bone crush

I was intended. My existence was wanted. Yet, to my creator, I still am a mistake. Born at his lips, wrapped around his fingers, he still doesn't want me as his. He cries because of me at night when the gleam in his eyes dies down. It's a torturous plea, but I remain. In the rings he makes of me, in what he inhales, in what remains of his lungs. She seeks me out in his room. Papers scattered, trust shattered. She can't find me anywhere, but she knows me all the same. She's seen me before, in her father. I escaped through the windowsill of their tiny bathroom, but in the dingy light, she took me by my throat. I feel her hands still, stealing my air. She throttled her father's fear and crushed it under her chappals. The lot of me, she drowned in a blue bucket. My mouth opened for help, but all I could take was more water. I wondered if that is what I made her feel like. Now again, her hands smoothing out the bedsheets. I escape under my creator's pillow. I run mil...

My limbs feel like another entity, attached but with no control. They twist and turn, burning and cooling simultaneously. The scoliosis-ridden fan is only useful when I lay back completely. The fabric of my clothes feels wrong. I sense the tag pressing into my back, but when I reach for it, it's not there. My mouth is open, offering the mosquito a tour instead of letting it bite my hands. It's uncomfortable. It's just not right, but I have to live with it. I stare at the kettle that hasn't been washed in days and turn away, looking at the ceiling. The cobwebs I've ignored have transformed into cities, with the original web forming a grayish thread hanging precariously. It's mocking me. I have to live with it. That's the way life is for I chose it to be that way. A broom and a shove is all it would take.  My blogger account shows no new drafts. I understand they don't appear magically, but it turns out people who do the same stuff every day have to keep d...

They are small. They are many. On my cupboard. In my cupboard. Against my windowsill. They remain invisible until my white walls reveal them. They've walked over me a thousand times. My neck feels their sting. I’ve sprayed insecticide endlessly, yet I think my life will slip away before theirs do. Every morning, I feel the heaviness of what I must face. No matter how many times I close and open my eyes, they remain. Some dream of this; it’s a nightmare. They are everywhere. Sometimes I pretend they haven’t crossed their immense trade routes a million times, carrying items a hundred times their weight. I can’t bear the sight of it. They hold meetings before me. As if they know, no matter how many I kill, they will remain as long as their colony is unfound. I set baits, yet I become one. Each time I curse the holes filled with their kind, and mentally pour bleach into them, more appear. Their colonies will never be found. I will never coexist with them. I tried to pretend they were n...

I'm in bed. So are the chips. In a packet. I have been rolling around for the past hour. My leg brushes the plastic enough times for me to know the shape by feel alone. The serrated edges at the top and bottom. The smooth cover that gives way every time my heel presses into it accidentally. I want to forget it's there so I can live my life. But control has never been in my hands. There was a woman I saw who recommended buying an obnoxious amount of chocolate and storing it to help with addiction. Because surely they wouldn't be able to finish the entire collection, right? I think my body came into existence to answer that question. Because I think I could. If anyone thought abundance could outpace desire, I would seek to be the exception.  The chips didn't have a chance. I felt like those lionesses in National Geographic hunting their prey. My hands let the plastic rest, staring at it longer than I do my course books. Studying its next move even as it can't move. I ...

I want the taste of food but not the food. I want the destination, not the journey. Is it really so bad to be so impatient when I have seen so many walk that way, and by the time I have started, they are already there? I don't want to learn. I don't want this impatience. The wealth of learning and reaching a place, I understand, is important; however, I am tired of learning and reaching for it from behind the starting line. The cat in our hall has given birth thrice since I came here. I think it's thrice. I have lost count. I think she has too. It's been about a year. White, orange, blue shades on its body. The story of the kittens is tragic. Some died, some were taken away. The ones that stay, sleep. To be everything while doing nothing is impossible. To change means to adapt, to add and reduce. How can I submit myself to such a fluctuating thing? How can I let things go when I grieve them before they are gone? When I hold the living like they are dead? I think they wi...

