Searching Beyond My Story

[tobeunmoored]

[tobeunmoored]

[tobeunmoored]

I choose July to die. I am here. They need me. It is hot and dry and discomfort is my home. I shall drown, perhaps. Wash away in the water. It would be a mercy, to my lungs, to me. 

I choose August to die. High summer bled into monsoon, fall across the hemisphere. It is far too bright and I am running out of time. The rain comes then, it comes harder.

I choose September to die. Transatlantic, I lost myself somewhere in airplane fluorescence, heavy of heart, too high, too high. 

I choose October to die. I have a plan,  I make my lists, I am so sure. I’m waiting for the cinematic, to leave letters and poetry, to leave something I am proud of. 

I choose November to die, but someone beats me to it. The winds come colder now, premature Christmas lights and I decide to let myself make it to twenty.

I choose December to die. Made it to twenty, made it to Christmas and yet cancelled plans, cancelled purpose and I cannot yet. It has to be perfect. 

I choose January to die. It’s a new year. Goodbye. 

I do not die and it is early into February. It will not be perfect. I am bleeding superfluously, watching water dissipate crimson. The note is written hastily, blue ink stained and smudged. Ben Howard croons slow and haunting and I sleep.  It is wet clothes stuck to my skin and haggard borrowed pyjama pants as I wait an hour, two hours, twelve hours, twenty four stitches, forty eight days before I go home. Maybe less. But I am of two worlds.

Postscript

I choose December to live. My fingers strain for twenty one. It is nearly within my reach. I plan to hold it fast.

- a year, more or less, m.a.b.

[tobeunmoored]

[tobeunmoored]

I will admit to effort, mother

It takes work to lie like I do

It takes work to take all the gut-punch sickness I know my soul to be and patch it up with rusted needles and glitter glue

and smile bright as I tell you all the things i haven't done

I will admit to effort because it takes work to do none

and to be motionless, forget time and tide.

I have not unraveled, mother

I have built

I have built a story with a princess in a castle

I cast myself, mother, are you proud?

I am in chains and they fuse into me

I built myself a castle and I built myself into the walls

am I not Anarkali, mother

destined to be used and to be broken

to forget all but the bells wrapped around me

as i spin at the worlds whim

she was beautiful, was she not

in all her wretched tragedy?

Does my half comatose form

a symphony of takeout and tumblr

does it inspire one to poetry?

I write myself this verse, mother

I am the heroine, are you proud?

You don't want to upset me, mom

You don't want to accuse me

Have you not been listening?

I have been lying to you

I am a princess in a story,

a dancer buried within a wall

Mausoleums cannot be upset

You have no power over me

My castle is beyond your reach

- mab

[tobeunmoored]

I wonder how much of my life has a shadow. Do I confide, write, scream into the night? How much do I hide?

I have scars, and I guard them with ferocity. My scars are for only me to see. In the dark, a stranger put his hands on me, burned a brand on me. Through skin, sinew, through brittle bones, he burned away my dignity. I'll scratch my scars on stone, let the river wash it smooth. These scars, they will not last on stones, I bear these scars alone.

Does my shadow come with time of day, with dawning light, the suns last ray? Will it illuminate some parts of me, the twisted, ugly parts of me, that fight, that long to be free? I wake up smelling of vomit, vodka, half faded memory. I want to set the the world alight, watch it all burn from the bottom of the sea. This rage will cut with teeth and tongue, and skin and soul will heal. They are far too strong for me to break, I bear this rage alone.

