#chaos.and.clutter

[whats-in-a-username]

t h o u g h t s

It's been a few minutes,

My head on your shoulder, your arm around me

Neither of us utters a word.

What are you thinking?

You ask, breaking the silence.

I'm thinking,

About the day we finally accepted how we felt,

And then the world tilted, the hourglass turned,

How every day we're slipping away, gradually

One sand grain at a time.

I'm thinking,

How unfortunate it is that our fate's already written

That we were to be like parallel lines

Destined to be together

But not with each other.

I'm thinking,

How long are we going to take it, one day at a time?

One call, one heart emoji, one I miss you at a time.

Like a recovering addict,

Each day takes us twelve steps away from each other.

I'm thinking,

How the time we are together is snowglobe moments.

How we are confined to only a moment in time.

While the world around us moves on and on.

And we relive one perfect yet fragile moment.

I'm thinking,

How we belong to each other today,

For now.

How wonderful it'll be if the world ends today.

While you are mine and I'm yours.

So I don't have to see tomorrow.

When the hourglass is finally empty

When either of the parallel lines ends.

When we are so apart that we stand out of sight

When the snow globe falls to the floor, waking us up.

Instead,

I try to come back to that second,

To your voice, eyes, and presence,

Instead, I say,

I'm thinking about getting ice cream.

[whats-in-a-username]

The Beatrice Letters by Lemony Snicket

[whats-in-a-username]

I read that Grief is a derived word

A word that stemmed from the Latin word gravis.

Gravis - Heavy.

A weight that we've to carry on our own

Because there's only I in Grief.

Most often there are no exit wounds.

It tears your skin and lodges within.

Sometimes we learn to live with it.

Sometimes we have to cut ourselves open and let it out.

And when there are exit wounds,

You've to be courageous enough to let it pass through you.

Tear open your skin twice.

There's no Us in Grief.

I can only sit next to you and hold your hand

While you're hurting.

Hoping you'll pull through.

And then help you stitch your exit wounds.

[whats-in-a-username]

recently came across The Beatrice Letters by Lemony Snicket which screams love in every possible way. So I had to make my own version of it. Dramatically speaking: An homage if I may.

The Beatrice Letters: Unsent

I will love you if this is the last time I get to tell you, and I will love you if this is the only time I get to tell you that I do. I will love you as an empress loves her emperor, and as the emperor loves his subjects, and as his subjects love their empire. I love you as a moth loves flame and as flame loves metal. I love you as a warrior loves her sword and as the sword loves to draw blood. I will wait for you as Olaf waits for summer and as a pied cuckoo waits for rain. I will love you if our forever starts today, I will love you if our forever ends today, and I will love you if we never even stood a chance.

I love you as the sun loves the sea and as the sea loves the salt. I will love you as long as it takes to separate the salt from the sea and the salt from my tears. I love you as Shakespeare loves tragedy, and as tragedy follows every hero, and as the hero slowly starts to fall in love with the villain. I will learn to say I love you in every existing language, and then I will learn to speak your love language. I will love you as the poets love the moon and as the moon loves to chase a car. I will love you when you think the world of someone else, I will love you as that world falls apart, and I will love you as my world falls apart. I will love you when my world is full of light, and I will love you from the shadows of my mind.

[whats-in-a-username]

Doesn't a word look weird when we stare at it long enough? Doesn't the alphabet look slightly meaningless when we write it over and over again? Here's one: CLING C-LING, C-L-ING, C-L-I-NG, C-L-I-N-G. Does this make sense? It doesn't sound like a word the more you say it. It doesn't look like a word the more you write it. The curves and strokes, dots and dash!

Isn't it how the name of the people you love changes? At some point, it stops being a name, a word that belongs to them. It becomes a feeling that belongs to you. It stops sounding like a word or a random string of letters. It becomes a string of feelings you cling to when life falls apart. Their name on your phone screen stops looking like a word. Every notification and phone call conjures an image of them looking at you and smiling before you can even look at it twice. That particular string of curves and strokes, dots and dash Once belonged to them and is now beloved by you Which you randomly write in the air because it gives you comfort.

Sometimes we take names for granted without realizing the power it holds. When all it takes is that one word to appear on your screen to get you through another tiring day.

[whats-in-a-username]

I used to curl up close to my bedroom wall,

hide under my blanket and hug my knees to my chest

Hoping, if there was a demon under my bed

it couldn't reach me.

Now I sleep on the other end

And when the night is darkest

I reach out under my bed

Hoping the demon under my bed

would hold me.

Tell me tales until I fall asleep, I say.

