Razia.

[a-small-startup]

To think of it,

I feel I've never been this lonely before.

I've never felt this away from home before.

Maybe it's because I live with another human

Who has a functional family and friends he can go to.

Maybe because I see him making plans, missing people and being there for family.

Maybe because I see them hold him tight.

I've never felt the darkness like this before.

The way the light is shining so far, that when I look the other side.

I see laughter, joy and kinship.

I'm not jealous. I'm not envious. I'm just sad I'm not there holding their hands.

I feel the wind that once blew on my face,

The warmth of the ocean and the joy in those hugs.

I feel the distance from the shore, to the sea and the seamen.

I look at the people beside me. I'm eternally grateful, but I miss those that were once mine.

I've never felt this lonely before.

I've never felt this away from home before.

[a-small-startup]

I have met the demons in me

At first, they came as a resort to the discomfort

Now they seem to haunt me

day and night.

While I sit at my desk and start crying,

they seem to add fuel to the fire

I see them running around in my head,

stomping my feelings and fears

I see them running around in my house,

I see them sipping tea amidst the chaos they seem to have created

I see them everyday; I see them everywhere; I see them in me.

I see them breaking glass and walking on the shattered pieces

I meet the devil in me everyday

[a-small-startup]

Bon Appétit

I haven't tumbled here in a while. I haven't written a story in a while. Not only that, but I look at old poems and think of storing them somewhere. I look at the ways in which I have narrated stories and I save them to watch later. I look at the scribblings at the back of my notebook, but before I could finish reading them, the to-do list from the front pages start haunting me. Furthermore, I open my laptop to look for some inspiration to write, you see I haven't written in a while. But then I lose the confidence to write. The “Tha ka dhi mi, tha ka ju nu” notes my roommate sings for the kids of her classical dance class rings in my head as I try to find a subject to write about. The tabs open in my laptop reminds me of the work I have to finish before the dawn of tomorrow, because Human Resources has asked me to finish tasks and have a new reporting format. But then I want to write. I want to write the same way Julia cooks in the film Julie and Julia; or is it Julia and Julie. It's my favourite film, and yet I keep forgetting the name.

I try to play a film in the background, some music that plays through my phone, Excel sheets and presentation decks, phone calls and emails. I'm multitasking, I tell myself. I've been multitasking for so many years, that somewhere I forgot how to perform just one task at a time.

I'm making tea and there's an episode of some random show playing in the background. I'm doing the laundry and there is music playing from my room. I'm bathing and in-between shampoo getting into my eyes and trying to balance on one foot I hear Sheldon Cooper explaining the theory of asymmetry.

I'm also a mental health professional, while I keep telling my clients to not google their symptoms, I struggle to restrain myself from self diagnosing.

The phone chimes and I know it's my best friend from miles away telling me her day went equally bad and at the end of the day we'll video call each other just to say “Life sucks (Exclamation point)”

I know I'm deviating from what I started writing about, I have no idea what I'm writing about. I think of sending the link to my partner once I finish posting this, but then there is a voice in the corner of my head that says I'll not post this, that I'll do Ctrl+A and click delete.

I know I shouldn't. It's after ages I decide to write, why shouldn't the world see it. At this point, you would be wondering why did I break into a new paragraph, do I have something to say? Am I changing the subject? Maybe yes. Because as I write this, I think of the first post I made somewhere in October 2017, and I can see the spelling and grammatical errors on that post. Not saying there aren't any now. By this time, all the above paragraphs have 5+ errors. The multiple grammar tools on my windows have come up, shooting red lines on the error. I ignore it for now. I can proofread much later.

So, what am I writing? I'm writing about not writing. I'm writing about having hated the urge to get my writing validated from strangers online, who have now become acquaintances. I'm writing about how my Instagram page is now non-existent and my Tumblr page had long died. But I will still shout to the world and tell them that I have gone back to writing, that I will write on a random day after a random period of time.

Adiós reader!

[a-small-startup]

I plug in my earphones with no music switched on

The night slowly turned mellow.

