The Idea-smithy

This, she thought to herself, is uncomfortable. Bloody uncomfortable.

Like being pregnant and not able to deliver.

Or like being married to Prince Charming and not being able to make love to him.

*Groan*

Those lines might have been really good but sounded trashy. Only because…because…she gave up.

I have writer’s block even before I’ve become a writer!!!

…she spoke to an empty house, immediately feeling a little sillier. No one in real life did that soliloquy-thing. People in books did things like that. The kind of books she wanted to write.

*Sigh*

She resigned herself to more silent soliloquy.

What’s the trouble?

The trouble is really that I’m afraid of what I’ll end up writing if I do write.

When did you start to get so self-conscious?

When the attention began, that’s when.

Ah.

Oh shut up.

Ah well, she surmised, why does it need to be perfect in the first draft itself. In fact, why does it need to be perfect at all?

Because you’ll never be in peace unless it is.

Well okay. But not the first draft. After all, only God makes creations perfect in the first attempt. And even he messes up sometimes.

And suddenly, despite the overused, tired phrase…..she smiled to herself in the darkness.

You and me, baby, haven’t been really alone for a long time. Missed me?

…she told her keyboard. And meant every word of it.

He said,

To the people we love the most, we are a little bit crueler.

I thought about all the people I’ve adored and how they’d agree. Secretly so as to not hurt me. And openly just so they could.

He said it was because of a streak of sadism.
But I think it is precisely because we love so much that we’re cruel.

We fear being hurt and those closest to us are in the position to hurt us the most. So we play our little games and ration our love or at the very least, withdraw it every once in a way, just to ensure that it’s not taken for granted.

That’s cruelty, akin to pulling a fish in and out of water. But that’s how we survive.
With and without love.

Todd Faber, in SANDMAN: “Fear of Falling”

Sometimes you wake up.
Sometimes the fall kills you.
And sometimes, when you fall, you fly.

I’ll take my chances.

I shut down Behind Cobwebs over a year back. I miss it today. I shut it because I thought I was getting to be too negative and that just having a place to put it was encouraging even more negativity.

Today, with nearly three times more visibility and so much more cheeriness that I’ve dredged up from the bottom of my barrel, I miss it. I miss the safe darkness so much I want to scream.

~o~o~o~o~o~o~o~

Six people have gotten in touch today to ask me where I am, how I’m doing and if I’m angry with them. I don’t know what to say. I haven’t been myself lately. It feels like I haven’t even been inside my own body, my own mind lately. And my soul has gone missing.

~o~o~o~o~o~o~o~

Years ago, someone told me, someone who isn’t a part of my life anymore and I never speak of him but I haven’t forgotten - told me,

Sometimes, you just want to feel sad. And then you need to be able to feel it. Not cheered out of it. Sometimes you just got to be sad.

I was reading a post about a happy girl two minutes ago and suddenly I was crying. Almost, the tears didn’t fall but they rose right to the very top and fogged my eyes. I used to be that girl…I think…I thought.

~o~o~o~o~o~o~o~

I am so tired, bone-weary and exhausted after a really nice weekend.

I’m angry, so wrathfully so, at some people and I don’t know how to find my way back into forgiveness.

I need someone to hold me and tell me it’s okay to cry.

~o~o~o~o~o~o~o~

Yes, I published and then immediately privatized (!) this post yesterday. And yet, enough of people caught it. I’ve replied to most of them but would the Anon who dropped me a note please look in this direction? This is the person who left no address behind but wrote the following:

I have been reading your blogs for a long time — And have enjoyed reading them.
I was concerned when I read “Sometimes you just need to be sad” — Do you often have mood swings? Or bouts of anger?

To which I reply, yes my dear child/friend/reader/stranger, I’m moody, I’m volatile, I’m irrational, I’m harsh, I’m bitchy. Family and friends are sometimes scared to tell me things because I’m perfectly capable of picking up a chair and hurling it out of the window. And equally capable of sitting them down, patting their arm and asking them to lay it all on their good ol’ buddy. Sometimes I care, sometimes I don’t and often even I can’t tell when one stops and the other begins. I often find myself unable to express what’s going on inside my head and all this ranting/poetry/fiction/posts are but a pathetic echo of what I experience.

I doubt you’re really interested in all this but it’s possible that that’s just my cynicism talking. Perhaps you’re someone I know and have burned my bridges with a long time ago,  but you’ve still stopped to ask me how I’m feeling. Maybe you are a total stranger.

Whichever you are, whoever you, all I can say is - Thank you.

Yes, there’s more.

~o~o~o~o~o~o~o~

Do banished memories go to hell? I hope not, ‘cos I’ll only end up meeting them there again. Besides they deserve better, so much better than the  darkness in my mind.

~o~o~o~o~o~o~o~

A friend who hurts you
….is the one most likely to come back and apologize 
….is the one that deserves forgiveness the least.

~o~o~o~o~o~o~o~

If intimacy is what happens when love and hate collide,
Then seperation is when they lie together in the same bed…or grave.

~o~o~o~o~o~o~o~

I would hold onto any scrap of you that I can get,
Even if it is only a painful memory.

~o~o~o~o~o~o~o~

I would make sure the memory of me never fades in your mind
Even if it means having to leave only a memory of me behind with you.

