A Recap

It has been another foggy year, and apart from a few vivid moments, I cannot recall much. I am thankful for that, though. Why would I want to be haunted by the memory of everything?

I do not have time to make the “Best of…” lists this time around, and I am not quite sure if I have enough items to list anyway. As always, I am grateful for good health, family, friends, and being able to earn a living. I hope and pray that everyone gets to have these things in life, and a lot more.

For people like me, who can express themselves better on paper, this platform has been a blessing. I am happy to have met and befriend the kind people here, and I am grateful to have an opportunity to not only read good things and look at lovely photos but also to learn passively. May the artist in all of you always have the right canvas and a kind audience!

To recap what I have done here this year, I have chosen the titles of some of my most viewed posts to compose a poem:

I thought we were galaxies apart,

Oblivious to the knocks

On our estranged hearts,

Contentedly lost and held back

By our false sense of integrity,

Out cold and out of order,

Arithmetically unsound

And drunk on the idea

Of escapism; sleepy-eyed,

We let a thought spiral

Deepen the dissociation we felt,

But we were not alone

In being conflicted about

Embracing the other normal,

Small and restricted,

With a hint of evanescence,

And a little wistfulness,

We were getting there,

Building a home in the skies–

We are right here!

©Aaysid

Thank you for being here. Have a great new year!😊

Never Again

I wish

There was a way

To cut through

Some things,

Skip through

Some things,

Unlive through

Some things,

And most of all,

A way to

Never have to

Go through

Some things

Ever again!

©Aaysid

Wistfulness

the things that you see

in your daymares are even worse

than the ones

in your nightmares at times,

if not outrightly

then in the grand scheme of things.

beaded scarves, raindrop earrings,

and stiletto heels that look

regal in the silver moonlight;

I am scared of anything

that costs more than I make,

I am terrified of anything

that can outlast me.

©Aaysid

Photo by Miguel Á. Padriñán from Pexels

Warmth

Not every house

Can have a fireplace,

But every home

Has at least a few

Photographs from before

To huddle around,

And that snugness

Might make up for

The missing heat,

And might be

Just as sweet.

©Aaysid

“I have learned that to be with those I like is enough.”
Walt Whitman

Bottled Up

just like a ship

that you reassemble

inside a bottle

surrenders to fate

and cares for seas

no more,

I allow myself

to hallucinate

a little bit more,

forgetting that

anything bottled up

may stay away

for ages,

but one day

it might wash ashore,

but somethings

cannot be rebuilt,

especially the ones

you do not ask for.

©Aaysid

Elemental

How can you feel like water

If nothing flows right for you,

And how can you feel grounded

If the earth decides to befriend

Everyone except your dog-tired feet,

And how can you keep burning

If the fire in you keeps losing flame,

And when the wind is incessantly

Being knocked out of you,

How can you be in your element?

©Aaysid

“The more you know who you are, and what you want, the less you let things upset you.”
Stephanie Perkins

A Break

This year has been a blur and it feels as if all I have done is live from one break to the next. I find myself unable to recall what I had been taking a break from most of the times. It had felt good to dissociate nonetheless. I think.

Tonight, I am taking a break from taking too many breaks by taking yet another break. It involves me, a book (which I am co-reading with a stranger; he reads aloud while I read quietly, otherwise known as an audiobook), and some loose granola with chocolate chunks in it (got to keep things interesting). Have a great Saturday everyone!

*The featured image has been captured by me.

Lookout!

Looking at you

Look incredulous

Looking at those

Looking at you,

Looks as odd to me

As it does perhaps

To lookers looking

Right back at you!

©Aaysid

A Haven

you have to

put it somewhere;

the grim darkness

that threatens

to blow out

a few perpetually lit

candles on the cake

inside your head

which celebrates

its level-headedness

in spite of

its inability to hold

any thought

long enough for you

to sound smart,

and its willingness

to fall apart

on cue-

you put it in your art!

©Aaysid

Going Nowhere

I missed another train of thought,

and now I am stranded at the station,

I cannot refund my one way ticket

for it was never a two way situation-

I had listened to you but had spaced out

during my half of the conversation.

There is an empty wooden bench

and it can serve as my workstation;

I believe I shall be here for a while

so this might as well be my destination.

©Aaysid

Nonviolent

I.

I got stabbed,

Stabbed with words,

It was all right;

There was no blood.

II.

Bees sting her a lot.

She thinks they hate her.

They believe that she

Is worth dying for.

III.

He’s been walking around

In his father’s shoes,

Two sizes too small;

He believes that he

Has to learn to fit

Into his world, after all.

©Aaysid

“But I didn’t understand then. That I could hurt somebody so badly she would never recover. That a person can, just by living, damage another human being beyond repair.”
Haruki Murakami, South of the Border, West of the Sun

Scared

I wait outside your locked door,

drinking in the dank air

before I knock,

and I don’t take my jacket off

as I wait some more;

more than my fair share,

off the clock,

which I want to think

shall pay off

but no one’s keeping score;

nobody seems to care.

Why keep stock

of a guy who could drop off

any minute, outside your door?

