New 'You's' in New York

It is unbecoming to infer that the killers are weak and the victims will win, it complicates the nightmare with the dream.
Put away your courage it is a provocation in their sight.

I am unable to recall clearly how many times I have now found myself perched at the precipice of a proverbial ‘new beginning’. Truth be told, I am quite weary of ‘new beginnings’, they act as the perpetual ping-pong punctuation on the run-on sentence that is my life. Individual conformity is my prescribed pattern of existence: how is one to dare anticipate a positive outcome born of such convoluted contradiction? When I was eight and being sent off to live with my father it was a new beginning; when there was pain and only the bleak, looming stretch of more pain to come it was ‘This too shall pass’; when, ten years later, I managed to escape that saturated swamp of venom, it was a new beginning; when I started learning voluntarily that was a new beginning; when I got accepted to Oxford that was a ‘new beginning’ and now as I leave to look for myself in the capital of universal self seekers the term is being thrown around all over again. There is nothing new about these beginnings, they are all far too old to begin anew and I recall that saying about a fool being someone who continues doing the same thing again and again expecting a different result each time.
Yet, it remains what we fools are destined to do I suppose and so ‘that which we are, we are’.

I recognise that my more than morbid meanderings are laced with melodrama, self pity and a rather unhealthy dose of narcissism. Still, this year and this particular ‘beginning’ has brought with it far too much ‘reality’, nearly enough to completely obliterate Beentherella. It is hard now to summon up my usual enthusiasm for …anything. I have spent the past weeks packing, roaming the streets of Oxford, silently sketching, watching movies and trying to immerse myself in my ‘aloneness’ with the same vehement determination I always reserved for it. However, this is mayhaps what I resent the most about free falling, heart-long in overtly-unrequited love. The fact that it has cemented that painful realisation that ‘No, I don’t love being alone’ no matter how good I am at it.
And I am very good at it.

Another recent development has been my inability to continue expressing myself on this particular forum. The entire point of having a ‘me space’ on the web was to not know who knew the ‘me’ in question. I have always relished this rare opportunity to actually be as brutally honest, insane and explicit as I can sans repercussions. Collecting my personal collage of cyber strangers, face-less friends and brash critics I have managed here and really nowhere else, to completely be all of my many ‘me’s’ at some time or another. Recently I have become aware of some of my readers and the axis has shifted completely. It is an odd sort of reversal being confronted with my virtual reality, by real people talking to the corporal, artificial I. There are just too many ‘me’s’ in such conversations and we are all airbrushed. I have grown up, I suppose, in the sense that I have learned to numb my mind and yet I have not lived. I have swallowed far too much and tasted nothing. The sad part is that I have recognised that this isn’t or wasn’t ever about where I was or am…it has always been about who I am. I choose not to participate in the perverse façade of being part of a ‘people’, any people. I have realised that I am quite a coward.

Recently, I was hit by one of my more severe waves of manic, suicidal depression. This time I navigated the mechanics of an End for fourteen hours on a not-so-random Tuesday spent staring at a half-full bottle of nail polish remover, contemplating how immediate its effects would be. I calmly composed one of my more eloquent- and I feel, sufficiently melodramatic- ‘last words’ and pondered how the world would go on without me and how it wouldn’t. There is a meticulous process to all suicide attempts. The vast majority are located amidst extreme bursts of adrenaline spiralling out of control into demonic descent and I have had my share of those in the past. In fact that is how ‘Beentherella’ came into being. She took birth from the ashes of my fourteen-year-old self vowing to never go down this path ever again. She was determined to remain forever vigilant on my behalf. She deemed it a terrible cowardice. Today, she knows better.

Cowardice is a failure to accept the reality and rationality of such a decision. Cowardice is want and hope for change when one knows not to expect it. Cowardice is the triumph of religion over reason; of matter over mind; of memory over meaning and above all of Elpis. Cowardice is the sound of her dancing in the rain and smiling at the stars. In general I accept reality with a fluid sort of ease, because I intuit that nothing is real. The fact that I believe foremost in ‘doubt’; in the certainty of nothing indicates to my warped self that I also believe in anything…because it doesn’t matter either way. I read once that the ancient cabalists used to pretend that man was a microcosm of sorts, a symbolic mirror of the universe. I do not know if I am narcissistic enough to believe that and yet I recognise that it is only narcissistic if one assumes the ‘universe’ to be grand. That is further complicated if one assumes that anything ‘grand’ is inherently ‘good’. In the end it all only remains unexplained. My cowardice stems not so much from fear of the unknown but rather that worn-out, perennial Pascal’s Wager: ‘Mayhaps tomorrow’.

And so I succumbed. I found myself calling my aunt with a rather pathetic S.O.S to convince me to choose my cowardice; to give me reasons to stay; to tell me it will ‘all be all right’. All so I could scoff at her in my mind while simultaneously indulging my emotional insolvency in the assertion that there are those who would care if I am dead. Whereas if anything, I shouldn’t! Sadly, that too did pass. And now the Future looms once again, hope springs bitterly triumphant as Time brings with it a tidal wave of the trivial: Harry Potter films to see, restaurants to try, graduation to look forward to, a PhD to shoot for, careers, New York big-end-ings, novels to write, thoughts to think, countries to see, hazy, misty first impressions of a tiny person I can love enough to not need to love myself and You. You: whoever You are or were or could have been or will be that I have never casually bumped into lurking behind a bookshelf; crossing the street, across a car park or sitting next to on a plane.

And to think, I lament 26 years of being the mess that is me today!

Bhrāntapratāvakāvakya

‘The Deluded Deceiver’: He who speaks the truth while thinking to lie.

I find myself cautiously navigating that most curious parallel: that one where you find yourself unsure about how to continue simply… ‘being’. I am presently plagued with an unending series of belligerent aphorisms and I can’t take comfort in any of them. Is life the composite of all that we have lost or all that we have found? Or worse yet… all that we are seeking?

I would very much like to locate that luscious lake called ‘Self Pity’ and drown in it so completely that there is no hope of ever resurfacing. Instead I find myself getting ready to attend one of Oxford’s infamous ‘bops’ because I am told one ‘ought’ to celebrate completing their degree. And I recognise that I ought to feel like celebrating, so I shall pretend that I feel like celebrating. I have heard that this is how most people begin to ‘believe’ things. Hell, it was how I used to believe things! Still, on that lake called ‘Self Pity’ there is a sordid little 'Bridge of Details' and it alludes to all that rubbish about ‘moving on, dusting off, getting over it’.

And so… 'Here's to bridging the Bridge'.

