bone crush

What I reached for so long revealed itself today. In the trees, I find peace in the green, to feel small for once, even as the problems of my heart rise as high as the trees. For a moment, they float. They give me purpose. They make me a person when I am struggling to be one.   These trees have saved lives.   So many feelings overwhelm me; my head aches. I dropped her off at the airport, and my room was ill with the scent of home, so I strayed as far as I could while staying as close as I could (to the place I knew most in this foreign land). I stretched out on the stone bench, edit after edit, taking my mind off things. The deer looked at me thrice.   I feel.   I felt as a child. They have revolutionary thoughts, some psychedelic revelation. I was twelve, why did it have to be this way? Three parts torn into to get the fruit. Three different ways: one tries to become a tree, the other shrivels up and dries, and the third, a different color, holds...

I had a dream. I ran out of the airport, got into a taxi, then out again, and ran. I ran so fast, yet my left lung didn’t pinch. I ran home. The company house I had called home for so long. I told them it was technically my tharavad. They laughed, and I understood why. But I knew every inch of that place. The way my feet could map the cool tile floors, the small gaps between them, the familiar weight of the air inside, the walls that had seen me through everything. I opened the door, and everything was just as we had left it. It was a dream. It’s been a while since I dreamed. And yet, this one felt jarring—not in a way that unsettled me, but in the way that it confirmed something. I knew I was heading home. I knew the airport, I knew my destination. But as I stepped inside, I felt as though it was telling something. Telling me.  That I could call it home. That I had permission to call it home.

I used to want to move away, have a lovely job, and own a house. I wanted things, and I wanted love too. But as I grow up, I’m realizing my priorities have shifted. Disease and death, everything seems to fade in the face of loss and love. What could matter more than being next to the people you love? I don’t mean to suggest letting go of everything for love, as that wouldn’t be practical, though love does have that power. Rather, while I still want many things, some have started to mean so much more, feeling deeper than before. It's overwhelming and heavy, it's unexpected but I am learning to embrace it. As someone who has always relied on stability and practicality, life and love now seem increasingly unpredictable and uncertain. Yet, somehow, within that instability, I find a reason to live and love. Instead of stability giving me comfort, it’s the acceptance of uncertainty that brings me peace. If coffee spills on the carpet, it’s okay, I can breathe through it. It’s not the...

January 4th. That’s when I started writing my diary, not the 1st, not when I was supposed to. Already late. Already behind. And that feeling hasn’t left me since.   I keep skipping things I shouldn’t. I sign up for things and never follow through. I tell myself I’ll get it together, but I don’t. Money slips away. Time slips away. I try routines, I set goals, I make plans, nothing sticks.   Every conversation feels like I’m talking to myself. Every piece of work I create is full of I, me, myself. I can’t escape it, and honestly, I’m tired of it.   But here’s the thing: I need to be stronger than I am. I need to get my driver’s license. I need to stop running in circles before I turn 20 and wonder where all this time went.   The diary feels like a sham, but at least I’m still writing, I guess. I had not even written it for a long time. Maybe that’s something.   I want to know that the sun is there even if its not facing me. I want to feel ...

It's been a while. I feel ingenuine. I don’t know if writing this publicly will help, but I’m giving it a shot anyway.   I messed up a part of my exam, so badly that it’s embarrassing to call myself an English student. Truthfully, I feel like an impostor. Like I don’t belong.   Friendship feels like a dead language. I thought I gave it my all, but that was a lie. It was just a cover. Skills, internships, jobs, I’ve always expected rejection, so when it happens, I don’t feel the sinking void that tells me I’m not enough.  Maybe I’ve trained myself not to care. Maybe I’ve just accepted that the system I "rebelled" against doesn’t fit me. Or maybe I don’t fit it. I don’t belong in the normal, the structured, the expected.   Everything I have been fed and regurgitate somehow doesn't work. Everything feels like a lie. I have been born for this purpose. Get a job, make money, do good. Yet I can't seem to be any closer to it. I feel like a fool in this sense....

"വരാം," ഞാൻ പറയുമ്പോൾ, "പോകാം" എന്ന് പറയാനുള്ള ആ പേടി. My legs prickle like the seeds of a strawberry, and I feel like tearing myself apart today. I keep picking at the wound that heals every two days, only for it to break open again; blood and flesh. I feel trapped in my own skin, my body will never be what I want it to be. There are things I’m supposed to become, but time is slipping away. I applied for many things. I have sent my name into the void, eight, ten, how many more? They have to call me today. If not, I won’t be who I need to be. Tomorrow, I’ll be hopeless again. I can’t hold on to who I am, so how will time hold on to me? I eat the yellow as if it might bring some joy. One piece is thin and crispy, the bite sounds, and I feel it. The next is thick and bland, someone like me must have cut it. One is unexpectedly sweet, even though it isn’t brown like I expected. How it lies to me. I look in the mirror, I look away. Another is too salty. I eat 250 grams ...

There’s a lot of things. But then, there are three cakes. Each one baked with love, sprinkled with a bit of surprise. One cake brings trouble, while the other two offer a sweet realization.  But love lingered still. Chocolate and hazelnut. Creamy and cold. Dense and rich. It’s been a while since I let myself enjoy something so good, something that felt like a small luxury. I used to think it was too much, a little too extravagant for no reason. In a way, it still is. There’s something about it that feels a little over the top, a little more than I need.  And you don’t need that. I don’t need that. But the problem is, I only really understood it once it became clear, once it solidified in front of me. I hate that. I hate that it takes these things, these small luxuries, to bring out something I didn’t want to feel. I don’t want it to come from this, from something as simple as a cake. But it did, and now it’s there.