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.