Needless to say ‘bridging’ some gaps is harder than others. In case I had neglected to mention it before, I am inherently incapable of enjoying myself at parties. I am incapable of getting ‘too’ drunk; of ‘loosening up’; of ‘just having some fun’; or doing ‘something stupid’ and of ‘checking people out’. However, recently I find myself on a crusade. A crusade that involves hiding from myselves and especially ‘not thinking’…about anything. 'Thinking' leads to 'thinking about N' and I find that avoiding this precinct is the only thing effectively keeping me sane. So keeping busy doing things I loathe in order to feel ‘proactive’ and ‘sociable’ seems to be one plausible solution. Looking for another would require the fore-mentioned ‘thinking’. I have never really elaborated the merits of ‘numbness’ on this forum. I shan’t now, except to state that there are many.

I have only odd, lilting recollections left. It seems we were nothing alike, except in our mutual sophistry. We both derived a perverse pleasure in seeing how far the other could ‘not feel’ things. I suppose when the key in any romantic equation is ‘not feeling’, ‘not expressing’, ‘not admitting’ it does render the exercise somehow…evocative. I always did enjoy subtext far too much for my own good. And that is all we were in the end: a simulacra of subtext. Still, it was powerful subtext - if one belongs to the ‘lesson-learning’ creed.

“You know, I just realised something... even I haven’t done this before.”

“‘What’, precisely?” for once I felt a real answer coming on.

“Seen someone more than once, without getting her into bed,” he said this with a soft smirk, his arm slung casually around my shoulders. A less astute person might have even called it a smile.

I was floored and not in a good way. I suppose I should have been flattered and I suppose I was a little, but mostly I was irate.

“Please stop doing this!”

“I thought you, if anything, would be pleased to know that,” he seemed genuinely surprised.

“That is the point. I don’t need you trying to make me feel ‘special’ while simultaneously putting me in my place all the time. Please make up your mind! You have conditions. I –for my own madness- have accepted them unequivocally. I thought you prided yourself on your 'honesty', so stop humouring me! It’s confusing and frankly it’s cruel.” I was beyond caring that I was acting quite the quintessential harpy. I am not sure if I looked it.

“How is it cruel?” now he was curious.

“Well, I would think that in this equation…”

“Please define what you mean by ‘this equation’, Maria,” oh yes, he was most certainly amused.

“An equation, where one feels everything for another who feels nothing,” I was rather glad to see the last of that formidable smirk.

“And so ‘me being kind, is me actually being cruel’?” he said this softly and I almost believed he understood.

“Well I tend to think of this as an ‘inverse relationship’ on all counts,” I pedal the ‘sad smile’ to an art form.

“Interesting way of putting it,” he stated blankly.

The conversation ended, for once on my terms. Of course the fact that ‘my terms’ were all about merely upholding ‘his terms’... unless he changed the terms, is largely irrelevant. If there was one thing I was clear about in this ‘falling in love’ business, it was that I would not beg. It is degrading enough to know that the object of your adoration knows how you feel, does not return those feelings and still gets to literally ‘have his way with you’... but it is quite another to drown entirely.

I admit that I did glean some satisfaction from the fact that my strident fixation about sticking to his rules wasn’t as pleasing to him as it once appeared to be. It was the one contradiction that I hadn’t anticipated: the fact that I would be fighting to keep his rules intact. That it would hurt so deeply whenever he was generous or kind or even charming because he would counter it all in the next instant. The way I figured: an emotional roller coaster was more than enough, I simply didn’t have the stamina to navigate a mental one. And to be ‘honest’, the premise of all this nonsense had been to... ‘be honest’. How dare he break his own cardinal rule and still expect a waver on my part! He mentioned his surprise at how skilled I was about affecting ‘nonchalance’.

“You act well. I mean, I realise how my behaviour must hurt you,” he was inquiring. I could tell.

“Yes it does. So?” I was genuinely calm at this point.

“Excuse me?”

“I mean, why would that concern you? Does it?” okay, so now I was inquiring.

“No. Of course it doesn’t. Still, it is quite the ‘proverbial elephant in the room’,” he said this in his usual vapid, glaze.

“Do I make it worse?” I was worried.

I really had been trying to focus all my efforts at making our conversations compelling. At learning and talking and listening. Mostly, at ‘collecting’ things: gestures, gazes, mementos of minutes spent completely at ease. Things that I could remember later on sans vitriol. I had figured I was getting good at it. Perhaps not.

“Surprisingly, no. You are rather odd that way, Maria,” he smirked.

“Yes, I am that.”

We were outside one of the lecture theatres at Balliol College, where he had asked me to join him. The talk centred on Schopenhauer’s aphorisms and essays and the lecturer focused specifically on the essays relating to women. I knew from that point onwards that the real reason he had asked me to join him was to enjoy seeing me squirm in my seat and seethe silently. Admittedly, it is rather funny in retrospect. Calling a feminist (albeit a flaky one) to sit through a two-hour talk on how women are ‘mental myopic’s’ and never should have been given the right to vote as they don’t have the cerebral capacity to process anything beyond 'house keeping', is testy. Sadly, my new found masochism only rejoiced in seeing him laugh, always (it seemed) at my expense.

“So what did you think?” he was smiling... widely, unreservedly. It was blinding.

“Quite intriguing,” I was nonplussed.

“Yes, I always find Schopenhauer quite…scintillating. I thought, you of all people would appreciate the subject matter!” he blithely led me around the quad toward his room.

“Quite,” I smiled.

I could take a joke. I could take a misogynist, imperialist, fascist joke!

And then we were in his room. I suppose I was enjoying his enjoyment far too much to even notice, until I did. I won’t say that I panicked, at least not in a bad way. I was terrified but also eager. And that is why it all fell down.

He kissed me.

I froze.

He realised before I did that all of this, all of everything I struggled with, rested in a past I was simply not willing to confront. I still wasn’t but he forced the realisation on me. And I hated him for it. All I needed to do at that moment was run and hide and…die. This one time he refused to let me do either. He brought me a coke (ah! A passing ode to constant comforts) and we lay down on the bed and talked. We spoke in whispers all night until I was spent with the force of my confession, my admission and my imminent dismissal. I had actually wanted this, for the first and only time in my life. I had wanted to be touched and held. To collapse under the weight of crippling realisations at this moment, with this man …was cruelty beyond comprehension. He didn’t say anything as I recanted a tale that I am, quite frankly, sick of spinning in retrospect. We slept and I do believe I am the only woman who has only ever ‘just slept’ in his bed, not that I was remotely grateful for it. The sound of rain waking me up in the morning was a baptism. I silently unwound myself from his arms, his presence and his pity.

