neurocircus

[neurocircus]

shiro: i feel insane.

we’re sweet to each other, sky, gadget and acetylcholine. I whisper to them my fanciful memories of love and loss and they believe me like they’re all part of the same song; how I end up stitching stories of diseased brains, ice rinks and extinct fireflies, I don’t know.

the city smells only of gasoline. the scent of sex rarely leaks out of neon lit glass walls, they don’t take their lovers back home anymore. so I pause near perfume shops, something reminding of rain, choosing between lavender and water lily.

it doesn’t matter, the automated vendor prompts me. fuck you too, I reply, skin tasting heaven at floral spritz.

“the air's so heavy, are you splitting houses apart by fire tonight?” I ask the sky, and it looks back at me just as confused. we’re the only ones standing still, everything else's spinning by too scared to stay.

I sway under streetlights, compass pointed towards sea in the middle of the road. “do I not every night?” “yes, no, 𝘺𝘦𝘴, but I mean, tonight’s my favourite-

they’re all mad hatters, see? mask over mask under top hat, everywhere, so many tea parties, all their insanities are doll making and skinning, no, sinning, while mine are smiling at pebbles and loving so hard, loving so open, aching so open I can’t feel my own palms

when everything’s black. but we can’t all be crazy together- some need to have it worse to finish the race, to wave alice goodbye…” there is laughter, now, pitch both high and low, wind chimes being toyed with underwater. my eyes are wet too, but they don’t quite make the sound

“’m trying to build someone a wonderland, and I want him to stay past dusk.” another biochemical rush, and I almost topple over gracefully. it’s five forty am, perhaps, the clouds already sobering up in purple.

even the shadows are exchanging glances now, at the girl in the white suit playing tag with lightning flashes. “they’re auroras,” I dispute, yes shiro, auroras from the dying equator; so distracted, so ruffled, so lost in thoughts of lips pursed against thread,

needle held between teeth. want to peel my meninges apart and eat my own gyri and sulci, baby snakes unraveling in the fodder, but I'm slipping, heels grating in panic to stay perpendicular against frosted pavement;;;;;

I’m so fleeting, I’m so high, I’m gonna do something so stupid tonight.

[neurocircus]

chrysalis I.

I come to you, handful of pink poppies (papaver somniferum?) and mouthful of prerecorded accordion. you refuse to show me your side of the pillow, pressing further in at my arrival, and I hope it’s dry this morning.

we’re cocooned in silk, fairy lights still glowing under your feet, did we both forget to switch them off last night? it’s a blur, and they scald me for my forgetfulness when my limbs brush against them to get closer to you.

side eyeing from the corners of a crowded room is getting tiring, and the want for eternal slumber kisses my feet too. I push it away from yours.

“they’re not lavender, either,” you murmur, face hidden, wrapped under covers and my heart skips a slow beat. we’re all dancing, dew, petal, bulb and coleopteran. “I'm just bad at flowers,” I remind in a whisper, swallowing my mockery of myself down. I’m happier dumb.

“would you have brought me grass painted purple?” no, but is that a giggle? I pull a little to watch, forever impatient, forever longing, and the crinkle in your eyes arrives in full bloom, thumb cradling my cheek so gentle I might turn to sand sooner than our little pupa.

morning, morning, morning your touch sings a lullaby behind my ear, tongue playing keys I can’t reach on the accordion; I know no melody other than you, none at all.

“ouch,” you complain, carelessly sliding past the burning lights, and I lean to check for injuries while you cling to my neck like I’m already going away. your skin looks more than untouched, but you sigh dreamily when my lips press in bit of first aid, so I continue.

“between the two of us,” I begin to ask, head stuffed full of the candy you call me by, “am I the medical toolkit?” for a long time, you don’t answer, and I don’t know what I said wrong. the buzzing falls silent, and I start to miss it, heart picking up where my mind left off;

short breath returning, emptiness crawling. didn't mean it, didn't mean it, didn't mean it, don't feel bad please, but your hands fly to my head. my ears thud inside your palms, slow rumble of storm in your little snowball. twist, turn,

and my world spins in trapped snowfall.

you’re too fierce, you’re the only fierce I fear.

