Help Me Breathe Deeper

Your lips, they burn as I mouth your truth

Their silence, like a deathtrap,

Waiting for you to question.

I'm here, it's near, show me fear darling

You're here, it's near, let's be scared darling.

Humble Beginnings

She ran her fingers through those golden beads of wheat that shone bright that particular morning. She didn’t know a lot of things, that girl. She didn’t know what becomes of the soul when death strikes, she didn’t know if there really was a soul to begin with and she didn’t know what to count as the beginning itself. She didn’t know the taste of wine, she didn’t know trend analysis and she most definitely didn’t know how in the world that damned thing called the internet, worked. She didn’t know of a black flower, she didn’t know the names of the artists of her favourite band and she had once even put Argentina on the map of Asia. She didn’t know the names of common trees or even what to call the person who drives a train. Train-driver? If that was the case, she didn’t know why they weren’t given specific titles like that of a pilot or a chauffeur. And then, when she stretched that thought on that particularly jaded morning, she wondered why she hadn’t thought of the bus driver who suffered the same insult hollered blatantly at him by the English language. So if there’s one thing you can be sure of right about now, is that the girl really didn’t know a lot of things.

But as she spread the fingers of both her hands taut, her palms facing downwards and scooped into that sufficient heap of gold, she began to check something off that infinite ignorance of hers. She raised her hands continuing that scooping movement and allowed her fingers to get intimate with the rough grains; she was getting to know something new. Something useless, possibly insignificant and absolutely inconsequential, but it counted. And as the wheat grains began to break away from that intimacy and slipped through her fingers, abandoning her existence, she knew the touch of wheat. She knew that. So now if anyone asked her whether or not she knew how it felt to run her fingers through a treasure of wheat grains, Cara would say that she did. She would say, ‘I know’.

That was a beautiful thought. It was good to know, it was safe to know. And it made Cara so happy; it made her so excited that she strived to stifle the giggles that escaped her, like a little child. And like that little child, she let her fingers run wild through the wheat grains. She gathered, clutched, dug further in, held and just as violently released what she now knew. She was entering a trance. The wheat was seeping into her skin and ecstasy was taking over. They were getting to know each other, they were understanding aspiration. Strangers to life, they were falling in what could have been love.

‘Breakfast!’

And she snapped out of it. She had been careful to contain her arms, so no one could relish what was hers, so her affair today morning became our secret.

Cara began to leave; it was her turn to abandon the wheat.

Over Me, A Little Above

Like a house of cards

And an orange sky

We had our fall

And it was quite alright

To be so young

And to be in love

Has been overwhelming, darling

Over me, a little above

So let these wheels rust now

Let the dust settle down

Till we can't tell time

Till we can't be found

To be so young

And to be in love

Has been overwhelming, darling

Over me, a little above

Garden State

'Let's just talk about good stuff.'

'Good stuff?'

'Yeah, glass half full shit. What do you got?'

'I got a little buzz, I got that. What you got?'

'I got a little buzz going. And I like you. So there's that. I guess I have that.'

'I can tap-dance. You wanna see me tap-dance?'

'I would love to see you tap-dance.'

*sigh*

The Signboard Quest

'Well there's not a lot for you to give if you're giving in

And there's not a lot for you to feel if you're not feeling it'

-Fix You Up, Tegan and Sara

I need to stop and figure out what I want. I'm moving in so many directions and yet eerily still. Picture an amoeba with its ugly pseudo-podia expanding in several directions trying so hard to engulf the food particle that'll save it. Except that when the food particle merges into its pathetic amoebic nothingness, there's really not much left to do but expand, again. And hence it puts itself through the ridiculous motions of ambiguity without realizing that its existence, in particular, is pretty much inconsequential considering the larger scheme of things. Stupid-fucking-microscopic-amoeba.

I'm headed towards nothing. I'm pushing everyone away. I feel like a damaged factory product, like something that's getting inspected before it can finally meet its fate in a melting furnace.

I'm wandering around in places I've never been, only no one can really see me. Or maybe it's the other way around. I'm wandering about where I've always been and boy, does my pathetic blob of existence stare you blank in the face.

I like to think of how people perceive me when they graciously do, only to end up with the same monotonous impression. And when I'm done with this fruitless self-deprecating exercise, I just come up other ways to fritter my life away.

I wonder how they'd see me differently if they knew who I really am. I wonder how they'll judge me if they know of the nights I've spent shivering on an abandoned floor while they screamed and broke things, the times I was woken up in stark terror by the petty bruising, the highway I walked at 3 in the morning cause all I wanted was to get run over by one of those crude over-speeding trucks, the stupidity of it all when I spent so long travelling back and forth in the same train because I was scared to get off it and face life, the fractional moment enmeshed in an absolutely terrifying immobility when someone so much as brushed past me, the blissful feeling of relief I felt when I realized I could fall off an eleven-storey building and it'd still be alright.

Okay, so maybe that last one was just a petty alcohol high, but it'd help if I turned around and walked into a STOP signboard. It's happened to people. Lucky bastards, all of them.

So I was saying, God bless Tegan and Sara.

Snowflakes In Delhi

Because it snowed and who'd have thought.

Flakes of sheer cold, parked on everything there was. Eyes wide open, gleaming like a never ending stream of sparkling white. She tripped over her steps, and fell on the cotton-like pavement snow, because who'd have thought! The colors that were only bursting till yesterday were now peeking through that white, a little taken by surprise yes, but quite liking the veil of anonymity.

The usual buzz of the city was now watching what couldn't have ever been! She strained to hear them, strained to hear anyone surpass this outlandish occurrence. And when she didn't, it was really true.

Did he know?

Their city was tucked peacefully in a white blanket of an almost-prophecy. Weren't they together then and wasn't it happening now?

She wanted him to hear of it from her, she wanted this snow to be for their sake only. Nothing could overshadow that moment that was, for once, bigger than them both. Bigger than all that had spurred past, bigger than what tomorrow might hold. Or so she reckoned.

Because it snowed and who'd have thought.

Quelqu'un M'a Dit

Fall so the tears pass you by

Fall so intuition screeches to brilliance

Fall so you see them falling into something

Fall so you fall right through where they stop

Fall till velocity becomes your sound

Fall till the skyline pierces your skin

Fall till nothing can possibly keep up

Fall till this privilege gets a little too much

Her spine pushed up against a cold floor

Foreign sounds haunting a peaceful night

Fall.

Fall into infinity

Fall, fall into life.

Summer

We can begin again

Shed our skin, let the sun shine in

At the edge of the ocean

We can start over again

-Edge Of The Ocean, Ivy

You're Keeping Me Down

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uhI4CpAH8wM

Because somethings have just got to be here.

Set me free, leave me be

I don't wanna fall another moment into your gravity

Here I am and I stand so tall

I'm just the way I'm supposed to be

But you're onto me and all over me

- Gravity, Sara Bareilles

From A Cold Steel Rail

So, so you think you can tell

Heaven from Hell

Blue skies from pain
Can you tell a green field from a cold steel rail
A smile from a veil

Do you think you can tell

Did they get you to trade

Your heroes for ghosts
Hot ashes for trees

Hot air for a cool breeze
Cold comfort for change
And did you exchange

A walk on part in the war for a lead role in a cage

How I wish, how I wish you were here
We're just two lost souls swimming in a fish bowl

Year after year
Running over the same old ground
What have we found

The same old fears

Wish you were here

-Wish You Were Here, Pink Floyd