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The one thing I had learned about being alone, or loneliness—semantics anyway—was that there was peace in camaraderie. It did not matter where you found it. They often say beggars could not be choosers—you had to take it to heart. If you craved a smile, you had to befriend your barista, and if you wanted to talk about ideas, you had to take the word of your cab driver. It was a luxury to want a specific kind of person and them being available at all times for all your needs. It was an impossible expectation from even the kindest, most well-intentioned of friends you had.

Perhaps, this is why I walked as much as I did. Back when I was studying, living alone then as I am now, I would get ready in the evenings and visit the crowded sectors, the markets, and the malls. I’d spend the entirety of my days there, going in and out of coffee shops, making small talk with the baristas who at some point recognised me, my regular orders.

Just so they did not forget me, I would change my regular order now and then. It kept things fresh, naturally, but it also gave me a different talking point. Sometimes, I’d order a hot chocolate instead of an americano. They’d ask me why, and I’d tell them I was a little under the weather. Then, we’d talk about how the winters were colder that season. As if that wasn’t something people said each year, a constant repetition of how things were getting worse with no proof in hand.

To this day, when I feel the loneliness engulfing me, my only instinct is to go out, even if no friends are available to grab a bite or drinks or coffee, and even if the family is busy. Although, family is rarely busy, especially if there’s love. I believe I could not change this about myself now. I was accustomed to this managed loneliness. I needed everything in moderation—other people, myself, silence. The streets were my cave to retreat to.

You were not always in luck, though. I left my flat to walk the other evening. I couldn’t see much in the shadows, but there was a sheet of rain under the street lamp that told me to rush back home. It was the only conversation I was granted that evening. It would have to do, I thought, and I walked back home.

It was a sunny day yesterday; the white buildings turned yellow, and the grass on my balcony looked like proper grass. It was the only time it looked like real grass, really. It was a bargain I could get behind. There was a tradeoff between the artificial and the real, and somewhere between all of that was life. People who did not step into nature often did not know what a little grass and sun could do to us. Those who did not live in towns or cities, the realm of make-believe, eventually got disconnected from the world they at some point had to return to. I was none of them; like always, I preferred not to belong. I lived suspended between the two worlds.

In spirit of the tradeoff, I decided never to clean those sheets of grass, like I once saw the person living across from me, a building ahead. I could see them vacuuming their balcony once, and it gave me a moment of confusion, at first, but then, a hearty laugh. They weren’t wrong in doing it, of course, but there was an irony embedded in there, apparent and for all to see, especially those who lived a beeline ahead of them. This event did not impact my decision in any way. Once I had cut the sheets to fit my balcony, the grass was real.

I got a few plants a couple of weeks ago, and when I fitted them into the planters, some soil fell on the grass. There are now two patches of mud on it. A pigeon flew into the balcony and brought a couple of twigs, and they remain, rolling here and there with the wind, stuck in the boxed balcony. When it left, it also left a few feathers behind. Feathers were a come and go; the breeze rarely minded taking them away. As I read in the sun, which shone brighter after a couple of days of relentless showers, some tufts of grass and one whole leaf lay near my feet. These little gifts from the neighbourhood brought me joy.

The two days of rain aside, yesterday was like most days in recent months. At first, I wanted to share this warmth with others, but as infinite as it was, I wasn’t intent on giving an ounce of it away. So, I basked in the sun, read a little and at some point, I fell into a nap. I woke up to a sky peppered with clouds.

It was a productive afternoon.

In talking to others about nothing in particular over a few cups of tea or coffee, or sometimes, as an exception, about grave things affecting our lives was a beauty most people did not pause to focus on; I had no intention to build an empire, but friendships, more and more of them. Friendships grounded on mutual respect and not a desperate attempt to not be alone. Although, reluctantly, even that was something I was willing to oblige.

It was sacred to me—conversation. A person could claim to be anything in the world. If they were bold, they could even claim to be happy, but their words often betrayed them at tea time on a Thursday afternoon. To know someone, you did not have to talk to them drunk, staring at the dark, starlit sky, as is often suggested, but in the aisle of a grocery store during rush hour on a Monday. It was the only time a person was busy enough to not think about what they said.

I would catch the drift of some conversation happening around me. As guilty as I am, I often eavesdropped for a bit. Not for information, hearsay or gossip, but instead for the voices. I liked noticing when someone used their social voice. I distrusted people who relied on it. There was a distinction in how people talked generally and socially—a drink in their hands, a plate on their table, a tag on their chest.