Is my shadow willful, so far out of my control, that what remains is mockery, all the truth I've left untold? This silence, it festers in swallowed words, in broken locks on bedroom doors. Ticking clocks, breaking dawn, I am pacing, pacing and I am all the people I am not.

for the wistful, for the reticent

[tobeunmoored]

Shadows and whispers in the great between that whistle through cracks and trickle down alleys I never know where these pieces of me go but they're washed in the water and I cannot recall and I cannot say if you may hear my voice as a passing breeze, a passing fancy or catch the glimmer in my eye as a trick of light glass on the asphalt, a moment of bright On a storm-soaked day I may have stared out the window,  and you may still smell the cigarette smoke I cling to your clothes, lightning strikes You may feel my laughter in the winter chill all shaking shoulders, stolen breath stolen breath of what accord, that I cannot recall Walk on, my friend, and gather me every jagged little shard you find, keep them only for a moment then drop them in the ocean For you are a force, the earth holds your weight and I, the tide, I undulate

errant memory, mab

[tobeunmoored]

How can I rid my skin of sin Un-bruise, un-scar, un-trust? Can saltwater slough off the grime? Should I mask myself in perfumed fictions? Will ink run deeper than shame? Half told stories and half placed faith Bits and pieces scatter the hurt Some in a bottle, some in a soul My galaxy is brittle so I keep it still From a distance he scrapes at my silence Picks at my hard earned apathy His hands light as laughter "You remember me" they say His hands dark as dawn "You will not forget me"

Cleanse, mab

[tobeunmoored]

my friends, had i tried i would have burned so, so bright i would have consumed the sun i would have been more than a ghost of light my voice would echo like thunder, rise proud above the sky i would be read in dimly lit cafes red bricks and rough wood tables i would warm cold hands, splinter under fingers i would burn beneath the earth and erupt at will i would love and lose but i would love drink in the days like time was a tangible thing i would feel the streets speak and make their way down my veins i would smell like coffee, smell like rain frizzy haired with a belly full of joy i would be lit like the stained glass of a cathedral at sundown divine by way of dawning night

mab

[tobeunmoored]

Is poetry an impulse? A flicker of light made ink? Is it art unburdened or a display of intellect? Will my words still flow if my mind is still? Will I be paralysed, pen in hand, with the burden of art and intellect alike? Is poetry sacrosanct? Hallowed by a soul on paper? Do I show you who I am or what I know and what I see? Am I hidden in my whispered apprehensions, my soaring declarations? How am I different, how am I the same? Am I scribbled on a post it half asleep before dawn? Am I mounted on a wall shielded by glass? Am I treated with care, measured line by line, or is chaos what makes me holy? Is poetry a triumph? Words conquered and harnessed so victory dances on the tip of my tongue? Does it ring through time untarnished or waste away forgotten? Do I write for me or history? When every thought has numbed to noise is there truth to be found? How quiet do I have to be? How patient? How brave? How strong? -mab

[tobeunmoored]

I wonder sometimes what it's like to be steady and whole and happy when the world spins on its axis, wrenching the ground from beneath me. You live, live proper, with burning lungs and dirt under your fingernails. You understand time as lands travelled and knowledge gained. It is tangible, and you feel it in every heartbeat. I wonder sometimes what it's like to yearn for  voice in the dead of night, when silence falls around me. You love, love proper, with your heart on your sleeve and on your tongue. You don't let fear or languid comfort bind you to your island. It is madness, and you embrace it without reserve. I wonder sometimes what it's like to be stirred to action when I hear screaming outside my door and I am so, so still. You fight, fight proper, your voice ringing with purpose and ardour. You believe with all the ferocity that comes with inquisition and perception. It is raw, and so are you, and you do not shy away. You fight, you live, you love, and I wonder.

mb

[tobeunmoored]

Clutter, clutter, clutter, swiping, typing, searching till I fossilize. The wonder once felt towards the fictional and fantastical stales to mindless consumption. It’s a different sort of gluttony, filling my mind with junk, forgoing the nuance of other people’s creations. I’m like an addict, craving an escape but finding myself suspended. I can no longer wrap myself in poetry, seeking solace in the ebb and flow of language rendered to art. No, it simply becomes one more thing that takes up space. These other worlds formed of moving pictures and places and people on a screen, they fill me up, clog up my arteries and stick to my bones. The mutate, multiply, encode themselves in my DNA but I am nowhere to be found. I am a being made of clutter, clutter, clutter.

mab

[tobeunmoored]

I went outside for an hour today

One hour. And it was too much, it took too much out of me.

 I’m back in my bed thinking about that one hour and how it was fine when it happened but how i imploded the second i got home. 

