the history of man.
there is such rage in undoing.
and i have always hated rage. i grew up in a house filled with pockets of rage in every corner. all i ever promised myself was, whatever i will be, i will never be angry. fury will not enter my home.
i did not respect rage. i thought it was childish. i thought people who did not know how to write let rage consume them. and then set fire to everything around them.
my father was never a writer. the only thing he ever wrote mimicked my mother's literature.
the first time i got angry it came out as fear.
because my body was familiar with what anger did to people.
so all it let escape was fear
which to everybody else sounded like a scream.
sometimes i think that's what is diagnosed as anxiety.
..
often this made it easy for people to be themselves around me. there were no eggshells in my room. just how i liked it.
but there's a reason liberty is limited. otherwise, this would resemble purge city.
without reasonable restrictions, nobody really knew where to stop. and i didn't want to be mad either. so,
the house got messier.
the fires got louder.
the language got coarser.
the only morally acceptable solution i found was to be more gratifying.
the consequence-less fostering did not help with my sister either.
none of this worked, if you're wondering. across people and timelines, the only thing that happened as a result, was that i'd be detested by the end of the cycle.
suddenly i would become the one that
brings ruin.
the one that
simply doesn't get it ever god why can't you be better
and the one that
gave up and didn't stay and see that i'm not that person why doesn't she get it
personally, i just very badly wanted to tell these people that they didn't have to tolerate my affection.
i virtuously avoid compulsion and irresponsibility whenever i can.
i don't like being accused of it.
especially when i never have it in me to go with grace.
all i've ever done in the history of man.
..
as i said,
there is a whole lot of rage in undoing. unraveling.
especially when it is something i have made.
when i give something origin, it is with a lot of devotion. a lot of hope.
every word. every thread. every stroke. every note. all of it has a part of me in it. it takes something out of you every time you build with your hands.
paintings are almost always about the artist and little about the muse.
it is heartbreaking when it is taken away.
but it is a crime when she is told to undo her child.
i think that is the few things in the world i find unforgivable,
to make an artist unlace all she has put pieces of her heart in.
oh that's the only thing i've been a mother to.
something that has always been done in the history of man.
..
sometimes people remember selectively.
sometimes people remember only the words that ruined them.
and sometimes people forget the words that ruined you.
these people are not good writers.
good writers remember everything. every sensation is stuck in their skeleton.
i don't think you're allowed to say-
you promised me i'll go first.
because the kid in the park never said it. he just sat near the foot of the slide.
and the grandpas that lost the grandmas never said it either.
sometimes you can't really do anything. and promise really isn't much more than belief in the intangible.
it's a lot like realizing how alone it is in this godless universe when you've been going to church all your life.
turns out, all of it was intentional.
but then again
this is just another footnote in the history of man.
..
deep down,
i think i have always been very pathologically afraid of abandonment. to counter it, developed an opposing fear of commitment.
i was really good at roller skating. best in my class for a while, when former best had left.
one day i fell down. and the boy who wasn't close to how good i was, made the length.
and i never skated again.
i mean, it wasn't that dramatic and abrupt. i just stopped, very slowly.
it was almost like, i'll stop before this ends up defining me. and then breaking me.
subconsciously, i repeatedly picked people who were absolutely incapable of giving me what i needed, to ensure i was never really at the risk of substantial loss.
somehow, that didn't help either.
because anything i put myself in, i did it with the best of me.
and they loved, oh they loved the best of me.
i didn't lose people. i lost pieces of me every time. that was excruciating especially for someone who was so used to protecting herself.
a lot like betraying yourself by consciously letting in loss
for someone you'd have to beg to keep you.
in the end, loss is what outlines the history of man.
..
i sat in the bus today in an upright semi foetal position with my knees against the back of a seat, with my head against the glass window.
far off, was a girl in blue waiting near the stairs.
i recognized the girl. i recognized the wait.
the recognition itself, is agonizing. (still not half as much as the wait is)
i watched this girl standing for a long while. somewhere i knew, that the boy she was waiting for, would not. somewhere i understood that being able to wait for someone felt like a privilege for her.
maybe i was personalizing this more than i should have been. maybe not.
and then i saw her ask his friends about him. they didn't know.
why don't you try the
and she ran. to go find him.
meanwhile i sat in the bus and i smiled.
later she came back wearing disappointment on her face. and a friend accompanying her to disguise the disappointment as security.
he came down the stairs much later surrounded by people who were so
so
so unimpressive.
i make such meaning out of high school, jesus christ.
it's always been like this in the history of man.
today they gave us quinoa puffs that i really liked. they came in the same yellow packs the makhana came in.
i never liked yellow. that was always maa's colour.
never mine never mine.
..
i saw this post the other day and it said
you never learnt how to let go of things and i spent my whole life letting go of everything that meant something. so i do not expect you to understand this, but i no longer like to be the one who stays.
there is so much residual anger in me.
people talk about not knowing where to put residual love. i wish someone told me what to do with the anger.
besides asking me to let go of it.
that is exceptionally infuriating.
the other day i read this article that my reader friend sent me. he recently read the kafka-milena letter compilation and we had discussed different outlooks on it.
i tried my best not to get critical or analytical about it.
he got a little emotional about it.
i told him later in a whisper,
i don't think milena was very nice.
obviously, he replied. why are you whispering ?
i've always had this exhausting deplorable mania for analysis. doubting everything. everything. i needed someone to tell me what i was feeling was real. that how i perceived things was real.
not justifiable. not understandable. real.
there had been too much invalidation for me to override that doubt.
i don't need that anymore.
i don't need to be allowed.
i am past short lived floaty corroboration.
go eat shit.
history repeats itself. especially the history of man.
..
you need to think before you act !
oh no no you've got me all wrong. i think instead of act.
there have been few i really have been kind with. and they usually ended up telling me i deserved better. and silly me, i never understood what that was. i would however have liked being told that i didn't seem to be worth getting better for.
personally, i would trade this futile poeticism and understanding for mediocrity. for simplicity.
for the joy of going out to shop with the family.
you want nice people? more people? wait, people who get you !
oh no no
you've still got me wrong.
i don't actually want people. i would however like a nice conversation from time to time.
everybody is people.
and if someone is more than that,
i think it is important to still keep them at an arm's length from the dog.
it is more important to know that
you can always leave when you feel like you can't.
and you will always have the strength to start all over again.
because someone more than people,
would never do that.
that brings me to the one thing maa has told me whenever the time has come for me to let go.
i first heard it at 9.
"For what it's worth: it's never too late or, in my case, too early to be whoever you want to be. There's no time limit, stop whenever you want. You can change or stay the same, there are no rules to this thing. We can make the best or the worst of it. I hope you make the best of it. And I hope you see things that startle you. I hope you feel things you never felt before. I hope you meet people with a different point of view. I hope you live a life you're proud of. If you find that you're not, I hope you have the strength to start all over again."
...
Romantic Scene - Ferdinand Keller (1842)
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