The price of being fiercely independent is total isolation.
Is it worth it then?
Is it worth it to 'be your own woman' and all that jazz?


I wouldn't dream of a life any different from this!

When I was tripping on acid the last time, it was a dare to myself. Could I do it? Did I have the guts? Would I be able to survive myself? It worked out pretty well I'd say. I faced my demons alone and survived somehow. Life is like that too. You can't expect someone to be there with you forever and for always. Sometimes you've got to figure it all out on your own.  It feels strange when I think about all my losses over the last few years. I love and I lose. It could be a person or it could be a pet. I lose them all.

Today marks the second month of Shoshibabu's passing. My heart feels empty, still sore from loss. It's strange to think that Shoshi never met him or rather he never got to meet Shoshi. I bet they would have gotten along like a house on fire.

He used to like cats so much. He'd pick up strays on the road and randomly stroke them. Or would he? I don't remember, my memory is starting to fade.

I don't remember what he looked like, only hazy memories remain. Like photographs, in fragments, in bits and pieces.
But I remember his voice so well and the way he'd say my name. So seductive. So smooth. I remember the whispering. The tension and the compassion.

What else do I remember? I remember watching him as he licked me. His eyes shut and his focus only on me. I remember our reflection in the mirror as we made love in the winter afternoon sun.

Polythene bags and tubes of dendrite
Crying and depression.
Chillums and yet more chillums of ganja.
Kissing.
So much kissing.
And talking.
So much talking.

He wore black nail paint the first time I ever saw him. I was in class 9, he was in 11. He was so cool and I was so naive. I believed him when he told me that he was okay, years later. Why wouldn't I though? The boy never lied, at least never to me.
I knew I had something special with him with that one kiss. We couldn't stop. We stood and kissed under the stars. He'd never kissed someone before, he told me. He never kissed someone like he kissed me, all his life. How could he? Soulmates aren't that easy to find.
He liked other people and I did too, eventually. But we always came back to each other, we found our way back to each other. Fate, too ,played matchmaker for us. We'd bump into each other at the least likely places after months of non-communication. It was in our destiny to end up together. We joked about it all the time and I feel stupid thinking that I did believe, at one point of time, that we'd be together forever in the end.

It's not the sex that I miss. It's the comfort in knowing that I have someone in my life who understands me and lets me, well, be.
I miss his warmth. I miss his smell. I miss standing on my toes to kiss his face. I miss his arms around me and I miss him crushing me to death with his hugs. I miss the ecstasy and the euphoria. I miss the adrenalin rush. I miss the butterflies in my stomach.

It felt so melodramatic the time we were fornicating and 'The End' started to play. We kissed with such urgency, like we knew we didn't have much time. We really didn't. That evening was the last time we ever made love. It was a sign.

He left as beautifully as he came into my life.
Both Shoshi and him.

On the road
On the run
Life is so incredibly hard
And yet so much fun

There's sweat dripping off my skin
As I move to the beat of the drum
Every moment I feel myself grow
And I wait for my moment to come

Sometimes I'm floating with the wind
Sometimes I'm soaring in the sky
I may have no direction or sense of self
But I do have a bagful of drugs to get me by.

Familiarity

Familiarity.
The taste of your mouth.
Your tongue.
And mine.

Stroking the beard on your chin.
My fingers trace its silhouettes.
Strange familiarity.

Wet and warm.
Reminded of how I feel inside.
Your hands.
Your lips.
Your ears.
Your teeth.
Your nose.
Your fingernails.
Your hair.
Your Adam's apple.
Your genitalia.
You.

Explosions in the form of orgasms.
I explode.
No one seems to do it like you do.
Surreal.

But I no longer crave for your love.
I enjoy the pain in the form of fornication.

Don't love me, have sex with me.

Winter Afternoons in Dilli

They're playing AM by the Arctic Monkeys in the next room and here I am, in bed, refusing to get out and say 'hi'.
What is the point? Everyone's just going to walk all over me, like they always do.

I can't believe I've let myself become this person. So lonely, so insecure, so broken. Like picking at a scab that hasn't healed, my wounds get opened and re-opened again. I don't know why. What am I doing wrong?
Am I not worthy of love and attention?
Why do I get treated like shit then?

People say that they've changed, changed for the better. But nothing ever changes, only time. I can't see into my future anymore. It's been so long since I last felt loved that I've forgotten what it feels like.

My life could have been all about the sex I had with A, while listening to the Arctic Monkeys and Bonobo and what not, but unfortunately, it isn't. It's only about the battlescars that he left behind. It's only a tragic tale of falling in love and having my heart broken, my sense of self taken away.

I can't remember the last time I had goosebumps on my skin when somebody touched me, ran their hands down my back. I can't remember the last time someone kissed me and saw straight into my soul. I can't remember. Why can't I remember? Has it really been that long?