And it seems quite unfair

to sleepwalk

this far into the night

only to fall off one’s mind–

what would I ask for,

standing in my jacket there,

if the lock ever clicks open?

I’d take off.

©Aaysid

“Ain’t many guys travel around together,” he mused. “I don’t know why. Maybe ever’body in the whole damn world is scared of each other.”

Of Mice and Men – John Steinbeck

Troubled

A few untroubled poems (hopefully) about what troubles us:

I.

this time last year,

I had a different set

of worries;

today at this time,

I have more worries

than before,

the only difference

is that I am not

that worried anymore

and that, in fact,

is worrisome.

II.

I hear myself

voicing my fears,

but they come out

in whispers

and stay suspended

in the static air,

but the suffocation

that follows

becomes unbearable,

the faint

whispers unhearable;

I wonder

what it is like to have

a voice that can

diffuse across thick air,

I wonder

what it is like to have

my own voice,

but none of my fears!

III.

you sit quietly

with your head

bent over a table

as your troubles

threaten to leak

through your eyes,

but it feels weird

to cry at a place

that is not your home,

and it also feels wrong

to lead a flood

to your home-

it is yet another worry

you do not want to

cry about here.

©Aaysid

Home

Home was a place inside

Where the outside noise

Was welcome to stretch

Its thin, long limbs in peace

In spite of the deep silence

That had set up camp

And had no plans to leave.

©Aaysid

“Home is the place where, when you have to go there, they have to take you in.”

Robert Frost

Image by Richard Hay from Pixabay

Blurry

every night you dream

about the day

you are going to have,

so living through

the actual one

feels like such a chore,

for you have

been here before,

but once again

you have no control

over the way

the day unfolds,

maybe that is why

you cannot tell

what is real anymore,

maybe that is why

you do not want

to fall asleep anymore.

©Aaysid

“For years now, I’ve wanted to fall asleep. The sort of slipping off, the giving up, the falling part of sleep. Now sleeping is the last thing I want to do.”

Chuck Palahniuk, Fight Club

A Sweater

there is nothing quite like

an oversized sweater

to disappear into

in cold, December nights-

your thoughts, for once,

an unraveled skein of yarn,

your world nothing

but a soft, woolen cloud

that is in no rush

to throw you out,

maybe this is what

warm and safe spaces

are all about.

©Aaysid

Featured image by Pexels

The Other Normal

Three minimalist poems about everything and nothing in particular:

I.

Poles apart

Not magnetic

No sparks

Static charge

Fizzles out.

II.

Nothing

On my mind

Like yesterday

Today as well.

Preoccupied.

There too,

Here as well.

No escape.

Since ages.

Forever as well.

III.

A crowd

To silence

The voice

In the head,

The voice

Remained;

The crowd

Fled.

©Aaysid

“I bear the wounds of all the battles I avoided.”
Fernando Pessoa

Evanescence

a whimsical little feeling

traces a full circle,

makes a full round,

changes blues

into purple halos

that take just a blink

to fragment

into shapeless floaters

that indent

an otherwise smooth

and flawless display,

before disappearing

and melting away

to become another

impermanent thing

that runs in a circle

only to fall off the ring!”

©Aaysid

“Being temporary doesn’t make something matter any less, because the point isn’t for how long, the point is that it happened.”
Robyn Schneider, Extraordinary Means

Short Insights

I.

It no longer feels weird.

To share the bed

With textbooks.

A constant presence.

Not friends, never were.

Neither the opposite.

Just there. Every night.

II.

Six in the evening.

Already!

I am half-done.

With everything.

My back is all done

With me.

III.

I stopped going out.

At night.

We fell out.

My shadow and I.

IV.

It has rained,

Enough already.

It is dead.

The cloud.

Above my head.

The forecast, once again,

Was incorrect.

©Aaysid

“The pure present is an ungraspable advance of the past devouring the future. In truth, all sensation is already memory.”

Henri Bergson, Matter and Memory

Photo by fotografierende from Pexels

Appearances

it is downright unfair

to be known for

the way we look,

and not for

how much of ourselves

we pour into the world;

a girl with a silly,

skewed ponytail,

a boy with glasses

too big for his face,

a woman with a wild

look in her eyes,

a man who wears

the same shirt every day-

a girl can have dreams

aligned with her mind,

unlike her ponytail,

a boy can see the world

a lot more clearer

for his age,

a woman can have

wild passion for

the pen and the page,

a man may not want

to spend more

than he makes…

our looks might

be the cover page,

but they are

never the preface.

©Aaysid

Saffron

I have been looking

for you in odd places

where contrasts invoke

more dread than joy,

not many smile if they

find crimson glisten

against the expanse

of white – blood drops

against the snow;

a shudder runs

down the spine.

I have been told

that you can be found

in far less

sinister circumstances,

like in the scatter

of everything benign,

but I have not

been very lucky

to make you mine.

I am scared

that you might be

too rare a commodity,

and that you could

only be acquired

for an impossible price;

I have been looking

for a change,

the spice of life,

but I think

it might entail

a complete redesign.

©Aaysid

Featured image from Pexels

“A poem begins as a lump in the throat, a sense of wrong, a homesickness, a lovesickness.”

Robert Frost