complete silence.

If you can't hear your heart beat, know that it has a lub dub sound.

dub jayegi shor me duniya

Shor doesn't exist. The birds have been chirping since the last thousand years and sunsets have been orange since forever. Here, the lake and dying orange sun are lovers, their goodbye and welcome kisses are one, and only, then the sun goes his way and the lake, well she has been always here, and she has everything she could ever want or need, the trees bow to her and animals worship, all she wanted was a kiss of liberty, our lake didn't mind from whom, sun or moon, in the end she decides on the sun—a kiss of liberty everyday.

The sky is orange again, swift winds caresses my tangled open hair, I forgot to brush them, I always do, I forget that sunsets have always looked orange, the lake becomes a yellow rhinestone when the sun kisses her, trees bloom into spring shades of green and flowers feast on the evening rays like desserts, everytime I forget nothing changes—it all has happened and will happen again.

I can see the reflection of the moon in the black screen as I write and I wish to believe it's a miracle—the moon, himself, decided to reflect on my screen, but if I move an inch, it will be gone, such is my search for meaning— fleeting and mocking.

A sharp pain begins in my abdomen as I write what essentially is the most important exam of this year, a sharp pain, shaking hands and sweaty forehead, I drink water from my transparent blue plastic bottles, and it doesn’t taste the same as my steel bottle but we’re only allowed to take transperant ones, I wonder if we’re allowed to fall on the ground and cry and cry, cry until I’ve told them all I didn’t deserve this and everyone should do something to undo all of it but nobody would, they don’t even know my name, they will never, even after been asked two times, they forget it as if I am someone that would die so soon, her name being remembered is futile.

But no I won’t and they should remember my name, etch it into their tongues because I’m the most important person they’ll ever meet and I am going to live more than them, they should remember my name as so in their death bed, with their daughters and granddaughters and lovers and wifes, mothers and sisters, they should chant my name too, for I will live beautifully if there’s someone to chant my name.

Sharp pain begins again, this time my steel bottle falls on the ground, the paper I’m writing is economics and he will look at my result and say I’ve disappointed him, he expected better from me and I would wish him a sharp pain in his abdomen, but he sometimes forgets my name too. There’s only so much you could expect from people— your suffering is personal and scared, the moment you lay it on their scales is the moment it becomes a weight in your chest, trapped in your ribcage, beating, and thumping, but unlike a heart, it will rot the nearby cells, those cells would harm all the other ones and damage and damage and there’s nothing you could do when your suffering becomes one of their tales. Tales that aren't yours lose its beauty anyway.

There’s moonlight lighting my terrace as I write, my shadow looms around the concrete surface, and why don’t I turn on the lights, why don’t I let this celestial shine know—there’s a darkness inside of me that follows me everywhere I go and it’s not metaphorical, just plain old blackness we all posses, a black, no moon can enlight.

The plain old ache and the sharp pain in my stomach. ‘Everything bad happening to you is a punishment’, with this darkness, her words follow me everywhere too.

‘God is punishing you’.

Oh god, why don’t you punish me then?

And as if, is this all you can do to break me into pieces, mind you, my crumbled pieces will be thrown to a dirty river that reaches the oceans somehow, a river who drinks impurity as its own, out of pity and thirst and reaches the ocean because there’s no more pristinity left to save or mourn, I will embrace such a vile river, never the stairs of your blood washed temples.

The sky is dark and our lake, perhaps sleeping after this bliss of meeting her lover, although she loves no more, there's lust in her tounge that only liberty can cater too, soon the taste of orange will repulse her, she would realise love doesn't taste like liberty at all.

There’s a man buying a bottle of rum in a yellow kurta, I wish to know how he drinks it, though if he comes to tell me I’ll run away.

That’s all I can do, I’ve ran away so much, there’s nothing left to know, I’ve cried in every corner of the universe, learned all the sad songs and all the grief of everyone who comes across, the sad songs have all evaporated in the air and when the grief gets tired of accumulating in your chest, it starts becoming your bones and organs and you don’t feel the ache anymore, there’s none left of it, all you drink becomes grief, the desserts turn moldy as soon as they touch your mouth, skin becomes ivory as soon as it touches yours and winds pass by you like a hollow vessel, yellow cannot stain your eyes anymore, for all you are now is just a body of grief.

And I sometimes think of my mother, if god really is punishing me, is this all he can do?

if given the chance to punish him.

I’ll be the epitome of cruel, I’ll crumble hells and heavens, all the rules ever made for me and punish him like it’s the end of everything, I will swallow empathy, I will swallow kindness, they will, too, be intertwined with this grief flowing in my blood and punish him.

And such resentment and dreams take me nowhere. I wonder if the heart inside me is beating or not, I wonder if its warm, and if it’s, then how does it sound? I imagine it must sound like the music playing in my ears.

one day I am gonna grow wings

I wonder if what keeps me alive after all sounds like, then music cannot reach it, nor my calls, I wonder what I’ll find if I tear through my skin to reach it, I’m afraid there would be nothing but a vacuum of nothingness, so I don't dare.

So I pretend I can hear the lub dub lub dub of my life, but the truth is, it’s all silence. Complete unapologetic silence.

If you can't hear your heart beat, know that it has a lub dub sound.