Friday, 22 December 2017

Fire and Cold Blood

The cold breeze cuts. What's with cold breeze? My attempts at consistent writing evidently failed. I want to feel the cold. I can't explain what's happening to me anymore. I just can't. I sit on the edge of sidewalk, my arms wrapped around myself. My eyes focus and unfocus, things become distant and come closer and further. The clarity is gone in everything. Her face, with her curly hair, I listen, the words hit me but I can't comprehend them. I hear her, watch them form perfect syllables, then she slaps me awake. I want another cigarette. I haven't eaten for three days. My head pounds. I can't understand what's happening. I want to take off my shoes and walk on the cold hard ground. I want to just walk, walk into the dark night, walk under yellow street lights. I look like a corporate hooker today. The red hurts me. I feel like I've been shot, I feel like there's blood on my hands. I want to touch blood, the warmth of it dripping down my fingertips. I dig my nails into my skin, my fist closes harder. I close my eyes, everything is a blur in the darkness. They talk to fast and then slow. I can't hear them. I hear the honking in the street, the blankness of my mind, the darkness closes in. I want to hug it, stop breathing. I wake up at night cuz I stop breathing. It's such a familiar feeling now that I smile every time I think about it. I'm not fucked up. I'm not, I look into the mirror, my eyes too wide pen, my lips tremble as I repeat it. I'm happy, I'll be okay. But why? I am okay maybe. Maybe I'm telling myself I see things, I think too, I see them kiss me. I see a birthday cake, and a happy family, everyone sings around her, but she looks at their weary outlines, a haunting voice touching her heart.

I walk under the street lights. No one looks for me. They don't want to. I laugh. Maybe I laughed too hard. And then everything is quiet. And then I hear them hiss and laugh. It becomes louder. And louder. And I hear footsteps. I think he's coming. He's going to push me isn't he? Into an abyss of loneliness and darkness. Me in my red shirt and blue skirt. Till I float into those worlds that I see in my peripheral vision. Black, blue, red, black, smoky and clean at the same time. The earthy smell mixed with a all so familiar perfume.

And then I look at the patterns on the ground, the coffee in front of me, ice cold, tasteless. I silently stir it and watch people laugh. They're all so happy. So content. In that darkness I see that again and again. Like a silent film. They laugh and turn to me, laugh louder. I suddenly want to scream. I want to kill the silence. The soundless laughter. The kindness. Their joy.

I throw up tar. I feel dizzy, lighter, but not wiser. I reach for someones hand, for someone to listen to the music playing in my head as I sit still and count my breaths in time with my heartbeat. I trip and someone holds the back of my shirt but my hands touch the ground. I look at them. The white skin peeling off. The blood surges and spreads, the long cuts flow into the lines on my hands. All of a sudden I'm furious. I want to cry and yell at someone. I turn around and no one's there.

I walk into the forest.I walk down the tar road of school. There's a candle in my hand. I want to burn something, I want to light the hills on fire. My hair flutters around my face. I'm cold but I don't care anymore. I walk past the white houses, the wire mesh windows. People sleep so peacefully. The trees creak and sway in their familiar way. Tonight there are no guards. Tonight I hear only the trees, people breathe so peacefully. The light of the white solar lamps cast shadows on their faces. Their pale skin, long lashes, I want to touch them, trace each feature in the ghostly night time. So innocent, so calm. I walk down, past homes, past school, past the cars, the telephone booth, I watch the moon. I feel the leaves beneath my bare feet. It gets colder. I turn left. I know the exact place. I glance at the window and I see another candle, I hear soft voices. I hear breathing. I know whose inside. Their bodies flicker like their souls. They twist and turn, the yellow and black shadows on the white walls. I throw my candle inside and close my eyes as everything burns. The smoke rises and it's warm then. And I smile. And the silence encloses me once more.



Sunday, 17 December 2017

Blue Tinted Polaroids and Piano Music

Today is the second day of my writing. I have decided I will write as often as I can. Maybe even if it's just thoughts. A documentation of a life.

I slept at an unearthly hour, with a feeling that isn't leaving me. It's a pain, an emptiness. I woke up not wanting to get up. No, it was not because it was extremely cold. It was because I felt like melting into my bed and never wanting to wake up. It perhaps comes from my fear that one day I will forget how to breathe at night and I will die. It's a comforting thought. Just stopping breathing. It'll fade like a dandelion blowing the wind. Think of grey skies, clouds and a field with a single dandelion, white and delicate. And one by one each little feathery piece floats into the wind and never really comes back. I want each breath to also fade like that till the last one remains. Then that too floats away calmly. The wind carries it away like a soul breathing in the snowy winter. Light, soft and weightless.

