Alice in Wonderland

"Chut open now or I'm ringing the bell"

I ping you, curse and run. With you I never know which way is up so I'm not testing. You're standing outside grinning like a Mad Hatter and I skip a beat, surprised as always to see you in all the places that I own. Partly because you somehow upset my rhythm and partly because what I'm about to do is indefinitely idiotic. I grab your hand and pull you into my room, fast, away from my dads door. Ultimate ninja. When I breathe out we're already playing. I tiptoe to kiss you and you laugh because you're in power. Its your dimension and I'm just a housecat. Housecat to wildcat is an inevitable transition. I grab your collar and you pick me up and we fight in sync, till I'm flushed and you've got me pinned down, moving in like a predator. I kick and scratch and bite and your hands beat the bass into me. You're in control. I'm okay with that. You're blazed as fuck and more dangerous so when I taste you I breathe you in. We don't exchange pleasantries. This is an art form and if someone caves, they're not worth the fight. I pull your hair and mould myself to you, resisting is a prerequisite but I like it when you lead.

You've got me up against a wall when my dad knocks, we still have our clothes on and you don't leave a battle halfway through. Still, its the Jabberwocky. Bigger battles, bigger fish to fry. Cockblock, I think, push you into my bathroom and open the door. He looks at me suspiciously, "Something's fishy," he says. Fishy is a strange word so I laugh. But I'm also standing protectively next to my very conspicuous purple bathroom door so neither is a good move. "You're hiding something." "Leave me alone," Ah typical typical, you'd think. But my dad's no White Rabbit, he's a Jabberwocky and like all the best ones he demands to go into my bathroom. I'm this close to losing a life when I think, fuck it, this is not how its going to end. I yell out random words like Trust and Issues and Assumptions and capitalize them for good measure. Attack is the best form of defense.

The Jabberwocky retreats but commands me to leave the door open. I find you flipping out, desperate to smoke, lighting things in my bathroom. I half seriously ask you to jump out of my window but the look you give me says "this is unacceptable". This is making you human.

The Jabberwocky sends reinforcements in the form of my brother and his friend. Aww yeaaah. Looks like Tweedledum and Tweedledee are playing for Alice.

"There's a boy in my bathroom," I say dramatically and instantly they're on a mission. Challenge accepted. 5 seconds later and we're in motion. Tweedledum and Tweedledee distract the Jabberwocky and the Mad Hatter and Alice ("Can you hold your shoes in your hand?" "No") sprint out the door, down the rabbit hole. I'm laughing but then I catch your eye and instantly promise you anything you want. Alice always found her way to somewhere, even spiraling. But you're mad.

We go higher until its just you and me and a vast expanse of sky. The moon mocks our madness and the stars provoke our God complex. You make a molehill out of my mountain. We're both egotistic and neither of us want to get dirty but the truth is with skin you win, so I get to be on top. Its a mess. We trade debauchery for comfort and settle back into a tradition that has transcended time and space. I crush, you roll.

[Take some more tea," the White Rabbit said to Alice, very earnestly.

"I've had nothing yet," Alice replied in an offended tone, "so I can't take more."

"You mean you can't take less," said the Hatter: "it's very easy to take more than nothing."

"Nobody asked your opinion," said Alice.”]

Your words are easy but your ideas alien and I feel like I took the pill that makes you very very small and you took the pill that makes you very very tall. My reality is diminutive and yours is the universe. I envy the ease with which your language is unspoken before you and mine is everything I have ever heard. Our Wonderlands aren't in sync because mine is this world. Our reciprocity of perspectives means I see you like you see me. Your claims are limitless and with that comes the backslap of being heartless. You don't share common ground.

"Do you ever feel like an animal?"

"No."

"Not even like..a snow leopard or a panther?"

"I admire them but I am not them, they are who they are."

Sometimes, I fight the urge to slap you.

["Would you like some wine?" the Hatter asked, hunched over his teacup

"Yes..." Said Alice

"We haven't any and you're too young."]

Slap.

"Come see my world," you say and we watch over a city consumed by pretty lights and dark desires. "Sometimes, you have to switch roles, if everyones acting, who's watching? Step back, observe."

["There is a place, like no place on earth. A land full of wonder, mystery, and danger. Some say, to survive it, you need to be as mad as a hatter. Which, luckily, I am."]

When you leave I look at you seriously and say, "My heart is the bass to my body."

You laugh. "I know the song."

[It's always teatime somewhere.]