The embrace of my best friend's mother

and the timing of my google photo notifications

just feels like a hug and a salp at the same time.

I gaze at pictures of the sky,

my phone chimes again

It's the reminder I had set to call my parents.

I swipe it away and brush off my thoughts

I do not have the energy to dial the number

and deal with both of them.

I continue looking at the image from last year,

a time when I was at a stranger's house

as I didn't wanna go home

I saw how juggling between multiple things,

multitasking, studying and working

were all pins to my shoulder

pinned with pride and a pinch of salt.

I remember how I was happy for the lack of time

to think, to feel and to contemplate.

But then going home, going back to that house

having to live with the person

whose house I left years ago.

scared me in a way I didn't know of

It made me want to leave even before reaching

It made me want the plane to crash

the car to stumble

the road to split.

It scared me that staying under the same roof

would scratch wounds that had become scars

would lead to conversations that would end to fights

I reached the building she called home and I called house

I remember how she would want to embrace me in a hug and I'd stand still

I remember how she wanted to know the people in my life

and how she wasn't a part of it

I remember how she had faded from all of it

While I stab my toe on the way to find my notebook to scribble this down

My phone chimes of the reminder to sleep

I still stare at the notification.

I miss the person I don't want in life.

[a-small-startup]

I woke up to bad news today,

I slept with my head spinning, when the world and my cozy little cocoon, both shattered.

I saw the disclaimer on the Instagram story.

Yet, I choose to watch it.

I twisted and turned in my bed, my last alarm rang. I had to leave or I'd be late for work.

I drag myself to the shower, the drops of water started dripping, my shoulder getting drenched. Drop by drop. Like people falling off an airplane

I came out, wore my cutest shirt, a gift from a rather someone. My eyes went moist. I picked up my hairbrush, hoping to brush more than my hair.

I packed my lunch box, made a face when there was upma for breakfast, ate cold cornflakes watching something funny on Netflix.

I rush to office, take my laptop out. The charger that'll sustain the day. My red thermal coffee flask with the black coffee for the day, the blue book and a pen I borrowed from someone.

I sit down, let out a sigh, and switched on my laptop to an array of emails to reply to.

Why are people working beyond work hours I wondered, maybe I should too, I thought for a second.

The sticky notes on my laptop reminded me of my two other jobs, with broken earphones, the day drifted without music to shush my thoughts. Someone passes the hallway wearing the same perfume that a boy I knew wears. Shattered promises, lucid dreams fake smiles and bike rides all rushed to my head.

In a rather larger, emptier office I started communicating to innamimate things and cleared the notifications of burning forests, dying animals and women in veils.

I haven't been able to eat. I haven't been able to sleep. My head questioning everything everyone did.

While I've come back to my rather comfortable room, cold milk, gazal songs and some cigarettes I move time to another day for some better food and strong coffee.

My phone beeps, i slide the notification and lie down on an empty terrace with sounds of traffic, a dog barking on the corner of the street and a thousand thoughts.

[a-small-startup]

Wounds

While I cry myself to sleep once again.

I look up and the clock says 3am.

It's been a while since I've had a proper sleep cycle.

While somedays I sleep by 5 or 6 in the morning,

The other days I don't sleep at all.

Sometimes it's the haunting loneliness that blares up as a wound

Other times it's the thought of people I've lost

Friendships and love forgone, most times it's the fear of missing someone again.

While I delete contacts and mute statuses on social media. I still go back to my gallery to look at pictures of us together.

It feels like bandaids on wounds I only revisit again.

Sometimes I stalk the ex who left me for someone else

Other times it's the once bestfriend I'm sure who doesn't remember I exist.

Telling myself I'm better off without toxic people in life

I hug my little panda doll from when I was 10 years old

And cry myself to sleep, thinking of all the wounds my people gave, all the people I've lost and those who left me behind.

I close my eyes, the cellphone chimes.

It's all a vicious cycle again

Image from: Razia @a-small-startup

[a-small-startup]

The mirror

Tiny little toes, 10 little fingers and she learns to stand.

With that chubby cheek and the diaper, it was more like a duck racing around.