I find myself becoming possessive and jealous, bitter and negative. This wasn't me. I guess time's changed me into a new person and unwillingly I'm just going with the flow.

Maybe I'm one of those people who'll end up alone no matter how hard I try. But it's okay, I'm trying to toughen my heart till it becomes a stone. I'm trying hard, very hard, to give up on the idea of love. Maybe it does exist, just that I probably will never find it. That is my curse.

I Can't Let You In

I can't let you touch me,

I'm too broken and too fragile.

He came and he plundered

My sense of self, my sense of self-worth.

I can't let you kiss me,

My tongue only spews venom

He kissed me till I bled

And now I have not a drop of blood left.

I can't let you hold me

The goosebumps on my skin are permanent.

He scratched at pawed at his will

And discarded me when he was done.

I can't let you love me

My heart's too broken for love

He said he'd love me forever

But he couldn't even for a minute.

I feel like I am completely unloveable. 

Maybe I really am.

I get my hopes up every time

Only to be let down by the same man.

I haven’t slept for two days now. A piece of Styrofoam and a white cloth over it cannot be called a bed. It’s strange how the more you lower your expectations of people, the more they somehow manage to let you down.

I’m starting to think that maybe humanity does not exist at all any more.  Everybody is out there to make money or to be famous. I don’t know why it’s become so incredibly important for everyone to do something “cool” just for the sake of it. Am I immune to this circus? Maybe I am because I don’t want to do the drugs they give me. I don’t fancy making contacts by sucking dicks and fellating whoever promises career opportunities.

There’s fungus growing on the floor of the bathroom of the room that we’ve been given at an Indian “DIY” “indie” festival. By indie I mean being treated like shit just because you’re not rich and famous.

There’s a pest colony on the makeshift plywood walls and I watch intently as bugs crawl around, around me, existing perfectly in their sphere as I struggle to fit into mine.  My body has broken out into rashes, I think I’m severely allergic to something present in my room. But does anybody care? Who am I kidding, of course they do, what are the free shoes for! Apt compensation perhaps?

I’m finding it increasingly difficult to work in an environment that has absolutely no consideration for basic human needs, especially that of a woman.

For today’s gig I decided to not say a single word in-between any song. For those of you who may know me, I am quite chatty when I am on stage. But I did not feel that connect today. I didn’t feel the vibe. A gig can be fun only when I feed off the energy of the place and today all I saw before me were people trying so hard to convince themselves that they were having a good time. I saw members of the crew who only cared enough to be a part of the festival because I am assuming it was a “cool” thing to do. I saw people drunk out of their minds on the free booze that the place had to offer.

Where is the fun in pretentious shit like that?

Anyway, my attention shifts from the insect colony to the remnants of a half smoked cigarette lying on the floor-burnt up and abandoned, not even consumed to its fullest glory. Some people often become half-burnt cigarettes. I try to convince myself that I will not end up like that, bigger glories await me and it’s only a matter of time.

You see, my dream is not to be rich and famous, my dream is to make others dream, my dream is to make people feel the things that I feel, see the things that I see. 

Success is not accolades or pats on the back. It's the satisfaction in knowing that you've been true to your work, true to what you believe in. 

I see many people in and around, so cool, so shiny, so incredibly full of themselves. Unfortunately, I too, seem to have become one of them.

Vegetate

Bit by bit, the little girl grew up. She learned from experience. She grew from her everyday victories, survived her daily horrors and made it. She learnt to live on her own.
She may have been tired, she may have been weary. But experience taught her to hold on, to carry on.

Day after day, she picked up new messages from the universe. Messages that told her that she was going to be okay and some along the way which scared the daylights out of her.

She grew. Like a creeper basing its foundation on a big, firm tree of her own beliefs, she grew.
She dreamt of becoming her own big, strong tree someday.
Growing little by little in the light everyday, she forged on.
For the light had taught her that even though she may not have reached her sky yet, it was still better than laying on the ground, waiting to be picked up...

Bunny Rabbit Reprise

I can dye my hair blue, I can get another tattoo
But it all seems so pointless when I don't have you.
Who do I impress, who do I charm?
Everyone except for you only causes harm.

I can revisit places that no longer exist. Pick up habits of the past.
I can move to a new world and move right back.
Nameless, faceless, they come and they leave.
What is the point of it all, when I don't have you?

Sing to me in my sleep tonight.
Invade my dreams.
Bad marijuana.
Black nail paint.
Your obsession with metal music and my intolerance.

Twisted nick-names.
Insulting but heartfelt.
Why make me dream when you can't fulfil them?
What is the point of all this, when I don't have you?

The creases on my face become more prominent the older I get.
But you beautiful, beautiful boy, you'll never grow old.
And tired.
And cynical.
And alone.
And lonely.
You'll never again need to fall in love.