Of course, people talked differently with different people. But, this was only true for the content of the words, not the mannerism. Everyone brought a unique mix of voice, accent and words they preferred. The rest was a farce. It was a pretentious game about who could sound kinder or smarter. Perhaps, for some shrewd gain, not that anyone admitted to it, or to portray a value system they did not grow up with, or worse, believed in. This dislike was, of course, a fatal flaw. I lost more than I gained because of it.

It was not that I could not be tactful, only that I often chose not to be for the sheer simplicity of trying to be honest in most things. It was a terrible nuisance to use words you did not like, or worse, use a voice that wasn’t your own. I could never understand it all, not that I made any attempt to do so. I was too stubborn to even try.

I obsessively ripped detail off my words—places, technology, streets, monuments—because I wanted them to stay out of time. It was important to me. Perhaps, it was my only fixation. It was a conscious decision then not to name the town I grew up in, to not tell you about the world around me at all. If you wanted to know more about the world, you would not be sitting here reading these words in front of you, trying to escape. I respected it.

This often pushed me into a corner. It was difficult to write when you could not just pick something off the news to craft a few words around. Craft—I hated the word, primarily when writers used it. A craftsman followed instructions, an artist defied them. I was none of them, but if I were to choose, I’d prefer to defy. While I was stubborn, I was not naive; I was convinced this fixation was the sole contributor in only a handful of people ever knowing about my work because, in my preference to avoid the world, I often seemed apathetic towards it.

It was irrelevant to me, however, for I never wrote for anyone else. I did not even know if I was a writer, really. I could string a few words, and sometimes, I made sense. I believe it was more habit than the urge people prattled on about when they talked about writing in their little clubs and forums, talking about changing the world, grossly unaware of their privilege to be able to spend afternoon after afternoon talking about the world and its ailments. I wasn’t any better, of course, but I preferred to keep the irony limited to myself.

Writers who talked to other writers about writing were rarely writing anything at all. It was a hill I chose to die on a long time ago. I had no reasoning for why I put my thoughts down as regularly as I did, why I continually jotted broken sentences and phrases down as I went about my day, or why I pondered over so much when I had no intention whatsoever to try and affect most of it. Maybe, there was still time for me to find answers to the countless questions I decided against listing after three. It had only been about ten years of writing; three of doing it properly.

Writers have bled words for far longer than I have lived.

When I woke up in a new life a few months later, I thought of you. I spent the morning pacing, questioning my newfound levity, asking whether leaving without a word was the right thing thing to do. It was cold, and the idea only made it colder.

It occurred to me how people did not leave in grand announcements or after a candid conversation. It happened, of course, but it was rare. The act of leaving itself was a furtive, cunning and even desperate attempt to be free. Bags were rarely packed loudly and with a thump. People fled from other people like they left from prisons, slowly digging a hole in the back of the wall and stealing essentials into a bag. When a window arose, they ran for their lives.

The reasons for leaving were to each their own, and I was no one to have an opinion about the right or wrong way to do it. The matters of right and wrong never weighed on people wriggling in a pit of quicksand they stepped into of their own accord. I, too, was writhing in your uncertainty, trapped in your maybes and perhapses, with no end to the struggle in sight. So when I planned my escape, I did not make an announcement; I only chose to leave.

Eventually, I reached an impasse—I would not question my leaving had I not left. So, I settled the argument within me for it to have been a decision. Often, it did not matter if it were right or wrong, only that a decision was made. Perhaps, my deciding to leave was the only way out of our whirlpool of indecisiveness.

In the aftermath of my grand escape, I had no anger left for you. I had no love left either, only nostalgia. I had spent enough time mourning the cost of happiness, so I decided to begin writing.

As I wrote a few words about this brief inquiry, a pigeon suddenly flew onto the slab of my balcony. I saw its shape through the glass door, still frosted from the cold night. It walked straight across with its head bobbing till it reached the tail end and flew away. It made me laugh for no reason in particular. Maybe, it was the ridiculous bobbing of the head.

Often, it did not matter whether a joke was funny, only if the person listening desperately needed a laugh. I had always laughed much too easily.

