ohnoseptember

[ohnoseptember]

Debts & Dreams

Friends I grew up with are now mothers and I’m only praying to become half the woman I always hoped I’d be.

Mom wants me to come home but I doubt if we have enough money to pay for gas for the trip home.

I complain that adulthood is lonely, steering through the dreadful road of avoiding debts and rationing meals for the month till the next pay check comes through.

The childhood of luxury and privilege is a thing of the past, so long gone that I am doing my best not to forget or accidentally repress my best times. Back then, it didn’t feel like it, but now it’s everything to me. I wish I did better and held those memories closer.

I tell my mom on the phone that my kids will never have the same childhood I did. Unambitious father and a mother who dreams too big, it’s the perfect concoction for a marriage that’ll fail in a decade or two. I love him still.

My friends are getting promoted, travelling the world and getting their second degrees from universities I only hear of in movies. Meanwhile, I’m still struggling to find a job off the only degree I got and it’s been 3 years since then.

I blinked, and I’m suddenly in a new apartment with a man sleeping next to me. I blinked, and suddenly I no longer go to Room 418 for morning classes only to end up in a boyfriend’s apartment to get stoned in the afternoon.

I blinked, and suddenly I’m avoiding buying shampoo or going to doctor’s appointments so I can save some money.

I blinked, and I’m suddenly 23 and not 17 anymore. I wasn’t supposed to grow up so fast. I’m trying to be mature but it’s difficult to tame the child within who refuses to grow up. She only wants an ice cream cake but that’s a luxury she can’t afford right now.

Mom used to get me a chocolate cake or brownies each time before an important exam to wish me luck, to help with my stress eating. Dad would get me a large chocolate, a new book and a bottle of Coke for Valentine’s Day. No one will ever love me as much as my parents did.

I know so, because I haven’t been treated to a surprise or a gift since I got married. I haven’t been able to treat myself to something nice either. I can’t afford to restock on my sunscreen, so I use the old expired bottles still. I can’t afford to restock my shampoo or foundation.

It’s difficult staying afloat. But I’ll do my best to swim. I’ll find a way through this and out of this isolating island.

growing pains

[ohnoseptember]

A Whole Year of Nothing

I spent a whole day alone at home. After a very long time.

I got bored too soon, and I find nothing to do. I’ve been mindlessly scrolling through my phone for hours and playing Sudoku. I made myself a quick soup for lunch, at 6pm. And that’s the most productivity I’ve achieved all day. I’m having dinner at 3am and I watched a Christmas movie I had no interest in. I played Sudoku the whole time. I keep thinking I’ll pick up a book or a paintbrush, achieve something before the year ends. I keep thinking I’ll study or clean my wardrobe, get out of a year long rut, this sickening slump where I sleep all the time and do nothing.

I feel like I’ve lost all my friends, and along with it, myself. I’m no longer motivated to do anything. And I’m contemplating having a kid just so that I have something to keep myself busy. I’m thinking of having a kid for all the wrong reasons- so that I’m not alone at home at 2am, so that I have someone to take care of, so that I have someone to keep me in check. All the same selfish reasons I think my mother had me for.

It doesn’t make sense, and I’m convincing myself that before I have a child, I must get back to myself first. I’m rewriting the title of my resolutions list from last year by just changing the last digit in the year. Everything remains the same. It’s the same 5 things- get a driver’s license, start working out, get a job, paint some and read more.

I think the first step is to rid myself of this dependency on social media. I don’t know what the steps after are, but I know that I’m heading nowhere and this isn’t healthy at all. I feel sick all the time. And I hate who I’ve become. I don’t feel proud of myself anymore. I lie about my achievements now, just to make it look like I’ve got something going on in my life. I don’t have any money saved, and my relationship with God seems like a call in vain because I’m farther than ever.

Truth is, for the first time in my life, I spent a whole year doing nothing, having achieved nothing. I hate that of the short time I get to spend on this side of earth, with all this uncertainty, bloodshed and fear, I wasted a whole year. It was an uneventful year and I regret I didn’t do more. I don’t want to write this same thing next year, I don’t want to have the same regrets in 365 days.