Blue. I can't be anything. It requires acceptance. To be. To exist. I can't write genuinely. I want to be something, but I am not that something. It weighs on me a lot. I understand that you must start somewhere. I can't be anything completely. It requires admitting to being something. To be part of something. To openly be something. I haven't been used to that. It requires courage, demands respect I haven't received. I can't write like I talk. I can only talk like I write. Tact is knowing when to be silent. I talk a lot. I am silent a lot. But maybe I mix up when I am supposed to be one, and admit to being another. It's all wrong; it's never right. I can't fully sink into something. It's always about "I" on my blog, which makes sense because it's "my blog," but even then, talking as if I knew something. I can't even do that with myself. I don't wish to be someone else. I just want to write as I see. I lose it some...

I've written about twenty-five blogs so far. Yesterday's left me unsatisfied; even though it was original and true to my feelings, it still contained parts I didn't like. I aim to leave my writing with something meaningful to take away. It's increasingly challenging to achieve this consistently. I thought without the panic of writing everything in 20 minutes, I'd fare better. That’s what I’m attempting now. My friend and I completed the poster work we were assigned. It’s mostly approved, which makes me a little happy. We went to a café with another friend, ate some chicken and fries, and tried the minty watermelon.  It tasted like the original watermelon drink with some mint, as expected. That served as lunch. The last two hours were free, which led to our spontaneous decision to eat. Working on the poster last night led to a surprise—or more of an awakening. I found myself with the charger cord wrapped around my neck. I had rolled around and almost managed to unint...

I'm quite stressed. Don't ask me what about. There's no one to ask, but regardless, don't. My head is so full of heat and frustration, like a tiny string threatening to snap, only to humiliate my character in the worst way possible. I didn't do that. Three days ago, I bought ice cream, put it in the freezer, and forgot all about it. I love forgetting sometimes. Birthdays, not so much. But ice cream, I will forever. I love forgetting that we get ice cream on Fridays in the mess. I let myself forget to reserve that surprise and the joy. It alleviates me of any stress. Just that thin layer of chocolate cracking at the smallest pressure of my teeth, digging into the vanilla ice cream and tasting it. My brain is still overheating, but my mouth is cool. I can stay semi-levelheaded. Not that I need ice cream to stay sane, but it sure helps. I'm still pissed off, but something about the small things, the simple things, the sweet things, changes my mood in an instant. I ...

I write of the pain—the monthly subscription I never asked for but am somehow grateful for. My stomach feels hollowed out, as if each revolution of the orb inside empties my body of its softness. A knife scrapes the walls and sometimes stabs into me. That hurts. But the repeated stabbing has a rhythm; I can concentrate in class, pretend it's red noise. The unsynchronized stabs halt my breath. I squirm in discomfort, trying to concentrate as it drives into my ribs, stabbing at "where my honor lays." A little higher. Sometimes it decorates my insides with polka dots, tiny slices. I write to avoid writhing in pain. It doesn’t hurt much, I know. I don't need to lessen this pain for others to digest. I know it's not supposed to be normal. I assume this pain is normal because I know no different. It’s only debilitating on certain days. Today is fine. It’s all-consuming at times, and I’m not a fan of those moments. I understand the process, but I wish it were less dramat...

For all the positivity in the previous posts, I suffer. My health is better, but it isn’t.  I am not immune to sadness, as much as the past days have made me feel like it. I miss home. I don't know why. I heard my brother and my parents fight on the phone. Frustrating and annoying. But I want it right now. I want my room. I want my pillow. I want the torn mattress, which is probably why I am no longer as immune as I was. My lungs are yellow. Foam fills them. Lots of it. My mattress that has lost tiny chunks of itself over the years like someone bit into it. I haven't but you might find it in my skin. My face has flattened against it a million times, i have breathed it in since my birth. If you ask my half-peeled and hardened feet what they know the most, they will say they have met these specific cold tiled floors that my home has. They will still have them. It's just that I will never walk on them again. It's materialistic, I know. I should be grateful. I am. But in t...