She starts running because, she might fall anytime now, and wants to cover as much as possible.

She turns around and finds this beautiful little kid staring back at her,

Looks up and finds her mother staring at her,

She rushes to hug her mother, but her nose hits the solid screen

The mirror.

She doesn’t realize then, that at one point in life she’ll hate looking into that

The mirror.

High school was supposed to be fun

Crushes and girl gangs were the things shown on those romcoms

She hates those movies now.

While she developed early, her breasts were her biggest enemies

The girls in her class started calling her names, and

She felt guys only liked her for that

Every day she looked into that opaque thing and hated every inch

The extra skin, being fat, and those stretch marks

She hated them all

The Mirror

Being a young lady

She covered every inch she hated with layers and layers of cloths

While her mother told her that she should lose some weight and not eat more

Her grandmother constantly reminded her she would never find someone

Then came the era of being woke

Where you were pretty DESPITE being fat

She looked away from mirrors

The pores on her face, the short hair, and the dry lips

Nothing seemed pretty DESPITE being fat and dark.

The mirror only mouthed what she told

She was never nice to herself

Today, she wakes up, wears the same white shirt that she wears for meetings

Looks up at that mirror and looks into those eyes

Those eyes had known that fair and lovely was not what she seeked

She did not have to feel pretty despite fat and dusky

She was pretty with those curves and dark skin

She wears the khol on her eyes, slides into the shorts

Tucks that strand of hair

And lets out a smile to herself

And to all those years of hatred

She saw those little toes and 10 fingers

And smiled

The mirror.

Image from Razia @a-small-startup

[a-small-startup]

I grab the tissue box next to me as I weep, while she says she was there just for him and doesn't tell him how much she loves him, because she loves him to let go. I cry. While he says the wrong name at the alter I cry because that's not who he's meant to be with and I cry.

My phone beeps, it's the reminder telling me to write. I close my laptop grab my notebook and stare at the empty page.

I think of what makes me cry, as that's what I'm supposed to write about and I have no clue what makes me cry.

I think of my abusive father, the assaults I've faced, and nothing brings a tear. I think of my first love and how he cheated on me, and go on to think of all the love I've lost and still not a tear.

I stare at the empty page, thinking of lost love and lost childhood, and nothing makes me sad. I've grown hostile to them all.

I give up. Close the book, and that's when I hear the Azan at the distant corner, along with the prayer announcing the Eid tomorrow.

It's been 8 years since I've been home for Eid, I search for my prayer mat and dust the Quran. I'm not religious at all, but the only time I pray is just twice a year, that's the least I can do for some biriyani, and moving out, that's the closest I have felt to home. The azan is what makes me home, it reminds me how my granny rushes to go pray as soon as she hears it; it reminds me of the eagerness I and my little brother used to have during Ramzan to break the fast. It's the closest I feel to home because the only part of childhood I remember till today is my grandpa coming to pick me up from my school, and going to the mosque nearby to pray. It still is my grandpa's mosque to me while he is now buried there, it has become his. The wait to pray tomorrow is what makes me drop a tear, and that's when I realize, the Azan giving me the distant memory of home is what makes me cry.

I set the room for prayer, grab that notebook with the empty page, start writing with tears filling my page and go back to sleep.

Image from @a-small-startup

[a-small-startup]

The window

If only you could open doors that would change things,

Sometimes like how you think of running far away to those places you never know of

Those meadows and sunsets you have written about, you've read about, you've thought about.

I don't know about you, but I have.

I have wanted to open that window to the perfect home I've imagined.

To that home, where amma and appa had figured out things

Where my older brother wasn't threatened by my birth

Where I wasn't threatened by that hand that made me uncomfortable.

Where my screams would be heard through the window.

Where when I cried, I had a hand to hold on to.

Where I did not run away from, I did not ignore calls, where my memories of childhood were not fights and hatred.

That window which did not show me trying to kill myself

I dream of building that home, where I am safe, I am heard and I am wanted. But now when I do, I feel like I'm caged inside the cocoon that I have build shooing away people. While then it was being in a house that wasn't my home and now a home that feels like a house.