I’m frustrated and angry, hearing songs that remind me of a time long gone, reminiscing over a life I no longer live, being nostalgic over love lost, friends gone and places I can’t go back to.

I don’t know what’s next but I hope it’s better than today, yesterday and all the days before.

—

Greener side of the grass?

I have a home. I have a home I love so much, I refuse to leave it and share it with anyone for too long. I am warm, I have food and water, I am safe. I have my family who loves me. I’m constantly afraid I’ll lose them but that’s not for this part of this essay.

The greener side of the grass is much greener than most people get. So I’ll be grateful, and pray I find my way back each time I lose focus.

[ohnoseptember]

birthday (blues) / that time of the year i feel like i am at the bottom of the pit

I turn 23 in 8 days. I’m counting friends like money, I’ve got barely any of either. One best friend I’ve had since school, 7 years of her and I. We’re making plans, but I’m too nervous to say the wrong thing and upsetting her. The second my phone starts dinging with notifications continuously, I immediately pick it up, too afraid to respond to her a little too late and have her mad at me. Or too afraid to miss my father’s death when he lives an hour too long from my place. I’m too nervous to say the wrong thing to the person I say is the love of my life too. In the 2 years I’ve known of him, I’ve always bit my tongue and held back so much. I’ve questioned within if I ever made the right choice marrying him in front of a thousand people on a hot Sunday afternoon. In all honesty, I don’t even remember if it was a Saturday or Sunday. 

Your 20s are supposed to be about liberation and freedom, about loving, losing and learning. My 20s have become about suppressing memories and forgetting everything from yesterday, from a year back, from 5 years back. I don’t remember my wedding, or my graduation. All I remember lately is the people I loved, how much I loved them, how I lost them and this I don’t need to remember because it happens daily, but the hurt from losing them. I remember my cat, being 16 and its parcel of truths and the words to songs I heard first a decade back.

Your 20s are supposed to be about living fearlessly, risking it all and growing. My 20s have become about immediately apologising for mistakes I made and mistakes I didn’t, apologising immediately after a fight that lasts a total of 3 minutes, apologising for being too early or too late. My 20s have become about being too afraid to end the call with my mom without saying I love her, too afraid to sleep upset with the man who won’t remember why I got mad in the first place by the time he wakes up, too afraid to step out of my house and wanting to stay alone all the time. 

I’m counting health issues like regrets, I’ve got plenty of both. Jobs, houses, kids and I feel too young to be wondering about any of this. A loveless marriage where I blow my candles in secret because he has decreed that "birthday" is a forbidden word, and an illicit affair that only sees me when the whole city sleeps and the only sound is of the keys unlocking the gate, they go hand in hand it seems.

Every year, September comes and I see people I look up to celebrate their lives, their art. I am reminded why I love this month so much, the joy of sharing a month with people who don’t know me but I feel like I’ve known them my whole life, the despair of turning older but not any happier, the happiness of being safe, secure and a family that loves me, the grief of all the piling regrets and unaccomplished resolutions and goals. 

It’s tiring being 23 already, and I’ve still got 8 days left. 

I’ll make more resolutions, and tell myself it’ll get better although my brain has convinced itself it won’t. It doesn’t know what "better" is. 

Maybe this is as good as it gets, and if it is, I’ll be grateful regardless. I’ll learn to be grateful. 

And if it’s meant to get better, I’ll wait patiently and pray I make the right choices. 

The number 23 feels scary, daunting, mournful and no good emotions so far. I don't want to be alone for what feels like a walk through a horror house. I'm not, I'll tell myself. I'll read myself bedtime stories, dream of more tales when I make my own birthday cake, and come up with cliffhangers as I cook my birthday dinner.

I'll be eating alone on a Friday night at home, I'll hear jazz and I'll sleep early.

This is 23, my loneliness loves it and hates it.

[ohnoseptember]

dried ink vs a forever story

I’m writing an album, I think. It’s six songs, and I’m reminded of the letters we used to write each other in high school. 

I’m painting the perfect picture. I’m making a key lime pie in the kitchen and you’re on the desk doing what you always do. We’re singing. Well, I’m singing and you’re humming the guitar riffs. We’re dancing. Well, I’m dancing and you’re playing an invisible Fender. 