“both. we heal both ways.” your lips are frostbitten, and the snow makes music, too, summer and winter interlaced. or none.

[neurocircus]

one stage of happiness

she steps out of the carriage callously, just as honest as her sister. pain, however, prefers to conceal the ugly bits with gemstone, maybe distract with a prim and polished step. this one strolls into the realm undettered, bruises glowing fluorescent around her bare neck.

she knocks on doors unannounced, popsicle in mouth and your heart in your throat, greets your mistakes like old friends, like they're belongings to be proud of. "let's go make more of you," she winks at them, and your head's spiralling in space, anchored to the skip in her step.

it doesn't make sense but the voices in your head are quiet and when you take out the shards from your pillows you find rose petals inside. the earth's trembling under your cataclysmic heel, but you're hung from the sky, pearl and string looped around your neck.

you can do anything.

[neurocircus]

there are three stages of pain.

tw: self harm, mention of suicide, depression

the backlog. (building)

it’s the quickest phase, but you feel like you’ve been churning vomit down for the past eleven hours of carousel ride. the ground's a little shaky, and your blurry eyes still mistake the fireworks in the sky to be your own, hands grabbing at the bokeh blackening with soot. fairy lights are everywhere and you lost the ones back home, so you stop, pause to admire each of both kinds; the ones around necks and the ones stamped over in mud.

they’re all beautiful. everything’s beautiful but you.

somewhere in the rubble are silent voices, promises never made, escapes barely made. you’re just in a little bit of panic, desperate to prove yourself worth something.

everyone’s scared of a pretty girl with calloused hands and big eyes, but she doesn’t want much else, does she? she’s here for the nanochips, ghosts and gardens, she doesn’t have time for dwindling conversation, no matter how much you want her to stay.

so you babble, kiss, regret, fidget and hunt for someone who’ll fall asleep in the middle of listening, trying to be her.

the crescendo. (breaking)

you don’t remember much of this, except that it’s loud and harsh and you want to scrape your eyes out with your fingernails so bad you direct the beasts to your skin, and let them slide and twist and dig like they’d at an amusement park. isn’t that what you are, place to play, wreck and abandon by dusk? the lights are burning, the child's sobbing and the lady’s scratching, your sixteen other personas watching from the shadows unable to bear the humiliation. You want to hurt. You want to hurt.

the slumber. (staying)

sleep tries to help you a lot and it nearly does, until you figure out what a bitch you are to yourself half conscious.

where do i stick this syringe? you think in a nightmare, and nightmare you has odd answers. your thyroid! cyanide spreads faster from a gland! it…doesn’t, though you wake up sweating, heart begging you to let it thud out of your ribcage, fingers trembling where you felt the smoky needle go in. It scares you that a dream’s the most you remember in weeks.

it scares you that your pain's resting as much as you are, cozy and settled in your chest, blinking an eye open when you want to smile. It scares you how it’s lysogenic, like a virus, an endless loop of rebirth within every host cell spanning boundaries of time and reality.

but it scares you the most how it wins you over; parading in your arms through ugly crowds in the finest jewelry. the kinder ones look back and call, “that’s a work of art!” you say thanks, like you believe them, only here to bask in the fleeting adoration so that the crescendo takes longer to arrive than the backlog- but you can’t tell anymore, because they’re all merging into one, and your thirst for praise grows, festers, till it’s nothing but entitlement; brushing off dust and paving way for the carousel to chime again.

