You know when I sit beside you I, purposely look at your hands, leisurely rolling on the table. Half of your expressions are conveyed before the eyes or lips move. Like those hands hold the unasked love of the entire world or the description of your last vacation you try to tell in boomerang finger movements. Long, slender, enchanting fingers that melts me in the wall.
It mesmerises me madly how every body-part dances in some subtle excitement but then there are hands to show how far one can go from north pole to another through the extended arms giving everyone a giant hug. You make me believe I stand on the balcony of a fancy hotel overlooking Eiffel or getting ready to snowboard in alps and you there to catch me in your competent, certain hands if ever I fall.
They way your warmth-caked palms bang the table at a joke, the way those fingers brush against the glass you are holding, the way the tips caress water droplets, sliding your thumb up and down like its you who’s quenching its thirst not the other way round. It’s a revolution against boredom.
I’d love to get lost in those hands for hours, days or at 3am in the morning. Those arms, wordless and pouring of love. And the hug, warm countryside cottage on a chilly winter night. I’d love to give myself in in your fireplace.
Get me a thinnest stick, So, I’d keep breaking my crutches to show you I can be helpless.
I have set up a wrong example by holding myself pretty well. That you got to use your favourite phrase again, slapping me right where it hurts, “You are strong! You will handle!”
I refuse to believe that everyone is not suffering. Suffering is (almost) the only thing that makes you wanna live more, strive for a better life, to find an escape. A wonderland only to return to realities at night. I don’t believe people are as carefree and untroubled as much they show in their personal or social lives.
They’re merely passing the baton of suffering from today to their tomorrow’s self.
And it’s going to be draining, exhausting, exciting, scary, wonderful, bitter and it will feel you leaving your castle behind to build a single room on your own terms and finances. The fear, the pain along with the freedom and eagerness to explore world will overwhelm you. You’d be free but you’d also be responsible for your house, cooking, cleaning, trash, dishes, maintenance, vehicles. It ain’t going to be easy. No one would be waiting at home. At times, you won’t be able to talk to your family much because of busy schedules or time zones or mood. It will take a heavier toll on you when you’d fall sick. You’ll miss home more than anything. All the plates of cut fruits that used to enter your room without a word will pile into uncooked meals which you gotta prepare yourself. You’ll become a person of lists, reminders if you aren’t already. You’ll become a cook over the phone while talking to your mom. You’ll think like her when buying groceries. You’d definitely do things more freely but you’d experience yourself becoming more and more responsible. It’s not going to be easy but it will be worth it.
Your heart doesn’t open like a window’s square but with a ‘lock and key’ combination of vowels and consonants holding a ‘Heal Me’ signboard by letting Sun beams impregnate it through the key hole.
“200 breaths? Are you crazy? Don’t you know the new Respiratory Guidelines? No more than 50 breaths for a non-family member let alone an acquaintance.”
“But I thought you’d make an exception for me.”
“See, they are on constant vigil. It’s preposterous to challenge their audit.”
“Perhaps, this should come to light. What kind of law it is to calculate & limit the breaths/time for each relation. Doesn’t make any sense in 30th century. We aren’t in the same old world anymore”
Once upon a time there was an ugly, unwanted girl. She always thought she deserves the worst. She wasn’t calculative but she could thoroughly calculate the weight of dreams were too heavy on her real self. That those wild imaginations never matched up to her realities. Looking at world she presumed herself to be far above them intellectually, while connecting to them made her feel so obtuse. Where was the real struggle? Inside or outside? Why did she have to have such negative notion about herself? Negative – – why this word never felt so wrong? Why this felt like it’s someone who’s close to her and stayed unlike others? May be because she was dark. She embraced emotions people vary to touch. Because sometimes it did bring some solace. But then was it the right thing to do? Prepare a standard chart to compare both worlds. Her’s and outside’s. It was clear outside world is just a plain stage with run-of-the-mill performance actors. And what she was, was not negative or antagonistic. She only recognized herself on a different level. Neither negative nor positive, it was her. Something to ponder upon. That she could start over and change how she thought of herself and not like the initial lines of this passage…