Sometimes, someday I will open that window where I will have a painting hung on the wall of a meadow, a framed picture of people on my bedside table, and my bookshelves across the bed. Someday it will contain a hand that will embrace me and a shoulder to lean on to.

Image from: Razia @a-small-startup

[a-small-startup]

The cozy space

My granny used to tell me this story all the time. When I was a kid and used to get upset, I would go hide in the cupboard where she kept all the blankets and cry. That seemed the coziest space of all. I was known to be the cry baby, otherwise nicknamed the sensitive one.

Growing up, every time I had a fight with my older brother I cried at night sleeping between my parents, without them having even the slightest idea of what I was doing. My pillows were heavy each morning and not a single soul knew.

Teenage years, filled with loneliness made me associate emotions with things. While that small piece of the broken cup, and the earring my best friend gave and I lost one. The school uniform, the English textbooks which had stories that made me love reading, everything seemed to be a part of something big.

Having had to live with other people in college, the shower became that cozy space, where I cried while the water ran through my face, while I looked radiant; no one knew what was happening.

Moving cities I continued carrying the same pillow everywhere, it seemed to have known all sides of me and all stories of mine. While the pillow turned heavy, it also seemed to be the only thing to hold on to

These days, sunsets are the cozy space, evenings filled with some music and leading to nights I can look forward to. The time with myself along with some tea I make, mostly disastrous. I seemed to have found my cozy space. The corners at buildings and the empty roads seem to have grown to be cozy spaces.

Image by: Razia @a-small-startup

[a-small-startup]

I look through the window, to find many other buildings.

While I'm lighting my candle, sipping my chai

I see a hundred other things that's going on

A man maybe in his 30s sits infront of a laptop and works all day, he sometimes cribs and get up, but the call holds him back and he gets back to work

I see this young couple from another window, who have fairy lights and white curtains.

Every night they are in each other's arms having a movie marathon

I look away and my eye lands on the woman who has 2 children running around her all the time, while the toddler paints the house with his crayon the other child plugs in the headphone and sits for class. I see childhood smashed there in front of screens and I let out a sigh.

I wonder if someone looks through my window and sees me sometimes dancing to the tunes, and other times cooking to the same tunes.

While sometimes I try to get some work done, other days I wake up in the afternoon.

I wonder sometimes if someone looks through my window and says, that girl has always music to muse to.

I wonder if someone knows that I plug in to my earphones all the time because I can't be left alone with my thoughts.

I wonder if someone sees me through my window and wonders how days in my life are.

When someone asks me how my days go, I have no answers, because there is no more a normal day, a routine or a purpose. There is nothing I look forward to, or something I do.

A normal day in my life isn't normal anymore.

Image from: @a-small-startup

[a-small-startup]

Hot summer days are the worst time to go on a drive, but I still decided to go on one. I thought maybe the AC in my car and the sunny sky would be a better change in comparison to my cramped room with humidity hitting the roof.

It was one of those days where I was eagerly waiting for the summer rains to drench the soil and let out a cool breeze.

As I keep driving, without a destination, nor a map to guide me through, taking turns as my brain tells me to and my heart wants me to.

I stop at an empty road, waiting for the 30 seconds on the signal to pass so I could head to the place I didn't know of.

That's when it came, the thunder, the lightening, the wind the breeze the dark afternoon and the darker clouds.

The radio tells me it's some cyclone, my heart tells me it's the first of summer rains.

I pause, I don't move an inch. The clouds starts pouring, the heavy water droplets on my car roof hits my ears, I scroll the window pane, and let the rain drops fall in.

My face now wet, my head filled with a hundred thoughts, I make a U-turn and head home.

I play loud music to shun the voices in my head. I stop at a tea shop, ask for a strong filter coffee and lit a cigarette, the radio yet again tells me of casualities due to the cyclone and my head tells me it's just the summer rains.

