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?

I used to be the same

You don't trust me. Then you go and get me rainbow straws. It's a hit and run with you, I never know when I'm knifing you into neat little pizza slices. But it's usually a boy, it's always a boy. Slash slash and a little bit of oregano. You choose to see what you want to and so do I. I'm sorry, I never meant to, but once you start it's kinda hard to trace your way back..unless you have breadcrumbs in your pocket. But all I've got is a blackberry that winks at me when you're not looking, quicksilver fingers and misgivings about myself.

It's me again. I soaked your Blood, Sugar tshirt that night, but you wouldn't let go. It would have killed me if you'd left. The irony, right? Blood on his shirt, tears on yours. If only we'd had a little bit of Magik. I told you you wouldn't understand but it was the first time a person died like the dreams I have of dying. Unpredictable, straight through the heart, I lost a life, my family man who knew more than I did about the way the world works.

I want to be happy, but I sleep too much. If you could I know what you'd say, "You're alienating yourself again" and i'd shake my head and yell at you but my toes would curl and i'd fight the urge to break things. I'm sick of so many situations but it's a bitch to separate my world from theirs. To merge it with yours. Sometimes, it's all submerge and slow feet, denial and dream fogged eyes.

16th Jan, 2012

It's unfinished but even then I was unhappy.

I was never happy with you.

Teenage Dream

Sid Vicious I have so much to say that sometimes it sparks its way up my throat like leftover emotion sickness but I don’t want that kind of attention the hold-her-hair-back-she’s-throwing-up kind I like being my own secret but then you came along and ruined it and before I knew it I was throwing up every night sometimes softly the words rushing into each other so you wouldn’t catch them even though you don’t catch me when I fall you’re the drop-her-because-I-trust-her-to-pick-herself-up kind and guess what I think I like it even though I’m paranoid and have the strangest dreams and build bubbles that trap me and tease me and think too much and I’m scared I am such a scared person and I’m just scared that bad things will happen to me I’ve had such an easy life smooth untouched lucky and spent most of it just waiting for the good things to disapparate one by one I don’t know where this comes from or why I flip out silently inside my head and why sometimes when I hug my mother I feel like I’m hugging her for the last time how my room has a blue wall and looks perfect in the light and I know one day ill miss it how I might lose my sister and I might not miss her how I don’t chill enough with a brother who I was crazy about and is growing up too fast for me to shout STOP I’m not ready to grow up and every year feels like I’m counting down towards dying it pulses through me I’m used to it now maybe this will explain why I hate getting older why I’m seized with fear when I watch people die its almost an underneath the skin obsession where I’m waiting I can't stop waiting this is just a heads up to how I’m a little bit not normal and I don’t know how to deal with this this waiting but I’m hoping you do so far you’ve been stellar but 2012 keeps getting closer and even thinking about it makes my heart shut down for a second but luckily for me I have you and you make my heart skip a beat and tell me we’ll build unbreakable walls as opposed to bubbles and no tsunami will ever find its way past us because we’re that strong interlocked so don’t go because in a way you’re one of my countdowns too I love you.

Like a fox

Hi
So I’m finishing the game you started on Brickbreaker but I’ve already lost 2 lives in 7 seconds and I’m suddenly fighting the urge to cry which I haven’t done but I don’t want to lose because you started it but when you think about it I started it and this is going to turn into one of those rants where I won’t know if I’m trying to tell you whether I love you or hate you but the beauty here is you can have both or live with none because you don’t have to see my face everyday and I wont have to play with your hair or let you push me off the bed or curl into you when everyone’s watching because it took me that much time to decide that just like how you said it’s not worth it to cry when you leave I changed my mind about how it’s not worth it to give a fuck about what anyone else thinks because you make me happy and the fact that you think I’m pristine and still me doesn’t help to not mourn about this THIS whole fucked up situation for a bit it could be anything from uptil right now or to every time I look at my wrist and see a watch that used to be yours because it used to be yours or every time I meet a boy who I’m magnetically attracted to but will never be you but hey you’re not dead but dealing is real and I miss you in a my hand reaches out and falls disturbingly when it doesn't find you way and I’m sorry I asked you out and I’m just sorry that I can find you anywhere because you light me up and you let me go and I owned you for a bit and even though you won’t know I let you own me and it made me smile.

I just started a new game. I can’t see your hand where it should be and it doesn’t make sense.
I’ll never win without you.

