When Words Fail

Today, someone’s mother affectionately touched my cheek so as to offer some love and imply I was being a child. Well, I guess I was.

For a few days now, I have had composite emotions brewing inside me. I haven’t been able to segregate them and choose what to feel when. Doesn’t it happen that when one is overwhelmed what is inside looks for an outlet? Somehow I have set aside the need to make sense of how I feel these days. I just take it as it comes and ride on the back of the wind wherever it takes me. There is so much to savour and so much to digest. Yet today the heart wants to make sense, even if it is in some rudimentary way such as this.

There is belonging.
The feeling of homecoming and nesting. A sign that the heart is in order and has arrived where it needed to. Attempts to run and hide are abandoned, the guard is let down, and one snuggles. Looking around in sporadic reflection makes one wonder about the transition from prickly discomfort to cozy enveloping. Strange how tides turn when you give time, time.

There is incisive disappointment.
That sinking of the ship of hope and watching the water gurgle its way through the bottom of the ship. You can’t plug the hole, it’s too late. You can’t jump off the ship, your limbs won’t move. So you sit there and watch the water glug in, and you try to furiously mend inside your head what you could not mend in life.

There is gargantuan gratitude.
Tons of it. So much so that sometimes it overflows from the edge of my lips and even the corners of my eyes. Songs are clearer, robins flutter, yellow buttery sunbeams bounce off the cheekbones, and the shivering heart says a small prayer of thanks to no one in particular. One connects the dots and suddenly everything that seemed despondent raises its head and apologizes. You don’t say it explicitly, but you know it’s alright. The sinews on your arms are more visible. The shine in your eye refracts. Then, the soul dances. It does.

There is fear.
Of sorts. Of being joyous, again. Of trusting, again. Of dreaming, again. Of loving, again. It swoops down at the spirit sometimes in an attempt to suck out the optimism. Then, there is a fight and you know that you want fear to lose. It’s got to lose. But what if it doesn’t?

There is joy.
Plain, unadulterated joy. It is found in conversations, loud laughter, appreciation of how green the leaves are, work well done and well-done work acknowledged, friends who take the time to stop by, a sibling who articulates your fears better than you do, the unsaid words because they needn’t be said anymore, and even plain insulation of the mind.

There is loving.
Although feeble, but it’s an attempt. An attempt to love words again. To love oneself enough. To love people because you deserve to, and not only because they deserve it. To regain oneself. To pull out and dust the beliefs one had buried. To be courageous towards your dreams.

There is failing.
And then there is also failure. That ugly stop in the road which makes one question everything. Makes one question oneself, choices, path, and purpose. Failure of ascension, dissolution, and faith. Faith fails; perhaps it’s being hammered at and wants to be broken. Of all that I have observed, I believe that if something has to be broken, it should.

There is all this and much more that is unaccounted for. It cannot be said. Words won’t come. They lie still in the corner of a mind unwilling to move. They propel the body to move forward and go out there and give my world one big hug in the hope that an embrace can convey what poetry cannot.