~iota

Have you ever seen daisies break open concrete and grow as if they were built to do that? Curious, isn't it? These feeble little things managing to break open skyscraper muscles? People say it's perseverance. I see it as the sunshine on a rainy day. I remember the evening when the former Tamil Nadu chief minister, M.Karunanidhi passed away. I was cycling when I heard heated arguments of someone refusing to close down their shop to what seemed like union workers. It is only when I got back home did I, along with my roommates, check our phones and came to know about the news. It was grief at first, for the people who have lost their leader and family member. Then it was panic, followed by a race- everything was shutting down and we didn't have backup stocks of food. It was the third hotel we went to, that still had some food. They were in the process of shutting down and would only let us take out and not dine in. As we were walking back to our house, careful not to l...

The breeze caresses my hair. Gentle, yet strong enough to alter the way I had combed it. The sun hasn't come out yet. I could see a sliver of a pink hue on the horizon. I took a deep breath and closed my eyes. The air went in ice-cold and came out warm. It's intriguing how people say someone is dead or alive by the existence of this very process. Air moving in and out. Strange, isn't it? A chill goes down my spine, creating goosebumps all over. Why did I choose to come here? I don't know. It wasn't impulsive, nor was it part of a meticulously thought-out plan. My mind became a blank slate. No emotions. Nothing. The surroundings seem to get bright. I open my eyes. The sun had come out. Orange and red. The sky has no birds. Is it always like this? I don't know. There is no need of knowing now. I look down to the road from the ledge I'm standing on. Seven stories. Can someone be brought back to life if they fall from seven stories? I gue...

I was naive, Egoistic, Blinded by my mulishness Trapped in a rat race Flagging myself, In the hopes of A false utopia, Of hollow dreams. I was an upstart, Doltish, Spoiled by what I had, For I was a fool, Branding myself a pariah. A drop of sweat, In a glass of ocean. Until yesterday, When the black horses Neighed, in unison- Celebrating her resurgence, It took her ferocity, Wrath and vengeance, Outside the walls To let me know that Nay, To let us know that We were, after all, Under one roof.

"We were just friends, Who spoke like lovers. And that seemed to be enough For two teenagers Who were scared to love one another" She was dainty, like the bud of lilac With a wisp of innocence In the curls of her hair Unfathomable affection In the depths of her eyes And an undying reassurance In the curve of her smile For ages, we held back Shrugging when people asked What we were For we were scared Drenched in apprehension Of losing what we had On a moment of doltishness Of being whimsical. Only to gaze at the midnight moons Vehemently wondering what we could be.

Confused . I'm confused Strangled by my own thoughts Betrayed, Allied musings Had not bestowed The helping hands Rather a bottomless pit Is where I am Consumed by my blindness And unheard wails of helplessness I pray for this train of thought to end To derail for good And let me be.

Through the memory lane. Yesterday, my heart asked my brain, "What's your first memory?" Although seemingly random and abstract, the question invoked unfathomable curiosity in me, and I began to ponder the idea at length. It occurred to me that my first memory, ever, in which I can remember myself making concious decisions was the one when I was in preschool.  There were tire tracks on the dried mud on the school ground from somebody's terrible attempt at turning a car. I walked along the tracks, side by side with my partner in crime, neither of us with the slightest care about the sun that  blazed above. Departing and then rejoining, we laughed all afternoon at our whimsical pleasures .

I watched as he walked joyfully down the street with a bag of veggies. The timer was about to run out and the blue count gradually changed to purple. It will, in time change to orange and then red; marking his death.  This was something that always came up in my musings. Why would a supreme power, if any, give us such a sense? - The ability to know when a peer's life ends. What good will it ever do? I sat in my usual spot in the diner and asked for a plate of bacon and some coffee. The waitress paused for a moment and walked away to the counter. I plugged in my earphones and resumed my playlist. Interrupting, the waitress gently dropped the plate on my table, audaciously showing how much she cared and parted. Her face is devoid of the faintest smile. Why can't people just smile? That was about a week ago. But today, something felt different. Good different. I noticed it once I got out of my apartment. The old lady selling flowers down the street took ...

Prosaic Musings By someone's suggestion, I subsurviently adopted the coping mechanism to observe my emotions rather than succumbing to her grapple. The feeling of grief have been under my control by this very method for a very long time, at least I thought so. Although I found myself being compared to a tin hearted being by my very conscience, I realized that such can't be the case, at least, with me, when I broke down against the face of despair that fate had in stock.

The lover that was. The house. "I just don't love you anymore." I fought the catch in my throat as she stood there, her beautiful face, with a visible paucity of emotions. When I walked out, soaked in despair, even my proudest veins pined for those lips to call me back. The mountains. The squeak of the wipers usually bothered me. Maybe more than it would anybody else, but tonight, it didn't. It helped fight the deafening silence inside the cabin.  She wasn't the greatest fan of hairpin curves and the steep drops, and maybe that's what curbed me from driving to my favorite spot off the city. The Ephemera. The thick fog and the golden sunshine gave an etheral aura to the summit, the cold air that I breath championing the spot a place among the heavens. The bone chilling drop only a few feet away, awed the lover in me.