voices in my head

  I am the kind of person who reads poems and interprets them in my own way. I do not care what the poet meant. I kinda let it wash over me, and then write about how it made me feel.   I stumbled upon ‘dreamlessly’ by Bukowski at a very strange time in my life. I don’t know how many times I have read it since then. Like Nic from ‘Beautiful Boy, Bukowski has played a major role in my survival in this city for the past four months.  This is a sinking ship Every day is a battle We’re fighting a losing war Captain, we’re surprised we made it this far Though we may drown any day And no one may even notice We’ll go down head held high For that, we tried And we fought.  Dreamlessly is about, well for me, it’s about having nothing to look forward to. It is about loneliness, and not being loved. It is about having no one and nothing to care for. It is about thousands of souls in every city, for whom every day is a battle. How do you wake yourselves up every morning knowi...

I never thought of love as a necessity, you know. I’m talking about the romantic kind here. Like I always thought of it as a bonus thing. Suppose you have it, good. If you don’t, well you can still live. But these days, I realize you need love. It’s like how you feel all tired and grumpy if you didn’t have a good night’s sleep or a decent breakfast. And now it doesn’t necessarily have to be from your boyfriend/girlfriend. It may be from your parents, friends, or siblings. You need some kind of love to survive. And the lack of it doesn’t make you grumpy or anything. Well in my case, these days I don’t feel like a real person. You know, like I’m here, I’m going to work, having breakfast, lunch, and dinner. I’m showering when I feel like it. I’m sitting in the plastic chair and watching the sun slowly turn orange to black in the span of a few minutes. Then what, the rest is a blank sheet. I feel like a soulless person. And I have all this love and words to give, but it’s just me. I feel l...

I have always been a summer person. I have always loved wearing just boxers on an April evening, a book in my hand, a pencil between my ears, pretending to be Elio from Call me by your name. I have always loved to be the one to collect newspapers from outside the gate, and the sun is already up there. I have always loved how my room fills with light even if I close the curtains, to dance myself off. I have always loved coming home after playing or going out, and then opening the refrigerator to find the water bottles my Mother kept there.  She’s not here now. Nobody’s here now. I still yearn for the summers I spent at home as I wake myself up on another cold, chilly December morning. As I pluck out weeds from the plant pots. I let some of them live a day or two, I’m kind like that. Chuckles .  But, Rahel, this one is not about cold chilly December mornings or my mother’s water bottles.  It’s about my bus ride back from work. How the view through the side glass slowly chan...

Mondays. On Mondays, I do not experience Monday blues like every other adult. There really isn’t much difference in my life whatever the day is.  Mondays. On Mondays, the neighbour kid wears a white shirt and blue pants, with black shoes. He pets his dog one last time before getting onto the scooter with his dad. The mother waves and sends them off. There are no cows on the road. The veg restaurant remains moderately busy. The highway underpass seems darker than usual. There’s this guy who passes by me every day infant of the police station. Every day he wears a yellow shirt with the “Bingo’ logo on it and a badge. Does he work at the factory where they make Bingos?  On Tuesdays people slowly get settled into reality. I’m still floating. I wear light green to look fresh and bright. I plug in my earphones while walking to the bus stop. Women wearing green and yellow night dresses wait outside the dairy farm to collect milk. A recently married couple comes back after their ...

  Zindagi Migzara I read this phrase in one of Khalid Hossein's books, but I don't remember which one. I think it was 'Thousand Splendid Suns'. It means life goes on. Towards the end of my college years, like most people I was getting sad about leaving the place, people, and memories. But I told myself that the idea was to not give in to nostalgia and to keep moving. Don't look back. I only write when I'm sad or when I have anxiety attacks or something. I haven't written anything over here for the past few months because, to be honest, life has been pretty good the past few months. I would be happy to say that my life peaked from October 2021 to July 2022. 3 months have passed by since college, I was sitting at home waiting for the call from the IT company, and out of nowhere, I got this core job at a good company and I was posted at the outskirts of this city.  I have always wished to move into a city where no one knew me and start fresh. Like just throw my...

  A few years back, during a hot summer day, he left the library feeling sad and mundane. He placed his black Christmas-themed bookmark back in the 'Eleanor and Park' hardcover and planned to continue reading it the next time sun and clouds aligned as perfectly as that day.       Once he crossed the roads, he thought about the curly-haired guy with an oval-shaped face in the same building. He didn't know the guy's name so he named him Simon in his scenarios. And how everyone always loved him. And how he always wore clothes with so many colors. And the only dull-colored piece of cloth he ever owned was that faded grey sweater which he only wore on days that rained like hell. And how he always chose to wore beige khaki pants with it and his white Vans. And how he always checked his watch every now and then like the world was ending one second a time and he had to make sure he was making the most out of it.  He always wanted to talk to Simon or at least maybe ...

 I nearly died this morning. I woke up on my floor instead of my bed, where I slept yesterday in my good senses. There's a circular mark on my neck. Someone tried to wind a rope around my throat. Clearly, I'm not dead yet. I think they wanted to shut me up.  I feel like a mute now. They took away my pens, Broke my pencils, Burnt my notes, Buried my journals. Thanks to the hitman fiber wire trick, I can't breathe now, Neither can I write. Where am I supposed to dump my sadness now? They were me.