I woke up with the feeble sound of rain pattering outside. Just then, in the haze of not having fully woken up, it occurred to me how maybe it wasn’t the rain. What if it was some neighbour a floor above or below my own doing some maintenance early in the morning? The thought made me angry for a split second until I settled for the more rational alternative—it was raining. I chuckled at how human I was, and a minute later, I got out of bed.

I replied to a few important messages; I left some for when I was done writing. I was learning to save my state of mind for these words. It did help to some extent, for I managed to write almost daily with this shift in perspective. Perhaps, there is some merit in protecting oneself. I wouldn’t know. I have rarely kept myself first. This was as new for me as for the few people disgruntled by this change in how I carried myself.

I thought about how I had slept with a slightly heavier heart last night as I made my bed. The morning after you slept with sadness always felt softer, and the rain outside, which I could see falling now since I had drawn the curtains open, only added to this air of calm. If we had even a sliver of care for ourselves, we were gentler with ourselves now and then. It took a lot of time to learn to care for ourselves, however. We were the last people we learned to care for.

I felt some hunger but didn’t want to have breakfast yet, so I picked a croissant up and had it with my coffee before writing. This little satiation almost made me not want to write anything, so I made a note of not having anything before I had written every day. Caring for ourselves came in different ways. In my daze of the croissant’s subtle sweetness, I sat for a while, staring at the wet grass in my balcony, which albeit fake, looked real enough in the right setting.

My gaze shifted to the drops sliding down the glass panels of the balcony. I noticed how they were out of step with the others. I believe, at some point, they took to their own pace—some slid slowly, some stopped altogether, and some splashed now and then in the puddle which had formed right below them.

Something about this made me happy, and so I began writing.

Did I have a dream? Perhaps, I did. Maybe, there was one beneath the layer of strict responsibility. I could often see a glint of it underneath the numbing weight of purpose or lack thereof. Perhaps, I traded it all away sliver by sliver in the seemingly significant sacrifices, negligible in the grand scheme of things. Often, I remembered pieces of it between the sips of countless cups of coffee I had by myself, for I could not stand other people for long and that I, myself, was tolerable in small doses. Tucked between all of that, I believe there was one.

While I sang songs about living in isolation, of this and of that, my dream was quite the opposite. My dream was of a noisy house, of a cacophony of the highest proportions, of a simple life complete with the picket fence and a yard. When I pictured it, I saw a breakfast table where everyone had to go somewhere, but there was still time to throw tantrums. I wanted the neat, enveloped life most people rejected in my time. I reckon it’s the only thing I truly wanted. I wanted it early too.

I had not thought about it for a while now. I was on the verge of forgetting. Dreams were often lost amidst rainy days where all one wanted was to get home dry. I had been running in the rain for long enough to begin revelling in it. The dream had all but washed away by this point. But like paint which appeared to have dried only for someone to touch it and wince in disgust, dreams were never entirely gone. The speckles of my dream still remained.

Don’t get me wrong, I grew up in a home where love has never ended. It was precisely why my dream was the way it was. I wanted to improve upon a painting already fit for museums, or even better, the memory of a child on a field trip. When I did talk about it, it was natural for people to point out how time was unimportant, but time was important. It was for me and for my dream.

We made do with what we got, however. It was all about making do with what we got. So, I was making do with my fingers crossed, gripping what’s left of it, afraid I might forget it all one day, quite like I forgot an umbrella in the stand by the door of a museum in a city where it never stops raining.

I lived in all seasons of my life at the same time. Since I woke up today, I have been to more cities than I can count. I remember the voice of each person I gave my heart to with an accuracy I could not even imagine putting down on paper. But even more, I remember the voices and faces of the countless others I befriended and forgot all about until a memory resurfaced. I was viewing my life at all times like slices placed carefully under a microscope. I did not know what I was trying to find, so when they asked me what was on my mind, I did not know what to say.

It had always been this way. Wherever I’ve gone, wherever I’ve sat, I could always feel the draw; these jumbled strings of memory pulling me like a twisted marionette. It was always in the corner of my mind, some old laughter which was now a song I couldn’t remember the name of, some room I couldn’t guarantee would still exist, and even if it did, it would not be the same; I have previously attempted to trace my steps to phantoms of my past, only to learn they didn’t care to stick around. I was, of course, the first to leave, so I couldn’t hold it against them either.

