At first, this was a poem.

A rainy afternoon, windows shut to the hiss and haze outside; gray without, gray within, moisture dripping down the panes. Waking up to a dull, throbbing ache in your head and gut; loneliness acute in its obviousness, in its entirety, not a soul around.
Pad into the kitchen, fix yourself a solitary lunch, abandon it. Push open the window panes, rest hands on the dust covered sill and gaze outward. Trains, snaking in the distance, whistles and hisses mingled. Smoke and blur and ashes. Stare and inhale till you're saturated with the smell of condensates and humor and misery, with the exhausts of other people. Wrap yourself around a couch; discolored flora dying away with wear and time and neglect. Gray permeates everything, all-devouring, you're scared. There's no blue as the day weans itself towards its end.
You strum a few notes, make lists in your head, take in smoke and exhale it. Look at pictures on the fridge. Maybe you should eat, maybe put something out for the cat, but it's unlikely it will return.

Right in front of your eyes, the shades of the gloom intensify. Skylight is dying, but in the outer world, happier folks will light up their lives. Yellow and orange and neon. Slivers in motion slice through the darkness, like roving eyes, tiny in the distance. Herd behavior; they move in packs. You sit till it's too dark to see anything but the cars, stories moving apart and away from you.
Smoke curls up magnificently, luminous in the dark.

Sit there, living out parallel lives in your head. It begins pouring again, the lights melt into one another, glowing streaks. A thing of beauty, forever is till you stay awake. Awake is a concept, the brain never sleeps. Energy, it all comes down to it. Thoughts, electrons, light, sound. You curl up on the floor, don't feel the threadbare carpet under you anymore. Cold. Textures hold no comfort anyway. The static of the rain is comforting.
White noise wipes everything else out. Blank. Zilch.

Substance.

“And the day came when the risk to remain tight in a bud was more painful than the risk it took to blossom.”

 ~ Anais Nin

“I am particularly lucid this morning and this is a welcome change from what things have been like. Lately, all I’ve been is tired; all I feel is confused. They tell me less and less, time moves in clumps and then rushes ahead at its own free will. For all the control I’m losing over my own self, today feels like it is going to be different.

And for once, the schedules, the doctors and the medicines make sense. They are here to help me; I am here to get better.

One day I can put all this behind me and be free.”

-          - Journal entry.

She opened her eyes in the dark, adjusting her eyes to the white of her curtains billowing slightly to the wind. Through the open window, she could smell the rain and wet soil. Everyone else would hear the steady hiss of the downpour, but her world was silent, eerily so. She stared out at sheets of water pouring outside her window, a white haze, then padded silently across the balcony, peering over the side-rail down at the drops falling to the ground. She fell too. The result was a three inch scar that made people gasp for years to come.

She was eleven. She had a room with yellow wallpaper and sketches pinned to her walls, a desk with color pencils and a very confused mind that lost track of time sometimes.

Sixteen years into the future, she sat in a little pool of morning sunlight, isolated, writing.

“I look back at the angry scrawls on the previous pages and if it’s me who’d written all that, that was some part of me I do not know. It’s scary and even more so when all they give you are technical words you cannot hear or speak out aloud and much less understand.”

Sunlight streamed through glass panes onto the floor. A part of it illuminated gaudy floral prints on a couch in the corner. The room had an air of a place rarely inhabited; it smelt old, musty almost. Dust coated bits of her life lay randomly across the space of the room. Framed canvases were stacked up against the wall, some sprawled on the floor.

She lay a little way off from the couch, needles and glasses in front of her. There were voices in her head and they got louder by the second as the magic coursed through her veins. And then there were pictures too, and they moved. She finally had company. That was when she first met him.

“I miss my colors, I miss creating. I miss having you around. They tell me I cannot speak. I wish you could tell them about the conversations we had.”