I have an arsenal of pre-written works, each demanding a piece of me if I choose to publish them. It’s a race again. Between 11 and 12, I browse my notes app for 20 minutes before deciding to write something fresh. I should probably start writing earlier so I can sleep and fill my time with something else. But for now, I don’t. I put my tasks on hold until I publish this blog, which means my day starts around 11:45 PM. It isn’t ideal, as I end up procrastinating and staying up until 4 AM. Contrary to popular belief, I am getting better. Whether it's my sickness, my phlegm-addled lungs, or my journey. I laugh as I write "journey." It’s funny. I can't explain it. I'm letting things flow and not worrying about what I can't change. I’m also focusing on what I need to care about, making connections I thought I needed in my first year. Now I want it. I didn’t need it before. It’s fun, doing things you like, and even things you don’t, to figure out your boundaries. N...

Of pain and artistry. Must I feel to make art? I must for art is made to feel.  This is about the hollowness, the space where your flesh feels exposed on the battlefield. You have done all you could, yet it is still not enough. To be seeking fulfillment amidst emptiness. But only finding more of it.  I am quite drawn to writing in metaphors of cannibalism and certainly grotesque topics. I have strayed away from it as I write more and more but I feel as though there is some emotion that can't be captured without such extreme symbolism.  And this is one of those times.  I swallow pain as if it were medication to feel happiness, yet I feel none; all I feel is numb. Pain cannot offer me beautiful suffering; my tears will never write stories, I know. My body has never felt the youth it craved. It has felt the hands of an overworked man, the tongue of an overzealous youth, and the teeth of a broken dream. I carved a space for love, but no one filled it. I carve a space for...

Time feels so much slower as trucks and buses skim past my face; the driving here is like an obstacle course. Time feels slower as I smile and laugh about how family insults family and how it's all a joke, but sometimes I wonder if the other side knows it is. A joke at the expense of a dying man who I promised I would visit until his death. Spend my vacation on him until death visits him. It might sound like a miserable vacation, but it's a summer holiday in Bali for the few seconds he smiles at one of the thousands of stories I tell him. Death is natural, but so is life, and pain exists in both. How can pain be so natural yet so superficial? Time feels slower as I visit expensive cafes and drink bubble tea, slowly ordering something different, accepting the change that is natural. But death still seems far away, something that would never visit any of my loved ones. Yet as I grow older, it seems more possible. Like I once thought aging would never reach me. But now anything be...

Doing what you want is meant to be liberating. At the moment, it's uncomfortable and doesn't feel right; it feels incredibly wrong.  Doing things that require you to advocate for yourself means that you are subject to the judgement of others. The things you want and why you want are questioned. You are confronted with the reality that you aren't everyone's cup of tea. It's not that you expected to be but it's a harsh blow to realize it regardless.   Today, I did something for the first time; I received a humorous response that bordered on one that could crush me before. My sensitivity played a part in how deeply I felt it.  While I understood the response, placing so much value on recognition left me unexpectedly heartbroken. It's nonsensical, I know, but it's a feeling I'm struggling to shake off. It's okay to feel a little crushed, but internalizing it to the extent that you avoid that experience for years isn't the answer. As a child, such...

The red pill is a capsule. The white one isn’t. The medicine has already been making me feel better. My friend, who just came back from his trip, said I sounded like a dead man. I wonder if the dead speak and if they truly sound like me. My other friend says I sound better today. She said I spoke in TV static noises yesterday. As she said that, I recalled our family's gray TV box. It's not so old, but the noises make it seem old. I can't quite describe it. It fluctuated from a screech to a hush, like the sound when your ear is covered by your pillow and your blanket brushes against it. This is a poor description. But I don't hear those sounds anymore. The chaotic world has become both noiseless and noisy. There's a lesson we are learning about how we need noise to function, as even a few moments of silence will make us reflect and ponder. Even as I am writing this, I put on music so I won't feel myself thinking. It's easier to write this way—I feel like I am...

Half a cabbage, half an onion, and a handful of old coriander. She washed them all and cut them up at midnight. I cough and talk away with the voice I have left as my friend makes the salad. I watch as it's made—cut and fresh, all packaged up for the next day. My laugh resembles a scream at this point, but she doesn't seem to notice. She leaves the salad in the fridge, and we go our separate ways—or we try to. We keep dropping each other off at our rooms, shouting "good night" in every other language we know, maybe to make it last longer. Sleep claims us both, though I sleep a little longer, regretting missing my first hour. I lose my voice too, but she laughs at my laugh. I smile hard, feeling like a rich man in the movies as I walk next to her, simply laughing at something she said. She laughs twice as hard when I do.  I use it as my party trick all day—the loss of my voice, not complete, twisting and turning to make a high-pitched imitation of my hoarsely lost voic...