I’m writing you a letter, like I always did in summers. I moved to a city so cold that it wouldn’t remind me of the summers we spent in another country loving each other. But you followed me here, and now there’s not a single season that doesn’t remind me of you. In the monsoon, when you came to my house drenched from the rain, I gave you a towel and my hairdryer so you could dry yourself quicker. You left your shirt to dry in my living room under the fan, but it did no good 4 hours later. I gave you my sweatshirt and you’ve still got it. 

We’re always running back and forth, 8 years now. But the farther I push you away, the more I think about you. 

I’m writing now, I mix a little fantasy with the reality to get the best story. My reality lately is beautiful but mundane, it’s the stuff that happens after “happily ever after”. And let’s be honest, no one wants to read about the boring Wednesday night I spend at home making biscuits and watching a sitcom in my bed. The story is a little toxic now, but it’s at the level of 4 shots of vodka in, drunk but not hammered. I’m almost at the edge wanting to take a few more shots and falling asleep at the bar, but I want to see you more. I want to stay awake and watch you get lost in the music, dancing with your head up and eyes closed. I’ve seen that happen twice, with two different men, and each time I fell in love a little too hard. You’re the third one now, when really you should have been the first one. 

I want to stay awake and see you looking at me from across the room. Sometimes, we’re the only ones here and sometimes, it’s a crowded room. But each time you look at me, I know you’ve loved no one else and I know I’ll always love you. But that’s just the difference between you and I. 

You get mixed up with work and your priorities are money and family. And mine will always be love and a good fucking story. You’ll move on and won’t notice I left somewhere along the line. And I’ll stay and reminisce when I should really be doing some laundry and love the man I’m supposed to love. You’ll meet a new girl on a dating site and think you’re in love with her, but when I’m back, you’ll realise what I’ve felt all along for you. And we both will know that’s mutual; we look for each other in new people only to have been failing for a decade. We will keep pushing each other away and hate cities that built us and changed us. You’ll say to me that I’m in love with the version of you from when we were 15, but I loved every change and every new page you turned. I loved you through your worst habits, and moments that scared me sometimes. 

Someone will read this and think it was written for them, think that this random person on the internet knows them better than they know themselves. But they don’t know that I haven’t written a word in over a year, and in this drought, this came to me like an oasis. 

I’m making tartlets now. A buttery and flakey crust that takes its time to turn into the beautiful golden pastry that it does, 30 minutes in the refrigerator, 10 minutes in the freezer and 20 minutes in the oven. I pipe some coconut custard that took a few short minutes to bring to life, but all my sweat and focus to make sure I don’t ruin it. I toast some shredded coconut in the oven and it turns into beautiful golden sand. When I’ve assembled it right in time for my parents’ anniversary, I think about you. You’d ask for pictures and a bite of it. We make plans to spend a day together, it never comes. So I mix a little fantasy with reality, and the coconut tartlet turns into a meal we never get to eat. 

I haven’t been to my balcony since the last time you came. I’m scared you’ll notice, but you never really do. You haven’t been here and I’m running out of fantasies to build a story with. 

I’ll move to a new city to get away from you but even with all your things gone, you’ll follow me there too and I’ll begin to hate my insides because it carries you along like a journal or precious jewellery. 

I’m dancing and you’re on the couch drinking. It’s 10pm and the pizza is getting cold, the same music plays on loop and you tell me to hear the guitar. And ever since that moment, I never bothered with the lyrics again. It’s always been the music. 

[ohnoseptember]

the c word

your genetia violet painted wound haunts me day and night

yellow and pink flesh peeking through your skin like it’s seeing earth side for the first time

carefully i dab in medicine and you wince and whimper but it isn’t your fault

this isn’t a wound from a silly fall or a lazy move that saves time

this is a disease we hush each other about, like whispering it’s name cancels its existence

it’s our curse that’ll follow us forevermore and pinch us even on our happiest days

i’m sorry it had to be you, i’m sorry it was us

but when violet seeps through your skin and doesn’t wash off so easily,

all our arguments vanish into thin air and i’ve got a safety kit ready

and i’ve packed all the wrong things, from a lover to a knife, a child in the passenger seat and a gun in the back to an easel and my favourite spatula

this doesn’t mean my goodbyes live under the sleeve of my t-shirt

it simply means that i sleep with my life jacket on now

and it’s uncomfortable and painful, but neither my life nor my love will die with you

i will paint myself with the same violet that sits on your wound,

but when it washes off of me, i’ll be more than a painted canvas being scraped at at the ends

//

this is maybe one of my favourite things i’ve ever written because of how personal it is to me. please treat it with the same gentle care and love it took me to birth it.

also, fuck cancer.