Luckily there were no goodbyes, no platitudes and no long or drawn out alibis. I shall remember him, always as one of life’s antique lost causes. Much like myself, only inverted and much more opulent. We are two rather huge people: too immense in our contradictions, our cynicism and our perverted facades. All people are Fake, lounging around the precincts of so-called happiness, trying to look like the real thing. We, then, are the Real-fake stoics trying very much to appear fake because it is ‘honest’.

Still, I suppose at some point I will begin to celebrate again. I will rejoice in a Land far, far away at some twisted 'Happily Never After' tangent in the future, that at least I finally have a ‘love story’ of my own to tell. It is short and trite as most tales of this particular genre are. But it is mine.

“You see, I found The Guy.

The Guy never let me get The Guy.

And I never let me get The Guy.”

The End.

Reverse Ontology

“Icame to you with a soiled philosophy of loneliness and you begged mefor an interview”

– LeonardCohen

Ifind that I cannot keep our conversations out of my head, which iswhy I prefer to put them outside for everyone else to judge andridicule. I find I am bad at judging everything. So I have decided toarchive this warped, one-sided romance for my audience of cyberstrangers. Perhaps it will sound more compelling this way. Perhaps Ijust want some sort of testimony to look back upon when this allcollapses to see why I did it. Perhaps I enjoy the honesty of baringsomething that matters too much to me and not at all to anyone elseand is therefore best stuck up on a glittering billboard to beridiculed outside of my temporal lobe. It feels a lot likeself-regressing, as if I were playing the Blue Danube backwards,hoping to somehow reverse the power of its intoxication.

Myencounters with N bring to mind something another cyber-acquaintancehas illustrated time and again in his blog: Elpis. I have followedthis particular person's online paradoxes for quite a few years now,almost always driven by the morbid curiosity I harbour for nihilismthat is manifesting itself much more clearly now. Although he alwaysworked to keep Elpis at bay, I find that I am desperately seeking herout as she runs screaming in the opposite direction. In the past Ialways read his accounts with a bitter, self-righteous defiance buttoday I have to yield to his superior insight regarding thisparticular theme. She really is a trite, cruel and fickle being.

Imade it a point not to dress up for the occasion because I knew alltoo well that he would pick up on it and comment. The only effort Idedicated to the event was to substitute my glasses for contactlenses. I entered the Ashmolean from the side entrance adjacent tothe Taylorian Library, this would allow me a chance to spot himwithout being observed. It would also give me ample time to come tomy senses if there was room left for that. He sat at the front stepsof the museum, cup of coffee in hand and looking…well, not entirelybored. He seemed to be scoping the crowd and I found thisencouraging, which I immediately realised was foolish (the pointwhere that infernal Elpis observation made its appearance inpassing). I was late. I had made it a point to be late, half in theattempt to see if he would care to wait and half hoping I wouldchicken out entirely. Apparently neither was about to happen. So Iapproached him.

Hedidn’t particularly react to seeing me there but he did flash apolite smile of greeting in my direction. The kind that means nothingbut is the indulgent courtesy that one reserves for strangers onstreet corners that accidentally catch your eye.

“You’renot wearing your glasses, was that for my benefit?”

.Sigh.

“Whydon’t you go ahead and assume it is,” I repliedsarcastically. It was my turn.

“Hmmm.So, you came. I wasn’t sure you would,” he said politely.

Iraised my eyebrows wearily and he did have the grace to manage aflustered laugh.

“Well,okay I was quite sure you would but I wasn’t entirely positive,”he indulged me.

“WellI suppose I feel all better now,” I said caustically.

“Right,so you’re thinking that being sarcastic throughout this encounterwill help you deal with …this. I suppose it is effective from yourpoint of view,” he mused, almost to himself.

Okay,so if I was going to play this …‘game’, was the only word for it(much as I loathe that term in this particular context) I suppose the only thingI had on my side was the element of surprise. I would forfeit. Icertainly wasn’t winning anything anyway if I went through withthis. Luckily, even I am not delusional enough to expect things whenit comes to emotional dependence of any variety. On that score wewere both evenly matched.

“Actually,I would rather not ‘be’ anything, if that’s possible and I amnot sure it is. However I was hoping I could try being as brutallyhonest as you,” I replied calmly, or so I hoped.

“Youwant to be a jerk too?” he asked, somewhat surprised andsimultaneously amused.

Icould honestly smile at that. “Sure, you make it look soeasy.”
There was that smirk again.

“Well,I make it look easy because for me it is,” he was giving me anout again.

“Irealise that and I promise to not let that escape my mind any timesoon,” I said quietly.

Hesounded slightly exasperated now. “So you are going to, what,Maria…pretend from now on that you don’t care about anythingeither?”

“No. I am simply going to try and behonest. Who says your nihilism hasn’t met its match in my perverseidealism,” I figured my false bravado would not be openlycontested.

Heseemed to think the same thing or so I supposed. “This shouldprove to be an interesting experiment then,” he almostsmil…no, it was still a smirk.

Weheaded out to find a place for lunch and he asked me if I had anypreferences. I decided that if I was going to be honest about this‘honesty’ thing then I should say Jamie’s. Jamie’s is arather pricey Italian restaurant owned by the BBC prize chef by thesame name. He asked me why that particular place and I told himbecause I couldn’t afford it on my own and if I was going to beberated I preferred the opposition to at least foot a considerablebill. He appeared to be impressed with my response. I was impressedwith it too. Perhaps that sounds narcissistic. I sure hope so, Idesperately needed a good dose of self-love to off-set my selfloathing and help me hold my own through this.

Over lunch we maderelevant small talk, he asked me about my taste in music and I toldhim I was a Dylan and Cohen fan. Apparently he approved, he said itexplained "a lot". I assumed this was some kind ofreference to my fore-mentioned idealism and let it pass. He onlylistened to classical music, which was easy enough to anticipate:lots of Bach, Wagner, Handel, Puccini. He asked me about my favouritebook this year and I mentioned that I had discovered Borges thisyear. He had no criticism on that score.

“So,really, why did you come today?” he asked.

“Ithink I have developed a very healthy respect for curiosity as anemotion. I think it is severely underrated how compelling curiosityreally is. Especially in a situation like this…”

“Meaning?”

“Well,on every rational, self-preserving note I shouldn’t be here. I knowI will get hurt, you have told me I will get hurt and yet here I am.So the only explanation I have left is curiosity. I am Alice as ofnow,” I said as honestly as anyone should have to under suchspeculation.