And now, after all these years, I realise that I don't want to either...

Third Day of a Seven Day Binge

If you think about it, it's kind of fucked up to have Marilyn Manson on your playlist for sex. I get off on violence and cannibalistic urges. What to do.

I like it rough.

I like it hard.

I like it impersonal.

Carnal and dirty.

Animalistic.

Raw.

But passionate, oh so passionate.

I'm the kind who'd fuck your brains out and turn around and go to sleep. No cuddles. No romance.

I don't trust love.

I trust pleasure.

Endless pleasure.

The pleasure that stimulates my cunt, stimulates my brain.

My window to a different dimension.

Orgasms that show me the way.

Into the light, the white light.

Take away my power over myself.

The gates won't open otherwise.

The walls won't break down.

Kiss me as hard as you can.

Kiss me everywhere.

Mean it.

But how can I get there if the journey is gentle?

My body is the vehicle to my salvation.

You can scratch it.

You can sink your teeth into it.

Hold it tight as you send me into another world.

But at the end of the day, can you love someone you have sex with?

Can you have sex with someone you love?

memorium

All my losses have made me a bitter person.
The loss of innocence.
The loss of love.
The loss of loved ones.
The loss of a will to live.

Sometimes when I'm lying in bed trying hard not to break down and cry, I anticipate my cat curling up on my leg and gently purring me to sleep. But he's not around anymore. I miss him so much. I miss him like a mother misses her child. I try to think about what an eventful, what a privileged life I have, I don't have to worry about two square meals a day unlike so many people. However, deprivation is a relative thing and just because I don't live in extreme poverty and sorrow, does not mean that I am not suffering. It does not mean that my suffering is irrelevant, not painful enough.

Slowly but steadily this depression has taken over all the cells in my body. It now dictates who I am. It controls me. It causes me to isolate myself from everyone around me. I've built myself a nice wall and I allow nobody to break it down anymore.

I like to think of myself as a princess sometimes, waiting to be saved from her loneliness and her unending tragedies. I have waited to be rescued for quite some time now and I'm starting to think that there is no saviour, there is no prince to my story. It's just me, alone, all alone. I will either have to rescue myself or perish nameless and faceless, not to mention loveless.

Where is my will to hold on?
It never existed perhaps.

Sweetest Taboo

I think about you sometimes these days, now that I am alone.
Your eyes.
Or rather, your gaze.
The way you looked at me and leaned in to kiss me.
Your chin.
The hair that fell on your face.
Your flavoured lip balm.
Your soft lips.
The softest lips I have ever kissed.
Your gentle body.
The goosebumps on your skin.
As I made love to you for the first time.
Our first.
Our last.
And the in-betweens.

Secret kisses.
Secret love.

The way you made me explode.
The way you made me cry.
Pleasure.
Pleasure.
Pleasure
Endless pleasure.

Your beautiful neck.
Beautiful bosom.
Beautiful hips.
Beautiful soul.

The taste of you in my mouth.
The taste of you in my mouth.
Seems like a memory from so long ago.

Why did it end?
Why couldn't you make up your mind?
I would have kept you safe and you could have kept me sane.

Can he love you like I used to?
Does he know your weak spots?

Paradigm Shifts and Maintaining Your Sanity

My life's is at an unreal juncture. Musically, I'm achieving all the little goals that I had in my head. And yet it does not heal me. I have a gig, a pretty major one, a week from now featuring the best musicians and the best music that has come out of Kolkata recently. I still don't know how I figured, how my songs figured in that list. It's somewhat nerve-wrecking having to sing songs by songwriters who I have admired and idolised all these years. I am super nervous. I am super excited. But the melancholy grips me like a blanket on a cold day. 

What am I doing wrong? Am I not working hard enough? Why am I in so much pain then?

All these opportunities that come my way, what good are they when my soul refuses to come out of the dark abyss that it's taken refuge in. 

Courtney Killed Kurt

Shallow lives, shallow sense of self

"We're on the map, yeah"

"We've made it"

Look at all these shiny people.

Look at their opulence.

Their quick wit.

Their seductive ways.

"We're on the map, yeah"

"We've made it"

They eat off our palms now.

They fill our heads with praise.

Shallow shallow shallow shallow.

So shallow.

Nauseatingly sweet.

Unnatural.

Be the Love of my life.

Bring me down.

Tear me apart.

Devour me whole.

Kill me.

Kill me please.

Kill me before I kill myself.

I cry and cry and cry and I laugh sometimes.
How could my life possibly get any worse?
Every living being that I love and one that loves me back dies on me.

Do you know how broken a mother feels when her baby dies on her?

My loss is so deeply personal.
Nobody can help me recover from this.
I am alone.
All alone.
All those who claim to "love" me are just vultures.

