mydiarymyheart

[mydiarymyheart]

Is life all about wading on to the next emotion? Waiting for a feeling to fade and gradually get less intense that you no longer want to crawl into a fetal position? Is this all there is to it? Getting through the day with all of its sadness, anger, frustration, confusion? I’m so tired of it, but I don’t necessarily want to die for it to stop. Not anymore, at least. Am I supposed to just… endure it all with no easy way out, with no escape?

“나 죽지 못해 살어.”

[mydiarymyheart]

This loneliness eats away at me, chips me away from my outer edges, bit by bit and so incredibly slowly that for the most part, I don’t notice it. Neither does anyone else, it seems, but I catch myself in moments that are so regular, so domestically mundane, thinking how I wish I had someone to do it with. My weekly laundry, my commute to work, my lacklustre dinners by the TV. It hollows me inside out, leaving me an empty husk that I sometimes can no longer see who I am. It’s become me, despite taking away from me. I mask it, I realise, with trivial things like a cup of houjicha latte, designer glasses, listening to upbeat music. They’re all matters made to distract me from the rancid, rotting hole in my heart that no one sees or, perhaps, chooses to see.

Sometimes it hurts, hurts like nothing else in the world, but sometimes, it’s a numbing feeling that anaesthesises me from the world. I hear the voice of a person I love and I feel nothing. I pass by my favourite bookstore and I feel nothing. I see something cute, something pink, and I feel nothing. To some extent, that scares me more than the pain. It feels like I’m losing who I am, the one thing I have in this world that absolutely no one can take away from me, but I can see it clearly: this loneliness loosens my grip on my identity. Is there an end to this? Will I end up dead, fingers hardened in an invisible grip of what used to be my identity? Will it finally evade me in death? Will it evade me through death? Is this meant to be a death match? Will this only end with one of us dead? I’m terrified to learn the answer. Am I better off living in ignorant bliss?

[mydiarymyheart]

I can feel the passing of time in my bones. Suddenly, I’m not 16 anymore, wishing for any form of escape from the place I’m supposed to call home. I haven’t been 16 for a long time, but sometimes, I still have no idea what I’m doing or who I’ll next latch on to for any semblance of love.

I’m 26 now, and I still haven’t found a home in anyone. I’m still just as lost, as untethered as I was in Barci. I’ve yet to complete that bucket list I thought I would by 25, and I still like chocolate milk and Wonka Nerds and plush toys.

I used to wonder what I would be like at 26. Here I stand, and I’m still not entirely sure if I’m happy. Deep down, I don’t think I’ve changed that much at all. Underneath all the layers of skin and flesh, I don’t think I aged a minute past 16. I wonder if everyone else feels the same, and I wonder if we’re all just pretending to know what we’re doing.

Will this feeling ever go away? Will it fade with age? Will it only… intensify? Are we all just grieving our own selves? With every passing second, am I only mourning the A of the second past?

[mydiarymyheart]

"Confess I loved you from the start."

That first day, that very first day, that cursed day. I remember it as vividly as yesterday. Hell, I don't even remember yesterday all that well, but by God, I remember you as beautiful as you are, on that fateful day almost 8 years back.

I always knew I believed in love at first sight, but I never really thought of you as one of the many case studies in history - I always thought of you as a painful, painful slow burn, but now that I look back at how vividly I remember our very first moment, I think I fell for you at the very first sight.

I wonder if you felt the same. I wonder if I was ultimately your downfall, a constant whispering in your ears of a better tomorrow, a brighter future. I wonder if you knew that, but were too scared to face it.

If you didn't feel the same, I wonder if you saw it in my eyes that very first time we met. I wonder if it was obvious to you, because now we know it wasn't even to me. I wonder if that glint in my eyes was what made you fall for me instead, because you knew I cared before anything even happened.

Where are you now? What are you up to? Did you find someone new? I suppose I haven't really gotten over you if I'm asking these questions - and the realisation hits me where it hurts. Why haven't I gotten over you? How is it that I've somewhat fully grieved a life-long friendship, but not you? Measly you who'd only been in my life for four or so years? Why do you hold so much power over me? I hate you. I hate you, but sometimes I think about an alternate future, the future I built in my head back then of us walking down the street hand in hand.

Are you happy? I hope you're not. I hope karma's come for you by now. I hope you're just as miserable as I am, 'cause I can't stand the thought of you with someone else, doing all the things I wish we'd done together instead. You deserve to hurt, just as you've hurt me. I pray nothing less comes your way, and that you find yourself in my shoes, and I pray you realise what you've done to me. I pray it haunts you in your sleep, that it suffocates you so much at times, you could feel your nape itch and crawl. Don't say you don't deserve it.

[mydiarymyheart]

It’s almost silly how badly I crave the very simple things: touching your cheek while we lay next to each other, listening to your muffled laugh through my hair as you hug me from the back, being there to comfort you past your nightmares.

My entire being horridly longs to have a healthy and stable love, one where I get to experience all the joys of domestic life, balancing all that we have to go through on the daily and choosing to grow together as two individuals who, despite everything, will always want to be with each other in every circumstance.

