bonchalika

[bonchalika]

The wailing lady screams her lungs out

Her vocal cords begging for mercy

I stare from a distance instead of closing in

My mother asks me to look away gently

While she sits with everyone else around

Witnessing the painful birth of a widow

I sit here patiently, waiting for the cry to end

I don't handle death's visit well

For I will recall how real it felt.

The screams behind this picture and moment I hope I don't remember.

[bonchalika]

I dreamt of you again, and it didn't get any easier.

What I wanted to be a gut wrenching nightmare ended up being the pleasant question of "what if?" which still lingers around after all this time.

If it was meant to be it would have been. I couldn't hold onto myself as I was drifting away in the dreamy delusion of something sweet. But it soon turned bitter, and I held my ground. Waking up when I was still dreaming, remembering everything that was wrong.

I wake up with guilt and confusion but it's far better than regretting the wall I built between us.

[bonchalika]

privileged

/ˈprɪv(ɪ)lɪdʒd,ˈprɪvəlɪdʒd/

adjective

having special rights, advantages, or immunities.

.

I wake up in the back seat, still hours away from home, my father driving among the hills, my mother there to accompany him, my sister has her headphones on, and coco cherishes the serene views. Somewhere in my mind, I see Max missing us and denying any food. I look through everything I captured to distract myself as the car radio is screaming bollywood hits.

Only when I scroll through all my videos and pictures I remember- What seems so awfully natural is something not experienced by others at home.

Even by the river where everything's freezing and numb, the feeling lingers around. Sadness awakens, quickly overturned by a sense of fullness and joy. Breathing in the cold air, hair tangled, palms sticky, and cheers throughout the group.

My father calls us privileged with pride- reflecting all that has been achieved in his life, I simply nod smile, knowing very well the word remains stuck everywhere I go at the back of my mind.

[bonchalika]

I often wonder when the concept of power was constructed by man.

Was it meant for mere authority and structure or to validate his corrupted desires of exploiting the innocent crowd looking upto to him?

Was it created by man is yet another mystery but let's believe it was because that's what we have always learned and I do believe it's true.

But men or women is not the debate to present here, rather the evil ideas dwelling within individuals who crush others to feed their ego and exhaust shiny souls to fill the vacancy of their mind's blackholes.

Why are such indignities so difficult to exterminate, why are such monsters wearing jewels meant for a leader?

A king must serve the people and vice versa but what happens when monarchy turns to dictatorship, so cruel, so unjust it could only be described through metaphoric attempts 'cause god forbid we speak the truth in clear echoes and lose the last bit of sanity they let us cherish.

[bonchalika]

I often feel this need to belong, to someone or something...

It's been a while, and I can see it fading away, to hold onto people as my own, to call things mine, to be selfish in my friendships because how can my friends be closer to someone else? I have always felt guilty of relying on people or things to feel like I belong somewhere. Lately, it's been fading, though; I have noticed the words "but you're mine" being swallowed with zero effort as if it were something natural, something inbuilt in me, not just in my relationships with people but my ownership of things...

And I think it's been a huge relief, but I wonder what has caused it, I still feel like the little girl desperate to find a "friend group" at times, but mostly, it's just like an old lady on her last breath leaving behind everything she has ever bothered... I have no clue if it's supposed to be something that relieves me or something that haunts me... I seem to not have the energy for either. I don't see myself resisting things anymore, I let people walk away, I let myself walk away, and even if there's guilt, I think I am able to bury it all quite well...

[bonchalika]

Watching the world with tired eyes

Heat waves fading into time

July is long gone with its humid air

And you show up with a hint of despair

Your tender wind caressing my smile

The fresh breeze making me swoon with love

I'm getting out my cosy sweaters again

All this while I had been lost in sweat

Winter, my beloved

How long shall you stay this time?

How long shall you be woven into my skin?

How long do I get to cherish you?

Before you leave me behind torn apart once again.

[bonchalika]

At times when I'm dissapointed by myself, by my actions and by my words

I tend to drift away from all the soothing melodies I once found for myself

Escaping from my own thoughts slowly turn into being succumbed by them

And all the chaos I once found surrounding me is replaced by a deafening silence

Maybe it's peace that I feel when no longer pulled apart by emotions and people

But is it really the silence and peace I aimed to find in my darkest times

Or just another hoax skillfully sketched out to make me not feel alive

[bonchalika]

I have always liked to believe that staring at the empty spaces between the trees standing tall outside my car window would someday make some form of entities reveal themselves to me.

It's been years and I'm still holding onto the fantasies of the silly little girl who was so shy to make her presence felt that she slipped away from my hands even before I realised it.

The colours she painted are still as vibrant as ever, and her dreams are still alive and breathing, but the adventures she once wished to embark on have been transformed into crumbling escape routes of some sort.

[bonchalika]

At times when I can hear my soul shatter into a million pieces and as the hundreds of sorrys I know were not mine to say haunt me in my sleep, I wonder how long it will take me to wash off the dirt that scrapped my knees as I tripped and fell over the hopes that never got to live.