It's about 11:20 p.m. I don't have much to write about today as usual. It's probably because I wrote quite a bit on a subject I was interested in yesterday. Today was a rather uneventful day. I woke up late for classes, but I was kind of glad I did. I usually wake up late with a guilty feeling at the loss of attendance and the lessons. But coughing up a fit while my chest feels heavy with phlegm wasn't really ideal in aiding any sort of concentration. I used a vaporizer for the first time today. It's an equipment specially made for steam inhalation to loosen the phlegm/mucus in your body. This might be a disgusting topic for some, I suppose. Regardless, this reminded me of when my mother used to bring a big blue bucket filled with hot water from the tap and place it on top of the washing machine. That might have damaged the washing machine, or maybe I have a bad memory. She would drop a little bit of Vicks salve into the hot water. I would inhale the steam, forgetti...

"I want you to be the very best version of yourself that you can be." "What if this is the best version?" Lady Bird, 2017. Mother and daughter .  "You have so much potential" or "you had so much potential"; there are so many ways to package a person's disappointment in the way you are. Of course, there are times when this comes with goodness and sparks motivation. I am not talking about those times. "I am disappointed in you," was all my ninth-grade biology teacher said after glaring at me the moment she entered my class to distribute the answer sheets. I did horribly. I hadn't throughout the entire year, scoring grades just off by half a mark of the total. I am not surprised she was disappointed. I didn't try to tell her I was on bed rest with swollen tonsils. I don't know why. I was just so shocked that she could say it regardless. Maybe she was right. But it felt crushing. What if I hadn't been that sick and got t...

I am sick. I knew it was coming and now that it has arrived, I must rest. I say this countless times to myself, to rest and take a break.  But the idea of death being closer hits me in sickness and that is great motivation. I feel weaker. So I decide that I must expend all my energy on something that matters. Writing, graphic design, some form of art that I haven't obsessed over in two years.  I chase this obsession, forgetting the concept of food and energy as I gain energy and expel it on some image I am trying erase a portion of. It's only when I am hit with the timing of curfew and a simple ask of turning on the light from my roommate that I realize six hours have passed. My eyes hurt after straining for hours on end. My back is recovering from the torturous position I put it in as I lean over like gollum staring into my phone for tiny imperfections in the poster I am supposed to make by the end of July. It's a secret. Kind of. It was of priority but I could put off ano...

I burned my tongue today. I thought I had mastered the art of drinking hot tea on a hot day. But instead, all I got was a hot tongue. Now, it feels sensitive everywhere. My taste buds feel fried. I had savored the burn when I sipped the sweet, hot tea. But when I sat down to ponder whether life needed a purpose at the reading club, all I could feel was the afterburn of my poor tongue. Life and its purpose felt so trivial at that moment. The sting in my mouth made everything else fade away. I tried to find some meaning in the pain, but it was just a reminder of how delicate we are. I couldn't romanticize this pain. I could only feel it as it was—wretched and annoying and simply uncomfortable. I couldn't wag my tongue around in public, and I didn't want to do that anyway. I bought an ice cream to cool it. That helped. The cold sweetness was a relief, a temporary escape from the discomfort. But then, with my sore throat, it was just a trade-off. A burned tongue and a sore thro...

As opposed to the blistering heat that would turn us into goo, today was cooler. The trees on the campus, which usually make it bearable to walk through every day, felt like an addition today. A coolness to the cold. Not a necessity but a decoration. Instead of sweat collecting on faces, which would frown in annoyance, our foreheads were relaxed, no wrinkles in sight. There weren't many classes either. In fact, none at all. The rain had made the earth softer, the leaves brighter, and some of the faces lighter. It lend the world colour like it was asking us to look at the rainbow we had on land.  Birds sang, dogs lazed around, and the world felt softer and rounder. I couldn't see the horizon, but I could feel it. It was as though the rain had washed away not just the dirt but some worries, at least for a moment. Some water splashed onto my new slippers, but I didn't care much. Not as much as I would on some other day. It felt like anger wasn’t suited for this weather. While,...