“Aptlyput, considering this is the city that gave birth to Alice,”he mused.

“Ohplease! Are you going to pull college rank on me now? You don’t goto Christ Church either,” I said indignantly.

“No,but Balliol outranks St. Anne’s any day,” he scoffed.

Ishould have stuck my tongue out at him. It would have been honest. Itook a sip of my coke instead. It seemed more dignified. It occurredto me quite suddenly that this was not as bad as I had feared until,of course, it became precisely that bad.

“So,how exactly are we going to do this?” he asked, pinning mewith a levelled gaze.

“Dowhat?” I prayed we weren’t actually going to discuss themechanics of this…whatever the hell it was!

“Well,you told me you haven’t really dated much and after what I told youlast time, I was just wondering how we were going to proceed withthis. You must have considered it or you wouldn’t be here,”he said, with what appeared to be some sympathy for my predicamentbut apparently not enough sympathy to avoid the subject entirely. Ihad neglected to mention that ‘not dated much’ meant exactlythree dates in my twenty-six year life span and two kisses. How didpeople do this?

“Ummwell, if I’m being honest…” I stammered.

“Areyou being honest?” he asked flatly.

“Youknow, I really do resent that. If anything, ‘honest’ is reallythe only thing I am being. It doesn’t come as brutally to me as itmay to you but the fact that I haven’t been put off by yourattitude should at least let me off on this score,” I supposeI said this angrily, despite all my efforts to the contrary.

“You’resaying that my brutal honesty doesn’t bother you?!” healmost laughed.

“No,of course it does…” he raised an eye brow in satisfaction. Irecall thinking that this was a truly warped thing to derivesatisfaction from.

“But,it is the brutality and the apathy that bothers me, not the honestyadmitting to them. Obviously I really do appreciate the honestyotherwise nothing would keep me here.”

He did seemto appreciate that. “My particular brand of honesty reallyisn’t the best thing for healthy relationships …I am told.”

Ihad to grin at that, “believe me, even I am not delusionalenough to classify whatever this is as in any way ‘healthy’!”

Helaughed.

Ihad made him laugh. I suppose I lost this bizarre tug –of –warright then. Women really are masochists. Suddenly I was very aware ofhow all my feminist colleagues would excommunicate me from the ‘fold’if they got wind of this. I had just joined that pathetic legion of‘nurture clan’ that needed to save all the 'others' that didn’twant saving. I was officially a cliché. I really didn’t mind itmuch.

Sigh.

Hewas kind enough to let the sex subject filter through the fissures ofthe remaining conversation. It was a sort of unspoken current thatradiated around us cautiously for the rest of the afternoon. A tacitunderstanding, on both our parts, of how all this would pan out. Hewould go his way and I would go his way and that was that. He wouldnot wait forever, he wasn’t even waiting now. Yet, somehow fortoday it was enough to simply talk about it and for me to get fullyon board with the concept of what this would be.

Fistof all nothing would happen, then perhaps it would happen a few moretimes and then nothing would happen all over again.

Alaya Vigyan

I don’t quite remember when I read about it or where for that matter but I haven’t ever forgotten this phrase. I believe it is Sanskrit for a house where one goes on throwing into the basement things they want to do but do not. I suppose the trouble with me is that I live in that basement as I ‘pretend’ to exist outside the house.

I suppose one could say that independence and the realisation that one is finally in charge of oneself brings along with it a hard look at the ‘self’ in question. In the past I have gone to great lengths to avoid this very confrontation and it is not something I take lightly. My sanity - hangs as it does by a thread - depends on my believing my illusions absolutely. My optimism, my insistence on pretty alternate realities and my overt idealism rests on consistently resisting the truth that I am actually a cynic. That in truth I believe in nothing and I feel even less. I must pretend for myself more than anyone else, or else all my I’s fall down. I was seven when my first therapist told me that I was ‘very creative’. In therapy that is code for ‘escapist’. I also discovered years later when I read his reports that he perceived me to be extremely manipulative. He noted that I easily preempted his changing tones and the tenure of his every question and told him exactly what he wanted to hear. He said I had astonishing control over my emotions and never let my face betray any sign of weakness. He wrote that I smiled at all the wrong things. He found me endearing because I was altogether too perceptive but in a quiet, inquisitive, blushing sort of way. He also observed that I would collapse under the burden of my mental ministrations and my grandiose emotional cover-ups. He stated that my behaviour, if it continued, would lead to an emotional breakdown. He predicted a collapse of the facade, most likely a suicide attempt. He recommended me for mild shock therapy at eleven. I had the first of my three subsequent ‘collapses’ three years later.

I have never really been able to view any of it as an illness though. I don’t suppose anyone who is depressed ever views it as an illness… it is merely an ‘awareness’. I am one of the select few that realise that perhaps it would simply be more convenient for me if life were to end today because I would not have to go to the bank or feel alone or pick out what to wear. Many people feel that way…not many feel that way all the time. Even fewer people cover it up with rainbows and ice-cream. I am all too aware that I don’t react to things as most people expect me too. I do not get angry…ever or perhaps it is prudent to say I cannot express anger…ever. I find it a terrifying emotion, perhaps because I have witnessed all too clearly how easily anger morphs into violence, madness. I am told now by the two friend-like acquaintances that I have not managed shake off with my attitude that this is why I don’t have relationships or friends or …what they classify as ‘a life’. And here I always thought it was because I was merely terrified of not being liked!

I argue with them vehemently about how my constant ‘calm’ shows how evolved I am, that it has nothing to do with being numb. I struggle in vain to push my puns into profundity but there is a problem. They are not stupid and don’t accept any of my neologisms for life. They can quote back just as much Nietzsche and Rimbaud without needing to live it like I do to ‘feel’ unique or…something. I find myself to be little more than a verbal fidget in their presence, trying in vain to explain that the reason I prefer to stay in my room or read in the park over bar-hopping is because I simply find all company ultimately exhausting. Perhaps I have been educated beyond my intelligence. Reading people rather than talking to people, thinking rather than doing, lying rather than living…perhaps it is all finally beginning to lose its appeal. I can feel my Utopia fray around the edges as everything it was covering up struggles to swallow me all over again.

Perhaps it is because I fell in love with a nihilist and he made me realise that secretly I was one all along. I don’t want to confront this information, let alone acknowledge it so I now avoid stalking him. We had three conversations over the past two months and each one left me shaken to the core. I asked him what degree he was reading for at Oxford and he told me it was a Dphil in Theoretical Physics. He was polite enough to return the favour and I told him that I was doing my Mst in Women’s Studies and that my research focused on the human rights situation with regards to religion, Nizam-e-Adl and all that. He searched my face for something and then asked whether I believed in any of it.