[mydiarymyheart]

Dearest Saha,

I dream of you all the time. I dream of you when I long for love, I dream of you when I fall into the depths of loneliness, I dream of you when I least expect it, and with it always comes a beautiful, lingering sense of hope. These brief glimpses into the life I painfully yearn for strangely keep me going until I next dream of you.

I wonder if any of it means anything. I wonder if it’s God’s way of quietly telling me we’re meant to be, if it’s the sensation of our red string tugging across the oceans, if it’s a message from the universe screaming for me to hold on when my faith in love falters.

I wonder if it’s all subconscious. Is it just my brain trying to make sense of these dark feelings bubbling inside me whenever I hit a low? Is it my brain trying to cheer me up in midst of it all, the only way it knows how - through dreams of a Prince Charming? Do you simply happen to be the nearest image of that form to me?

Though I also wonder if it’s safe to say you’re nothing more. I doubt whatever I felt for you back then was anything real. I don’t even remember being smitten. Sure, you were cool at times, pretty, hot, whatever - but I don’t remember ever blushing at the accidental touch of your hand, or getting into trouble just to see you for five minutes like I did for someone else. So again, I ask myself: why is it you who represents a perfect life to me? Am I truly to take nothing away from these recurring dreams of you? It’s been years! Is it truly all a figment of my mind in tough times? I suppose I’ll never find out.

[mydiarymyheart]

Little signs lead me to you: small coincidences in time, what we listen to, where we’ve been and where we want to be in life. Every time it happens, I feel a gentle tug on my pinkie with the red string that connects me to you. No matter how far you are from me, right this second, I also know that all it takes is for our paths to cross for just a moment for our storyline to start, so I’m not worried at all..

It could be at an airport, or a cafe I’m a usual at but it’s your first visit, or your quick errand run that just happened to be during my trip’s allocation for this area in town.

I wonder if we’re ever thinking about the very same things at the very same time, or if we’ve ever done something so minuscule but simultaneously, like mincing some garlic or picking out next day’s outfit.

No matter how crazy the situation may need to be for us to meet and no matter how much untangling needs to be done for our red string to shorten, I know it’ll all happen in due time. You’re mine, and I’m yours, but we just don’t know it yet. I’ll see you soon, my love, and when I do, you best believe I’ll love you with my everything.

[mydiarymyheart]

I hope you remember me with fondness and talk of me only the good. Though we may have hurt each other, I don’t know why I could only ever remember the good times. Our laughter filling the room, our unspoken words from across the hall, our peaceful coexistence and signs of it like our cleansers sitting next to each other on the bathroom sink. I find myself having to dig and dig to remember why I ‘hate’ you, but beautiful memories come to me so easily, even when I don’t want them to come up and sometimes, especially more so.

My heart breaks at the thought of you possibly speaking ill of me. Well, not truly ill, I’m sure, but when you tell your friends of the wounds I’ve caused you, what words do you use? Do you get excited to tell the story, like I do when I speak of people who were insufferable to me? I can’t imagine harmful words ever coming from you, and maybe that’s a good thing. If it’s happened, maybe I need to keep myself in this blissful ignorance. I hope when I come up in conversation, you brush it off instead. I’d rather seem to have played a small role in your life than one that is malicious and one that your friends curse at for years to come. I know it’s a bit selfish of me to think these things when I’m the one who’s hurt you, but I hope you could cut me some slack… For old times’ sake?

[mydiarymyheart]

I wonder if you remember all our little broken promises and I wonder if they hurt you, too..

That cake we promised we’d share once we both got a nice job. That cafe we promised we’d go to for your birthday. That park we promised we’d visit with a basket full of convenience store snacks in hand.

Does a pang of pain hit you when I come across your mind? Do you not think of me at all? Or worse.. Do I come to you with absolutely no remorse?

You were once my everything, the only light in the tunnel through my darkest, darkest days. Though I gave you my everything, shared with you all my worldly possessions as a token for saving me, in hopes that it would be enough to thank you, it seems even that wasn’t what you needed. For that, I’m sorry. I’m sorry I didn’t give you what you needed when you were able to pull me out of thick tar and blood. I’m sorry if I hurt you more than I had ever realised. Maybe I was too busy finally healing from my own pain and slicking the black tar off my own shoulders that I never noticed the blots and puddles on yours. I’m sorry I wasn’t there for you as much as you have been for me. I pray you’re happy and I pray you’ve found someone who’d pull you out of the tar now. I’m sorry I wasn’t the one to do it, and I’m sorry all I ever seemed to do was watch as you drowned in silence.

I will forever owe you my life and because of that, I don’t think I could ever hate you. Even if I tried. Believe me, I’ve tried. I don’t think I would have ever made it out alive from that room in Barci if it weren’t for you, so thank you, I’m sorry and I love you.