~o~o~o~o~o~o~o~

Love means never having to say you’re sorry.

I take that to mean, the situation of being sorry never arises. After all, what else is love but taking the other person’s happiness as one’s personal responsibility? Even if that’s impossible, so is love.

~o~o~o~o~o~o~o~

Forgiveness is admitting the humaness of the other person
And divinity in oneself.

I think I can live with being just human.

~o~o~o~o~o~o~o~

Forgiveness is for the world at large, a fair exchange for our own peace of mind. But anyone who is special enough to love, is special enough to never be forgiven.

At 2 a.m. I reached the conclusion that I am not much of a people-person anyway. Why else would I be deeply annoyed by the thought of a packed social life? Perhaps the most people-person person I’ve encountered is Neil Gaiman’s Death. And then again, nobody loves anyone else that much, do they?

To you I come at the very end
I wait for you and look for you
In all the dark crevices in the world
And in the minds of men

At least I know you’ll be waiting
Smiling, but waiting nevertheless
It is good to know that all the twists and turns end at the same place
And that all roads lead to HOME..and to you.

~o~o~o~o~o~o~

Speaking of which, Neil Gaiman says,

We are creators. When we begin, separately or together, there’s a blank piece of paper. When we are done, we are giving people dreams and magic and journeys into minds and lives that they have never lived. And we must not forget that.

I leave you then with a mouthful of moonshine.

~o~o~o~o~o~o~

I was just about to hit ‘Publish’ when the phone rang. We used to be classmates, with nothing in common except the classroom. But we understood each other’s silences well. Oh how sappy that sounds! But we were never in love with each other. All we were, were good friends. For no other reason than that. And that’s all that matters. He would totally know what I mean by this post, even if the words sounded strange to him.

So even if I’m not a people person, there are people for a person like me.

You are mine.

You are right.

But it doesn’t feel like it.

Because you only have possession, not control.

Do you not want me?

I do. But not as much as I should. Not as much as I could. Not yet.

Does that matter?

You can own my body, my mind and even my emotions.
But until my will is you, you will never truly own me.

I don’t wish to force you or bend you to my will.

Well-spoken, dear one. You are as wise as I have hoped.

And yet, I don’t have you.

This is true as well.
Possession without control is but a cage.
And cages can be broken.

So can control. What I want is mastery.

They are not different.

Yes, they are, my sweet. You aspire to give me surrender, oh yes, you do. And it might a sweet reward, especially to one starved for so long. But what I want is mastery. An abdication of the hunger for any more such delights.

You lie. Or perhaps not.
If you lie, this beginning is over. Rather, you misphrase.
You desire surrender as much as I do. But what we both need is release.

And you think the answer lies in postponement?

Well, indulgence hasn’t worked, has it?

You’ve had others, then?

So I have. Did you think I would come to you unpracticed?

I suppose not. Even the beginning wouldn’t have happened, then.

Right, I don’t believe in spontaneous miracles.

And I am skeptical about love at first sight.

Cynical, chere! Give the mortals their flash miracles, it keeps them occupied. You and I have forever and beyond to negotiate.

It’s just an illusion.

So am I. And you. A figment of the other’s imagination.

That’s not logical. You can’t be illogical in this game.

But I’m not. When we cease to be our illusions, we cease to be. And what if we swap illusions, every now and then?

And what if we just ended this here?

If we do, we’ll just be two people who killed the conversation and had great sex.
But if we don’t, we continue to be you and me,
mutual enigmas, perpetual unquenched desire, the eternal emptiness.

Touche, my love and adieu.

I thought you didn’t believe in love.

Not at first sight. Nor first conversation. But this is the end of our beginning. The first of whatever comes next.

An old post…one that I didn’t deem ‘good enough’ for publishing. But now I think the rawest, deepest expressions are probably the best. And anonymous or not, this blog has been about my personal expression. So here it it…the year that was. I’m glad to get it off my mind. Thank you, all of you, for reading.

~o~o~o~o~o~o~o~o~o~o~o~o~o~

If Fridays are a turquoise tango, Sundays seem to be an orange orchestra. No, a solo piece actually. Sundays, for a long time, have been ‘me’ days. first, out of a lack of options, then exhaustion and now with a sense of anticipation.

I wander down bookshelves that I’ve only been glazing over these last few weeks and moving away, hurriedly, from. It seems almost wrong to be here alone, like something vacant. And the environment matches my mood. What was earlier opulence, seems to have run into decadent indifference. Books lie piled on floors, some with their skeletons ripped. They’re all in the wrong racks. I suppress a grimace. Ah well, things shift, staff changes. My favorite bookshop is my haven of clean, tidy ideas no more. And I miss Precious.

(more…)

I would have left you eventually
Perhaps it was a good thing that you left before, instead
Thus ensuring that I’d remember you
With loathing, if nothing else

And that means you needed
To be someone or something to me
A memory at the very least, even if a horrible one
That I’d erase in a breath, if I could

Unforgettable experiences are all we’re all after
Having them and being them

Happy remembering, memory!

Forgiveness, that elusive quality, is so not like forgetfulness.

To truly forgive would mean being able to face the truth of what has been done to you and accept it for the rightest thing that could have happened and move on.

Barring that of course, for us less worthy mortals, (more…)