When it responds

I notice our voice sounds similar.

Hoarse and scratchy from the lack of use.

Hands cold and rough like it's filled with papercuts.

There are other demons, you know? Inside my head, I say.

They're not as kind as you.

They keep me up at night and keep me spiraling in the morning.

How do I get rid of them?

It considers, and as my consciousness starts to slip, it answers

Be kind to yourself as you're to me.

[whats-in-a-username]

disquiet

A piece of me is always missing, Like the last block of lego that I can never seem to find One empty space right in the center of the jigsaw puzzle. I'm not sure if I lost it along the way. I'm not sure if I'm yet to find it. But lately, the gap seems more blatant. I'm anxious that it's visible to the people around me. That when they look at me, they see half a person. It's almost like I'm mimicking a being While I'm on the quest for the missing elements.

Sometimes, everything is wholesome! Golden skies, daisies, moongazing, Dusty libraries where ghosts of dead poets linger, Tight hugs, acts that mean "I'm thinking of you.", I look at my picture with my friends, smiling ear to ear And the jigsaw puzzle is complete. (or it was, then.) Some memories in me are so perfect that, The missing lego piece starts to feel like an extra piece From the table, you're trying to put together. It works fine without it, and there's nowhere to put it.

Then I'm back in my bed, back in my head. And I cannot remember how to be a whole person again I eat chocolate until I'm nauseated Or I never draw the curtains open and let the light flow through. I want to live life to the fullest, I never want to be seen in public again, I want all-consuming love, I want to believe I'm worthy of it, I want to feel complete when I'm alone, I want someone to feel complete with.

I want and I want and I want… Socrates said, (Yes, I went there) "He who is not contented with what he has, would not be contented with what he would like to have." What about, She who is never content with who she is? What about me?

[whats-in-a-username]

A Vampire Fever Dream. 👀

Centuries ago, one chilly winter night,

You smiled, held my hand in yours to leave behind,

Memories that twists my heart like a dagger,

While I wish my every sigh to be the last one

Since then I searched those amber eyes everywhere,

The color of maple leaves during the fall

I searched for you knowing that you are nowhere

Until I met someone who understood my pain.

Years passed away, and my companions with it.

I stayed the same, and so did our memories.

The only immortal things I've come across.

The living me, and the intangible us.

Now centuries later, this chilly winter

With this lovely human curled up next to me

I feel mortal. Not alive, just plain mortal.

Every second prized, every moment precious

With those same amber eyes, like a setting sun

One that threatened to burn me eons ago.

Have I wished for you often and hard enough?

That you had no other choice but to come back.

[whats-in-a-username]

I tell you, I tell you not.

I love you, and I think you love me.

But that's how far it gets, so I put it in poetry.

I write about you sometimes.

Hide my truth within similes, metaphors, and rhymes.

Of hushed conversations in a crowded place

Memorizing each thing so I can later retrace.

You ask me how I feel when I'm with you.

Like I'm in a cellophane bubble of a soft pink hue,

La vie en Rose

A dopamine doze

You ask me what I think of you.

Words to which I wish I knew

Universe pulled a few invisible strings,

Put you in my life to change everything.

We stand inches close yet light years away.

Cliche!

We stay long enough to touch, not enough to hold

The world is unfair, or so I'm told.

So I pretend your smile doesn't put me in slumber.

Memorize lines on your hand as one would with numbers.

You ask me why I hold back. I say I'm scared.

What I hold back is what I'm scared of:

It's not being unable to find the right words for what I feel

It's being able to say the right words and never heal.

I love you, but I don't tell.

I try to show you, like casting a gentle spell.

Through metaphors and rhymes

And words that were written by dead poets sometimes.

[whats-in-a-username]

A weak week!

I buried my head in a pillow to bawl

Knees to my chest like a ball

I guess it was the Domino effect

Of being vulnerable, easy to affect

Sometimes my heart twists and wrings

Most often my head hurts and rings

I assure you it's not just a phase

I've tried but the feeling doesn't faze.

No one really saw the signs

Even if it's simple science

At last I cried out aloud

Louder than I was allowed.

(there's something so comforting about homophones. <3)

[whats-in-a-username]

hidden conversations

We fell in love from the shadows

professing love through radiowaves

kissing pixelated lips

and whispered longings from under blankets

What are you wearing you ask, heaving.

Insecurities he gave me,

burns, scabs that I still pick at.

You don't flinch. You don't back down

Let me. Is all you say.

and I do.

closer than I've ever come to myself.

You take them down one by one.

And tie my hands with the softest of knots

When I try to beat myself up.