A kitschy artist, he called her, as a joke. Why indeed, she hardly sold anything she made. He teased her, saying she’d run them dry. She loved his laughter, a strange neighing sound that had been made fun of very often. She loved how he loved her, scars and all, even the invisible ones. They were good and when they were together, she could speak, she could hear; they could make music together.

-------------------------------------------------------

It’d rained the night he’d stormed out. She still hated the rain and the way the drops fell to the ground and made her want to follow them. He yelled at her but she didn’t listen or even bother to turn to look at him. He stood there, flickering and grainy as she wove in and out of delirium; she turned her back to him and wondered for one sane moment, if he was real. He slammed the door shut then, jolting her and walked out into the sloppy, roaring world outside.

There were flowers on the creeper around the porch, wet in the rain, she imagined. She painted them in her mind, crimson and thick and shiny, entwined with her fingers. She slathered on paint amidst wreaths of smoke, until the voices in her head took over and when she woke up, he was gone forever. And she was found on the floor and taken away by people who believed they could make her better.

 “You’re gone and so they tell me that you weren’t for real. And that I cannot speak. They write me notes and make little signs with their hands. As if I cannot hear them. But I could hear you so well.

It was either not you or it isn’t me. It’s difficult to know which was for real.”

She sat by her steel desk and looked out at the gray wall opposite. A singular wail rang through, distantly, down the corridor. Her scarred hands were cold and still. She wasn’t even aware of who she was anymore. This was what it was like, by gaining him, she’d lost every bit of what she had been and what she had. It would be too much, trying to integrate herself once more, almost impossible.

And so, in the beginning of the day, before daily sounds and med calls and people she was supposed to be good to, punctured the blank, spotted canvas that her life was; before the world rolled on once again; before dawn even set in, she hung herself, all of her selves.

Unto you.

Would I want to let you in?
Under my skin?
Would I ever want to let anyone in so deep they'd know all about me?
But then if that is all I am, the sum of my secrets, every little shame and guilt and my mistakes, would that be giving myself unto you? Losing me in the way?
And bit by bit, I'd have nothing left; with every revelation, every fold you'd peel away.

No you may not know who I am. I'll show you just as much as I wish to.
This isn't something personal, it's just self-preservation.

No.

You don't know what I'm like.
The bits that make up my life
are as you said,
trivial for you.
My little joys
are alien to you

What then, should we base our love on?

Songs do not make you cry.
Stars don't make you wonder.

A dreamer for me.
For you, I do not know.
Not me, surely.

An year later.

Early morning, maybe four.
In that little window of time when it's only still dark for a short time,
or perhaps the faintest bit of light beginning.
The darkest hour, they say.

You're in the hall, by the table,
the ancient sun mica covered monstrosity that we hated,
the one with greasy smears that you couldn't get off
and brown coaster marks.
Ugly. 

You're by it and outside, 
it's sleeting and frigid 
and when there's enough light,
we'll know it's foggy.

It's cold, very cold.
Your pullover doesn't help.
Your hair is a mess,
the coffee isn't warm anymore.
You haven't really slept because you had to wake up in a few hours.
And so you're sleep deprived and feel sick and glum.
You shake your foot because that's what you do when you don't feel good.
Again and again, in weird jerking motions.
Your slipper comes loose.

You're at the same table as me, while I write this.
Because I wanted you exactly an year from me.
The light from your cigarette butt from today evening would've reached a star by now.
The smile, however, vanished as you turned.

We don't wait.
We don't expect this to have an ending, of any type.
Happy or otherwise.
We go on.

In the ugly overhead thing, all steel and glaring white light,
you're at your weakest, your sleepiest.
It is cold and lonely and unhappy.
But. It will get better.

And when morning comes, you will be through with me once again.
All over again.
Ragged, cold, tired, sad, crying perhaps.
And yet at the beginning of a new day.

Go back to bed.
And ache for me.
I only live in those moments you think of me.
And I don't want to die just yet.