There were good days and there were bad

it didn't matter in the end

the hole in her heart

is where her demons hid.

So strong, to the world

So fierce and brave

The little girl grew up fast

Learnt never to love again.

They cut her 

They burnt her

Yet she lived

It was her curse

The only way out of her hell was indifference

Live and Learn

There are few things more heartbreaking than a sick, possibly dying pet. I have grown up around and with a dog and a whole bunch of cats. So I don't know what life is like without having them around. My dog died when I was quite young. She was old and sick and it seemed like a good thing at that time-to watch her go. She would accompany my grandfather as he picked me up from the bus-stop and everybody would go gaga over her from the school bus. I have been told that when I was younger, she would sit beside my cot and keep an eye on me. She'd growl and bark every time relatives or acquaintances would come near it.
Dogs make the best pets, they say. It is quite true. Cats can never be your pet. They become the eccentric family member, the non-conformist, never your pet.

Shoshi was found when he was barely a month old. He was the cutest, jumpiest little thing. I brought him home in a shoebox and fed him some milk and a little fish because I was unsure how old he was. On his first night at home, I was absolutely petrified like the mother of a newborn baby. I made a bed right next to me and put him there to sleep. I kept the lights on and woke up in the middle of the night to see that he was missing. It turned out that the fucker, barely a month old, had climbed down my bed and was frolicking around under it because he could not sleep!

To see him reduced to a bag of skin and bones, barely breathing breaks my heart into a million little pieces and I can only stand beside him as doctors and their assistants try and do their best to revive him.

It'll be a miracle if he survives. I'll have to hold my breath for the next couple of days. Let's see what fate has in store for him. He's too young to suffer. Please don't make him suffer, universe. That's all I'm asking for at the moment.

Observations, part deux (?)

• Life feels liberating without a phone, social media accounts etc etc. I think I'm going to be phoneless on purpose for a while now. Facebook makes me sick and a twisted individual, but it's okay, it's amusing to see people so content having achieved so less in their lives. Girls who take selfies everyday and post them with song lyrics as captions don't annoy me anymore, I feel sorry for them. Boys who stalk/prey on women via facebook are always going to be doing it virtually because in reality they lack the balls. 
• I'm done trying to get people to love me. I have never been the one to compromise when it comes to work, family, etc and it's wrong of me to compromise when it comes to relationships. I feel like I owe it to myself and I deserve better than what I've been getting. Love is a sham. Love makes you weak. It fills your head with unrealistic expectations.
• The first incision is always the hardest, the most painful. Mostly because you can't quite anticipate the amount of pain you're going to feel. I feel like an emotional, insecure teenager with body issues cutting herself to feel good. Would you rather cut yourself or do bad drugs? Or both? 
• Lonerism is a good thing. It gives you time to figure out who you really are. If it were upon me, I would never leave the confines of my room. I'm scared of the big bad world outside. I'm afraid of the men who will lure me and break my heart. 
• Everything is always about sex. The older you grow, the more complicated it gets. Your cunt craves for what your heart warns you against. It's easier to get laid when you are young, you don't care about consequences of who you choose to sleep with.
• Am I a slut for enjoying sex as much, if not more than, a man?
• My soul mate is dead. My soul mate is FUCKING DEAD. There, I've said it! Chances are that love will never be my thing. Maybe I'll find fortune and maybe I'll find fame, but that is where the buck will probably stop for me. Neglect breeds strange feelings. I don't think I'd like to procreate and transfer all those fucked up things onto a new generation.
• I love animals and food more than people. People let you down, always.
• One day when I'm 30, I'd like to be dead. Or sooner. I just want to say what I have to say and then exit gracefully. There's only a certain number of years one can live alone, on their own. It becomes painful after that. I feel out of place almost everywhere. I don't think I belong. Or is that because I've had a broken heart for as long as I can remember and I've forgotten what it likes to be happy?
• I can't seem to remember the last time I was genuinely happy. Maybe when I met my best friend. We were sharing our sob stories. There's something incredibly comforting about having someone around who won't judge you for what you do and who you are. Wish I could meet more people like that. 
• Tripping indoors is still not my thing. I'm too much of a vagabond to trip in a room. I need to be somewhere outside, under the sky. I could spend my entire trip looking at the moon. Everything I see and everything I hear and everything I feel, it's all in my head. These are manifestations of my thoughts. I control my trip. What does enlightenment feel like? Powerful, confusing and lonely.
• I'm going back into my shell again. I'll come out only when someone coaxes me out of it. Half-hearted attempts aren't good enough for me anymore. I've been under lockdown for 4 days now and I don't want it to end anytime soon. This is my honeymoon with myself and nobody is invited.
• Everybody is selfish. Everybody is a liar. I'm not everybody.