#original prose

[iambrillyant]

“divine timing tastes sweeter than forcing something you’re not ready for into existence.”

— iambrillyant

[judas-redeemed]

THE WORLD IS ENDING by judas h.

[myunspoken-thoughts]

3.24.24

I hope it hurt when you realized you knocked yourself off the pedestal I had you on.

[blushingxpilgrims]

i took the pain of “not meant to be”

and hid it under the guise of poetry

—the guise of poetry, 2023

[khwxbeeda]

At the age of eight, I first learnt jealousy. I learnt it by feeling it, by grabbing it with both hands and tugging it close to my heart; my mother kissed my baby sister's forehead, but not mine. Never mine.

At ten, I learnt betrayal. Someone I though would be a true friend turned her back on me in the blink of an eye, and I spent the days alone, no one to hold hands and laugh with. She walked with the popular crowd, and I walked between the shelves of the library; maybe the books would be better friends.

By the time I turned twelve, I had learnt loneliness. I sat alone at lunch tables in school, I sat alone at the dinner table in my home. My sister was six and a monster for taking away all my parents' love, and my classmates were thirteen or fourteen and monsters for trying to take away my books. It was better to be away than suffer, I decided, and I didn't mind the loneliness much.

Thirteen was the age that taught me sadness. I went to school, studied, came back home, studied, ate, and went to bed. I buried tears and suffocated my crying with my pillows, and woke up with red-rimmed eyes that I ran to hide from my mother, as if she would care enough to ask if she did see them. I cried in the bathroom, my head bent over the sink so I didn't have to look in the mirror and my teeth digging into my bottom lip to stop the sounds from coming out. I learnt to cry silently that year.

Fourteen... was an empty year. There were no more tears left. No more crying. No more sadness or jealousy or anything. I did what I was told to do with a book in one hand and my schoolbag in the other, lips sealed shut and face cast in marble. No one wanted to know what I had to say, I did not want to say anything to anyone. (A few years later, I came across an article describing dissociation.)

Fifteen was anger. So much anger. I was angry at everything and everyone; at the world, at my classmates, at my teachers, my parents, my sister. At myself. An eternal fire burned in the back of my throat and in the pits of my heart and it refused to be extinguished: I wanted to scream, wanted to rage, wanted to throw things and destroy everything in my path. I was so so angry, all the time. I read, somewhere, that fifteen was the worst age to be. I pushed the fireball of anger deeper down, and agreed.

At sixteen, I was good at ignoring my thoughts. I looked at the ledge of the roof and turned away; I refused to step within twenty feet of it. I looked at the shine of the knife blade and put it down; I refused to cut fruit and vegetable. I looked at the rope in the corner of the balcony and stepped back into the house; I would not set the laundry out to dry. I buried myself in my textbooks— Physics, Chemistry, Biology, Mathematics, English, Hindi. I got higher marks than I'd ever gotten. My mother ran a hand over my head and smiled at me in a way she hadn't in the last ten years. I flinched away from her touch.

Seventeen... I was in bed. Surgery was nasty business, and throughout the seventeeth year of my life I went through seven of them. I laid in bed, a bandage over my left eye and tears rolling down my right cheek. I'd studied. I'd studied till I collapsed when I was sixteen, but I didn't get to sit for my 12th boards. All my efforts were in vain. At seventeen, I was in bed, and I languished.

Eighteen. Eighteen was the whirlwind year. I sat for my 12th boards but didn't get the marks I hoped for. I forgot that I'd registered for PCM and PCB CET until I got the emails, and then gave up on studying. The results were 95% for both exams. I changed my trajectory, and was granted admission in Fergusson. I yelled at my parents with tears in my eyes and kissed my sister on her forehead with a smile on my face. I made friends. I smiled, I laughed, I talked more and more with each passing month. Eighteen was a whirlwind. Eighteen was good to me.

Now, I am nineteen. Let's see how this year goes, shall we?

Tag list: @orgasming-caterpillar @musaafir-hun-yaaron @hum-suffer @h0bg0blin-meat @yehsahihai @blushlilyyy @budugu

[inrumford]

we are never what we seem. pieces go missing or were never there to begin with. but still, always there is beauty

always, there is you.

always

[rineedagger]

I am sorry, but I don't have time to fight and treat dead things like if they were alive. I'll be the bad one you decide: The bad friend who gave up out of spite (in spite of trying to keep it real, ours), or the bad friend who uses "mental illness" to excuse all the crap.

I won't keep investing when there are no ears to listen the aches of my side. I will maintain my feet on my belief, where oversharing and overexplaining are just as painful and nonsensical as trying to validate myself based of your level (and choosing) of understanding.

Is it even fair to not respect what you can't seem to understand? Wait, I'm remembering just now about how badly we talked behind our friend's back, yeah, the one with a serious mental illness that bothered you just as much because she didn't fit inside your narrowed sight.

Do you expect me to believe that you don't think the same about me, when I've been scolded for been sick? Specially after trying to make me feel bad for "not writing you every day or night" just like "true friends are supposed to do" or "social people does", almost like if there is only one way to do it right.

I deleted all my alibis, forwith I don't seek to be right. I just want to live a healthy, humble and authentic life, and I will never ask you to change for that. I'll leave or I'll stay, but never demand you what doesn't come from your insides.