Image from @a-small-startup

[a-small-startup]

Have you ever felt so lost

That the only company you find is the smoke from the cigarette

And when the bud touches your lips, it's the closest you've got to open your mounth

To spill out words.

You come back round and round,

To the same place, you think you're lost at

But you're back where you started.

Maybe you're here

And that's where you should be.

You vent to the open sky

The smoke comes back and hits your eyes

And the bud that burns your lips.

Sometimes the solitude is the company you want

And the company you want waits for you

Somewhere lost in the same circle.

You go back and they turn the other way.

You're lost finding them

And they're lost hoping to find you.

Sometimes you think you wanted this

And other times you think you don't.

Sometimes you don't have the energy to do it

And when you do. You don't find the people you pushed long time ago.

Sometimes you feel this was how it was supposed to be.

And other times you don't have the energy to undo any of it.

Only if life was as easier as control Z

And a fresh sheet pops up and you can write it all over again

[a-small-startup]

Why is being strong so romaniticised.

Why is crying and talking and being yourself considered weak?

Why is letting go difficult

Why aren't we given time if it's difficult?

Why is being you so suffocating

Why can't you be you?

.

Why is romance so fragile

Why is it that you need someone?

Why can't you cling to pain

Why is ease so easy?

.

Why can't you whine

Why can't you complain?

And Why is that you can write only when you are in pain?

.

Why is your healing

Someone else's pain?

.

Why is your time not at their time stamp?

.

Why can't people know we're all at a different pace

In our journey towards ease.

.

Why is it difficult to see someone cry

And not just be.

.

Why do you want everyone to smile even beyond that pain.

.

Why can't you let the pessimism

Go away on its own

.

Why do you guilt someone over healing

Why do whine over someone else's pain.

.

Why can't you trust over time

To do the healing.

.

Why can't you love the pain and the sorrow

And embrace the person

.

You don't want change you want remedy

You don't want ease you want comfort

.

You don't want serenity you want pleasure

You guilt others over your guilt

.

You ease others over your ache

.

It will all be right

Just no more wrong infront of you.

.

Let's put up a brave face is it?

[a-small-startup]

Half hidden, half in the light. My tangled legs wanna leave all this behind and run.

Run towards the light. Towards the peace towards serenity.

But my legs are struck,

they're bound to stay,

no one has locked me in,

but my legs are pulled back

and they are asked to stay.

They are told to finish what I'm doing.

Half in the darkness and half in light, my legs want to run towards the ocean.

[a-small-startup]

Stop associating success with age.. Stop associating happiness with age... Stop associating journeys with age... If something makes you happy and you are able to do it now do it! If you can't, wait and do it when you can! It doesn't matter how old you are what matters is how happy you are how content you are... Age is JUST a number

[a-small-startup]

.’.’.’.’.’.’.’.’

I was walking down the foothills of some huge mountain, in a small corner of this world. It was an evening with mist, a slight shiver and a cool breeze… I was walking with some excellent music plugged in, a nice evening of solidarity.

That’s when I saw two really old men sitting next to each other, sharing a cigarette and smiling at each other. At a glance, they seemed like two people who had grown old together, that smile caught a lot of warmth, I couldn’t resist a smile looking at them.

I walked past them, sat on a small rock and lit a cigarette and started smoking, they were still smiling, I couldn’t stop myself from talking to them

‘Hey uncle, are you guys childhood friends?’ I asked.

They looked at each other, then at me and smiled again, I couldn’t quite understand what that smile meant, maybe they did not want to answer, so I continued smoking and looked away.

A few minutes later someone tapped on my shoulder, I looked up and saw those two smiling faces…

‘We just met each other a couple of years ago, and are deeply madly in love’ and they gave out a shy smile followed by the answer. That blush on their face was undefinable. I gave out a smile, they waved at me and told me,

“find that love soon, we waited a bit too long”

I love old couples, because there is this happiness on seeing people having spent their entire life with someone. It sends out hope. I always believed love was in growing old together, and that love was doing everything together. But I had never seen love like that, the love in the eyes of those two, in the smile of those two, it was beyond all the love I had known, it was the love that made me smile throughout my way back.