[neurocircus]

diwali escapade.

tw: violence

mirrored muddle of racing thoughts, my mind chases you tumbling down. my own world’s a terrible roulette of ashes and accordion, spinning to hell now and heaven then, synthetic 𝘗𝘰𝘮𝘱𝘦𝘪𝘪 poised to catch you whichever way you fall from.

here, I call from the toy submarine, wrists chained. I have a compass. as broken as your wings, but you don’t need to know. you wear your blood neat with a dash of glitter. never been to sea, you hesitate, and my heart breaks a little.

they build castles there, too. I implore. stronger than the ones you've seen in air. solid footing, ghostly sound. they're so gilded with coral we use our gold as mere diyas. the light gives birth in two with every ripple. a tiny, forever diwali.

a gentle laugh caresses my cheek, when did we get so close? welcome me aboard when i don't hurt so much, you kiss me giddily, whiskey breath and dainty bounce, and I duly stitch one wound to another.

you tuck the thread behind your ear like it’s a gift. at this the sky storms above us. which realm are you, now? you scream at it and my sides ache of splitting, sore laughter.

the air's beginning to choke your pale throat up, botánicas closing near town, soot lining up the pavement. your little forest sobs but you don’t shed a tear. you'll take care, love. you always do.

yes, but without you? I pick at the mosaic ahead of drying, tesserae piling up in my hands till the last wobbly tile's wrenched out. painted monsters spiral into the wet cement unfinished, perhaps awaiting revenge in murkier depths.

you pull the anchor out, diluted rage and brimming love. two tonnes of gold lie on your palm as empty as the city untouched by tide.

but the shipwreck stinks of tar and rubber soul, the kind that bounces back mouth foaming like a rabid dog, kicked; and you've fallen for it. you can’t wait to build madness sheathed in its edges.

you can’t wait to bloom a garden, till black bubbles red and my shoulders shelter pollen. seafoam, oil or nectar. you’ll have them choose their trade of decay, till the waters have only you and me to host.

I have claimed what's mine, arranging eyes pouring into the waves with their sockets hung from clouds to meet a kind, tender blade before they meet you.

but you don't need to claim what's yours. this is our playground, my love. devastate it.

[neurocircus]

of red moons and heavy heads

there’s a gash on my skin you’re fond of. on the back of my head, open door to a dotted cosmos.

rudra, braid your hair, you're losing so much of it.

yes, ma.

the pipes clog.

yes, ma.

I keep losing tresses.

you lather the gap with soap and blow in, like I’d get you the bubbles from the other side. it sings, you whisper, nose nudging mine, you'd call it a lorimer burst if you heard.

is that where the butterflies go, I ask, combing through the wet locks. to disappear into my so called mikrokosmos and end up dead in newer stars? no, no, your butterflies return every space trip. like we’d dare to lose you.

under my medulla. beneath curls like curtain tassels. the celestial window hums in invitation. I wake from a feverish dream and pull the skin open, fingers gorged on by nothing, excavating my own head apart in a circle. human ouroboros.

eyes rolled back, I can see them. they are red, and the haze reduces them to moon like circles that don’t blind me. question one: there! is! no! haze! in! space!

question two: old age, or redshift? this I want an answer to. the universe expands; heavenly bodies moving apart till they die, each sequence of events turning them a darker shade of vermilion. murphy and hubble's law entangled, I sob.

so unruly, yet slave to distance and time; picked up spheres of storm and laid them to disperse, slower the further they part, wavelengths burning red as if in ceremony. what will become of us?

the fear encapsulates me, and I waltz with many, many lovely women with knives. a kiss in exchange for sawing my head off, I offer in a trance, and they either laugh or slap me in horror. rudra and his skies.

I’m but fable, thrown in a dearth of silvertongue. my mind’s jargon. I speak jargon. what do you taste on my diseased lips, when you touch the rotting cave and call it a third eye?

hold me to you anyway. let me lie to you, about swooning at the sight of scarlet and the favourites to look at. berries. pomegranate. wine. blood. blush. sindoor. keep me a little longer anyway.

[neurocircus]

sonar kella

tw: cnc, blisters, fire.

water dries slowly from my parched fingertips. some days, everything wants me to keep me alive at once, moss growing into my rings, rohira petals kissing moisture onto my lips. 𝘴𝘪𝘳𝘦𝘯, you hum to yourself, frowning. like you catch fish raining atop the desert every dawn.