[ohnoseptember]

a stale meal called “friendship”

All my friendships feel like a car stuck in the weekend traffic. I’m not sure exactly how to explain it except that it feels like I’m at a standstill with my friends. It all feels like the grey clouds before a shower but the light is still peeking through. And you’re expecting it to rain but it never does. It’s just cold and breezy.

It feels like the moment when a very long queue moves a little but it isn’t fast enough. It feels like those awkward pages in my sketchbooks with drawings I began and never completed, or paintings that are beautiful but still so empty. They have a story yet feel devoid with all that space in between.

It feels like that one pencil that’s been overused in a box of color pencils and I always have to search for it, or a tube of paint I have to squeeze on as hard as possible. I could just buy a new one, but I don’t want to.

It feels like the moment between an instant and a delay. It feels like waiting for your turn to order as the waiter goes around the table asking everyone, and you’re not the last one but it feels like forever till the waiter gets to you. It feels like the moment between lighting a candle and getting to eat the cake.

It feels like boredom and excitement at the same time. Perhaps it’s the uncertainty of tomorrow. But we’ve said our goodbyes so many times that even our heartfelt displays of affection no longer feel as deep as they’d despite all the unpredictability. I’m in a moment called “in between”. I’m on transit from a location I knew to a location I have no clue of. It does not scare me or excite me. It bores me.

I had several moments of anxiety as well as curiosity. Now my jolts of fear and rushes of adrenaline have worn down and all that remains is a girl sitting at a dinner table with a rusty spoon and knife in hand and a plate catching dust. Whenever the meal is ready, I will awaken my hunger, that is if it still is alive. Until then, I’ll find a spot at the table to catch a quick nap. It isn’t comfortable at all, but there’s not much else to do.

why is everything so “go big or go home” / “all or none” with me? i do not know of moderation, and perhaps it is the disease that will kill me. always black and white, can never be grey, guess i’ll forever be swinging from one extreme to the other, never settling and never resting.

[ohnoseptember]

motherhood / childhood

Cries in my arms

Wails and sobs and begs to be held

I’ve never seen her like this

Has someone died?

Is it father?

My mother, the embodiment of resilience and perseverance

The portrait of a childhood stolen only to return as she crosses 50

Her hair doesn’t grow but it’s darker than mine; ebony runs deep but stops at her feet

They curl and you couldn’t run a comb through them

A small diamond sits on her nose, encrusted in her skin as a memory of her only child

She could cradle me and feed me, but all the years I’ve spent sleeping next to her and all the memories we’ve built together,

Still wouldn’t be enough for her to take off that stone

She blames it on father, says he likes it

I’m reminded of the person she is in such moments

Who is my mother if not a caricature of everything my father likes? Who is my mother by herself, in her youthful spirit?

Her tantrums have welcomed themselves back home, and father and I treat them delicately

We fulfil their every demand and wipe their every tear, like my mother’s mother would have, it’s our right we thought

So she cries

Not of pain, not of joy

She cries because the television won’t work and she won’t speak to father about it

I gently help her up and begin to dial numbers on my phone, solutions brewing in my head

But I’m careful around her, I want her to know she’s welcome and I’ll always do anything for her

Like she’d do to me

And like her mother did to her

My mother is a lost child finding her way back home

Her parents might be long gone but I’ll always have a warm cup of tea ready for her when she trods along the muddy streets,

Just the way her mother made.