“What?” I asked.

“Human Rights.” He responded.

I didn’t really know what to say so I said “Don’t you?!”

“I don’t believe in anything. It’s a moot point. I am curious why you do.”

“Well I suppose I like to think we all should have some guarantees just because we are human. Personal dignity being one of them,” perhaps I sounded sullen, I don’t know.

“Yes but ‘liking to think’ and ‘should’s’ aren’t the same thing as believing. Actually, I take that back: they are exactly the same thing. That’s why I don’t really believe in anything,” he said calmly.

I was quiet for a moment as I took in his point. “I can agree with that, but…”

“Can you?” he raised his eye brow at me, smirking a little.

“Yes, but I also think that if we didn’t have any standard of what ‘should’ happen, we would never have any motivation to change what does happen,” there that sounded good enough, didn’t it?

“So you believe that motivations and wants can change things?” he countered.

“Well, perhaps not all things but certainly some things,” I realised belatedly that I was way in over my head.

“But we have no control over those ‘some’ things do we?” he said,

“No, but I don’t think that should stop us from trying for…”

“...For?” he echoed.

“Something, anything” I countered stubbornly.

“I do” and then he got up abruptly, leaving me to sulk for the rest of the week as I was hounded by all my own some’s that had nearly driven me mad. I kept telling myself that I had overcome that blackness that I could escape it because I never let it fester. I didn’t believe in self pity. Then I heard his monotone echo in my ear reminding me that just because I didn’t believe in giving in to self pity, didn’t mean that self pity didn’t drive me in other ways.

I took to working on my papers and my research kept me busy and is keeping me busy. I started writing again, fiction this time. Somewhere in the middle of escaping his words over the next few weeks I even managed to get my US visa. I would overcome this odd little bout of cynicism. I had overcome so much worse. I spent my days strolling through Oxford listening to audiobooks on my iPod and sketching random walls and trees. This city is truly magnificent in the summer and I relished it like only I could. It is hard to hold on to cynicism when one is surrounded by colour. Then I ran into him outside the Bodleian Library on a Tuesday afternoon. He was sitting on the grass reading…well, math. I didn’t really have the courage to approach him again so I thought I would just pass right by him and into the library but he noticed me staring at him. He greeted me in his usual monotone and asked me to join him.

“Were you going to pretend you hadn’t seen me?” he smirked. I could tell he was enjoying my obvious discomfort.

“I really didn’t see you,” I stuttered back at him.

“Which is why you stopped and changed directions, of course,” he asked.

For some reason he was oblivious to how impolite it was to slap someone in the face with the knowledge that you were all-too aware of their obsession with you. I don’t really know how badly I was blushing… it was a habit of face.

“You blush quite violently, you know?” he observed calmly, the expression on his face unwavering. So now I knew. I also knew that he was cruel. I chose not to acknowledge either observation as I sat down.

“So, you like me.” he stated in a bored voice, while staring at me intently waiting for a reaction. Seriously what was wrong with him? Was I not allowed to salvage any measure of pride? I could actually feel tears build up and prick the back of my eyes. I had never been this embarrassed and I had never felt this vulnerable. And heaven knows that 'vulnerable' was my default setting. I was also horribly paralyzed, so getting up and running was not an option.

“My mistake, believe me I think I just got over it,” I whispered, it was the only way to keep the tears out of my voice.

“No you didn’t, actually. If you liked me in the first place you already knew that I wouldn’t care either way, so if anything, my being a complete ass right now would only make you like me more.” He wasn’t triumphant, at least he didn’t sound triumphant. He was what he always was: brilliant, incisive, honest and bored.

“Yes I get it, I’m a masochist. I won’t bother you anymore.” I said in a rush, I really needed to get out of here before I broke down.

“You don’t bother me. I am flattered actually. You are a lot more observant than most women I meet and I wouldn’t mind in the least getting to know you better. As long as we were clear on what it all means,” he said calmly.

I have never hated myself more than for asking the next question that followed, “And what does it all mean?”

“Nothing,” he said. “If we were to see each other it would be about sex and that’s all it would ever be. I don’t really ‘believe’ in relationships” he was waiting for me to react now, I could tell. He wanted me to be offended or petulant or perhaps violent so he could safely put me in one of the neat little 'woman' boxes in his mind. I could tell that he had been on the receiving end of all of those reactions before.

So I took a deep breath, “No of course you don’t.”

He raised his eye brows slightly. I don’t know how I managed it but I was perfectly calm now.

“Although I do think you have presumed a bit much. I won’t deny following you or liking you either but the fact that I never tried to do anything about it should clue you in on the fact that I don’t ‘expect’ anything from you. And that’s what really bothers you isn’t it, ‘expectations’? Well trust me on this it bothers me more. I expect nothing, which is why I did not try. So you humiliating me like this doesn’t really serve any purpose. Although I am sure it is extremely entertaining.”

I was done, I was even slightly proud of myself when I noticed that he was surprised by my response. Of course he didn’t betray any overt reaction, just a subtle tensing of his jaw but that ghost of a smirk disappeared. I got up and left.

Then I cried.

It has been several weeks since that particular fiasco and I have been rummaging frantically through the drawers of my old dreams to keep myself occupied. I have been editing old short stories I had written that I never thought worth much; I have been writing poems for poetry competitions; I have been applying for jobs with the BBC, the United Nations and well anywhere that would have me. I have also been listening to Saeen Zahoor and Iqbal Bano, which tells me that I must be more miserable than I thought. I know all too well that I am barely keeping the blackness at bay. The mere fact that I haven’t left my room in six days is due to the fact that I sporadically burst into tears without provocation, rhyme or reason. My research continues as I sift my day through Pakistani news stories for my thesis and I was finally beginning to approach some semblance of a schedule until today.

He wrote me an email. It took me almost twenty minutes to decide not to delete it and then another ten minutes to read it. It was short, two lines and as with all our confrontations it was a challenge.

I realise you will probably decline, you should decline… but I was wondering if we could have lunch tomorrow. I shall be outside the Ashmolean at 1:30 pm.
-N
I know perfectly well that I should decline and I know perfectly well that I won’t decline. He is right, I am a masochist but then again I have been waiting to feel for a long, long, long time now. I shall feel this, whatever this is or will be.

Wish me luck Captain, I haven’t finished anything in forever.

The Changing of the Guards

I

It happened rather suddenly.
Time struck the Earth still, overhauling its inhabitants skin-side out.