You say words I want to hear

But also the words I need to hear.

When I say

hold me and I'll break, hold me or I'll break

So you held me against you and said

I've got you and you've got me.

An anchor and a promise.

That's when I knew I've always loved you.

And I realize

I'm not walking a tightrope anymore.

I'm not walking anymore.

I don't have to walk.

Because I'm here. I'm home.

[whats-in-a-username]

Man just went from this.....

To this !!!!

CoolCooCooCooCooCoolCoolCoolCool 🥲🥲 not feeling unloved all !! 🥲

[whats-in-a-username]

pret-endings

I fear I cannot give us a happy ending,

So I'll write us one. A "pret-ending"

A future where you get poems written for you

Because words are my "old, new, borrowed, and blue."

An ending in which our days begin together.

Mondays where I whine about the weather,

Tuesday mornings with a cup of tea,

I complain about a colleague, and you say, "How dare she!"

We'll make a pact to meet halfway

To have lunch together on Wednesdays.

Thursdays are for you to decide

Because I can't find anything to rhyme. I tried.

Fridays, we watch a movie or a show.

Flip a coin, heads I win- tails you lose. Let it go.

Weekends that I spend hearing you sing

Or sit and stare at you while you do your own thing.

We play a lot of rock-paper-scissors,

And the loser gets to chase away the lizards.

We fight over reading a book or watching the sundown

I look at you, watching the last rays shine, and put my book down.

Save me when I try to burn our kitchen

I'll do the dishes if you cook the chicken.

I'll watch you fall asleep

And talk you through your bad dreams.

Wake me up after your walk

You know how much I hate alarm clocks.

If wishes and boons were true

I'd trade the Midas touch for you.

As long as we cannot have of our happy ending,

I'll keep on writing us a pret-ending.

[whats-in-a-username]

My Body: A Crime Scene

I was told the body is a temple. I was taught to treat my body like a temple. Sacred, Holy, somewhere God resides, somewhere a person can be at peace. But with time, the sacrality has begun to fade. It has become a realm of my internal demons, something sinister.

My body is now more of a crime scene than a temple.

I've put up barricade tapes around me. Of bright "when life gives you lemon" yellow and black. A cautionary measure for the lighthearted.

Some understand and stay away.

Others push right through like the case now belongs to them.

They say they've seen this before.

They say no amount of gore can keep them away.

They say they'll take care of it.

Only to realize it's bloodier than they could've imagined.

Multiple fingerprints, Multiple footprints: An evidence marker placed for every person I let walk all over me, and for every person, I gave my heart only for them to poke my wounds.

Blood: Numerous splatters, but all mine.

Weapons: Some sticks and stones, knives that I willingly handed over hoping they'd protect me, now covered in my blood and, a pen.

Many witnesses: Either dumb or hostile.

Signs of arson: Ashes of everything I burnt down. Pictures, letters, broken promises, false hopes, unfulfilled dreams.

And now, all that's left of me is a chalk outline. Everything else faded, picked apart or withered away.

My body is not a temple anymore. It isn't sacred or pure.

It's not a place I can stand barefoot.

It's now a place where I need a hazmat suit and gloves.

[whats-in-a-username]

Digital Age.

Sometimes I feel like I'm living in a cage

Or should I call it #theDigitalAge ?

And I must tell you, it's loud in here.

I see and hear everyone too much.

Being called out by memes, and

Feeling left out on trends.

Photoshop making grass a little greener

While I filter out my blues.

I send you LOL with a straight face,

Use "Panic" as my wordle guess,

You see my carefully curated stories,

Unaware of the ones I hide from you.

Trained to fake a smile

Faster than the shutter speed.

While living like the protagonist

Of Franz Kafka's dairy adaptation.

Tired of looking through this glass cage.

Aren't you sick of this Digital Age?

Oh, Who am I kidding! You've already moved on,

To double-tap the next thing.

[whats-in-a-username]

SCRIBBLE AND SCRATCH

With a cup of tea, a pen, and my book

I sat to write at my favorite nook.

Head filled with voices trying to get out,

And a heart humming with tunes of doubt.

I scribble, and scratch then my words fade,

As I suppress the thoughts that make me afraid.

So I go back to the books that give me relief.

To find my answers within someone else's grief.

There are many problems within these books.

And in that world, solutions aren't mine to look

Within worn-out, annotated, and yellow pages,

I forget my fright as I did for ages.

Soon I'm drawn back to my nook

Holding on to empty pages of the notebook

I scribble, and scratch but the words don't fade

For I've let my thoughts out of its shade.