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Days Like These

On days when breathing is painful
When music on full cannot pull
my pitiful thoughts spinning in whirlpools
to a silent blissful cool;

On days when I can’t but hate
the trade offs in life I made
family for freedom, freedom for money,
money for travel, travel for stability;

On days I roam pretending I’ve grown
all worries in a messy bag thrown
in a corner of my mind I actively ignore
so I can feign normalcy against all truth known;

On days when I can’t love the sky,
whether the Sun shines or clouds float by
Even as it tries horizon to horizon spread so wide,
to comfort the eyes heedless of time;

On days I spin stories of distant glories
which color my life like a jar of candies
I keep held in my hand as the day dies
feeding on the little nuggets to help me survive;

On days I count focusing  my eyes
On my hand as I flip fingers to get to five
reasons that hold my life
hostage to none but the route I decide;

On days I feel how unfair
it is to have no one to blame
my hands fumble finding nothing to claim
except the helplessness that remains;

On days like these I find my truce
in saying life’s playing a fucked up tune
and when it switches to the next track
it better be a song after my own heart.

 

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Writing Everyday

I hear about it. I read tips to and benefits of doing it everyday. Heck, there have been occasions I’ve suggested it to other people. But do I myself write everyday?

No. I don’t even write once a week. Once a month maybe, but I won’t bet on it.

Writing everyday to me is like looking at the wonderful oranges my roommate has bought and arranged on her side of the table but not buying my own; like buying all those books on knowing more about history or getting more out of your life but never once opening them. Even when I do write, I never do any happy writing. I only write when I’m miserable about something, or on one of those days when my habitual random walks across the city didn’t show me something new and interesting or when I want to whine(like now). Writing is accompanied by a special kind of disappointment that follows after reading other bits and pieces and realizing I can be nowhere close. Raised in an Indian family with parents always talking and boasting about their kids, it‘s not a surprise that I’m this sickeningly competitive that I wouldn’t click on the ‘Write a story’ link that medium has placed at the heights of convenience just because I see it as an invitation to be inferior, willingly.

But then there is also the other reasons — the distractions in this world — the booze, the comics, the lazy mornings, the assignments, the lazy afternoons, the right color of a PowerPoint title slide, the lazy evenings, the shopping mania, the travelling time, the lazy nights. Where is the time? How do you get the time to write when the alternative is watching movies while eating chocolates, or chatting non-stop with your roommate/other friends (perks of living in a hostel) or reading all those wonderful books(fiction, of course) or posts (anything except news).

After all, creating is always harder than consuming. I know that. And I want to stop being a thankless marsh that just keeps on soaking anything thrown its way into a dull bottomless forgotten zone. I want to add a little of my own touch to things that are given to me, without looking over at how others are handling it every other second.

And so, this is my 2016 resolution — write something every week (I don’t have the guts to make it daily, but hey, it’s a decent start, right?) — no matter how small or random, just write. The rest will follow (hopefully).