should be loved

It’s as if there’s an unspoken promise – that I will wait.

Why should I wait? Why, when he is off frolicking in new places, meeting new people, learning new things... He didn’t promise me anything. Nobody decided anything except that it should stop once he leaves.

My boss won’t wait for me to be in a better mood before I toss out more ideas for a shitty client, my cat won’t wait to be fed, the clouds won’t wait till I’m home before letting loose all that pent up rain, the traffic won’t wait till I get to work before getting bad, my maid won’t wait for her salary, my colleague won’t wait for an explanation for that teensy mark on my neck, so why should I wait? I could get hit by a car crossing the road tomorrow.

I don’t want to wait. It doesn’t feel right. I haven’t heard from him in five weeks – monosyllabic chats don’t count. And I don’t want to wait. I would like to wreak havoc on boykind before I get hit by a car. Anna has done it with 12 boys, I’d like to get halfway there (I’d honestly like to be in double digits, but that’s not realistic since I’m ticklish with strange boys, let’s face it)... he’s probably doing it with that pretty Mediterranean looking girl I saw in some pictures, drunken eyes, pointy hat for Halloween. I shouldn’t have to wait while he gets into triple digits. We didn’t promise each other anything.

From: Maria Kumar
On Wednesday, 5 November, 6.39pm
To: Paul Cherian
Bcc: Seema Revanoor
Subject: Re: Bad news

Hey Paul,
Sorry it took me a few days to get back to you, work has been insane. And it's fine, once you get a new phone, save my number. It's 9967054549.
It was nice bumping into you as well, and yeah, it’s raining this much because I finally got out of my office and house for a bit!
I’m not free Friday night, but we could do something on Saturday. Dinner sounds good. Let me know where and when. See you soon.

Maria

I hit ‘send’.

Apparently I wasn't going to try and wait.

special

You ever know those moments when you’re doing something you *know* you’ll regret later? It’s stupid really, it was just chocolate. But that’s how it starts... you start to unravel with one, tiny chocolate addiction.

You make excuses, yeah, everyone does. Oh it’s winter, oh it’s alright, you need to store up for the cold, you’ll burn it off, and all of that wisdom from everyone. But it makes you feel like shit later and it shouldn’t. And I know I’m not gonna go jogging, who in their right minds will put on their shoes and go running in this cold. The wind would cut your ears right off, it’s not a nice feeling. Then I’d feel worse and eat more chocolate. Totally pointless.

I wish the weight would go to my boobs, but no, it goes straight to my hips. The big hips look good only on JLo, the beautiful bloody bitch.

People look at me strangely, all wrapped up in layers of fur. Like just because I have white skin doesn’t mean I’m from Norway or the bloody Highlands. Once I open my mouth, they exchange looks. ‘Ah these stupid Americans.’ Yeah, we’re stupid, but at least we don’t have mice in our kitchens.

Cheese. That’s my other craving right now. Chocolate, and cheese. So I’m sitting home on a cloudy Friday evening, trying to get cracking on essay # 847, chomping into my cheese sandwich when I heard a bloodcurdling scream. Sigh. The flatmate is back.

I take the sandwich with me.

Hysterics in the kitchen. The tiny, brown creature has disappeared, probably into my room, it being the closest to the kitchen, now smelling of cheese and all.

I’ve had it. With the screaming and the darkness and the wind and all that. I go find my nail polish remover, empty the bottle into that glass bottle (it had Thai curry paste in it) I just washed, and dunk a massive chunk of Red Leicester in it.

I switch off the lights, go to my room and go to bed. When the alarm rings, I calmly get out of bed. I fumble around in the kitchen and go back to sleep.

I awaken to a scream again. I hope she hasn’t toppled the bottle over, I’m not cleaning dead mouse shit up. I left it in front of her door hoping it would make her feel better.

Fuck, it’s 8.30am on a Saturday, who wakes up that early in December?!