[ohnoseptember]

old lovers

A childhood pet dies

Seeded and planted, grown and cultivated

In an extraordinaire mind of a boring life

Simple details, yet extravagant

From dancing under yellow light

To days on green vision

Rum infused days and unholy nights

The lights keep changing

But this plant doesn’t stop growing

Buses come to a halt and you walk

You’re wearing silk

Soaked in the sunlight

You meet a woman like you / you like

In her eyes, a fountain you could drink from

She looks past you

Months later, you’re still finding condom wrappers

And you’re wondering if you’re awake

Everything seems all too unreal

But you’ve been sober for over a year

Yet this is as delusional as you’ve ever been

You’ve dreamt of far more realistic things

But you don’t recognise this person you see anymore

She’s got the same hair and eyes as you

Yet she’s brand new

You’re writing this poem for you

Remind yourself, you’re not old lovers or experiences

You’ll never be the person tomorrow that you were today

You’ll always be evolving and growing

[ohnoseptember]

richest person in the world

(from my diary)

"I haven't had a life I enjoyed", I thought 5 minutes ago. But now I write this, a reminder to myself:

Dear me, I know we've always dreamt of nothing less than three degrees, a luxury all black sedan to drive and that red house on the hill. I know we dream of a holiday home countryside with a backyard as big as the home we live in currently and a pool we'd never go into, except for the occasional feet dipping.

We may or may not ever see those riches come to life. All those Gatsby themed parties and straight out of Architectural Digest homes, we may never see.

But God, our life has been so rich of feeling. Our heart never tires of hurting, healing and loving. And it feels so so so good to love and to be loved. This insanity and the pain that comes with this sort of love, no car or house could replace the sheer cosmic power of it.

All my heart and all its love, you could rip open and splatter across every wall you find. There would never be enough homes to paint with all this love in my heart. No roof could provide me shelter and warmth like a kiss could. I'm a shameless thief, for all his kisses belong to me and I snatch them like it's my livelihood.

Dear me, We are the richest person in the world. And no one can steal our money. This money, we will carry to the grave with us.

//

[ohnoseptember]

Ageing Backwards (with you)

When I look up, you open my eyes and there’s a big smile inviting me to bed. In between inside jokes, clashing legs under the table and giggling like we’re kindergarteners, I’m still finding words to call you my lover, my best friend. I shift food to your plate when I’m full and steal your blanket from under you despite having my own.

Everything intolerable seems bearable now and everything that was good before, is now blissful beyond belief. You take away all my doubts and questions, and replace it with certainty and promise. Where you end, I begin, and in your wholeness, lies my home. I am free as long as I’m with you and I’m happier when you’re with me. It’s always spring in our bedroom; never-ending tulips blooming and sunshine pouring in like it rains in monsoon.

You put me to sleep and watch me awake, you dance with me and I lie in your embrace. You sit in stillness and perfect silence, and I’ve never seen something so beautiful. I trace the moles on your face and the way your nose is carved so perfectly, the creases around your eyes and the violet in your lips, how your hair begin where your beard ends, scars from old falls and bruises from new beginnings.

You place your hand on my back in public, and crowded rooms no longer seem as scary. I watch you walk in and out of rooms, you may go unnoticed but my eyes never leave you. I can hear your whispers from afar and it echoes in the hallways of my heart, room after room dedicated to loving you. It’s a simple affair but when I sleep next to you, silence has never felt so comforting. Hearing you breathe is now my favourite song and the way your hands play with mine, my heart could go on.

In the simple things you do, like buttoning your shirt or combing your hair, typing away on your laptop or walking down the stairs, I blush. I can hear love bouncing off the walls within me and it stays contained, but begs to be let out. I’m bursting at the seams and I don’t know what lies beyond the edge, but I’d blindly jump in to see more of you.

In the moments you don’t look, I can’t take my eyes off you. And each time that you do look, my heart silently prays, that it’s the same everyday for the next 60 years and some more. My heart loudly begs to be loved and to love the same for each day that we both continue to live. To turn grey with you but still stay so young, to rejoice in the saying “age is just a number”, to be frail yet dance and look our silliest, it’s all I ever want now.

This is my interlude, and perhaps it lasts forever. We’ll forever be this young and I’ll always sing this song; of how I love you.

a little love song

[ohnoseptember]

i had to get this off my chest, i hope you never see this.