The sun is white against the grey skies. I want it's warmth to touch my eyelids as it dapples the way it does in movies. Or the way I'd wake up in school, the sun shining through the windows on Sunday mornings. Instead I watched the blue printed curtains become pale in the greyness of the morning. From pearl grey, to a darker grey like the skies of England. I snuck in further under the covers and breathed in my own scent. It mixed with his, a faint reminder. It never seems to leave me. I desperately try as I spray on stronger perfume but in random hints he appears like a shadowy memory under my covers.

The day seemed most uninspiring as I went to open the curtains. It seemed like the sun was promising to come out but in its resistance it hid. Sometimes I wonder if everyone has their own secrets. Do all living things live with the guilt that I live with? I sat in bed, wanting to hide again, refusing to fold my quilts so that I could hide. I wonder from what I'm hiding. Myself? My mother? Work? I answered all my messages and listened to my song on repeat for the 30th time in the past two days. The feeling of lonely dread captured my senses once more. I want to shut down. A song from school echoes in my head like the memories. The ghosts of my mistakes ripple through my head, down my skin, I can't decide what I want anymore.

I snap, I work like a robot, obeying instructions, move, every piece of me independent from the last. I feel like I've been broken down to fit into the system of Taylorism. My feelings are being forced to be that as well. Un-cohesive. Colours, musings, vibrations, solutions to my desires to have sex again, to be loved, to crave an affection, to have meaning, purpose. Then there's the feelings. All those feelings I get when I listen to a piece of music. The sadness in that one song.

I can't explain why I feel that way. I hear the words. They're so familiar, so real. I feel like it's a movie. My life plays out in similar ways. I can see the washed out colours, the blue tint, the grey tint. The dirty clothes, the musty smells as I smoke a cigarette and walk down a street full of heroin addicts. I see them spin. I stood in my room today evening , craving someone to dance with me. Instead I just spun in circles. Around and around, letting it flow. I see myself as a child. Content but lonely. I know I have constructed these feelings. But the blue tinted colours of my life refuse to leave. It feels like a polaroid, a time in which I see my mother living. A time I see myself fit into perfectly.

I spent the day watching a movie, watching tv, not really feeling much. The movie made me feel a bit. The flitting from memory to present to back. The shadows. The yellows, the soft lines, the small parts of a larger scene. A picture, a photograph, time stills, I stop breathing, I watch closely, I hear a voice narrate kindly. The movie makes me think once in a while. The beauty of discovering something new. The joy I might have felt. The fear as well. The intense love for another person. Would i ever be able to take that risk?

Will I always think of myself as someone whose difficult, unresponsive, scared. Someone who thinks she can't reveal but is so brutally honest in reality. I tell myself I'm holding in but I tell so much. I don't want to. I hold in tears, and the colours rush. I see blues again. Whites, I'm not sure where I'm going. I want to stumble around. Cry. I desperately want to cry but I can't. And now here I sit listening to piano music, writing. Typing. I t makes me feel like a writer. The keys clacking away furiously. I feel satisfied now. I feel the pain. The sweetness of it. The hurt in my chest, in my shoulders. My neck and back. I want someone to understand this so badly. I can't explain why.

I can't decide why I'm writing. I listen to the music. I see stories. I see myself. Things that will happen to me. Things I want so badly. Happiness. Pain. Clarity. Love. Why do I want these things when I don't even know what they mean and why I want them? Things don't make sense. I will go to work tomorrow. I will strive to fix my broken relationships. I will advice my friends, think of the bottle of vodka at the back of my cupboard, think of ways to go for the party on Thursday night. I will listen to more piano music maybe, compose a dance, a scene, an emptiness, a blank space as I close my eyes in the metro and listen. And I will ask myself why I'm really alive. And it will happen the next day. the the day after. And I will not know why.

Friday, 15 December 2017

Why I write


I often listen to music when I write. My best writing comes from listening to music. It makes me feel like I'm in a movie on some days. I feel like a character from a book, the walls change shapes, spaces change, I can lose myself so easily in the sensation, into a nothingness. I see colours, memories, stories swirl into a smoky black and white. fragments of music and scenes, dreams. I want you to lose yourself in the words. Taste the creaminess, the sweet, the cold, the metallic sadness, the emptiness of a road. Smell the tears and the happiness, the anguish, the desire, the guilt, the pleasure. I want you to think of it as a slice of cake. You're biting into it and feeling everything then.  Everything you've ever felt. It rushes, knocks you down, pulls you, you float, you feel. Feel everything.


Since I wanted to start this afresh I'm not very sure where I should start from. Perhaps with the title of this blog- Writings Without Colour. I chose this in the spur of a moment without really thinking about why I was choosing a title. I wanted something that would describe my writing and at the same time would absorb my reader, attract them to the page. Writing is a skill that not many of us can master but we all start somewhere. My writing is a strange combination of  fiction and non-fiction, some of it is stories, some of it is just random free writing that I thought I should start documenting somewhere. My writing style often incorporates  a lot of description. It works with alliteration and I write hoping that the words will blend into each other, like creamy make up on a doll. I want people to visualise things, to feel the wind on their skin as they read my words, to maybe not feel the same, but to understand.

