Some days

Some days,

Some days, when my mother comes to wake me up in the morning, I feel like a stranger to her.

I feel like a stranger to my father sitting opposite on the breakfast table.

I go out and the world feels so strange. Like everyone's been here for a long time and I kinda just arrived, a newcomer. 

I feel like a stranger when I'm sitting with my friends and they're all laughing about something.

But the strange thing is no one else identifies this. I'm the only one acting weird that too on the inside.

I feel like a stranger when I look at myself in the mirror. What am I seeing? Do I like what I see? 

These days I feel like a stranger to my life.

Like, if my life was supposed to be a movie, I wouldn't be the protagonist or something. Hell, I wouldn't even be the sidekick of the hero. I wouldn't be the dumb guy always walking along with the hero. 

Imagine a crowd shot, and I would be one of'em. Blend in the crowd. Out of focus. A chameleon. 

And I don't want to do that. It's my fucking life and I should be the one on the steering wheel. But god, I'm not even sitting on the front seat giving out navigations to the driver. I'm in the back seat, by the window, feeling that warm breeze, immersed in the silent melody of myself and my life, wishing that this journey would take me somewhere, anywhere but here.

There's this line from 'Aristotle and Dante discover the secrets of the universe'. It's one of the most relatable lines I've ever read. It goes like,

"The problem with my life was that it was someone else's idea".

Yeah, that about sums it up.

So these days, 

These days I confine myself to four white walls of my room. These days I find the only comfort in my bed and blanket. 

These days I hate humans. I hate even the slightest bit of light so my curtains remain closed since the previous night. Movies, series, or books don't help me escape reality like they used to before. 

But by some miracle, music gets through to your heart. I dwell myself in Smiths and Prateek Kuhad.

"There is a light that never goes out".

Caffeine and wallowing in my thoughts help me through the day. 

Existential crisis. 

At night, I leave one window open so I can hear crickets crying and dogs barking, so I would feel less alone. I stuff my face in the pillows pretending to be crying, even though I already know I've lost that ability a long time ago. 

Sometimes a firefly comes to give me company. They're good company actually. I still haven't figured out if it's the same firefly that's coming every day or are they like, different.

I keep my pocket torch and journal by my side. So if it becomes too much I can always dump them on paper. 

I scribble through my journal faster than usual. 

I listen to voice diaries from my past happy days to remind myself that I was this happy one day. And I could feel like that again. That all of this is temporary and it's a fucking cycle and I just have to get through this night. And when I wake up tomorrow morning it'll all be fresh and new and I can put this all behind and move on.

But my brain disagrees and takes me on a trip to nostalgic archives and all the bad decisions I've ever took in life. Motherfucker. This isn't good. 

I take out paracetamol from the drawer and gulp one in. My mother says it makes us feel tired and sleepy. So that's good. Sometimes I take two. But then again I remember my brother saying these things affect our liver and stuff in the worse way. So two is rare.

I try to write something creative. If I'm somehow able to bring up the first line I can finish the rest of it effortlessly. I keep staring into the air like words are floating somewhere there and I just have to grab'em. Fails again. 

I crawl back into my sheet. I try bringing knees to my face and clenching myself like a rugby ball. It doesn't help. I try the good old fetal position. Finally, I'm back to the same old childhood trick.

By tightly placing my head under a pillow and hugging another one, I'm able to bury myself to sleep. 

Sayonara.

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