And yes, I can change my mind and my heart as much as I decide. I don't need anyone's permission for that. Hell, I can't conceive a life without doing that. I am who I am now, but there has been many more, and I am proud for that.

There is only one person who deserves to cut my tongue and keep my mouth shut. To kneel for and apologize (yes, I've been mean and unkind). And it isn't your eyes the ones the ones that come to mind.

I am sorry to be so personal this time. Yes, I've been unkind, but I'll remain loyal to my heart.

[sumfabula]

i’m not religious but there really is something holy about the sunrise. when you leave your curtains open slightly overnight and then the warm rays cast into your room and over your face, you feel blessed. the dark shadows of the night disappear and everything is still for a second. i think you could gain true consciousness in one of those morning moments with that light in yours eyes, blinding you to the real world but showing you whats inside.

i think i'm going to let the sun melt onto me more often from now on. i want to wear that shining gold and carry it whereever i go.

[opheliapenning]

In these pages, I first understood what it meant to be another person. True empathy. Even if I was just a fledgling being constantly adapting, I could always dip my toes into the lives of others. It wasn’t imagination, as such, because I was there. These characters sunk their teeth somewhere inside my soul, and I was glad of it. No greater teacher existed. 

- Ophelia Penning

[neuroticboyfriend]

the 4:30pm train to [LIFE] is now arriving on track A. please activate e-tickets now. step over the gap when boarding.

the late-autumn sun looks down at you as you trip over the gap. you right yourself and fall down in the nearest open seat. you right yourself again. it's one of those comfy new trains. you relax, a little.

this is the train to [LIFE]. next stop is [SURVIVAL].

you gaze out the window. there are not enough trees, but the sunset is pretty. it would be prettier without all the power lines.

your hands won't stop shaking.

this station is [SURVIVAL]. please step over the gap when exiting the train.

the train doors open with that sliding sound you hate. you look up, and for a moment, begin to stand up. you want to leave, still. but you don't. there's a new fire burning in you. you still want to see what happens next.

the train doors close. you don't mind the sound so much this time.

this is the train to [LIFE]. next stop is [RECOVERY].

turning back to the window, you look out in awe. the suburban village lights glow against that comforting twilight sky. your hands find their way to your phone, and you snap a photo of one of the most beautiful buildings in town. you snap another. and another.

they're all blurry. you feel a sad frustration well up in your chest, but just as quickly, something dawns in you.

life doesn't have to be perfect.

[kaleb-is-definitely-sane]

I languish in aesthetics and words and words and words

[iambrillyant]

“december, close the chapters that don’t speak to my spirit and open up the pages that remind me of who i am. give me the courage to release myself from what i’ve outgrown so i can fit into shoes suited for where my journey is going. balm me in patience and soak my bones in love.”

— iambrillyant

[judas-redeemed]

there is something holy about the grocery store. like there is a version of everyone that only exists in this space. here, angels shrouded in snotty tissues and white pharmacist coats. here, ghosts of mothers reaching for their children's hands in the parking lot, now walking alone. here, an elderly woman telling me about how to check the cantaloupes, her unnecessary kindness a glistening fountain in the midst of a desert. all these strangers, all loved wholly by someone, and cherished in this moment by me. blessed be the tired stranger getting ready for dinner after another 9-5. blessed be the tomatoes and the bright fluorescent lights. blessed be the hanging herbs, the shelves of canned goods, and the basket to carry it all to a new place. blessed be the cashier that checks me out, who is just waiting to go home. blessed be all who are waiting to come home.

[myunspoken-thoughts]

3.28.24

For once, I don’t have this gut wrenching pain in my chest when I think of you. My head isn’t racing with thoughts of you going a million miles a minute. I feel nothing and it feels great.

[blushingxpilgrims]

i’m afraid i’d go too far

just for a chance to be in your arms

—too far, 2023

[khwxbeeda]

Cursed Fruit

For you I'd bite into that cursed fruit.

For you, I'd stare straight into the endless black void of the Unseen Deathless One's eyes and crush the seeds between my molars: once, twice, thrice.

For you, I'd let the sweet tart juice of the pomegranate slide down my throat and trickle down my chin; I'd let it stain me inside and out— the way you have stained me inside and out with your hands and tongue and words, with your love.

My breath is yours to take away, my lips are yours to kiss, as marked by that red, red juice that bursts from the seeds of Death's realm and runs down my throat and coats my lips to trickle down to my chin.

In Life and in Death I am yours, yours, yours.

Yours to do with as you please.

Ask for my love, and I will lay kisses on your lips and your cheeks and your eyelids and your forehead with those same stained lips (you are mine just as much as I am yours). Ask for my loyalty, and I will stand with you, sword raised and your name echoing in my throat like a warcry (people call for their god and I call for mine). Ask for my heart, and I shall rip it out of my ribcage with my bare hands and lay it at your feet (you could ask to be the ruler of the gods and I would find a way).

My love is yours, my loyalty is yours, my heart is yours.

Let the juice of the cursed fruit mark me, let the world see and know, let the colour sink into my skin and flesh and stay there for eternity, till even the Deathless Ones are but a distant memory swallowed up by the passage of time. Let the juice of the cursed fruit claim me in your name.

In Life and in Death, I am yours, yours, yours.

Yours to do with as you please.

.

Tag list: @patriphagy @orgasming-caterpillar @yehsahihai @musaafir-hun-yaaron @hum-suffer @h0bg0blin-meat @kanha-sakhi