He walked into the tiny tavern, apprehensive of His audience but conversely confident in His purpose. He was completely oblivious to the reception He would receive but was perfectly willing to wait for the one He wanted. The crowd was small and merry in that naïve, frivolous manner that only crowds can be. They would have to do. The best beginnings were always humble.
He would make something of this rabble. Of that He was absolutely certain. So He approached the nearest table and sat opposite a desolate looking youth who seemed almost as lost as his age demanded of him.

“Incomplete, isn’t it?

“What?” the youth murmured sullenly.

“Everything.”

II

They were a number now, twenty nine to be exact. It was always easy to spot when an idea was catching on. A tangible buzz simmered silently in the atmosphere as every head bobbed up and down in unison, acquiescing without reservation to everything He put in it. Yet, He still approached with caution ... knowing all too well the cosmic consequences of a hasty entrance. He was well aware that real allegiances always sprung from that one ephemeral triumvirate: courteous courtship, supercilious sagacity and carefully cultivated fear. They were still raw and sceptical, frequently hounding Him with ‘why’s’ and ‘whens’. That would all soon change but this, this was the time to keep it simple… true even.

“You are all equal and you all deserve to be treated the same.”

He neglected to mention that ‘equal’ and ‘same’ were not exactly the same thing. Equal was how They ought to be treated and sameness was a state contrived to conveniently keep Them under control. Luckily They never really bothered with semantics. That was what made His job easier than even He could have anticipated. It had always been there and now He could practically taste it: a desperate yearning to be part of something that would allow Them to escape their own little worlds. That was what really made Them so easy to manipulate: They were always waiting for an out, any out. And all it took was convincing one of Them - truly, deeply planting the seed. It would sow and scatter itself.

He had picked a good host.
Humble, quiet, intense and ….not at all easy to dismiss.

Soon enough, however, the host began to develop his own ideas. It had always been a problem with operating from among Them. They couldn’t help but improvise and place Themselves in every equation. Much of it had to do with Their blasted call for constant attention. Some might argue that He sponsored the sentiment from His own desperate need. This was why He was inherently incapable of indulging any argument...ever. So far, however, the only changes He could detect were relatively minor. A mere matter of the Man confusing his own mortality with the Voice's omnipotence. It would have to do.

At the end of the day, They all had an innate capacity to take what He gave Them without question. Programmed as They were, to receive more than give. It prevented Them from having to figure it out for Themselves. It saved on time and responsibility and it motivated Them. It worked. And there was absolutely no conceivable reason to question it. He loathed curiosity. Always struggling to identify that infernal congruent where the first ‘why’ cropped up in their vocabulary. He figured that He had managed to stamp it out of most of Them but like a virulent habit of mind it always had the power to arbitrarily pop up in some. Still, He gathered that the ones that stuck with ‘why’s’ would be bred out eventually.

Their presumption would never be tolerated by the rest.

III

A river of souls as far as the eye could see.

Terrifying in its magnitude.

They marched in time to the clinking and clanging of gold chains that bound Them in neat, narrow queues of thousands. The men and women were always kept separate. Only allowed to roam amongst each other on select days decided by the Man.

The men walked in front. Their chains gleaming, molten in the blazing midday sun as They murmured the Words the Man had given them. The Words helped lull Them into a complacent haze, one that now bound the land. The Words inspired a distinctive brand of drowsy comfort that was impenetrable. Some would come to call it security. They murmured incoherently under Their breath as They trudged their way up the mountain day in, day out. The women were bound in ropes behind them. They were clad from head to toe in dark drapes: their eyes shut, their minds shut and their mouths shut. They did not murmur the words, mutely following the followers.

Among the legion two had been overlooked. They scampered in and out of the Man’s presence never straying in his line of vision long enough to be given the message and handed the rules for their initiation. They were innocuous and rather easy to overlook. They were young and the Man eventually decided to just let them be. Two children could hardly be of any consequence to the grand design. Moreover, one of them was a girl.
They couldn’t change anything.

IV

The Girl never understood any of it. The rules, the unending routine and the eternal obedience was suffocating. And all so that They could supposedly survive something that would someday prove to be 'eternal'. She refused to believe Them when They insisted that being miserable now was the only way to be happy then. Where ‘then’ was They never knew. It was nowhere in sight.

There were so many things she felt ashamed of and she was never able to understand why. She felt ashamed for wanting to be pretty; she felt ashamed for wanting to talk to the Boy who roamed the camps and who had seen her coming out of the lake without her clothes on; she felt ashamed for not feeling ashamed that he had seen her naked; she felt ashamed for wanting; she felt ashamed for not believing the Man who stood on the Mountain; she felt ashamed for not discarding the answers he gave to the questions They never asked by avoiding the ones that They did; she felt ashamed for wanting not to believe in Him; she felt ashamed for not caring beyond today and what she hoped tomorrow would bring.

She felt.
And the feeling was always shame.

And so she did what those who ‘feel’ shame do.

She pretended.
She faked an entire existence, opinion, appearance, agreement and obedience. It was rather easy in the end. They only required appearances and cared little if those were cultivated or contrived as long as they were there. Finally, she could walk among them freely. She tread softly and concealed herself in the shadows that the mob cast as They walked along the scorching sand. As she followed in obedience, They never noticed that her hands weren’t tied.

All she really knew for a fact was that the Truth got you killed and the Lie could protect.

She could lie and lie well.
And so she survived.


V

The Boy had observed a kind of knowing in her quiet subversiveness and it haunted him. It was quite subtle but he had managed to pick up on it. Perhaps because he had been searching for it. He felt that his hunt for another was finally proving fruitful. Being free had proven to be a rather lonely business. He observed a subtle scepticism in her stance and he had carried that around in his chest for weeks. So he nurtured the hope of her with him everyday as he shifted in Their shadows across the timeless landscape.

Occasionally They would ask questions. On these rare occasions the Man would always respond patiently “Because He commands it”. They always felt that this answered all their reservations, that it calmly polished over any itchy doubts. He never understood why They could never comprehend the blatant farce, why it simply didn't compute. Surely, so many different questions couldn’t possibly have just one answer. It wasn’t even an answer, truth be told … it was an even bigger question. The Boy knew then that the Man must be very clever to know how to answer all questions with one answer and still be believed, revered even. So he never asked his questions. His curiosity always seemed trivial when set against the Man’s infallible answer.