Dear ____,

In my head, I’ve written to you so many letters, we lose track of what’s been said and what’s left unsaid.

Soon, it’ll be 2 years since…

Well, since the day we chose to celebrate our love on each year. For all we knew, we had loved each other all our lives. We couldn’t choose a day. So we chose the day right after Valentine’s. It felt right then.

I think I’ll write to you each year. I might never send them but I’ll hold these letters close to my heart, closer to memory. And in my head, I’ll always come up with new stories where our paths cross again, years from now. Whether it’s at a college reunion, or at the opening of the store you’ve dreamt of for years, I’ll recognise your wild laugh from afar and my hellos will sober up, my feet will grow softer.

It won’t be “love” then. It’ll be something in between “love” and “memory”. It’ll be a feeling that can only be described as- ghastly.

I picture us, having met after years of no voice on either line. A conversation or two where we catch up on everyone’s well-being and careers. I ask about your dog, you ask me about my mother. I ask about your friends, you ask about my studies. You question if I ever got my masters degree and I wonder if and when you got your first tattoo, and just what it is. I ask if your brother found his way to America, if he got his happy ending, and you ask me about my brother and that you see him online sometimes.

Hours later, we’ll be in our own separate rooms and a feeling would’ve followed us to bed.

That ghastly feeling, where it doesn’t hurt anymore but it doesn’t make us happy either. Where it weakens us to our knees but no tears really come. Where our hearts aren’t yelling and fists aren’t bleeding. Where we simply exist, and there’s a prick; like a hole in the wall and water starts to leak and drip. Where we only pray that this leak doesn’t flood the whole damn city and we can go back to our lives as normal; or we wake up one morning and it’s all spontaneous but we’re packing our bags and looking up flights.

That ghastly feeling follows us and haunts us and could ruin us. It’s an omen. It’s a shadow that could make or break us.

But in the present, here and now, I’m with you but only miles apart. There’s still silence on either side of the line and I can’t remember the last time we said our “I love yous”. In the present, I watch a movie and I can almost hear your commentary interrupted by your laugh. We’re on the phone and having a virtual date, watching a movie in a language you don’t understand, solely because you liked one of the songs from the soundtrack. You laugh and I have to rewind 10 seconds because I like paying attention to every detail. A 2 hour movie turns into 4 hours and it’s late, but you never get tired no matter how long your day had been.

You’d like this movie, I think.

In the present, I’m thinking of all the people you called “friends” but never really trusted. They took you for granted. But you always stayed. I’m afraid of my trembling hands that won’t think but instantly dial your number in a crisis, because after all, yours is the only number I still have memorised after my parents’.

In the present, I’m counting down the days with you and I remember everything like it was yesterday. I was washing my face and I found myself smiling as I remembered how you moved to a better apartment so I wouldn’t complain of dust anymore. I remember the bed you got, a bed big enough to take up all the space in your tiny bedroom. All so we could both sleep in on early Wednesday mornings when classes were slow and breakfast almost absent.

I remember you fondly, despite everything that’s happened since those late January sunsets from the terrace in your flat. I thought I’d be left with bitter memories and all the things you did that I hated. But our brains are a funny thing and I can no longer remember just why and how you got me so angry at times.

I remember you fondly, the way I wish I remembered old friends that I lost to scandals and my cat that I lost to illness. I remember you fondly, like if we met tomorrow, I wouldn’t hesitate to shake your hand, smile at you and ask about your mother.

Loving you felt like time had stopped just for us. I’d spend the whole day with you and look forward to the next, just to spend more time with you; whether it was doing laundry, or doing skin care, or cooking or even just sleeping in. There were no obligations or deadlines or responsibilities to get to. There was no “time’s up”. There was no reason to get out of bed ever. It was just us, even in a crowded room. Love doesn’t feel the same for me anymore. By 2pm, there’s lunch to worry about and by 7pm, there’s work to get to. 8am classes to attend and an exam in a month that costs me my future.

I miss how everything in our relationship felt like a vacation, a constant rendezvous. Like in our own bubble, we had nothing to do but spend our money eating and drinking. I wanted for us to have one day of being Jay Gatsby, but I never realised that our whole relationship was a party every single day where you and I were the hosts as well as the guests.

