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 i haven't lived very long. but in the short while i have, i learn the difference between death and disappearance.

death becomes scattered presence.

suddenly he is in the little things i see every day. 

death is anything but absence. and the universe heals around that fact.

it mocks his living absence. where he was nowhere. flickering. faltering.

i have learnt how kind death can be. and how ugly people can contort it into, simply to conform to a belief. 

death is not ugly. it is sleep, until the next best thing.

*

it has been over a month since i lost a parent. in this time, i have received no help from people i surround myself with, to forget that the unthinkable and the intolerable happens to me all the time. 

i cannot find the line between self pity and the savior complex.

i am vapidly depressed. uninspired and exhausted. 

people around me do not help. sometimes they make it worse. sometimes they know they make it worse.

i spoke to a friend about this. i wanted to speak to my father actually. but he is dead.

i have lost sight of what truly matters. i used to be afraid of closing off but now it doesn't really matter.

people are opportunistic either way.

there is too much greed for me to be around.

i need my dad.

my dad needed his dad.

and all the horror stops in front of me. wondering if i, too, will carry it with me.

it takes everything in me to refuse revenge, and i keep upsetting the 8 year old sitting with me.

the only one that hasn't looked at me like i remain a liability.

*

i left for a different city a week ago. to reintegrate myself into whatever normalcy i lost myself in before.

i can be scary adaptable. maybe it comes from how much i separate my emotions and consciousnesses.

here, my mother called me and got upset that i didn't call much. 

i didn't know what to say to that. i didn't want to dissect why i had not. whether it was forgetfulness or a need to forget. a physiological begging of sorts, for a need to forget. i wonder whether it was selfish of me to not call. to want to run from home.

i have seen enough gore for a lifetime. grief travels slower back home. the city is slow. the city is monotonous and dissatisfied at all times. bombay travels faster. i am moving at the speed of light. 

today i return, and i feel strange. the city i go back to looks like my room now. going back to my room means the life leaves me until i leave next. too little time.

before she ended the call she said something my father used to say a lot. that i would call her when i was strapped for cash. 

the last time he and i spoke, he didn't say anything anymore. 

there are a multitude of things that feed my need to achieve financial independence. complete independence.

it is difficult being a liability and also a crutch.

it is difficult being me.

it is difficult to shut up.

now more than ever.

there is a large sized window in the room i slept in here. and we are on the 7th floor. sometimes i sit looking at the building opposite me, looking at the different heights. 

it is difficult saying this, because people get concerned easily. there is lesser empathy and more sympathy. 

there is a large sized window in the room big enough for someone to crawl over.

it is difficult saying this because, i have been assigned guilt before grief. there is stigma before there is liberty.

i wonder how the sky looked the last time he saw it. 

it is difficult because i am curious not suicidal. no one hears about this. no one wants you to write about it. 

but if i have to move ahead, i am to let it out. 

and because i hold society and their little tolerance in somewhat high regard, 

i write it here, with my contained liberty. without the pity, without the panic, without the peril.

and without the uneasy silence i am given, underlined with all three.

it ends with me. i do what i have to do. 

survival over conformity.

*

the first real thing i felt after my dad passed was when i watched the haunting of hill house. i don't know how much it really was about ghosts.

it made grief feel tangible.

it was the first time i sobbed.

and then there was rain.

like he sobbed with me.

melting all these people who were constantly trying to eat at me. at my worst. 

there is so much cruelty in the world. i become 8 years old every time i discover that.

it feels so naked seeing everything at once. there is no censorship. 

in this sea of food, i insist on my cup of stars.

hill house made grief feel tangible.

real.

understanding.

and not once did it feel sorry for me.

here i get confused why everyone is so afraid of ghosts. ghosts have never been as haunted as you.

*

i can never focus when i'm talking on the phone.

late at night i sit on the chair and i look out of the window and the car headlights from afar all look like stars on the road.

and i think

it is the witching hour

when the roads are empty and the stars come down to play.

everything else melts into the background.

my sentences never stop. always pause.

*

april came like an idiot babbling and strewing flowers. inappropriate and loud. 

may quietened down and i wrote a song about my unfinished sentences.

and then june came and all the people i loved died and were born anew.

they had no idea who i was.

and i stayed the same, yet completely different. and i did not understand.

everyone is jumping ship, but there is no ship to abandon anymore.

withdrawing responsibility is the hardest thing i have had to do.

i sit and rot my love by hand because it does not die like it does for others. nowadays i leave it at home and run away.

so i would go anywhere but home.

but i always come back where i start from. so i never really know whether i am always starting over or always starting.

i get homesick pretty easily. 

i don't think i could stay away for too long.

*

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