“how long?”

“miles, unless you’re blessed by the dead, have your blisters scourged out and walk by yourself.”

“your sweat tastes like imli.” 

“good for you.”

my blood drips and disappears into your blue shawls.

you carry me into midnight, but I only burn harder, skin oozing sadness, fingers grappling for consolation by tearing seams. under ravaged cloth I trace your spine, marveling the way mine ridges out the same. touching you feels lascivious; I'm grateful you slap the hands away.

there's a dance tonight, you tell another. a queen must've died. we will eat him after. my rings clink quietly against your chains when we graze hidden palms. how many adorn you naked? do they have rubies embedded? a temple glows.

its drunken devotees are transfixed on us, the way you chide my fried flesh into healing, the way I shake and beg for escape. “hush, doll, hush!” I’m no doll, I drowned my city. “you’ll be ours in no time.” who is ours? your grin alone sends some teetering back into rabbit holes.

you think I’m doing well by my own, pavlonian trigger pumping my blood low with every scratch and bite, bit used to liking harm, bit used to play hurt. all other houses now glow as well, windows cut into the rocks so bright with fire they look like portals to heaven.

I am not. the only reason I don’t scamper like the rest is your nails dig into my wrist. “stay,” you croon, and for the first time I do not cry at my life swung like a pendulum in another’s fist. there is no home left to lose.

flames lick you to the jaw, but they do not press the smile I do.

it’s freeing to let the bulbous blaze eat the meal you could’ve. it is perhaps more jealous, more violent, more loving. there seems to be some treachery between you two. you snarl when it sears away my clothes first to taste forgotten wounds, it hisses green when I sob your name.

soon, I no longer need to lean. the ache is gone, your jewels show (yes, rubies), and the arsonist kisses me too slow to kill. inferno cuddles us like a bonfire on a moonless night. I tell you how I can upturn the sea and smother the firestorm to tease.

you pause. “firestorm?” then chuckle. “have you not seen gold before?” 

nearby, the galactic castle doors close.

[neurocircus]

neptune

tw: anxiety linked self harm

the last night jostles by the rest, pin-pricks of memory leaking down pearl earrings like they never existed. cobwebs spin silk in waves around the palace; if you willed, we’d have fell, tsunami held so hard in baby fists the skies sink first and the pits after.

we never really kissed. perhaps it was there, somewhere beneath our fingers grazing, tucked into my braid, slipped under your scarf, but it didn’t touch our lips. mine are purple and though purple’s not necessarily poison, you giggle and point.

when you touch to inspect, they blister a little. soothe them now. “it’s cause of the stories you tell,” you breathe. “you live so long ago, there’s still blood in you. faded, going, but visible.”

your mouth's all azure. all heartbreak and glee and fancy, molded into a pouty little ocean. I want to dive, die, swim. you make me so happy my back bruises from the wings that threaten to come out, darker than the algal blooms cuffing my limbs.

underwater they prefer fins. I know nothing about you.

they visit first with knives delicately wrapped in velvet. nobody would’ve mourned, but those who breathe quiet spread word fast, and those who listen muse aloud. throat and cunt pulled apart alike, our palace drowns and dries in bliss.

you don’t come out of your room for three weeks. the lasers pull the ends of your walls together, and gizmos blink red when I don’t look. my old books call it an enchantment. my old books call it a princess locked in a tower.