I’m crying.

Everybody wants to be a cat

Strip.
Layer no. 1 is easy to slip out of. It doesn’t chafe against her skin or rub her up the wrong way. It leaves her provocative and talkative, a smile too big for her mouth and hair that twines its way down her spine, hissing and writhing till she twists and turns, like a dancer on fire.
How fucking irresistible.

Strip
Layer no. 2 is like second skin. It’s fused to her so tight that she only lets it fade when no one’s watching. When it’s 3:45 at night and it’s just her and a deaf cat, when it’s 4 girls 23 shots down and sheets soaked in tears, when comrades who made her day transform into people who walk through her hiwhatsupimgoodgottahead, when she can’t save people who kill themselves every single day, on repeat.

Strip
Layer no. 3. The under the skin layer. The one that defies cheat codes, heart shaped boxes and a whole lotta love. The one that won’t let you touch her, not when you’ll leave hole shaped memories and a delete = 6. So much beauty in the unbreakable. What you won’t notice is the nail marks on her palm, how her toes curl when you talk to her how she’s so aware of you it hurts. Scaredy cat. Catfish. Catatonic. Catastrophe. She’ll never come clean but what did you expect from a girl who won’t swallow?

But hey,
Now that you’ve uncovered the layers, and you’re this close to skin,
Might as well go all in.

Top Cat!
The indisputable leader of the gang.
He's the boss, he's a pimp, he's the championship.
He's the most tip top,
Top Cat.

Stars lie like they mean it

Dear A for Apple,

My head has a heartbeat. It’s like a train thrashing through me so hard, so fast that it leaves skidmarks on my face. Only you feel my frailty, only you know how secret our scars are, how pretty they look. This city has my name etched into its curves but I’m not ready to flash mine yet. I’m not sorry you did. If you are, you’re an idiot. Over time you’ll learn that boys are bred to be played with, not to fall in love with. Sometimes, they fall in love with you, which is nice too. But come on, we don’t want to be watched we want to steal attention, break hearts not butter them, fuck the ones that won’t look us in the eye. I’m still not sorry. Filter. The ones you want from the ones you don’t. But don’t smile for them, promise me that. You don’t need to. Learn to live with yourself, to cry without an audience. Someday they’ll all clap for you, I promise.

And you’ll be standing in the dark.
Because you like it.

Love, Niv.

Cupcakes taste like Violence

We're always behind this metal and glass. I think we miss that touch so much, that we crash into each other, just so we can feel something.

- Crash

Dear Pria,
There used to be a boy. And then there was another one. And there were a few in between. And I know these weren't the details you asked for, but I'd rather not get into them, because they're dirty. Spit, spit, spit, swallow. Remember the Bangle Theory? I'm cut glass-ed out bro. So many circles, so tangled up, I can't even spell emotion. It's like the wall, right? Higher, stronger, harder, faster, all that jazz. And the higher you build it, the smaller you get, until you don't see yourself as anything anymore and nobody else does either. So you scream for attention but the wall doesn’t give and before you know it you’re sprinting outside just so you can crash into the nearest person – someone provocative and talkative, shallow and misguided – touch, tease, taste, throw up.

I met him. I hid behind a pillar, curled like a baby seal and made myself almost invisible but he was drawn to me, like a moth to a flame, bra, like a moth to a flame. I know what you would’ve said “Face it. You need to do it. Stop feeling sorry for yourself.” But I wasn’t sure how if a person still had the same hands and the same hair and said your name in the same way, you could feel so different. Maybe we dressed the distance in a fashion we loved, maybe I did. Don’tsayitdon’tsayitdon’tsayit
See if I were you I might’ve liked it, loved it even, lived with the love. But I’m me and if you don’t keep me on edge, you’re over it. You said it first. You told me I get bored easily, I just didn’t expect it to happen with people. The hurt wasn’t worth the wait.

If I let myself feel I’d be crying through breakfast and the cab ride to college and lectures I sleep in and gokul and sunlight and the smoke dude and my girlfriends’ pretty faces and home and on my striped sheets and Shanti might make me chicken soup and Ashu and Gayu might give me a hug or a rainbow or biryani from Olympia but I’ll live with not knowing. I’m really uphappy. I’ve never felt this unhappy. Pushed up against a wall doesn’t cut it either. I wish I could purge myself off my past, walk pure. Past, right? So dramatic. But the countdown isn’t counting down and the faces get less make out worthy in the light.

