the asylum in saint-rémy-de-provence.

there are so many people. always. always. always. too many people.

and nobody knows when to stop.

nobody.

so many people.

and all of them have eyes.

i hate eyes.

they don't stop looking at me.

and i can hear them thinking, dear god what kind of a mutant have you left with us.

they never stop. not even when they're silent.

i can hear them thinking.

and that is all i can hear.

i can hear the pity.

i can hear the disgust.

i can hear the hopelessness.

i can hear the tire.

i can hear them shrinking me down.

i can hear all of it.

and those eyes. hundreds and thousands of them. and i am only clothed in inadequacy.

 when i come back home, i look at my hands. and i think 

what crime i must have committed to be born.

and all my anger comes walking back to me, head hung low. 

and the only person i can degrade then, is myself.

the horror of that violence shows on the walls.

then is the curtain call. and all of them queue up in a line, to offer sympathy and sorry to lighten their conscience.

but there are so many people.

and nobody knows when to stop.

i wonder who strokes their hair to tell them they are destined for great things.

how can everybody be destined for great things ?

i sit in the sea of these miracle children, and watch them scavenge for something i cannot see. from where i am, they all look the same. having gone through the same kind of sad torture. 

i am invisible to them. i am not the kind of person they would pay attention to. they are busy authenticating their greatness.

i am not great. i am not even in the same universe as them.

i have never wanted to be great.

still, they do not let me breathe. i seem to be dispensable when i do not fight. i am, at my core, occupying space.

all of this feels commercial. but i have nothing to sell.

this perdition was never meant for me. 

i have outgrown this life.

maybe i am crazy.

and life could have been better at the asylum in saint-rémy-de-provence.

-

some days i can't find the courage to speak up. other days i can't find the self control to bite my tongue.

when asked why i feel the need to create words for the ideas i am experiencing, i say i don't know.

technically, i do know. i just don't know how to arrange the fragments of it in a comprehensive manner.

i need to organize the complexity in my head into digestible bits to distill the chaos into clarity. i need it to be worthy of lasting, to be widely acceptable and understood.

i need something to show for. 

this feeling coats my throat in venom and grows thick in my mouth. the ugly desperation for expression is so out of reach. it is slow and stuck. that is when i want to dig my nails into my skin, pull at my tendons and tear my vocal chords open so i no longer have the ability to speak.

this body will kill me. it imprisons me. all of it does.

 why do i opt for immediate moments of comfort when i know it will only intensify the eventual cascade?

why do i intellectualize my circumstances in hopes of getting over things if i understand them ?

 why does anyone ever do anything ?

will i die with a hole in the heart and a knot in my stomach ?

maybe life could have been better at the asylum in saint-rémy-de-provence.

-

it is 3 minutes past midnight, and i'm thinking to myself in script. i hold the toothbrush in my hand and i am supposed to brush three times. then i wash my face with different soaps, expecting to feel clean. the kind of clean that comes from peeling the day off your face. i look up, trying to be presentable, as if there is an audience watching me through the mirror. my room looks stale. i visualize myself on the bed, like this internal mapping system, and i tick the things i need with me. i know exactly what i am supposed to do now. but a day old string candy pack peeps out of the drawer and when i eat it, i realize i'll have to brush again.

again.

i read this post that shows up on my feed and it says you cannot make someone love you by loving them harder. if you overcompensate, it is only human nature to milk it. 

all i can think of is its equational sense. and i do not understand.

the more i learn, the more i realize how little i know.

at what point did my individuality turn into narcissism and my empathy into nihilism ?

my notes app has this one section where i write down things that come to mind at that moment. the first thing on it is an intensive monologue i wrote on my birthday. about my birthday. about possession. i realize that in emergency, the only thing my consciousness asks for is my mother.

there also a lot of pining and interpretations of old buildings i have observed in passing.

it is always the hard way that one learns that externalities give you what you need and not necessarily what you want.

and that the idea of contentment and reward itself is fleeting. it shall be a restless game of chase that only ends with a realization, a poignant moment at the end of a timeline - a consensus that life tempts the illusion of true peace in order to ignite the pursuit itself.

i talk like a mad person.

and life could be better at the asylum in saint-rémy-de-provence.