Ghosts and Stuff

Dear Stranger,

I barely think of you now. When I do, the twisted ghost of 'If' walks through me and I struggle with the after taste, a fleeting heatwave of regret. But then he passes and I take a step forward, a step away from you. You were a distorted Doctor at the wrong place in the wrong time. Then again, who am I to decide? Still, the phonebox always stood fingertips away and I’ve made my peace with your vanishing act. They always do, you know.

If I could talk to you the only thing I’d say is thank you. You spent months trying to get behind my mask but now I’m wall-less without a watchman. Turns out I like it this way. It's the most comfortable I’ve felt in my skin in a while and surprisingly other people seem to like it too. I’m still treading softly but my dreams have laid down their defense mechanisms and I’m choosing to trust more easily, lie less lightly, be more grateful. I trust people. I thought you were the last Samurai but guess what, there was always an army of them waiting for these walls to come down. You've been really brave though. You blocked me out to save yourself a long time ago and you were strong enough to stick to it. You were strong enough to move when we were stuck. These new age Samurais, all they do is smoke pot and charmingly disseminate theories. It makes me worry about the size of their hearts. I never worried about the size of your heart.

Thank you for teaching me how to be human. It didn’t happen when you wanted it to, it happened now, without warning. I cry now, I feel, I listen and I laugh from deep down inside me because I’ve opened up a heart shaped box in the split of my spine and it’s going to stay.

Thank you for letting me go. In all honesty, I hated you for it. I still do. I don’t think I will ever forgive you. I always believed everything you said and you promised you would never leave. You promised a lot of things but this was the only thing I was completely sure you’d stay faithful to. You broke that promise which means you are no longer you. The person I knew was tirelessly self righteous and annoying as fuck about it. Surprisingly it’s the one thing I miss.

You were the best person I knew and I try to save snapshots but it’s fading so fast that sometimes I wonder if we ever really happened, if you were really such a huge part of my day, if we were so happy it hurt. We were, you know. My voice would change when I talked to you and you were always like the first drag of a third smoke – you expect the high but it hits you anyway.

Lastly, I’m sorry. This is a dead letter and even if you read it, it’s not for you. It’s for someone who died a month ago. I’m leaving you now and I will never come back. There’s nothing to come back to. Funnily enough, despite the drama, I doubt I would have ever really left you. You dominated my day and life just happened in between. Remember, diaries don’t talk back and the minute you chose to shut down you let yourself be my diary. I was a ghost here and I know I fought you like a fiend but it’s scary, okay, to be loved and to be in love with someone so effortlessly fucked over by geography.

The story of us is special. You always remember you first kiss, your first pair of green pants and the first girl who cried and slapped you because she realized she was in love with you. We’re closing this chapter so I’m going to do something I really want to. I’m going to give you a hug. Stranger, ex, boyfriend, friend, person, I don’t care. This is a hug from a girl to a boy and it’s yours for whenever you need it, okay?

So Stranger, if the angels still have the phonebox you could turn to stone. Don’t blink. Look away.

Stay safe.

Niv.

The Other Side of Sunlight

"That's so fucking cute man, can you do it again?”

“No.”

Sunlight. Someone’s already having a conversation with the jukebox and we’ve misplaced our symmetry a while ago. It’s the final Wednesday and our inhibitions stretch out under the table as we lower our necklines and raise our voices. I find my girls in the chaos but fail to lose my drinking face. You pick up on it faster than I can control. We spot a random, decide he’s Frazer’s snoop dog and cheers to Jai Hind. We drink to Rags boobs. We drink to growing up. We drink to having no future. I know what you’re upto but just this once, I let it go. Still, I catch you smirking.

“You didn’t cut your hair off,” you say accusatorily.

“I’d look like an alien.”

“No, you wouldn’t.”

“Would.”

“Show me.”

I’m high enough to make a fool of myself so I pull back my hair and you choke on your drink. This means war. I leave you for the dark side of Sunlight and like a hero I run across the bench, bang my head on the big ugly tv and pose for a picture. When I come back to you, I’m wincing and there’s a small gash next to my hairline. You take one look at my face, plunge your hand into the ice bucket, wrap cubes in tissue and hand it to me. I’m laughing. You check for a bump but I tell you I’m fine. They’re playing ‘Time of your life’ by Greenday and everyone sings it with full feel. When I look at you, you learn forward and brush my cheek with your thumb.

“That’s ice water.”

“I thought you were crying.”

We're so young and beautiful. The energy we play with is brighter than this room and I want to stay here forever. Drunk, on edge and spilling over with stars.

There’s magic everywhere and magically, obviously we’ve been caught in its web. I feel real but this feeling, it’s called growing up and just for a minute I wish it would give it a rest.