This one was strange. The other one was just plain stupid. I can get over plain stupid, but strange makes me feel strange and I like the inexplicable. Then again, give me -39 seconds and his flaws blind my eyes. Make it stop. I don’t like this game. I don’t know what the prize is and all I’m losing is me.

New game?
Never fuck, never fuck, better than a… it says ‘never fuck’ for a fucking reason.
Sick.

Esh

I can’t focus. All it takes is your face in mine and I’m twirling hair and smiling and hating you. I don’t even like you. But I love that you look like me. You bleed restlessness and I’m drawn to you so I forget all the things I should be doing and I let you do me. It’s complicated. It always is. But you say when has fun ever been complicated. We’re just having fun, right? Fun with our clothes off. You look better with your clothes off. And your mouth shut. And sometimes, I fight not to kiss you like I mean it. But then you make it easy. Jedi five, Taz.

Then there’s you. I never meant to, I promise. I’ve been there. It’s an ugly place where you see me everytime you’re in S’s room, put on a shirt, brush your teeth, cross the road, wake up, breathe. Your boulevard is a living breathing memory that tastes like me. We’ve lived the fairytale, but trust me, I’m not there. I’m here. I always was. We just acted like it was perfect. You fabricated us and so did I, we were good together because we thought we were. See, that’s the catch. You can fool yourself into believing in perfection. I’m crashing. Can’t do it. This should be nicer and talk about how seamless we were and how we wove in and out of each other but come on, scars are so much more mesmerizing. I’m so sorry. My face isn’t pretty enough to stain your memory. You’ll get over it. You’re strong and stubborn. You might even hate me. The tragedy is, I might let you.

Honestly, I just wanted to be 19. You know, catch a movie, lock lips, feign love, get dinner, run in your hoodie on marine drive. But instead I got all or nothing. I'm your beauty, he's my beast. Oh slap.

I wish I was Princess Leia.
I'd get my own spaceship and ride off into the galaxy.
And sometimes i'd make out with hot men with lightsabers.
Because I'd be cool like that.

It's not me, it's you.

My cocoon is spun of surreal striped sheets, maggi and a phone that’s meant to ring. But my dreams are a frenzied rush of morbid colour and if I wake up smiling, I don’t remember it.
I’m talking again. The words spilling into each other till they spin me round and round and you watch me like you should – enthralled, blazed, fingers twirling rolling paper.
I’m not that fascinating and you’re not that quiet but we’re fated to swap moods and spit, warmth and the reasons I still make you smile. It’s raining and I want the windows open. Your hair smells of smoke and Betty Boop and Che paint faces on your wall. They’re jealous. Who wouldn’t be?
If I could trace cheat codes to find you, I would. We both have shiny happy fits of rage, I’d upset your game if it bored me, you - you’d curl up in your corner, fight words beating though your veins and I’d know you’re my plus one.
I’m not that breathtaking and you’re not that safe but we’ve mastered the art of sulking and if my scars are your gift I’m keeping them.
We’re in my room and I’m glowing and Carry Out is playing in the background. I’m on my toes and you’re holding me up and we’re suffering from mutual addiction.
“Pretend you’re out clubbing with your friends okay, and I’m a random boy”
“Do I get to be drunk?”
“Definitely”
We play hide ‘n’ seek with gravity and your hands dance their way down my spine, your face inches from mine. Look but don’t touch. Touch but don’t taste.
My mouth is yours and our cheat codes make me laugh.

Bas.
I miss you.

HeartBeatBox

My heart is your fist wrapped in blood. 
My aching insides see no way out so I kill time in oversized tshirts and chipped fluorescent nails, faded purple streaks playing with my split ends as I trace my tracks in circles.
I press lit up buttons on an ancient cellphone and watch the sleazy snake eat it's insides out but both stay silent.
I watch endless mind numbing videos, sit through serials that preach sex and conjure up meaningless conversations with green moons on a pop up box, but none of them seem to fit the jigsaw puzzle of a forgotten fist.
I wait.
I wait on zebra print sheets, by black curtains laced with gold, on mutilated college benches, by old paan chewing men selling menthols, in crowded spaces with empty faces, I wait.
I wait for you to unclench your fist, to dip your fingers in blood and fingerpaint my fingerprints so I know I am me.

But you don't exist.

What the fuck am I doing?
I'm eighteen. I'm whole and unbreakable.
But my heart beats me like you did and so I think it is you.

