After Dark

It is always hard coming back to this blog after interrupted periods of time. It feels like so much has happened that I haven’t told you about, told this blog about. As if there is lots of catching up to do. I remember taking a break from writing because everything was so enmeshed into everything else. Then, I wrote a poem every single day in April and surprised myself by everything that I had to say. Now it just seems like the place for the mundane has been taken away. That everything needs to be coated in some sort of yarn of fiction to make it palatable.

I come here in silence. In knotted, incomprehensible silence.

I anticipate that after a few lines I will be at peace with myself when I write for my blog. That’s just how it is. You spend some time apart, you start speaking different languages. You spend some time together, you start sashaying back together. It’s all a slow, quiet dance of distance, I suppose. When you don’t see someone for some time, you tend to forget who they really are. When you do see them, you’re reminded of who you had made them to be. It’s the same with blogs, maybe. Who knows? We will find out. 

I come here in curiosity. In deep-seated, agonising curiosity. 

I’ve written many times about the loss of faith — of everything that I have lost, it is what I miss most — but then, over the years I’ve turned it into something else I cannot name. Now, I won’t say I am faithless, but I am quite content with the replacement that I have engendered for it. Much the same way, I was saddened by my inability to cry during the time when we were at the hospital and even after we returned. As if something inside me had shut down. Remember the story of Elif Safak that I keep recounting? She was able to shut down her periods yet remained fertile? Like that. It was as if I had shut down my tear glands, but grief was still a companion.

I come here in sorrow. In belated, rightful sorrow. 

I used to know someone who gave me the gift of darkness, like Mary Oliver says it is. It took me a long time to discover that it was something I needed. Today, when I am othered, treated like I don’t belong, it doesn’t matter as much as it should. I know well-meaning people always suggest we leave such ties but save your breath. How to not react when you’re associated with people who treat you like an outsider is a way of being I learnt a long time ago. It doesn’t cause any further harm. It just dredges up the past in ways I had never imagined it would. Time bewilders me. The things it does. 

I come here in reflection. In muddled, rippled reflection. 

Now that I am here anyway, and feeling a little bit at home, let me tell you that though I may have returned on a sombre note, I imagine that this fits into my overall story arc at the moment. My blog posts should become something else from now on. Now that I have deigned to write about myself again. Now that I have shamelessly cried into my chicken rice after watching that abomination of a movie that Manmarziyan is. Now that I have been so unkempt about the way I store my feelings inside me for so long. Forgive me my forlorn conversation. Or not. It’s quite alright.

I come here in brazenness. In fearful, cautious brazenness. 

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P.S.: Send me a book recommendation, a noteworthy essay, song, or a poem if you will. Much obliged.