Just so I can go home and mull things over.

Instead I shrug off my old cape for Sky.

Dramaturgy

I'm sitting in college under the arches, the cold in my bones, chai curdling my veins and like a ninja you spring out, grab me and say, 'I just got kicked out of class, we're going for a smoke.'

I don't even like the smoke guy. But it's cold and you look pissed as hell so I follow.

I don't really know you but then again my mind has always been mutinously myopic and I never map friends of friends because the coordinates get too difficult to control.

We run outside and I say all the right things about attendance. We cross, you save me from a speeding car and I fight the urge to laugh at how easy it is for boys to play Superman.

The smoke guy doesn't sell to girls under a fail misconception that it will save us so you buy me a menthol and mint without even asking. I bite back surprise, you remembered

The pavement calls to me and when I sit down you don't hesitate. This is what I absolutely love about boys, they see nothing wrong with getting dirty.

'I like your name.'

'I hate it. My brother and sister are named after Gods, and I'm named after someone who worships God. Yay.'

'So you're real.'

I blow smoke spirals and ask you about your city, about change, about acid and alienation. You tell me stories instead. I curl up and let your voice do the talking so in time I can spell out the subtext, the rasps, the curves, the connotations. It's different. When you look at me, I pick up where you left off and you listen.

We're three smokes down, I'm on a roll about subjectivity and robots, the real world, happiness, the Beatles, Bombay secrets, painting people, the mafia, and you're still listening. I'm not thinking.

We count yellow cars and you laugh at all the right places. I'm wearing an ancient sweatshirt, no kajal and a very strategic coffee stain. I look like a 5 year old but you don't seem to care.

'I don't like her.' I say pointedly about someone walking past, on our fourth trip to the smoke guy.

'Why baba?'

'I don't know, bad vibes?'

'But do you know her?'

'Aww yeah you're one of those no judgement, acid has broken all the walls in my head types.'

'Acid is for safe places and unless you know someones story you can't play their game, right?'

'So its an endless circle of grey areas? I know what you're getting at but sometimes its easier being pissed off and juvenile. To judge and jail. The vicious circle. I don't want to go around giving chances,' I'm holding my breath so I turn away breathing out slowly.

You watch me for a bit then say something completely unexpected,

'Punch me.'

'You're insane.'

I watch you watching me and this could turn into one of those viral video games on pause so I punch your palms until they turn red.

You're stronger than I thought.

When I'm done you give me a real hug, chin to head, toe to toe, your forearms fighting the warmth into me.

Only strangers trust in tandem.

When we cross the road back to college you literally pull me forwards by the scruff of my neck to escape an errant driver.

'Ay man, why do you keep saving me?'

'Because I can.'

Hello stranger

(But you didn't have to cut me out

Make out like it never happened and that we were nothing

I don't even need your love, but you treat me like a stranger

And that feels so rough)

I dream about you every night. Last night you called me from your mothers phone and when I answered you made fun of my hello and begged me to come back. (My mother wouldn't like you, you'd said. I'd shrugged, the fact that you didn't like me making me indestructible) I wake up and the sky is blue again. I step out of bed (I hate my bed, I spent endless nights there making shadow animals with your voice in the background), wink at the mirror and then it hits me. (I'm over you. You forced me to like someone else. I wanted to throw up when you'd said that but you didn't care enough to see me weak. You wouldn't even stay to watch me leave) I double up fighting to breathe the pain like Tyler Durdens fist through my ribcage. Breathe breathe breathe, I tell myself, you're going to be fine. (That's a lie) I sleepwalk through a really bad omelette my dad made for me (Shanti's on holiday and home doesn't feel like home) he tries to add salt but I snap so hard I almost bite his fork off. I shower and pull on an ancient tshirt, my FY jeans and leave, my hair still in its post shower ponytail. (I look barely human, you'd love it) There's traces of kajal but I feel like a refugee, my eyes lighter, my heart heavier. Thank god for sweatshirts. My class smiles at me but leaves me alone. I think sometimes, I exude grief. (I'm a stranger that smells like me) What scares me is that no one would notice the difference. (Only you knew me no no no that's not true I have friends but there are days when all I want to do is call you and cry about a boy who broke my heart)(stop it, don't go there)