I may not make sense often, but if you listen to me, listen to the music I want you to while you read, sit quietly, sit in crowded spaces, listen, you will feel. I promise you you will. You will feel like rocking yourself into a quiet sleep, a silence will creep into you, it will kiss your cheek as you sleep. You will dream of soft white snow on cobwebs, tears lining your eyes, of good music, lullabies. I want you to feel at home but alone, happy but torn. I want you to feel alive. To read.

And I find it kinda funny, I find it kind sad

He took me to some world I never thought I'd ever get to be in. It's a lost feeling where we're the only two people alive, in each others arms. Warm, happy but our hearts cold, confused. We stand on the terrace, his arms around my waist as I cup his face and look into his eyes. I see stars, a cluster of white and black, I feel his breath on my cheek. I can't explain the feeling. His body is soft and warm, as if he's still a child, there are pockets of chubby fat that I love to touch and feel. It's oddly comforting. Our romance is like a whirlwind where I feel happy and sad at the same time. he plays my favourite music every time we lie in bed. Side by side. I curl up, my head on his chest, running my fingers down his body, the small marks, his warm skin, the distinct smell I know I will recognise anywhere. It's a smell I wish I could bottle and keep, it's tempting to love him. His brown hair, his kind smile, but his eyes with the most beautiful smile lines on the edges. I feel like kissing his face the same way he kisses mine. I want us to keep this forever, this funny but sad feeling, I want him to be my best friend. I want to know him. I know I'll lose him someday soon. Till then I want to listen to his breathing in the dark, his warmth, his hands tracing circles on my back.

We met by chance, the first time he looked at me, took me by complete surprise, I felt like he was this odd boy, this boy who wanted to make people feel special. But there was something that he's not happy with, it races through his head. He reminds me of all my astronauts. They float through space, not sure where they're going. Or maybe he's sure but he still has this look... where I feel like I want to hold his hand, make him happy too. Because he's perfect and deserves so much more. I see him as this boy walking through a crowd, his face empty, but he just walks, no expression. He's beautiful in so many ways but he's just walking, no one notices.... His stony expression is screaming for help, for something, he resists every time someone comes too close, he burns, he tosses and turns every night in bed. I want to care so badly for him but I promised I won't. The smoke he takes out each time we smoke swirls over his head. There's a shadow that hovers over him, it's not shattered glass. I see him looking at himself in the ice. He watches himself, a thin jacket around his shoulders, his hair covered with a thin layer of frost, there's a tear dripping down his face.

There are days when I believe that he's so strongly built this persona of the brooding boy living in pain. He wants to feel it, it makes him breathe just a little longer, it keeps his eyes open for a minute longer as he gasps. But don't we all need something to hold? something to build? Of broken, misunderstood people?

He pulls me up and holds me, for a minute he looks into my eyes and I don't breathe. I can't. I want to devour him, to spend time with him. I want to dance with him sometimes, just, my head on his chest as we spin in slow circles, his chin on my head. Perhaps he doesn't care, but I want to believe he does. He kisses my cheeks and I feel them getting warm, I melt into his body. He kisses every inch of my skin, his soft lips, his feathery hair I slip my fingers into, swirling and twirling. He pulls me closer and there are times I want to cry so hard because I can handle him. My love, his confusion, our want for each other's bodies, how he delves deeper into my heart, the push and pull. I want to fall in love, I want him to fall in love, but we won't. We can't.

The rain drips down our faces and he holds me so close. The music plays in our heads, beneath of hearts, it draws us closer as he sways with me in his arms. I've fallen in love with those moments. Those times when he treats me like a child, calms me down, drums his fingers down my spine, when he looks into my eyes and smiles. That one time he told me he could write a book about my body, the smell of my hair, the curves of my back as I stand on my toes to kiss him. Perhaps he tells every girl the same thing. But it just doesn't matter. All that matters is that I want him to be happy. I've never felt this way. This feeling of sadness.....



All around me are familiar faces
Worn out places, worn out faces
Bright and early for their daily races
Going nowhere, going nowhere
Their tears are filling up their glasses
No expression, no expression
Hide my head, I want to drown my sorrow
No tomorrow, no tomorrow
And I find it kinda funny, I find it kinda sad
The dreams in which I'm dying are the best I've ever had
I find it hard to tell you, I find it hard to take
When people run in circles it's a very very
Mad world, mad world
Children waiting for the day, they feel good
Happy birthday, happy birthday
Made to feel the way that every child should
Sit and listen, sit and listen
Went to school and I was very nervous
No one knew me, no one knew me
Hello teacher, tell me what's my lesson
Look right through me, look right through me
And I find it kinda funny, I find it kinda sad
The dreams in which I'm dying are the best I've ever had
I find it hard to tell you, I find it hard to take
When people run in circles it's a very very
Mad world, mad world
Enlarge your world
Mad world