She was different. She never expressed any curiosity in what the Man said and seemed awfully content to merge in with the landscape. Whenever their eyes happened to meet across the crowd he saw that she didn’t believe the Man either. Neither did she care about what the Man had to say about Him. Yet the curiosity captured in her eyes could hardly be contained. It was of a different vein altogether, something he didn't think he would ever be able to fathom. A deep yearning to understand the 'underneath'; the 'root'; the 'mystery of and in everything. To scale every treacherous depth. That curiosity practically spilled over. It was too real to be taken in with one universal answer or any call to obedience. It was what had stopped him in his tracks that day by the trees when he saw her come out of the lake. It wasn’t her naked form or her beauty… it was curiosity. He had never witnessed it in anyone his age. They never looked at anything like that. The children did but they eventually always lost it, usually around the time they learned to speak. A child would ask a question and They would counter the curiosity by binding it with their chains of tradition. The frail glimmer would dim immediately until it faded completely.

It was all about Control and They all agreed that the Control was all about Power. Power had always been a problem with their kind and so it seemed the safest course to give all of it to something that was more Powerful than Power.

Even if it wasn’t there.


VI

A day came when They had been marching for what seemed like a thousand years and was probably much more. They moaned and complained now. They no longer felt that effervescent passion for the rules that once united Them.
They weren’t changing the world anymore. They weren’t even changing themselves.

The Boy and the Girl had known from the beginning that no matter what the Man said or what the Man said He said (they could never really tell the difference) none of this had ever been about Change. It had been about not changing. It had always been about standing still for all eternity. They just did it by constantly moving...by trudging forward aimlessly. It was all about following so that They could remain in a convenient stasis-like sludge that would flow in whatever direction was demanded of it.

They never saw it. They couldn't see it and the Boy and Girl had learned to keep silent over the years. They noticed that as ritual began to lose its lustre, They grasped on to the chains even more desperately. Now wearing them like garlands, wrapped them tightly around their necks. They deluded themselves into thinking the cuffs were studded with diamonds. The women began to view the ropes as yards of silk.

Obedience was an integral part of the blind belief demanded of them. The Boy often asked the Girl, as they walked amidst the throng, if she thought that it was Them who had to believe blindly or whether the belief itself was blind? She could never comprehend the question. The only absolute she could conceive of was 'feeling'. There was simply no alternative to feeling. They always approached the Blind Belief as they would a jigsaw puzzle, gathering a trinket piece every few decades.
They never solved it.

VII

The Man always kept himself at a distance. He always felt that mingling with Them might somehow corrupt his purpose. Over the years he had begun to forget much of what his purpose was, although he knew for certain that if he kept them on course he would succeed in it. One thing he did remember was that part of his instructions was to make every last one of them follow the Words. Sometimes he felt uneasy about the Boy and the Girl he had lost in the crowd so many years ago. He constantly chided himself for having overlooked them, for not coaxing them into compliance as He should have done.

Over the years he had begin to notice how They would all occasionally lose sight at a moments notice and break rank. They had even begun to ask some of the old ‘why’s’ again. Whenever it happened he always thought about the two young one's he had lost. While it was true that the Boy and Girl were hardly any kind of tangible threat, he found himself unable to shake the Voice’s apprehension and rage about leaving anyone behind. He vaguely recalled something about how all of this could unravel at the slightest demonstration of disobedience.
But nothing had happened yet.

And he had to admit, if only to himself, that he could no longer see them. Over the years the Boy and the Girl had become invisible and neither he nor any of Them had been able to locate the two in their midst. Still, he was positive about their presence. He knew without doubt that they were still there, skulking silently among the legions. Their presumptuousness was a perpetual pressure choking his heart, silently mocking everything he said, did and would come to do.

VIII

A minute, a millennia: it had gone on too long now, to be traceable. The path was carved in concrete, deep and consecrated by the footprints of the following. Its legitimacy was its length. Its longevity- a testimony to its strength. They had always been susceptible to the notion that if something was old enough it ought to be kept that way, just because someone else had at sometime kept it that way. The Man became a legend of insurmountable proportions. They still followed in his tracks and left a place for him at mealtimes. Many would argue that he was more powerful as a Phantom than he had ever been alive.

They had never really been a species conducive to Change. And whenever Change came it hated having to deal with Them, because They were immune to all its beautiful intricacies. They sat and slumbered nearly oblivious to Change as it enacted its subtle dance in the backdrop of their days, always longing in vain for a rapt audience. It was nearly imperceptible through the fog of absolutes. Yet every hundred years it wafted through the land without fail because there were two who welcomed it. Two, who waited for it. The Boy and the Girl were the only ones who recognised that Change was the only thing that didn’t. And so every hundred years they were reborn in silence to counteract Change into that generation. Every hundred years they were allowed to utter one sentence of their Truth. Some listened, most turned away, others pelted them with rocks but the Boy and the Girl had only this one privilege. That every hundred years, they were granted a moment where they would speak and be heard.

They always resisted. Some were broken by that resistance but most of them were frightened by it and broke others. ‘Don’ts’ and ‘Cant’s’ were by now a habit of face, of skin and of mind. The predictability of the pattern was infallible. Even though the Boy and Girl no longer hid in the shadows they were still not openly mutinous. They waited. Waited for their sentences to collect in the well of consciousness and inimitable Time, until there were pages. And someday there would be a Book to counteract the Words.

This Book would map the span of thought...free thought.

IX

Every hundred years He would tally the numbers and there was a birth of a smile which never carried to full term. It never prospered long. Every hundred years there were those Two; always staring up at Him, blatantly defying His inevitability. Every hundred years they refused to adapt and bow their heads. Their fruitless revolt often seemed as permanent and intractable as His own assault. He felt that the Boy and Girl saw Him clearly from their pitiful position and this always made Him uncomfortable. None of Them ever saw Him or dared to even want to.
Those Two, however, stared up at Him unblinking. They always rejected Him. It usually made Him more apprehensive than angry because He had no idea how they did it. He could never spot them from his pulpit. It never made any sense. It also made Him feel somehow incomplete, cosmically lacking. And so every hundred years there was a thunderstorm and a flood and many of Them would die. As They perished, They would cling tightly to their chains and implore for His grace but those Two would rather drown than grasp the chains for support.
And yet they never drowned.

Sometimes He found himself feeling jealous of their odd brand of belief. What else were they searching for when they could actually see Him? They were not Blind. Why then did they not Believe?
Every hundred years He would ask them “What makes you think you can possibly win?” and the Boy and the Girl would smile and echo in unison “You do.”

And every hundred years He felt a terrifying twinge of Doubt.