Mangoes and bananas packed tightly together like a family of eight trying to fit into a car for a roadtrip. A makeshift cardboard box contained it all, most overripe and spoiled. It smelled heavenly but hadn't survived the trip and rest for it to ripen. It overdid its only job. Only one mango remained for me to eat. The person who gave it all to me told me throw the spoiled ones away. I couldn't and here's a kind of long explanation on why.  But as addressed to the person. Slather spoiled fruits all over my face; let me consume their goodness, even if it exists only in weakness. They're rotten black from skin to core, but because they're from you to me, I must eat it all, even if it makes me sick for days. I feel like I'm losing you slowly, so I cling to anything materialistic, even if the acids of my stomach and mind could erase it all. Stay forever, or take me with you. It's never enough because a phone can only play your voice for so long. Your radios wil...

A decision made within seconds without hesitation. Cheesy Maggi, a cup of tea, and a jam and cream-filled bun for tea time. As I took a five-minute walk from the main gate to the tea shop with my friends, cars raced past, a blur of motion against my life of stillness. I ate with my friend at V and V after class. We had chicken noodles and momos, washed down with a blue lime drink that still puzzles us. Why was it blue? We didn't find the answer, but maybe we didn't need to. Sometimes, the mystery adds to the moment. I also tried chocolate with salt. The unexpected mix was surprisingly delightful. It's funny how spontaneous decisions can bring so much joy. I didn't plan on liking it, but I did. Something I did plan on liking was the extremely sour and mouth-watering combination of a slightly unripe lime and some salt. As you can tell, we had a tin of salt next to us. It was simply perfect, my cheeks digging in as I smiled and twitched at the extremely sour combination. L...

Something bit me. I don't think I will turn into Spiderman. With the soap suds entering my swollen pinky finger, I sure felt like I was turning into a washing machine. Sweat droplets collected on my forehead, and my baby hairs felt like worms crawling down my face. I was out of breath and flattened my palm on the washing stone. I am eighteen years old. My seventy-seven-year-old grandmother (she's been the same age for four years now) does the same, not out of breath, only with a soft "ish" as she slaps the cloth against the stone like it committed some heinous crime. Maybe it did—the simple act of existing as a dirty cloth. Weekends were now reserved for me, my clothes, and the room where I washed them. I despised it. Back and forth—back and forth, again and again and again. Then into unsoapy water and again. Then wring it dry with all your might. That’s just one cloth. Now just ten more pieces to go. As much as I hate it, once it’s done and the clothes aren’t as soak...

My heart is out of my chest. It's in my throat, beating like it's struggling to stay alive. But it's more alive than ever. The curfew is at 7 PM. You know it, I know it. Everyone knows it. Especially the duos that linger at Martin Junction. Yet we all love to tease the limits of how far a body can run and make it in time. The urgency, the need, the frustration, the fulfillment. There’s something exhilarating about skirting the edge of danger. About feeling the adrenaline course through your veins as the clock ticks down. I reach out for it during exams, actively working towards it—to be sleep-deprived and see how far I can push myself and still dish out something legible. I always take that one fake quote in stride, "Edison built the electric bulb in a night," or something of that sort. It's fake for multiple reasons, the stealing allegations aside. But it brings me hope. And this hope is quite delusional when it’s not accompanied by action. You can call it pr...

My hand over her knee, she hesitated on lines that were meant to be straight, all while it didn’t matter. If the scent of toxins in the henna hadn’t made it clear, the separation of the joined lines into dotted ones would have made it clear the next morning.  I was sick that morning. Homesickness had hit when I least expected it. I had been home in February. I had spent far more months apart than those few weeks. What was it? Why was my heart so miserable looking at the beautiful statuses of everyone celebrating Eid?  Their hands stained with a deep maroon in gorgeous designs, adorned with new jewellery. You could smell the perfume and oud. The earthy smell of the mehendi, and the fresh scent of the eidi money I was too old to ask for.  Most of all, the heavenly food I took for granted. Meat falling apart at the touch of our hands. The aroma of my mother's biriyani, the sweet scent of her 'payasam'. I missed it all. Deeply so.  Why weren't my hands maroon? Why wasn'...

