make. You ruin things. You cause damage. Don’t listen to that voice, child. It’s wrong. Then why are you frozen? Why can’t you speak? You know exactly what you did. It was you.  It was fucking you. You don't deserve the kindness. But..... You don't deserve to be alive. Better die. Right. What have those softer voices ever given you? Permission to be imperfect? Permission to be kind? Let me remind you When you don’t want to be a burden, you are not allowed mistakes. You are not allowed t...