“There is nothing to writing. All you do is sit down at a typewriter and bleed.”
― Ernest Hemingway
More often than not I am found in that one corner of my house where the birds still sing, where the stars still come visiting, although the smog makes it pretty messy to spot them, where I can just sit and do nothing or maybe revise the course of life, revisit places my feet tend to stray away from, un-break some promises I had to tear myself off from, un-cry the tears that washed away tonnes of memories, undo some mistakes or two maybe, and maybe at the end of a few seconds or a zillion, unveil myself. At times it gets unbearable and a list of regrets starts to build up. But then, uncanny as it may sound, no matter how many times I have traversed this very situation, this very path, his name never shows up as one. Being happy has a sound, it has a rhyme. One begins to hop a little, dance a little, hum a little when the heart is doing somersaults inside. And being in a state like this for a person like me is somewhat a little too overwhelming. If at all my brain shuts up for a while, if at all I can close the doors to different moments in my life that I let ajar, if at all I can smile and not search a why to it, if at all I can let go of things that I've embraced too hard that now I can feel their claws all over my heart, I might be happy. 'You made me cry', 'Wow that was heart-wrenching intense', 'You just broke a million myths altogether and walked this cemetery of a world like you own it', 'Why so serious?' are things I've been associated with since a long time now. Does it hurt to pen pain? Is there a looming fear somewhere inside that out of the hundred and twenty three posts in here, each carries within a splinter of my heart, broken in times unknown, still living by the grace of the sun? Will I ever shy away from giving it all for I've seen the world from the eye of the storm? The answer to all is a [caps lock on] NO.
Pain is a driving force, the very push needed to bring out something I can hold on to, call mine. It percolates through the rusted door still waiting for a knock, grayest graveyards of a few faces I let fade to past, a bright treasury of a place wherein butterflies live, a happy little room wherein every once in a while 'Hero' plays, a gorgeous scenic salty ocean flows within, the source of tears you can say and dreams, a lot of them, some laid to rest while some forever live. Conceiving a piece is the most beautiful feeling I've known. Writing, rhyming, reading, searching and doing this dance over and over again. Sometimes it is minutes, sometimes it is hours. Hunger, thirst and all the possible humane necessities fade when words buzz around flirting, enticing to create that perfect fit. For the world, I am lost. For them, I am obsessed. Deep inside I know I am in love with this writhing pain. Somewhere while wordifying it, I have found myself. Found in a way that I want to remain this lost for as long as I can be. Obsessed in ways that insanity would be proud of me. Some sixty seven books I share my room with. Arranging them I involuntarily leave a space between two of my favorite titles for my book, the one I will pen someday, the ghost of which haunts my days and nights, pleading me to pen it for it wants to finally breathe in this world. As procrastinating as I am, I pacify it that I will, one day. Everyday I rise, take a plunge in the reds flowing inside, rise up to the gray shores, dry myself in the black smothering smog, put on a rusted cloak, spray a little green envy, a little pink blush of love, a thin film of moisture brightens the dark chocolate eyes and I step outside in the world walking the gait that sings 'Baby, I own this.' And as the night falls, I take to my corner. The birds are asleep. The stars are somewhere there awake with me. I feel the air on my face, let it cleanse, let it linger. There is something about that moment. A rush of thoughts is as intoxicating, as exhilarating as that of adrenaline. A puzzle is scattered before me and I reach out to pick the first piece. That action is liberating. The search for balance, the yearn for perfection is magnetizing. Can't escape it. It clutches till the very end. That pen glides, that paper in moonlight shines. I breathe life in myself as I finally, closing the world down, muting the voices out, tearing my soul a slight, Write.
© 2012 Neha Choudhry
