friday night // fabric softener

 you're so brave.

that always felt like a participation certificate. but at age ten, i thrived for that. thrived to be cardinal in people's lives, in people's deaths. 

i never wanted to be brave, really. i was a kid. i just wanted to be needed. 

growing up brave, you realize that everyone else kind of had a choice not to be. that everyone just chose not be brave. at the cost of nothing. 

the outline of a trophy i was chasing looked even more bleak then.

my savior complex came out deformed. 

being brave meant doing all the things you didn't want to.

being brave meant fighting all the battles. not leaving ground until you've won. or you've lost.

being brave meant losing your dignity in the process.

my parents always considered experiential knowledge to be of higher value. they weren't the sort of parents who fought for me. 

they watched over me from the high castle in town. calling me brave. 

even when all the other kids took off in fear,

there i was on the frontlines

with a cardboard sword

in a joan of arc fashion.

***

the route home is always the same. we always pass by the sculpture garden. 

it's no more of a garden than just a scattered compilation of different trees, but there are all these statues there that no one ever looks at.

stuck in time, like the beginnings of people.

a girl bent over picking up a pot with overflowing water, a large triangular fish, an uncut elephant still in plaster frame, a few deities. 

all chipped. all losing their gifted sentience over the years.

***

this december i am no one's girl. i laugh at that. i could never be anyone's.

it is always now that the dead at the park street cemetery get a lot of visitors. and so do i, but i do not receive a profit in return.

december moves slowly. this is the year decaying, taking all the hurt with it. 

somewhere deep down, it hurts a little to be burying something i gave birth to. in a city i will leave and never look back at. 

***

it's strange to finally understand why you love the second-chance trope in films.

it's strange being 7 and rooting for the divorced couple to get back together.

it's strange

perhaps because you've seen a different sort of love survive through disaster.

a love that puts you through hell, but doesn't end

that is conjoint by responsibility,

not promise

not affection.

i learn and i unlearn constantly.

i learn a little what unconditional love can be. i unlearn my unconditional tolerance.

i learn that it is human to grieve. not to dig graves.

i learn to forgive myself, instead of sending myself to the gallows for crimes i could never commit.

***

there's a map of stars outside the airplane window forming some sort of constellation i can't decipher. 

these are stars that do not flicker. these are stars that showed travelers the way in the olden days.

(i remember when i sat on the roof feeling very small. i remember the star that showed me the way home.)

when i look down, the city lights are twinkling in patters. for a second, i try to see if they form words. sentences. a letter. 

they don't. they find joy in being scattered.

the south indian wife sitting next to me puts her head on her husband's shoulder. their love radiates. it's like being near a strange sort of fireplace. 

i keep waiting for the tamil nun copassenger during boarding. she had been helping me throughout. when i realize, i start walking up the ramp on my own.

a six year old sits on the luggage her father pulls. behind them is a disappointed father-in-law making remarks. i don't like how i subconsciously defend the father.

a person standing in a line in front of me resembles someone i used to be in love with. it is uncanny, the resemblance. i can hear my heart beating in my ears and it sounds more like fear now. still, i look again. and again. trying to figure out something. figure out what?

when i realize that i'm on my first flight alone, the plane's already landed. i'm already in fresh territory.

does the realization always dawn this late ?

***

the room i am staying in has a doll.

i remember a story about a doll. it is one of the few odd memories that take longer to dull. 

this doll was not a doll that was favoured. yet it stayed in the room like this doll stays in the room. looking over the child as it sleeps.

the doll looks over.

the child doesn't like it, but she lets it stay anyways.

my brain fogs up when i try to remember what happened to the doll. 

he threw it away, it tells me. so i write.

was the doll really unloved if it is still remembered?

***

 a still from wes anderson's fantastic mr fox. larger than life. larger than anything i've tried to say here.