I begin but I
Never finish anything
I get distracted,
But it takes courage
To quit which I
Don’t seem to have,
So I write
What I can, what I am,
In order to flee
From myself,
Self-deprecating words
Like a drug I detest
But cannot stop taking,
An obligatory poison
To lose myself,
To sink, to drown,
To be curled up in a ball
Tossed out
To never be found-
I begin again.
©Aaysid
“It’s incredibly easy to get caught up in the thick of thin things.”
Stephen R. Covey
Featured image from Pexels
Festivals and holidays are different kind of affairs for introverts. We do not go out of our way to meet people, and the ones who make an effort to see us soon realise that they’d be making us even happier if they’d leave us to our plans. After all, holidays are all about taking it easy and doing what we enjoy.
So with only one day available to pack a good amount of fun into, I have decided to start a book I’d been meaning to read for quite sometime, and watch two movies (from a long list of supposedly great ones).Being a huge Haruki Murakami fan, I had been looking forward to watch, Drive My Car, but I couldn’t find it on the streaming service. The Power of the Dog and The Lost Daughter are the ones I shall be watching instead. I have read good things about them.
Previously skeptical, I have now wramed up to the idea of reading along with the audio narration and Audible has been great so far. I hope that Catch-22 will be an incredible experience. There’s no way I’d be able to finish it in a day though.😁
My desires
Destroy me;
I retreat into
My withered palace
Of things
I am convinced
Ought to be kept
Underground.
©Aaysid
I listen less
to colourlessness,
so that I can see
the world in melody,
and smell the perfect
balance of the universe,
which surprisingly
tastes like bliss!
©Aaysid
Photo by Laziii Codar from Pexels
You are at a point in time
Where a small change
In the way the day unfolds
Is enough to unravel you;
When the mere sight
Of glistening post-rain roads
Cracks you open,
And you come apart
As soon as you catch
A whiff of damp seclusion,
Way before your brain
Can process the earthy
Fragrance of it to solidify
The old memory traces,
And when the fragmented
Clouds above your head
Refuse to let the sun
Burn its brilliance upon
Your clouded retinas,
Your repose falls to pieces—
You are your own weather.
©Aaysid
It rained here today, and I had listened to a breathtaking short story by James Joyce (hence, the quote) during my lunch break. The latter event was the highlight of the day.
“He lived a little distance from his body, regarding his own acts with doubtful sideglances.”
A Painful Case, James Joyce
Featured image from Pixabay
some knocks at the door
go unanswered
for some doors
do not have peepholes;
some knocks at the door
get answered,
but some doors
do not have doorknobs.
©Aaysid
“A knock on the door you hear, a knock on your head you don’t.”
Dixie Waters
Featured image from Pexels
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!😊
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
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
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
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
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
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.
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
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
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
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
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
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 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
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
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
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
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
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
Outrageously Erratic 