Zero Brightness.

Image taken from https://inspiremykids.com/

Sometimes I stare at my computer screen at two in the morning.  It's blank, much like the wall behind it and in front of me.  It then occurs to me that I haven't written anything properly substantial in quite a few days.

At this point I start wondering if writing longhand would help; it's been too long since I've done that.  But then again, I'm not sure if I would be able to translate my thoughts from pen to paper instead of from keypress to screen, and thence blog--typing something you've already written out feels weird, the way you felt when you copied carefully curated paragraphs from Wikipedia into your homework and hoped extremely earnestly your teacher wouldn't notice (you know, 'cause back in the sixth grade we were all honorable persons--'for Brutus is an honorable man, so are they all, all honorable men').

And since I'm not sure, I won't write longhand.  I will keep staring at my screen, at two in the morning, mourning a little at my inability to form captivatingly coherent sentences.  I will think more about things and people than about words.  I will extrapolate my current state five or ten years into the future, wondering what it'll be like.  Where will I be?  Who will I be with?  Will I find my answers?  Of course, asking these questions to oneself right now would be--to say the least--futile, but at two in the morning, futility is not something I am immoderately concerned about.  

Two in the morning is supposed to be a time for adventure, and that adventure could also be inside your own head.  Or maybe you walk out onto the beach in the middle of the night, trying to spot waves.  Maybe you make a sandcastle in the dark, and then feel the sand falling through your toes because you stuck your foot in it by mistake.  Maybe you sit on the lone (pedophilic) swing and listen to songs of the night--chirping crickets and crackling incandescent bulbs--and sometimes John Mayer.  Then you probably watch a movie and walk home with your friend, shielding each other from the cold (quite ineffectively, because cold tends to leak through things, sometimes even your skin), and trying to hit the high notes from Mozart's Lacrimosa (and failing miserably, but not giving a flying rat's arse).  

Then, at two in the morning, you go back to your room, the one with the orange curtains, curse yourself for forgetting to shut your laptop down, and write all about what two in the morning feels like.

~

Reduction.

'Kurt Cobain' - Artwork by Russell Thomas - middleagebulge.com.

Do you know what it feels like? Do you know what it feels like to listen to a song, love it, and then listen to it so many times you numb yourself to its words?  Then you have to find a new song, and you do that to the new song too, and you hate yourself for doing it?  Do you know what it feels like to think about how you could write about anything and everything before, but now you are only a shell of nothingness, and you also write that way?  Almost like a hermit crab.  Nothing truly holds meaning anymore.  I clutch at drinking straws but there’s no soda left in my opaque, freezing white glass, only sorrow.  The last dregs of chocolate left behind at the bottom of my cold coffee taste like cough syrup; they’re not bittersweet, like the romantic novel I have been reading.

Do you know what losing love is like?  From your friends, from her, from...yourself?  No?  Let me attempt to tell you.  Let me paint pictures with my sorrow, I will write sonnets and stories and disguise all my repentances into symphonies uncharacteristic of the likes of Beethoven. Let me write in the same font she uses on her carefully crafted—curated—blog.  Let me wonder how her eyes will flit across my words, trying to find a hint of herself in them—oh, who am I kidding, she won’t come back—

She won’t come back, so the person I was with her won’t either.  There was a time I noticed everything from the dew on the grass to how the sunlight made red roses look like lava, back then, I was a volcano, spouting life-truths as though I knew everything about the universe and what was in it: especially us.  One of the things I think I did not know was that we would end, eventually, do you know what it’s like to end?  I don’t mean dying, no, I mean the ending that knocks silently on your door in the morning.  You would probably let it in for breakfast because it was tired and in want.  You would show it where the bathroom was in case it wanted to take a cold shower.  You would sit on the swings, together, in silence, though—because endings can’t talk, never.  You would read your favourite books to it in the dead of night when the rain refuses to stop pouring.  Then you would make sandwiches, and while you cut the tomatoes and make them bleed, the ending will snatch a butter knife from your unsuspecting drawer and it will stab you and draw your blood: because endings know exactly what to do with a butter knife.  The red roses she gave you will turn into lava and will melt the letters you wrote to her (but never sent).  Then they will be black.

Do you know what it is like to slowly lose sight of your dreams?  Do you know where the long walks on chilly nights with the smell of smoke in the air went?  Do you know why words I read make no sense—am I asking too many questions?  Do you know what it’s like to try to find answers in your questions because people can’t help you themselves?  Do you know how I feel when I fail; have you ever failed to try?  I wish you knew.  

I wish you knew how sometimes the sadness comes in waves.  Sometimes I sit outside on the sidewalk at two in the morning, with my tea, and my drooping teabag-like eyelids, and I stare at the grey shadows between areas illuminated by orange streetlights, thinking about how even if you have almost everything, you’d never have everything.  Some of us have less of that everything than most; I believe they’re braver than the rest.  I wish you knew that I’m tired of being brave.  I also hope that after reading this, you would still be brave enough to stay with me.  But if you’d rather not, I would understand.  Not everyone wants to be reduced.

~

Coal Tar.

Image Source: dreamstime.com

Coal Tar.

Pitch black.
Blended darkness.
Secrets smouldering
In burning velvet
Lost forever
To the graying silvered
Ashes of time.
Rainclouds storming
Through the sky;
Thunder after,
Silence, deafening.
They forgot
The calming rays of
Sunlight everlasting,
The morning dew on the cut grass

The crisp smell of the wet earth,
As everybody forgets
There is dawn after darkness,
And darkness after light,
So there is peace after war,
And war after peace;
Words that have been said
Cannot be taken back:
Like burnt coal in the hearth
They leave scars on the hearts
Of people who once believed
That everything would turn out fine
They forget
The laws of nature
Pertain to all beings
And while their days away
In glorious despair
As the future runs its course
Without want of consultation.

~Vruta Gupte.

Look! (A Poem)

Look!

Look at the night
Starry, beautiful
Orbs twinkling in the darkness
Like hope flickers in the heart of
The despairing man
So silently.
Look at the way
The moonlight cuts through
The lace curtains, in
Shafts, snow-white, dancing
In the breeze
Ever-changing.
Look at the girl,
Sitting in her chair,
Writing, never ceasing, filling
Pages and pages,
In her unenvied hand
Stories from lands far away,
Trickling from hands stained blue with ink,
To yellowed paper no one will see.
Look at the man,
Laughing with his sister,
His smile never was more joyous
Their last time together
Before he goes away in the fall.
Look at the endless sky,
Look up, and marvel
At the possibilities,
Look within, you will find
Your greatness.
But it is late now, and the night must sleep,
So she will fade into oblivion,
Taking secrets  with her
And then the dawn will come
To take her place,
Look, the sun will rise.

Sunlight.

So here is my first diamante poem:

Image Credits: Tanya Kukade (instagram.com/kukadetanya)

Sunlight.
Bright, white
Shining, sparkling, fuming
Fire, flame, night, shiver
Quieting, calming, glowing
Cold, silent
Moonlight.

Image Credits: www.wildretina.com 

See you on my next post!

~Vruta Gupte.