-

the buzz i have carried all day disappears in that room. this teacher laughs and she talks about the subject in a way i can't see when i'm at home. and i listen to her, and i feel nice. she talks about sex determination in different organisms and about her housecats- chin-chin kumari being the star cat in the neighbourhood, already having had multiple babies with different cats all around, she is currently going around with another cat. then there is nantu, a male cat who has assumed responsibility of the kittens and then there is ludo, who is not bothered with the hassles of pregnancy and has no intention of bearing child. 

on the ride back home, i realise that the only thing that made me smile in the entire day was my biology teacher talking about her cats. and i realise that it'll diffuse when i return. that room will swallow me whole.

i look out of the window, and think of running.

if i ever ran away, it would be to the mountains. or to a forest. where the ground was saturated and everything gleamed with selfless purpose. and some days i will be sad. but somedays i will be happy and i will dress myself in the colour of the trees.

and i will exercise my need to protect the unloved. i will love all the ugliness in the forest, for it can never hurt me like humans have.

and i will not be thinking whether i am being selfish

or it is selfish to ask the other if they are being selfish.

the fear of being perceived. i am seeing it everywhere now. it's a part of a complex algorithm. we are creatures of habit and what lurks in our subconscious finds its way into the workings of everyday reality. the fear of being perceived. i see it everywhere. i am afraid. 

i think i am afraid of myself.

i wish i could cut off the disease like another limb. i've tried so many times. this fever does not leave me. it is selfish. it makes everybody else leave. 

when i wake up, i sit in the aftermath of what i have done. i howl. i curse myself. 

i am so tired of myself. 

sometimes i hate my father. for giving me his damage.

it is like a slap on my face when i understand that i cannot separate myself from it. that it will always be the loose thread in everything.

i become undone.

i used to beg a lot. for forgiveness, that is. when this happened. 

i never really remembered what i had done. it was usually faint. and i cried and told people how it happened and how it was this horrible thing that was in my head and i begged them to understand and to see me, and not it.

this was hard. nobody had that patience, or that kind of a time to deal with me. i don't blame them, i can barely deal with myself. it was difficult for my mother too. she didn't know how i would react to situations. sometimes, she avoided making conversation when it got serious. 

and through all of it, i got worse. and worse.

it feels excruciating not being able to do anything. i would be curled up in a fetal position in bed, unable to move. the worst part of my depression is what they call psychomotor retardation, where i simply cannot move. i can barely get up to go to the kitchen or the bathroom and i just lie there and can’t answer the phone.

when i finally can, it is like walking into an empty warfield. 

and you sit and think how horrible you could have been to do this to somebody else.

and that sad feeling sets in

and it tells you

that you cannot be loved the way you are.

all you can do is accept that. and understand, when people cannot take it anymore.

i remember one scene from the episode Take me as I am, Whoever I am , on Modern Love.

and i smile,

this too shall pass.

maybe,

life could be better at the asylum in saint-rémy-de-provence.

-

today i remembered this poem :

And God

please let the deer

on the highway

get some kind of heaven.

Something with tall soft grass

and sweet reunion.

Let the moths in porch lights

go someplace

with a thousand suns,

that taste like sugar

and get swallowed whole.

May the mice

in oil and glue

have forever dry, warm fur

and full bellies.

If I am killed

for simply living,

let death be kinder

than man.

and i sat thinking of it.

none of nala's offspring survived. 

and i sat thinking of this one poem.

i remember her eyes. when she looked at me in that pain. and the unknown man inserted his hand inside her rummaging around for the offspring.

and i sat thinking of this one poem.

i remember how she sat near me. how when the pain worsened she climbed on my lap. i remember the amniotic fluid on my leg. i remember how they pulled on her leash to try to take them out of her again.

and i sat thinking of this one poem.

i remember hoping the children died, when she crawled under the chair. unwilling to take anymore pain.

and i sat thinking of this one poem.

i remember her seeing her one breathing child. it was an ugly black colour. and it reminded me of the father. it gasped for air. called for its mother. who was on the floor with two more inside her.

and i sat thinking of this one poem.

i remember how she licked the child clean. i remember thinking it was strange. nala was more child to be than the offspring looked. and then how later it was declared dead. they said they tried.

and i sat thinking of this one poem.

i remember they took her for the surgery. and she was cut open. and other two were dead too. and they finally gave her respite when they took the uterus out.

and i sat thinking of this one poem.

there is no end to things. nobody knows when to stop.

i have always been scared of death. and oblivion. never understanding how old people accept death, when it comes. always gentle into that goodnight. 

as i grow older, 

i learn a little more.

i learn that nothing the earth has given us, is as gory as man. 

i sat thinking

let death be kinder than man.

in another universe,

life is better at the asylum in saint-rémy-de-provence.

-

"new stars have formed today and you can see them in the sky and remember them. every night they'll be there waiting."

i read that again as i write it here.

and all that has happened before now seems alright.

the solace here is worth all of it.

-

                                                          Abraham Pether (1785)

somewhere in the mountains is the asylum in saint-rémy-de-provence.