See, you do exist.

Brighter than sunshine

The darkest corners of this room taste like home, the heady smell of vodka, smoke and heated friendship the lullaby to my adolescence. I sit curled up in a corner as my comrades fight life with rolling paper, masks and oscillating obsessions. Boredom is our favourite foe.

“What colour would J be?” C asks, her BlackBerry the new shape of her heart. She doesn’t look up, she’s forgotten how.

“Dark blue.” Z says, stubbing out a cigeratte in an overflowing ashtray. It looks like us. Z has his own theory on colours and shades - hues, tints, tones, the color spectrum on a high. He says people change but only so much. They still stick to the same colour zone, blues don’t become pinks. J can be intense and calm, mysterious and alluring, raging and quiet, shallow but in too deep – Dark blue. We raise our dirty beer stained glasses in acquiesce. J chugs, smiling.

“And R?” Lime green, we say easily – uncomplicated, smooth, happy, calm, comfortable, strong, pretty. She traces beer rings on the old scar scratched table, smiling.

D plays happy with brown - camouflage boy, K throws up the peace sign with yellow, C gets deep purple – she bares her teeth, loving it, F is orange – unreadable and sometimes, unreachable, Z is the colour of wine, someone you have to acquire a taste for. They're all shining smiles off each other.

“N?” they think. I wait. 

“Red. In-your-face, fiery, fucking red.” I hold. Red – the colour of blood, the colour of passion, late sunsets, little girl ribbons, hearts, denial and danger. So attention seeking, so obviously uncomplicated, so sure of herself. I smile. I wonder if they all had colour coated secret smiles.

I don’t see red.

The pretty me screams at me for being ugly, the smart part for spitting stupidity, the intense side hates the superficial one and together we fight, light versus dark, dark versus light, me against myself. I hate and I hurt.

I see myself in black & white.

But those movies died a long long time ago.

If You See Kay

Zebra print bedsheets, your hands slipping on the satin of my dress, an undramatic sunrise, a mess of unsmoked menthols, a pout that bites and sulks, my hand in your hair, your hand holding my heels, green grass on our side, smudged kajal and a stained heart.
Your voice burns holes in my memory but you see me in still images –stuck- light edged eyes fixed on you, long chocolate legs crossed lazily, black painted nails reaching out for you and a smile that cracks my face in half. I wouldn’t have it any other way.
A figment of imagination doesn’t feel, right? You wouldn’t want it any other way.

So together we’ll live in indecision, indifference and with an incision on our hearts.
Yours deeper, brighter, a slash of what you never had.
Mine, a secret slit.  

I'm only Chasing Safety

JT,

You've engraved your initials so deep into my pulse that every boy who crashes into me catches me quicken in the same way.
I have always loved - before you and after, but always, I am drawn to the sharp edge of your scar where my bitter bitten fingernails scratch again and again till I bleed
These Boys, they mouth the same lies you did but it is your script I seek. You who taught me to cross my legs, my fingers and my heart so I don't get too 'serious'.

The Chocolate Boy who melted.
The Bassist who plays dead.
Superman who can't save himself.
The Night Prince who only wakes up wasted.

I've walled my veins, buried my blood, straitjacketed my heart, but the occasional heartburn always gets me to recount my pulse rate. I count slowly, checking and rechecking, till your initials are a blur, my heart a fist.

I paint my nails, my face, my hair, my body till I can barely breathe.
Your scar lies dormant, waiting.
Let go of my wrist,
I'm dying.

- Niv

Whatcha say?

The truth is, mystery lies in honesty.

But adolescence makes fucking liars of us all.

We play and switch sides and blades and hide our smiles behind fuck bands, so eventually our mystery fades and boredom and suffocation play referee to a game that ends in tears.

I vote for honesty.

I say, “I love you, now.”

So you know, right? That I love you. But I’m hitting you with it straight - I love you, now.  Tonight when flashing lights veil the whites of my eyes I might love a stranger, now.

We’re so young and overrun by blinding emotion, fueled by fire and intoxicants we forget how to unscrew, and then we end up, you know, screwing. So when her hands trace the silhouette of your spine I know you will love her, now, then.

And I will cry, then, but I know that someday when someone says, “I love you”, I won’t take change and chance and growing pains that spill scars into consideration.

I will say, “I love you too.”

‘cause that’s how we’ll roll, then.