White

and you have been
so white for me,
changing so

from a five petal'd flower
in so many shades:
from a tungsten glow,
to pearly,
and the rich blankness
under the sun;
deepening purple
under an inky sky,

to the white
of sea foam
furious, churning
a salty ghost
but really
just froth and motion
nothing but air
speckled with the sea

and to the white
of death
of pale bodies,
of the sheets over them,
and fear and revulsion;
the white
of a dying sky
bleached by rains
shunned by light
empty, endless
shallow;
the color
of quitting,
of there having been
nothing at all
to leave a mark under;
of not just an end
but of nonexistence

Confessions of a dead girl 8

8. Diary Entry 4: Being manic depressive




It's not so hard to turn suicidal. It's not inconceivable to imagine dying. I dunno if it's due to my depression or simply because I've always been such a quitter. I feel such loathe for myself at times, such wracking guilt and such repulsion for this life that I've created for myself. I know that the others around me are not responsible, but I'm so tired. And this is so bad. I feel nauseated. I dunno what to do about it. Never in my life have I felt suicidal to the extent where it becomes a real possibility. At times like this, it's almost like I can do it. I can try and succeed. And if I do it, I won't even have to stick around and answer to all those whom my absence will affect, wreck their life as it might.
Why is it like that we have 'strings attached'? Why isn't my life mine to end or do whatever with, as I want? Why are we always responsible, answerable? Why do we, even in helplessness have to tolerate it all, just due to the thoughts of them?


Now I can sorta understand why depressed people suffer alone. It's just so odd to talk about it. It's not that the people around you are not understanding. It's just that it sounds so melodramatic and somehow, pointless. You're depressed, how does that sound? You cannot give a reason for it, maybe because it's something you're mostly not consciously aware of, or maybe because so many of them just overlap that you don't know what it really is about. But most importantly, it simply doesn't matter. It just doesn't matter even a effing bit. Why on earth is anyone supposed to justify sadness? It just IS that way. You didn't start it, you cannot make it go away and while others have more concrete problems, you're depressed. You're crying at every little thing; you're dreaming of escaping from life. It's an even worse guilt-inducing thing. Hence we suffer alone.


Things get momentarily better, when you're distracted. But when left by yourself, a sudden thing can push you under again. It's just that helpless. You go out, you talk, you laugh with other people, it plugs out the numbness for once, but in the absence of it all, everything turns just as meaningless and gray as ever. Nothing's really worth enough to keep you hooked on to life. 


Not always do people cut short their lives for a reason. It's also sometimes for the lack of reasons to go on.


Everyone is there, right beside you, all the time, for so long. They think you're fine. And yet, they never know what you're really like; what you're going through. And how long you plan to last for. I bet it's a real jolt when they get to know that the person they knew is gone after a long period of suffering and they didn't even have an inkling of that. They had thought all along that all was well, or worse still hadn't even ever spared a thought. 


It's such a creepy, disgusting condition. It would feel good to feel happy, genuinely, totally happy. Do I have reasons for that? Even if I do, I cannot bring them to mind and feel them.  It's like there are dementors somewhere close by, sucking out my happiness, until nothing remains, just rot and ugly pictures and unforgotten memories and all the hard, inconvenient details of my life that I'd rather not think of. It would be so much easier to cut myself off. If only there weren't things pulling me back. But then, it's just a matter of deciding whether I care enough about cutting myself loose, or caring about them and staying put and hating everything every moment. In any case, considering where I'm going, it shouldn't really matter, should it?  Is it worth bearing it? What really decides worth?


What happened to my love for life? Why do I think of death, dying so often? Why is it that I don't want to live anymore? When I think of all the things I'd rather be doing and am not able to; when I remember all the seemingly-forgotten dreams that have no way of coming around; when I think of how I don't want to be here and living this life. It's becoming a crappy life to lead with this cycle of sick thoughts and that morbid, relentless want.




to be continued...