The real world calls both you and I now. It’s a call we can no longer ignore.

I don’t love you anymore. It’s true.

But I don’t hate you either.

I do hate a lot of your habits and the vile man you become when you’re too consumed by your grief.

But I couldn’t possibly ever hate you.

I hate that about me. Because, sometimes, I do feel that you know of that very fact and play my cards against me.

I couldn’t thank you enough for all the love and friendship I found in you. We never had a “happy ending”. Perhaps, that’s a hoax.

I don’t love you but I do remember you fondly. I’ll always remember you.

I hope you do too.

Sincerely,

N.

PS: I dreamt of you today. You rescued me from the fire but eventually you disappeared into the smoke and I never found you again. I hope you're okay.

[ohnoseptember]

Dear God, I’m Sorry

I remember each time my mother put her hand on my forehead But I forget all the times she cried God when I wept Perhaps it is because with Him I have a love and hate relationship And I’ve only looked up to him when my cat was sick

I played Him in my room to protect this bear looking creature from evil eye But never realised that He should’ve been the one to think about each time I cry

I’m working to quit making this another one of my conditional relationships But I’ve always known love to be a barter and I find myself often drawing up lists

Pros and cons, and truth or false, never have I known what it means to be “selfless” Love always came with a consequence and always went leaving behind a mess

I’m holding on to my cards but I so badly want to bet that this one won’t be as bad There’s only me in this relationship and if it goes wrong, I might just be mad

God, I know I’m all over the place and I know I come and go But boy am I glad that your doors never close

I know I’ve sinned and I know I’ll never understand why all this spite But I beg of you to look at me, after me, and maybe one day, forgive me with all your might

I want to leave all this behind, like the days gone by and the nightmares forgotten Dear God, I’ve come once again, your weak soldier and to you I always return

I am but a speck, a furious transgressing product of this monotonous society I haven’t lost all hope yet but I’m angry and sad and power hungry

Dear God, look at me, and help me, for I want to turn this “against the law of nature” Into something that redefines all these shackling and toxic nomenclature

Dear God, I’m sorry, I’ve come once again, your wavering servant Perhaps this is the last time, because I plan to stay and this time I’m adamant

Dear God, will there ever be a prayer expressive enough for this string of apologies? Dear God, teach me a way to correct all my mistakes, so I may tell my sorries.

Dear God, I’m sorry.

(Un)faithfully yours, A moth having walked through the flame.

[ohnoseptember]

A Letter to Loneliness

I found you when I felt whole. Just the way I found you when I was home. You followed me to the stage. And walked with me through my rage.

I turned corner after corner, thinking I’d lose you on 22nd, drunk in a bar with strangers for friends.

Only for you to jump on me on the 23rd, reminding me no amount of fiction or non-fiction could fix this omen.

So I took an underpass and chose to carry you with me. I gave you something to play with- a rattle and each time it shook, it sang, “I don’t need anyone.” You laughed like a toddler invested in nothingness. So I infantilised you and gave you toy after toy- a xylophone with names of friends for chords, a train of photos and videos that looped around the same tracks and a storybook that never ended.

Until you grew up to resemble me.

And when I could finally recognise myself, I grieved with you, cradled you and laid with you till I found comfort in your company. I realised as I shared the same pillow with you, that in your presence, I am more humble. I am more human.

You’ll always be the first child I cared for and looked after. And in this adaptation of “motherhood”, you teach me more than I teach you. You cheer for me from the bleachers and when I no longer can, you carry me to the finish line.

In this interpretation of “mother”, you tell me to take care of myself.