I blew her birthday candles thrice before she could. Not out of selfishness, but out of pure instinct. Not once, not twice, but thrice. We were all doubling over, trying not to make a loud screech of laughter close to her door. It was a surprise. She had almost caught us as our friend and I were walking down the stairs. Sweetening our conversation with white lies and extra smiles, we made it out. It had paid off. Her eyes widened, her fingers fisting the bedsheets as she sat up, her open mouth shutting. I had blown the candles without wishing much, yet this one had come true. It was a joyful parade from her room to the mess, with her face lightly coated in frosting and a toothed smile. It remained today when we fawned over Keats' love letter to Fanny Brawne. His desperation and exasperation were evident in his poetic lines of yearning and pain. This man was a writer, alright—not that he needs my approval. Well, I suppose he did, with the trajectory of his and many young poets' ...

Two weeks. Approximately. The amount of time that has passed since the start of college. My first year as a second year. Not much has changed. Classes have gone on as usual.  The hustle and bustle of hall and inter collegiate events haven't entered the picture yet. The calm before a storm of opportunities and passion. It feels unsettling.  My mind was prepared for the chaos that I will soon welcome into my life.  I haven't learned much of German other than what I consider to be important words which might not be considered as such by the general public. Basic Tamil, we have no more classes as such. I miss the tamil poetry. But I haven't stopped terrorising my friends with my broken tamil. Whether it be a broken rendition of the viral "oru cow, athavathu oru madhu" or just the most disastrous grammatical errors, I find joy in it as I am slowly improving. Hunching over laughing at the most absurd things we make out to be funny during classes and outside it, my frien...

What do I write today? I pondered for hours while doing mundane tasks. The sunlight stayed with me for a while, then it left, all alone, before the tube of electricity joined my thoughts. "Aren't you eating dinner?" asked my roommate. That's when I finally broke the silence I had condemned myself to until I wrote. I ate dinner and drank tea instead of coffee because I wanted to sleep earlier. I came back to my room, determined to write the third blog post. I couldn't give up so soon, could I? The sounds of doors and windows slamming against the walls, screeching laughter, and people running around seeped into my room. "It's cool outside, the rain, it's raining," said my roommate. I am not a huge fan of the rain. It always made me moody. I wasn't a hater either. Something in me whispered back to my roommate, "It's raining? It's raining!" I jumped up barefoot and ran out to feel the cool breeze against my face. My feet felt th...

It's inevitable. The poetry and prose can only shield me from vulnerability for so long. Someone is bound to read through the poorly written literary devices and figure out the true meaning of all my works that I run away from by writing it (How presumptuous). Or no one cares.  The latter is the greater possibility. I find comfort in it, no one cares. And on some days, it's despair in how no one cares.  True to my character, I am going to switch the topic to another one. For today, I wish to reminisce on Korea Day and as much as I would love to say it started with me speaking Korean and having a wonderful day. It didn't. I sat on my glasses.  Having a power of -6 and allegedly even more, I can't move around without my glasses as there is a possibility I will fall into a ditch, the depth perception does lessen when you can't perceive objects, it turns out.  It was frustrating, the whole sitting on glasses debacle. I had never done it before. Out of character as I wou...

I feel rather uninspired. I lament over how much better I have written in the past compared to how I write now. I question myself. I doubt my ability. I don't speak, but I expect them to know. Of this misery, of me. So that they could tell me what they knew of a being I couldn't understand. More than understand, know what to do with all this weight. Not a burden, not a joy. Just so much. As I pondered over all this for years on end from the day I stopped publishing my works in fear of flaws. The curse of perfectionism has always followed me, but it changed from frustration at what I wrote to nothing left to be frustrated at. And somehow, I miss that frustration—to have something to criticize, something to love in the midst of all its flaws. I think I have always known perfection wasn't the goal. My English teacher in grade 5 or so started the class off with a quote, "Perfection isn't attainable, but if we chase perfection, we can catch excellence." I caught no...