Loser's Rhapsody

I,
The winner who always loses;
Crushed beneath virulent praise
Filled to the brim with promise
As the pariah whispers lullabies in my ear so that I may breathe in my sleep

I live the winner
So that I may love the loser

Crouching quietly in an idle corner of some rapists rhapsody
I calmly compose my desolate canvas with spectral tears
I am complete without reason
Taking my time with my image as it tangles with my ideas

And yet the glamour of loneliness remains too potent to pass up for this perfunctory permanence of genuine emotion.
Why must I quiver and quake at the Altar of Answers?
Why must I long for the salvation of a Smile?
What laughter is worth the cost of this Lie?

Loneliness is Truth;
is the flavour,
is the fragrance,
is the music,
is the solitary pinch of rain,
is the perfunctory peck on the cheek,
is the idle bounce of step on a bad day,
is the lost glance met by a stranger and dropped with a smirk,
is the sound of your stilettos clicking on the asphalt,
is the cruel lover,
is the smell of spring riding the April wind,
is the person sitting next to you on the bus,
is the mirror as you wipe away water stains,
is the mob that sees you and the crowd that doesn’t.

In Alone-ness lies the mythology, theology, cosmology and chronology of the Human condition.
And in Aloneness lies the dream of something else without the hope of it.
Alone-ness is the Big Dipper,
Alone-ness is the All

And the Loser who still wins is All Alone.

The Traitor

“…I told my mother ‘Mother I must leave you

preserve my room but do not shed a tear

Should rumour of a shabby ending reach you

it was half my fault and half the atmosphere’”

It is rather amusing really, the consistency with which life manages to revise your assumptions.

I suppose it ought to be amusing…

But it isn’t.

All you really know anymore is that this is more than you wanted. It is more but in its own way it is too different from what you ever expected to be any easier. Then again no one ever said it was supposed to be easier. It’s the beginning of a new year, a time that follows all the old clichés of beginnings and endings at their most omnipotent. There is nostalgia and melancholy and if you’re really unlucky the element of old illusions shattered. It’s a bit of all of that and a bit more, there is still that lingering unease at the back of your mind of something you haven’t done yet, because you no longer know what it is. People are wrong when they say it’s hard to find what you’re looking for, the hard part is figuring out what to do with yourself once you’ve found it. There is no security in losing all your smokescreens.

It is a nakedness that would put even the most promiscuous to shame.

That is why the notion of having a body and mind at the same time always troubles you. While you may love having a mind, you have always loathed having a body. Even as you relish having a ‘different’ mind, you can never take pride in having a ‘different’ body. It has something to do with that pathetic propensity to still want to be perceived as beautiful more than feeling it. That’s cosmopolitan culture for you, no matter how far you evolve as a person or try to, you still root yourself with the one appreciative glance cast in your direction by a complete stranger. The fact that the ‘right’ body type or hair type or skin type or clothe type can still somehow trump who you are terrifies you and so you make sure never to put yourself in that equation. You convince yourself that the only one worthy of you will look straight at what you feel you are and not what you look like you are. And you know that doesn’t happen so it gives you a good, legitimate excuse to scoff at ‘The Game’ for most of your life. Your story and ‘your’ version of it have all allowed you to avoid this mess. But now you are re-thinking it all... you have been spotted scoping out the rules and the right technique to consider to help you succeed.

You filthy little hypocrite!

It is the reason why you have problems with words like “Love” when there are people attached at the end of the sentence. You have always been inherently uncomfortable with writing about romance in tangible terms. You never wrote love poems. You have also been altogether too comfortable making everything else romantic to overcompensate for this all-too-obvious deficiency. One can trace it down to anything really…most standard clichés apply all too well for you. You have your pick of daddy issues, broken mirrors and cracked crowns, the naïve girl falling for the childhood love who chose otherwise …but it all boils down to pride at the end.

Romance requires the relinquishing of pride. The pride that is connected to admitting you crave it, the pride that links in with asking for it or looking like you want to be asked, the pride that plays with a fear of rejection and the “He should go first” syndromes but most of all it is the pride of admitting you can’t do it alone, that you with all your smoked mirrors and all your art and all your poems and all your jokes and all your colours and all your dreams and all your songs and all your sarcasm are not enough.

You could never admit that. Not after having survived everything you did and that too by retaining the ability to laugh and sing and dance. How could you admit that something as trite, hackneyed and … ‘commercial’ as “Love” was enough to make you give in to needing someone besides yourself. You couldn’t do it, you didn’t do it and now you want me to help you admit to yourself that the only way to begin is by letting go of the one thing you base yourself on keeping in check? You want me to convince you to admit you need to give up your pride?

I cannot.

But I can ask it of you, for both our sakes.

I think even you will admit that the thought of being alone forever terrifies you as much as it does me. All you need to do is admit that it terrifies you more than being with someone else.

So admit it, damn you!

Get over your pride and admit it.

Get hurt.

Get willing to finally get hurt by the one thing that hurts either way.

You say you have found your answer with Arthur Rimbaud and are caught by his words “Idle youth, enslaved to everything; by being too sensitive I have wasted my life” in the Song of the Highest Tower,1872. That this is the sentence you waited for a life time to come across. That it tells you why you read, why words matter to you more. That it is the sentence that explains you completely and by virtue of not being your own makes you feel less alone than you usually do. You feel privileged to have found it at just 25 and now you can finally move forward in a line instead of a circle. That this year is hopeful today because these words offer the vindication you needed to finally be able to continue with all your unfinished projects and half-assed dreams because you no longer need them to fit some illusion that could explain all the subtext.

Today was the right day to find this sentence, slow and over-sensitized from the moment you opened your eyes at 11 in the morning, you lay in for ten minutes listening to Dylan crooning “Love minus Zero”; you took a shower and ended up writing random poems on the steamed glass and feeling a lot more excited about Papaya shampoo than one should; you took your bike down to city centre and sat listening to a street musician play ‘Amazing Grace’ on his bagpipes and you cried a little for some reason; you decided to watch a movie…alone…and it ended up being “The Reader” which struck those silent chords that some movies manage to strum idly in the background of the rest of your day; you did your groceries and decided not to buy any cheese and started the new year with strawberries and iceberg lettuce for lunch; you walked the rest of the way home listening to Martha Wainwright’s Cohen cover of “The Traitor” and you felt the overwhelming urge to write something, anything, everything.

I suppose that’s what this is: you’re little something, you’re little anything and you’re little everything.

Don’t let it be for nothing.

The judges said you missed it by a fraction

rise up and brace your troops for the attack

Ah the dreamers ride against the men of action

Oh see the men of action falling back…