I've been holding my breath now for 22 days and counting. People tell me it will get easier with time (they're lying) they tell me it was my fault (its true) but what I don't tell them is that all the time we were together I detached as many time as the black keys on a piano, so I'd be ready for this eventuality. (I am enough)(You're lying) I always told myself I didn't need you, I had my people I had my places I was on my own planet, you were just an alien. (How easily we convince ourselves that we're safe) Somewhere, somehow, something went horribly wrong. You believed me and here I am unable to believe it myself. (Fuck) Its heartbreaking. (Let it go let it go it's going to be fine) I spent months trying not be emotionally dependent on you I guess I got over my robot phase because all I feel now is hurt and its the rawest kind. I don't want anyone else. (He comforted me one night though and that turned into something else but the entire time all I could think of was it hurts more now. It was sweet but the aftertaste made me retch)(What a stupid little girl)(She's just scared) I would give anything for you to call me sing talk about some show you've been watching hyper as shit take my case get worked up over imaginary threats soothe me in that psuedo posh voice of yours where we dissect life theories and give me more attention than my parents ever did. I miss you. (I know you miss me) I used to know you. I don't anymore. Now you look the same and smell the same but I can't touch you. I won't call you because I'm scared you'll disappoint me and find out I'm not as special as I used to be. You can't expect this to come easily. (I spend minutes every hour holding myself together)(I will not cry)(You're not angry, you're not sad, you're scared. You're scared you've lost someone special and when you're old enough to know better you're scared you'll never forgive yourself)

But if there's anything you taught me is that I'm prettier with my walls down so next time round I'm going to walk in fearless, but it won't be for you. You're going to get a white wall because I don't know what you're thinking anymore. You can't love someone unconditionally then make way for someone else.

If a tree falls in a forest and no one is around to hear it, does it make a sound?

I don't need you to tell me I exist.

I exist.

You were my pet, now you're a person, but I was never a tree.

(Now you're just somebody that I used to know)

Esidarap

I've been fighting feeling all my life. My layers so separated from the real world that I almost forgot what it was like to lose. I could've lost you. You could've painted me black instead of purple and orange, shades that have always been misunderstood. But instead here we are, so intrinsically twisted that sometimes I think I could be any shade you want just so you don't see the shadows shifting beneath my skin. I'm so sad, smalls. You try to shake it out of me but the sadness is in my bones and I'm just so scared. I'm scared you won't come back to me. I'm see that you've scavenged a shield for future fights so you can stay strong and untouchable but it's just not as much fun, is it?
I cried because I've never been loved with a heart so big before. I'm empty and disoriented and I could blame you but would you save me now? In all honesty I don't get why you should. I've been told that Superman only turns up if there's someone worth saving. And if you left, I'd have to figure out how to save myself but I can't even sleep with all the lights off and sometimes I talk to the ceiling and battle silhouettes with my sheets and you know I have you on speed dial lest the monsters come for me so don't go.
I don't want you to pace yourself, to space us because I'm not fighting you anymore. Then again, I don't know what I want. But you're white and I'm every colour but and you started off being my safe spot so now when I choose to live a little on the wild side I'll have to relinquish you.

When she was just a girl
She expected the world
But it flew away from her reach so
She ran away in her sleep

I could want you. But my mind plays games with me and my dreams are darker than you are.

Darling this time if you break I promise I will fix you, with twisted straws and superglue.
Because only superheroes deserve superglue.

Sleepyhead

Tell me a story, okay? you say, your voice husky with sleep.
Okay, I say, layered in sweat and blankets, cold rain cocooning my capillaries. I'm this close to curling into a curve but you're waiting so I weather my voice for you.

Once upon a time there was a little..
Cat called Felix, you interject softly.
There was a little cat called Felix alone and scared in the middle of a deep dark forest. He found a path scarred with breadcrumbs and walked his way to a house made of cotton candy. Inside he bumped into a bed too hard, a bed too soft and one that was justt right. He was an insomniac and wasn't used to sleeping without a voice in his head so he searched for comfort and lay his paws upon a big ugly laptop, a mini and a macbook pro. Happiness. Young and hungry he stumbled into 3 bowls of maggi, one too big, one too small and one just the right amount of soupy. Just when he was done licking round the split ends the room went cold and 3 dementors glided their way in. The papa dementor was pissed, the mama dementor was really pissed and the baby dementor was just plain hungry. Together they attacked him and sucked out his soul. The end.

You're silent and I think I've put you to sleep when out of the stillness you say, you know what would've been really cool? If Felix produced a Patronus and ninja-ed the dementors away and ate the house of candy.

I want to grab your hair and kiss you but instead I settle for, look at that, you chut, you complete me.
You're the sun to my moon and sometimes I traipse through terraces in the hope of getting a little bit closer to you, when I can't find my Edge. You're the glow I know like the back of my mind and if you don't want to kill the cat, i'm not complaining.

Who doesn't love a happy ending?