Confessions of a dead girl 7

7. To You: Things I'm not gonna do


I'm not gonna tell you that they're not gonna be true to you either. 
I'm not gonna tell you that you'll suffer as- or maybe worse than- I did. 
I'm not gonna beg and plead you for explanations as to why, just why were those things directed to me, even when I considered you my friends. 
I'm not gonna expect you to change or improve. I'm not gonna hope that someday you'll realize your mistake and have a change of heart and come apologizing to me.
Neither am I going to wish for your harm. 
I just know you'll get what's coming to you, something fitting for what you did. I just know that it's coming for you and soon you'll know how it feels. I'm not even gonna stick around and wait and watch when it comes. It's just enough that someday it will. And that day, you'll regret. Really. Each one of you. I'm not cursing. I'm not entitled to that. I just know what goes out comes back around. It's a fact.
You'll see that soon too. 
And I'm not even gonna wish you luck.


to be continued...

Confessions of a dead girl 6

6. Diary Entry 3: Hating myself


I'm deciding today that I don't like myself. I wish I weren't me. And it's a shame that this is something I made in all these years, and that this, just this was perhaps the best I could come up with. Me. I don't like Me at all.
How does one get rid of bitterness? Of mild pangs of hate? Against one's own self?


Why is this happening to my life? I know I'm not the best of persons. But am I so bad? Or do I just happen to be so weak that back biters just thrive around me? I cant believe that today, for the first time, I don't want to be myself. It was never this way. All along, no matter how bad I goofed up, I always liked, loved myself. I never wished I wasn't me. That was one constant thing, always had been. Now, it's terrible to look inside and discover that I'm rejecting myself. I don't want to be better, as improvement can take care of that. I want to be different, altered, separated from what I am now. I want to be selfish, ruthless, heartless. I want to be what they have been to me. I'm just tired of being at the receiving end of nastiness every time.  
I've had enough. Wish I could die and begin all over again. But it's such a shame to waste all these years. But I swear, I'm tempted. I really am.


I wish I was stronger, so I could take it better. Just shrug it off, curse it off. Instead I cry, I call up people and I moan. Why am I so fucking weak? And the king of all complains: why God, why me??


to be continued...

Confessions of a dead girl 5

5. Diary Entry 2: On people


I've been such a fool to trust people again and again. People are by default, since they're not perfect, imperfect and they DO NOT deserve to be given chances, not second, not third, not ever. Why then, do I have to make the same fucking mistake as ever of trusting them again and loving them and keep on doing so no matter how many times life gives me hints not to and however many times I've gotten hurt and cried and ached for fools? Why is it like I've sworn not to listen to any part of me that makes sense?


But I'm changing and there'll be a day I'll stop loving everyone. I'd love my life as a misanthrope. People are just people. Full of crap. Just like me.

To be continued...

Confessions of a dead girl 4

4. My name

Chhavi.
An image. A shadow with a shape. What happens when the screen is broken? Torn down? The image splits, it is stretched apart, it is pulled, partially on the jagged edges of the screen and on the surface of whatever was behind the screen. It is never the same. But then, torn is also an existence for it. For what was was it even when it 'existed'? It wasn't even true then. Always virtual, never tangible. Like wind or air or thoughts, except that it didn't matter like they did. Changing color with the screen, even the image with the structure of whatever it was projected on.  All it's existence was because of, and dependent on other things.

And when it's gone, another image replaces it. Is it even missed?


to be continued...

Confessions of a dead girl 3

3. Dairy entry 1


It was raining and the drops reflected the yellow of the streetlights. There had been an accident. Cars were sprawled across the street, the shining metal interspersed with bobbing, black heads. It spoiled the uniformity of moving metal bodies on the street. Men milled around the crash scene, busy and worried. Yellow light shone off the water and sweat on their faces, their rough faces and though it wasn't beautiful, it was fascinating.

