Life Itself

Language. Cross out. Words. Cross out. Thoughts. Cross out. But how do I forget That silent intense surreal way I feel around you?

I wrote this for you when you were leaving last year but never shared it with you. Given that today is Siblings Day, I felt like it was an appropriate time to share it. _____________________________________________________________________ Letting you go was extremely hard. Not because I will never see you again, but because I will never see you again like this. We have lived a certain life of dependency for the last two and a half decades now. Just our little, three people unit. Right from the time when protecting you against pain and bitterness was my only priority, to the time when you became the reason mom and I felt safe at night, it has been a tumultuous journey. We have had moments of disagreement, anger, disappointment. But there has always been the knowledge that no matter what, we have each other.  The next time I meet you, it will be different. It will be your home, your friends, your context, and I will be a visitor. Perhaps we may live together again. But thin...

Sometimes I see her and pain and wonder where it comes from. She refuses to shine, she rejects any sense of warmth that comes her way, she has a tower erected all around her. My gut tells me to look in his direction. To see the invisible scars he left on her and dig deeper to unearth the visible ones. I want to ask her the right questions, and give her enough courage to tell me their answers. I want to release her from the suffocation that she's suffering in alone. I want to take on all that he's ruined her with, and I want to send it lashing right back at him. I know what he did to her, I know it better than any truth she could accurately remember. I can sense it in such a real way, that her anguish is now mine. I am afraid she'll never break the silence, that she will be misunderstood for far too long a time, that once again, his demons will have their way. Each time, I helplessly look in her direction, almost asking, almost telling. And then I shamefully look away, n...

I often wonder about the times before communication methods were so abundantly available. Reading Kafka's Letters to Milena makes me almost long that I was born during that time. There is a certain romanticism in waiting. In knowing that your time together is extremely precious, limited, fleeting. In sending your emotions to someone with no confirmation of receipt. I can only try and imagine what the lack of certainty created - a constant need, a permanently unfulfilled desire, release only in small doses. There is something poetic about reading what someone wrote many days ago, imagining where they were sitting, what they were wearing, how they smelt, as they wrote those words to you. A sense of nostalgia and realism, wrapped together carefully. There is also so much deliberation and intense emotion that goes into the act that it restricts the number of people one can share that emotion with, ensuring that when you do, the understanding is as deep as it gets. It takes t...

If you could hear the last need as it echoes endlessly from me to you, Would you hear the stifled childhood scream as it penetrates you? Would my words have the honest intensity of my feelings? Would the emotion come tearing through, unbridled, undeterred, unfettered? If there was no fear of fall-outs, of hurt, of betrayal, of vacuum, Would my expression lash out angrily as you string the sentences together? Would the insane promise of comprehension last across ages and irrationality? Would the words quietly reach you, and land on earnest understanding? If ink could carry all the guilt, the nonchalance, the nothingness of us, Would it tell you, how the empty hollow left inside of you has crushed me? Would it show you my crevices, and their jagged, insistent, desperate stories? Would it smudge the distance between rotten you and rotten me? A question, and the hope for its answer, is all that’s left of you and me. ...

It's the in between In what is never said between us. What does it take to put it out there? To have it said, loudly. Do you think about the same things? Do you wonder with the same intensity? When I am listening, While I giggle, While I chatter endlessly, Do you perceive the subtle pause? Do you hear the sudden catch in my breath? Do you catch the sudden sparkle? Are you simple, like your words, Like your straightforward stories, Like your child like reluctance, Are you more? 

I still remember the day so vividly. It was nearly 15 years ago. You came to me in a cane basket, carefully wrapped with a red and white polka dot cloth. There were balloons on one side, and you, sitting there looking at me. You came with an instruction manual and I remember you liked curd rice. I have never felt any emotion purer than my need to protect you. I was barely 10 but I felt like I had to shield you from the world. I remember standing on the balcony of my fathers home and crying by myself because you wouldn't eat the curd rice that mom said you so loved. I remember begging you to eat. I remember feeling so relieved when you did. Your first few days with us were very heartbreaking. Having to leave you home alone for the first time, watching you cry like a baby and sense your calm when I came near you. Within a few days, you had given me memories for a lifetime. Your peeing on the bed and Angad and my turning the Dunlop around so our father wouldn't find out....

There was a jungle full of roots and thorns and swamps and danger. A forest of destruction and emotional deforestation. I slowly navigated it. Sometimes going in circles. Sometimes moving forward. I marveled each time a root caught my foot. What was it that kept it growing over years and years buried deep inside a dark, quiet place? I caught my breath when fear gnawed its way inside and pushed me to turn and run. But I never turned and I never stopped. The urge to cross over, to transcend, to transform, always pulled me like the earth's gravity. And then I saw the sunlight catch the dew and I knew it was over. What do you do when all the questions are answered, when you walk through all the ugly underbelly and face all the angriest demons? Does self awareness become the cover up? Do you finally turn in any direction? Does realization make you different?

That moment. The little indecision, the fearless declaration, the long wait, the crashing, the rising. I have read poetry that makes me wish it was written for me. Heard words that woo and swish me off my feet. I have felt eyes as they quickly duck another way. Heard endless gushed stories that seem like I belong in them. When you know and deny, when you perceive and pretend, when you understand and ignore. It is the catastrophe of almost touching, the devastation of roughly feeling, the trauma of nearly believing. There is that. And then, sometimes, unexpectedly, there may be intensity, and comfort, and calm, and dependability, and assurance, and passion. Sometimes, tragedies give way to an everyday romance.

The damages are all still fresh. Not like fresh flowers and fragrance, or freshly brewed coffee. The cracks are blunted. Like the scent of a pressed flower, the aroma of a receipt from a coffee date many decades ago. The wounds have healed but the salt still burns. Not like a lost limb or deafened ears. The burns are scars. Like an itch on a phantom limb, a scream in a vacuum. The rage has calmed but the soul still simmers. Not like the death of a loved one or being cheated on. The memories are faded. Like the ache of watching love get Alzheimers, their eyes catching light because of someone else. The desperation has dissipated but the urge still tingles. Not like the gasp for more oxygen or reading every last word for a favorable interpretation. The emotions are stunted. Like learning to breathe under water, comprehending the words never meant to be yours. The sound is still hollow, the darkness is still dull.