I roll over, hug my pillow, pretend it is someone I love and go back to sleep, dreaming of dead mice, actors laying mice traps, writing essays, running down mountains under fat grey clouds.

see me

I would like to break you
Break you out of your reverie
Say, ‘hello, look at me’,
While you stare at, well, you.

In time I won’t care anymore,
I won’t have to talk to you like before,
I can be me,
I can be free.

Till then,
I need to fight the urge to break
The mirror in front of you,
Show you what you are missing
When you keep talking, keep insisting,
That your day has been the worst,
The absolute fucking worst it could ever be.
Stop. Think of me, think of she, think of we.
And I wonder, does she think the same as me?
How fucking tolerant are we??!

meet me halfway

Running, running, away from the cold,
The wind that sweeps you off your feet,
Wind that is that bold,
I look across the bridge and smile,
At the places I have yet to discover.

I think of her, discovering a butterfly on her way home,
I think we should discover butterflies together,
When the wind roughly pushes me again,
And I am reminded to move faster.

I see her face in the crowd,
Smiling, radiant blue eyes in stark pale skin,
Knowingly smiling from across me,
As if she was thinking of me too.

We meet at the middle of the bridge,
Out of breath with our laughter,
Laughs condensing as they float away from us,
Into the wind we forget about,
It cannot make us walk faster now,
Away from each other’s laughter.

young

“The more decadent a culture gets, the more they have a need for what they don't have at all, which is innocence, so you end up with kiddie porn and a perverse obsession with youth.” - Joni Mitchell

Happy Birthday, Joni.

I saw a picture of four tiny fingers
Wrapped around a large mass of finger
Microscopic smudge of pink
Reaching for motherly warmth
A mother after a decade of trying
Of fighting off awkward questions
About her third-time-pregnant sister

Microscopic love that blossoms into
Holding hands in the park
Waiting for the school van
Playing in the sandpit
Eating some sand while you’re at it

Big brown eyes that well up
When Dad and Mom’s fights don’t stop

Love that blossoms into
Misbuttoned shirts, dirty canvas shoes
Sulky faces, trying to grow facial hair
Sitting across from the girls
Trying to be grown up

Only to become a grown up

Fighting with your wife over not being there for dinner
Having to work to put food on the table
Flirt with the colleague while you’re at it
The wife is too busy with the son
Never pays you attention anymore
Wish you were a young son again

Who wants to be ‘grown up’ anyway?

new

I have not been blogging because I am finally, yes finally, doing my masters after a four-year-long “break”. Break from studies I mean. One would think it’s a break from work altogether, because apparently if you do not have work experience in the service industry, it does not count. So there go my four years of slogging in journalism. “What, you edited and wrote millions of articles? Did you ever balance four plates on one arm? I’m so sorry, you aren’t qualified for this job, we wish you the best of luck in your future endeavours.”

That said, I *have* been writing. And editing my own work. Which is hella horrendously difficult! Whoop di doo.

Since poetry has always been a struggle for me and I have no time to write a fresh piece of fiction everyday, I am trying Robert Lee Brewster’s November PAD (Poem A Day) prompts. I am seven days behind already and will only get slower with my posts with essays around the corner, but what the heck. Here goes.
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

-stop-

My body cannot keep up with my mind:
So much to do, so much to say,
So I make an intricate plan every day.

Writing, reading, walking, dreaming, capturing,
Imagining, doing, buying, cooking, typing –
My list cannot keep up with my brain.
And so I procrastinate,
I let myself dream I allow myself to wallow,
To drink, to sleep, to eat, to cook, to stare out the window.

After all that Time I waste,
I have to speed up, work in haste.

My body cannot keep up with my mind.
Except for those moments,
When I freeze while walking briskly on North Bridge.
A brown-skinned block of ice,
Staring at the mass of grey clouds over the sunny hill,
The division of the weather,
Some rays peeping through the mass of grey.
And I sigh and stop thinking, stop walking, stop procrastinating,
I start living.