The men pulled the cars off the middle of the street. It began raining more heavily and everything got even more translucent, chrome and unclear. If you leaned out of your window and looked up, it would be all streaks of golden in the light of the lamps that stung your face. And it was loud, the drops hammering off the car tops and heads, and the babble of voices.

Broken glass lay spilt, light against the dark asphalt. The pieces shone as the jarred edges reflected the light. Some shone a pale red with blood that had oozed out from under the driver's seat. The car had toppled over onto it's side and the man in the seat, crushed and dead, sat with his mouth open, soaked in rainwater. His face was almost clean and water pooled in his mouth. Diluted blood ran in little rivulets across the road, accumulating in little puddles off the side of the road, mixing with the mud, rippling in the rain.

An ambulance arrived, wailing, and the crowd parted like scurrying ants away. The medics wore shiny, dark nylon overcoats. They crowded around the dead man, picking at his clothes in a practiced, efficient way.

Then I saw her, in the middle of the crowd. Standing and staring. She wouldn't get wet. She didn't glow yellow like the rest of everything did. She just stood. Then they pulled her body out of the wreck.

As they pulled the bodies away, she looked at them long and hard and said just one word.
Papa.

The sound carried past the distance to me. It was like she wanted me to hear.


to be continued...

Confessions of a dead girl 2

2. The day I die

In the morning, mum will come knocking at my door. At the lack of response to her third knock, she'll probably get alarmed. When they get the door to open, they'll find me. I hate to think what mum and dad will react like. It almost makes me wonder if I want to do this. Is it worth this, causing all this pain to them?

Someone will find their senses to call up the police and medics eventually. They'll tow me away, clean up the blood. They'll be cold and white and efficient and I'll be just another case. Mum will look around, wondering what went wrong. Another twinge of guilt will work it's way onto her face, erupting as tears. It's so painful thinking about them. I hope dad doesn't get sick 'cause of me. I can't do anything without being a nuisance, I guess.

When I'll be gone and the mess cleaned, my room of eighteen years will be unusually ordered and clean and quiet. Sunlight, through the parting rain clouds will pour in through the white curtains, highlighting that ink stain from three years back, slowly heating up my bed. The wind chime above my table will sway slightly, tinkling. Outside the sun will rise higher, people unrelated to us will go about their lives, the world will spin yet another angle. Everything will be just as it was. Except for me.

This is how it'll be when I die.

I wanted to die in the rain. But I'll content myself with myself with the fact that it rained the night I died.


to be continued...

Confessions of a dead girl 1

1. The Note.

To my best friend,
I think death is a big thing. Maybe it's crossing over. Maybe it's the end of everything. It's such an enigma, is it not? But beyond everything, it's the best escape. All things that held you, pulled you down become powerless. I do not know if I'll cross over, or where I'll be. But in the absence of that knowledge, it'll suffice to know that for me, it'll be the end of everything.
Tomorrow will be another day for everyone else. For your existence too, but who'll talk to you now?
They'll probably take you away to find out why it all happened. That's what they do, don't they? And soon after, they will know everything I ever told you. God knows what they'll make of it. It would be interesting to know.
It's going to be over. This makes me a little scared. Though it's not fright, I believe. Trepidation maybe.
It's a little strange to share your last thoughts with a best friend who's a diary. Is that funny? Sad? But at least I have this. And like mum says, I should be grateful.
I should probably write a note for the others, something along the lines of 'by the time you read this, I'll be gone'. But then that's what's going to happen. What's the use of stating the obvious? I should leave a goodbye note. But somehow it feels so wrong. 'Good' is not a word that can be used here.
I'm not going to end this like, it was all fine or anything. It wasn't. Not at all. Far from it. Everything that could go wrong, did. Every single thing. I'm not going to tell people why I'm doing this either. The above line should suffice as a reason. And if it doesn't well, whatever. Does it even matter?
Goodbye, anyway. For all of you.

- C


to be continued...