This room is a comfort. It is also a vice, an addiction, an enabler. I succumb to it as much as I retreat to it. The room is a comfort, and I am choking on it. 

My mouth is cut up, a mess of scratched gums and chipped teeth. I run my tongue along the jagged edges and it is a nuisance. My body is a nuisance, and I play right into it’s hands by paying it all the more attention.

Unwanted comfort is my home and broken annoyance is my body. Two prisons I escaped for an hour. One hour. And one hour is all it took for me to return to what I know I hate. 

(via thenatureofmynarrative)

[tobeunmoored]

I went outside for an hour today

One hour. And it was too much, it took too much out of me.

 I’m back in my bed thinking about that one hour and how it was fine when it happened but how i imploded the second i got home. 

This room is a comfort. It is also a vice, an addiction, an enabler. I succumb to it as much as I retreat to it. The room is a comfort, and I am choking on it. 

My mouth is cut up, a mess of scratched gums and chipped teeth. I run my tongue along the jagged edges and it is a nuisance. My body is a nuisance, and I play right into it’s hands by paying it all the more attention.

Unwanted comfort is my home and broken annoyance is my body. Two prisons I escaped for an hour. One hour. And one hour is all it took for me to return to what I know I hate. 

[tobeunmoored]

Just when I think the one thing I have is control, I wake up in the morning with teeth knocked out and a head full of regret

I wish this was a metaphor

[tobeunmoored]

I’ve always been clear eyed.

I was never hopeless, or in search of a reason to live There were plenty of reasons, every song yet to be heard, every word I wanted to write, all the voices in my head telling me everything I would miss I was too restless to be hopeless too greedy and lustful for life and the thing about my hopes and my castles in the air is that all I had to do was reach The light at the end of the tunnel never disappeared, But it was always too far away and I was always too tired. So I hid in the spaces between me and who I could be always wanting, wishing,wondering always still

[tobeunmoored]

I felt human today. I felt drive and exhaustion and excitement and wonder. I didn't tell myself I was feeling these things. I just was. I haven't felt this human in a long time and it's baffling how easy it is to feel this alive. What's even more baffling is how easy it is to choose not to feel this way

For the past week I didn’t leave my room. Literally, one week without seeing people, talking to people, going to uni, nothing. I didn’t sleep all night and when it was time to get ready i told myself it was time. I had enough time to go to uni. I wanted to go. I love uni, I love this city and I fought so hard to be here. I told myself to get up because being here was the only meaningful battle i had won. I fought so hard to come here, to escape and create. It was what I wanted, and what I desperately needed. I told myself all these things because all these things are true. I told myself all these things and I told myself to get up and get out and I wanted nothing more but I didn’t move an inch. 

For the past week i stayed in the same tiny room, which was the last place I wanted to be but I was so comfortable. I had no reason to be this way. It felt viscerally wrong to just lie there but that’s what I did. I lay in my bed for a week, thought about how much I loved uni and London and how my life was full of possibilities and completely disregarded the disgusting hypocrisy. I was disgusted with myself. On Sunday I decided to get my shit together. I talked to my friends back home in India. Reality started to set in. I made plans that the next day onwards I would listen to me. The next day I didn’t get out of ben until 6 pm. that was yesterday. It’s been more than 24 hours since then. More than 24 hours since I slept. 

In the past 24 hours I’ve showered, gone to uni, studied in the rain, written, done my laundry, talked to my friends, made new friends, and pumped more caffeine in me than is healthy or necessary. I feel queasy and my eyes are heavy but I’m scared to go to sleep. These 24 hours were brutal but I feel good. I feel like an actual person with an actual life. I listened to me in the past 24 hours. I’m scared if I sleep and I wake up tomorrow, I’ll stop listening to me. It’ll be another week. And then another. 

Depression isn’t easy. I’ve dealt with it for years, blaming my circumstances and waiting for a chance to break away. I broke away and it’s still here. It’s still holding me down. I’m trying not to let it and today I succeeded. I’m terrified I won’t succeed tomorrow