I am frightened, scratched myself from scalp to limb, and my touch isn’t so soft anymore like when you said you wanted my bone flesh and dermis around you, when I said it’d be okay because we all break inside first, shell second.

sometimes shells crack and let the oil leak. sometimes eyes become so heavy you feel a skyscraper hang from each of your lashes. sometimes the head hurts, then the hands, then the forearms, then both feet, thighs, womb, back, gut, chest. chest hurts a lot.

human ragdoll raised on planet blue, heating coil and microchip whirring homeostasis in- they visit a second time, and I cry so hard, the velvet scorches from the heat of my nails and the wound on my tongue, tears gluing bodies to the floor.

we are children of deluge, quiet crest and roaring trough.

dare us to taste lava and we’ll swallow molten rock dribbling from lips to make homes in our collarbones.

and yet our fear's a molotov, explosive and unseeing like theirs. mermaid waist sinks into my palms, droid scales now a blinding vermilion. they say if something can’t be fixed it shouldn’t be on board.

I hunt for the city upside down under your eyelids and find sawdust. are you volant, yet? your tremble crumbles my clavicles, and the coarse plumage digs in to fill further out.

[neurocircus]

"papillionidae hunters"

you hunt like you starve. each moth wing a shred of apathetic entomology, each swallowtail corpse a relic on frozen ash. we’ve wondered for a while, what your kind really feeds on.

I kiss the paradigm shift bejeweling one’s feet to find out, but hackles rising, he pivots me to a sea so deep the wings transfigure to fins. bubbles scald my lungs like I had never nearly drowned; perhaps I shouldn’t giggle so hard in jet black waters.

the morning’s a merry-go-round in blue and pallid, like the bruises on my arms outlining his grip; alive and unbound. plankton feeds on my necrosing skin. my heels torch the coral white. his jaw grinds away my fragility.

dream and body juxtaposed, I am indisciplined in the most cherished of ways. my hiccups harmonious, my stillness loud. hurt me now, and the butterflies swarming me will float to you slower, drifted by current, escaping every trap you’ve laid to tell you goodbye.

I'll bid farewell so quietly you’ll hear hellfire on my hands pop open sulfur vents on the seafloor louder. they’d take me higher up, to drying tributaries where nobody’d mind a few blisters, not on the ocean's beloved arsonist.

but you’d die amidst your prey. cold trench and charred weed round your feet.

careful, hunter.

the skies and the forests burn lucid, too.

[neurocircus]

"rudra,

alleyway agony, 2020

oil on canvas"

you cajole me into a jinxed innocence, blue little hut left on the last gali with red handprints on the wall. blooming novice, sure words and guised surprise with a ribbon loose round my hair, barely keeping it up.

the cosmos flutters delirious right under. don't seal me closed. I console the half hearted stitches with the touch of silk against wound. the ribbons are changed morning and night to keep away intimacy.

a willing diver or not, the fear always hurts more than the water. the skin prickles before it has any reason to be cold. ears ring before the depth barges in. I dream of tracing your palms before I hold them in mine.

someone told me once, soul sleeping in ashes, that you think with your eyes. they widen nowhere and everywhere, chasing ghosts, painting lovers, running cross mosaic floors. 

your mind is splattered over the shower curtains, tile and glass, all set to crack, because you can’t think with your eyes closed. your sadness an empty carousel, your misgiving a venus fly trap.

when you cry, the only thoughts lost are pictures. pictures sell for ten rupees at the corner’s chaiwala, five on the museum road.

I beg to learn slow, lines so intricate, all wrong, looped into a vast dearth of color you jerk my hands away from. you tell me to imagine darkness while the sky's still violet and your cheeks still pink. my lie's papyrus smooth- fraying voice, burnt edge, I believe it myself.

and so the blue hut drowns in both water and shadow. I feel a kiss at the back of my screaming head; the cosmos has offered to gulp down the city. you believe everything you see but me.

playtime held and tongue tied, I gulp, anything to lessen doom; stone, rubble, gas and bullets, my stomach lurches with all things heavy broken and used, yet everything, everything, drowns in one night.

come daylight the drains become a horde of corpses, eyes rolled back, too careful to meet another. these don't think. take them to the blind.

the blind scrape lovingly inside me, looking for a tear to escape.

they leave with brimming sockets, awaiting another flood.

[neurocircus]

here's to the maddest hound- for we watched him chase prey to the midgut of a fire and learnt how flames chewed too.