[mydiarymyheart]

I find the silence at dawn to be one of the most calming sensations. Knowing everyone else in the next rooms are still asleep or barely awake, trapped in their own drowsiness and debating whether or not to call in sick for the day to just lay in bed for a bit longer. Legs are fighting with quilts, unconsciously. Sometimes if you listen closely enough, you ought to hear the sounds of the battle even through the walls. I would walk with careful steps to the kitchen and make myself a cup of coffee or green tea, soon settling down into the couch by the blank TV screen. The silence then starts dawning on me. It feels almost magical, as if even the mythical creatures are too lethargic to hide from the mortals and for just a little while, our two worlds collide unknowingly. Unknowingly because both of us are too sleepy to yet care. Slowly, manmade sounds start to fall into place. One by one; the sound of the kettle being placed onto the hub, the sound of feet shuffling into slippers by the bedside table, the sound of a shower several studios down. I feel almost vulnerable, but it's a soothing vulnerability I think everyone should feel once in a while, as if saying, "It's okay to let your guard down. It’s only dawn.” I like it.

[mydiarymyheart]

Remembering you hurts me. I feel a jab, a sting, in my chest whenever I pass by something and my first thought is, “Oh, that’s what she liked,” or if a song comes on through a random playlist I have playing, and I remember it’s an artist you love. I want to say I could move on quickly and just shrug it off, but I would be lying to myself, because I haven’t. It’s been a slow, painful burn, and I often wonder for however long will I continue to feel like this until it stops hurting, until my heart is no longer torn when I think of you. Would it take weeks, months, years? You were special to me for years, so is that how long it’ll take for me to flush you out of my veins and thoughts? I wish I could take a time leap to a time where I’m no longer hurting because of you.

[mydiarymyheart]

Maybe what I need to finally free myself from you is to see you as the villain, something maybe I should’ve done years ago, like everyone I trusted in my life told me to do. I deserve better. I deserve so much more than what you gave me, and I shouldn’t care that it was your best, because it was never ever enough. I shouldn’t care that you were giving me 100% or 150%, if it was only ever 40% to me.

I’ll find someone whose 100% is exactly 100% to me, or even more, someone who would love me as much as I love them, or even more. I won’t give you the power to hurt me anymore. I’m letting you go.

[mydiarymyheart]

My father made me coffee every morning and put anger instead of sugar.

He had been a man of few words- never said he loved me and even his happiness was full of rage. Every night, he'd watch some game on the telly and talk about the stock market and bonds and things I never understood. I remember when the newspaper began to publish my articles, he barely read them and gave me a nod as if to show his acknowledgement. One day, I looked into his drawer to find some batteries and noticed a stack of newspaper cuttings, articles and poems and photographs, all of my work- the borders cut with such tenderness and care, I couldn't believe his hands could be so gentle.

My father carved me from his thigh and watered me with his blood and wondered where my rage came from. My father loved me in silence and wondered why I couldn't listen.

-Ritika Jyala, excerpt from The world is a sphere of ice and our hands are made of fire

[mydiarymyheart]

“Love didn’t hurt you. Someone who doesn’t know how to love you hurt you. Don’t confuse the two.”

— Unknown

[mydiarymyheart]

There'll be a moment when you realise you're 27 when yesterday you were just 17; and you wouldn't be able to tell how a decade passed away and your life got divided into before and afters. The fury of youth will subdue and nothing will really change but everything will feel different when you look at old photographs and blurry videos taken on cheap mobile phones. Scents will remind you of childhood and certain friends you don't talk to anymore, hangouts will become reunions and mom's burnt pie will become the best food you ever had. And I know on some days you won't be able to show anything of those 10 years but I hope you remember to breathe, and let go of the knot in your chest. I hope you go out in the sun and live a little, because tomorrow is 37.

Edit- I added the visualizer for this piece on my YT, check it out here

-Ritika Jyala, excerpt from The Flesh I Burned

[mydiarymyheart]

Childhood made everything feel like it lingered. The time it took for hot chocolate to cool down was eternal. Christmas day took weeks. The two-hour drive to my grandparents' house took us to a new world. It's all too fast now.

[mydiarymyheart]

I lost my best friend 3 years ago- not lost as in dead but lost as in we only text each other on our birthdays now. Movies and books don't tell you that a friendship dying is like the sinking of a ship, you try to get higher and higher and hold onto the rails and unanswered texts, the captain tries to steer it to safety and salvage pieces of two broken hearts until you're left with memories of what once was. We were friends for a decade and knew each other's diaries by heart, I still remember her phone number and the way she took her coffee. Seeing her in streets is like breathing in a scent you forgot you knew but it immediately takes you back to a summer in '07.

Movies and books also don't tell you that friendships don't just end after one fight or incident, it's like the rusting of a bridge, the slow decay of flesh and bones and secrets. It took weeks, months- until one day I woke up and I realized I hadn't thought of her in a while. And I wrote a poem that day and I titled it 'The dying of a best friend' and I put all my love for her in a tiny box with my half of the matching pendant of a dolphin we had and stored them in a corner of my heart under the heading Grief. Where else can one hide unspent love?

It's been 3 years since I lost my best friend, lost as in I still carry our secrets in a tiny box but we only text each other on our birthdays.

-Ritika Jyala, excerpt from The world is a sphere of ice and our hands are made of fire

Edit: here's the visualizer for this piece