[ohnoseptember]

things i did to move on: an experiment under trial

This is the hardest goodbye I have had to say

This is the worst story I’ll ever write

I thought removing songs from my playlist that reminded me of you Would help me forget and move on But then there came new songs and your voice in my head playing on loop that hurt more

I thought putting all your belongings, all the clothes and things you gave me in a box Would help me not hurt anymore But then I didn’t have the strength to separate my skin from bone

I thought not reading poetry or checking my social media Would help me stop looking for you in every line and every text But then your face followed me even in my sleep and now all I can taste is salt

I thought stopping taking pictures of every celebration and every little moment Would help me to stop wanting to run to you first thing just to show you a picture of my cat But that left me scared of my own reflection and all the more scared to be alone in a silent, empty room

I thought blocking you from everywhere Would help me stop waiting for your reaction But then now I’m expecting you to still show up someway or the other

I thought quitting writing about you Would help me from this writer’s disease And that’s the last thing left, so expect this to be my last poem, not just about you, but for as long as it takes.

//

until next time folks!

stay safe, stay healthy and stay blessed <3

[ohnoseptember]

rum on a thursday night

Dear you,

You’ve always been sweet, kind and clueless You never understood that love is going the extra mile even when someone isn’t looking So while you sat in the bliss of knowing everything, I took a little trip to your blind spot and left you a guitar I missed hearing you play on the phone for me in the dead of the night So I went to your home and your cook smiled at me, she didn’t mind me there I told her I’d be back later and she laughed at me as I struggled carrying your broken down guitar When I went back, your guards smiled at me like they missed having me home, Like I came back from a quick holiday and they’re celebrating my homecoming. I left you a guitar and wrote you a letter but couldn’t find the courage to leave it behind “Find your song.” That’s all I wanted to tell you, and maybe in that song, I hope you found your love for me. And I’m finally finding it in me, to acknowledge how much I love you.

Dear you,

I talked to your girlfriend long before she belonged to you She was into girls but when I learned that you had feelings for her, I chose to be selfless one last time for you. I told her about how everything feels heavenly when it comes to you I told her how much you make me smile and how you see right through me I told her how you feel like sugar, honey, spice and cinnamon during winter much like that night in December I don’t think she understood just how much I loved you Because I never did. You misread me constantly now, and she knows how to turn sugar into salt I haven’t spoken to you in 3 months, and I feel a spectrum of moments, Stitched together like they’ll fill the void in me that you left behind But hope is bleak, and the light you left behind, even bleaker.

Dear you,

You’re miles away now and I will never find it in me to tell you this, I left you all those letters that you couldn’t understand And the truth is, I still write to you But I never find it in me to mail them to you You hear me now, when I’m drunk And understand that I need love to feel alive once again But you’ll never understand that you’re my choice of simile Where I compare every single person I meet, and every fleeting moment of joy with your sheer existence I confess, I’m jealous and I’m possessive I confess, but I’ll never apologize For this attachment I have with everything that spells out your name White or black, rum always reminds me of all the love I had and lost. Sometimes, I wake up saying your name and that’s how I know That I could travel as far as the edge of our galaxy But when I do look, the initial of your name will be written into my hand, Like I was born with it, Like I’ll die with it. After all, I live and die for love, and hopeless are the habits of my heart.

-N.

[ohnoseptember]

Project! *SUBMISSIONS REQUIRED*

Love is subjective and interpretations of it differ from person to person. Its variance is coherent to the simple fact that no two stories are the same.

My new project aims at depicting moments of love in its purest form through various art forms.

So tell me the moment, an anecdote or a story when you could feel love, any kind of love. Doesn't have to be just romantic love, could be the love of a friend or a stranger, a place, a food item, a pet or an experience. Just a moment when that feeling of “love” resembled so much like “home” and it all felt peaceful within.

Describe what, how, who or where you feel “love” (for).

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You can submit via this link: https://forms.gle/sZSTaW6gSMz61zb79

Alternatively, you could comment your moments or submit anonymously via the "Ask me anything" tab on my Tumblr. Or if you're curious and want to learn more, you can always ping me! Excited to read everyone's stories and moments of wholeness 💟

[ohnoseptember]

June

I cannot lie

I miss you

I haven’t written about you in so long

Maybe that’s why I’m worried about you

I hope you’re happy

June,

Every year you come and go

Every year I’m in love

Or at least think I am

June,

You’re painful

You hurt a lot more than you did the last time

I can’t remember what happened before I slept last night

Or anything from the last 3 months

Or even the last 3 days

Still, when I read everything I wrote about you,

It all feels like yesterday

June feels like it was yesterday

-N.