I did not know how to answer when people asked me if I were in good spirits. My calm was always accompanied with a loss I did not consider at first—when it happened. Only in hindsight did I stop to consider it. We must go forward; I understood it better than most. But all lives I’ve left behind, all futures I did not see pan out deserved, perhaps, in better hands, a completion I did not wait around for. As angry as I have been for being left behind, in the overall tally of things, I’ve been the one who was leaving, continually. Maybe, out of habit or worse, out of disregard for anyone and anything else.

My life so far has been a sentence skipped, a draft left midway, a story left untold for so long, I didn’t intend to tell it anymore. Perhaps, these fragments only wanted to be told. It was a terrible impasse.

Did the summer love scald you, or was it a loss that burned you out? Was it devastation so cataclysmic, you cannot fathom where it began, just that it did? It was irrelevant where it started, just that it brought destruction.

I wonder how the house of cards of your heart stood upright till now. Then, it was but a house of cards; part of its beauty was how it could crumble at the slightest of winds; part of its nature is how it can be built back up again. I reckon you aren’t here to get cheap inspiration, are you? I understand you need silence, so I will sit with you.

Sometimes, we wanted a silent spectator. To know someone watched as we jumped through hoops, solving what needed to be done, doing what was required, yet not having them ask if we were okay. Only the presence of another was enough. I could be your spectator.

All you have to do is stare at these words for a little while and go about your quest. I will be watching. I don’t offer this out of some noble cause; trust me, I am as trapped as you are, but I’ve learned if there’s any way out of the hole, it’s together. I’ll watch you. In your own way, from so further down in time and cities apart, you’ll watch me, too.

Often, however, it was not about what we wanted. Often, we needed the truth, not that we knew it. So, I must try. I must speak up like a silent spectator who has watched far too long from the sidelines. The truth is to live was to fail at some point. Perhaps, the stories we told ourselves did not always help us. Maybe, we grew fond of them.

We had to learn to take sorrow as granted as we took joy. The collision courses we were on would never make sense to us, or at all. Entire empires have crumbled without a sign; what is your house of cards in front of them? Perhaps the best bet for us was to move forward when we saw a road ahead—even a glimpse—regardless of how steep, long or foggy it seemed.

And I understand how this is nothing new and how this is what you did not want in the first place. I know how all this has been said before by people far greater than I will ever be. And I know you know how all of this is undoubtedly true.

And yet, you still cry, and yet, I understand.

A long time ago, I found myself sitting among thirty others. It was a writers’ workshop. My biggest qualm was how they never offered us coffee or tea or scotch. It made me suspicious of the lot from the get-go. I battled my urge to point this out or ask for a cup of coffee myself, but I was here to write, and so I let it go. Soon began the introductions, and I knew that I was in the wrong place from that point on. Most people were there—as vulgar as that sounds—to network. They were here to make a few contacts, meet some people who write for the radio or, if they were lucky, films.

Not all of them sold out before they began, though. Some had something to say, at least, but instead of saying what they wanted to, they relied on prompts. You could hear it in the heart of the few poems they wrote, how the honest words wanted to get out. Perhaps, they thought it inconsequential of what they wanted to talk about. The prompts were crutches; they helped them avoid the blank page. Before the page swallowed them whole, they plastered the prompt on the top, neat and tidy, a one-liner in bold. A writer had no need for prompts. You wrote about what you saw and felt.

Then, I did a neat experiment; I wrote the worst sentence I could think of for the prompt. It was intentional. I was sure the man conducting it all would like it, given how he was practically just a peddler of words. My gambit worked. I was called up to read it. I was given an opportunity to work with them—on prompts. I often wonder what would have changed if I had taken it up.

At this point, I could’ve gotten up and left, but I decided instead to see it through now that I was there and they had offered us a glass of water. It was a bargain, but one often had to settle for bargains, especially when it came to other people. As the charade went on, paying no attention to the hullabaloo of snapping and clapping, I started wondering what writing was to me and how better—for the lack of a better word—did I want to be from this lot?

I settled on a simple word: honesty. I have never attended a workshop since.

There were four apples in the fruit bowl on my kitchen shelf, leftover from the dozen my father brought me a while ago. I believe it was a month, but I couldn’t be too sure. As particular as I was about my days, I struggled with this specific kind of remembering. I remembered differently.

I remembered rolling the apples from the bag and into the bowl. I recalled the series of thuds and how they quickly made space for one another. I remembered the reflection of the bowl on the shelf—a still life masterpiece; I remembered the blurry painting. But for the life of me, if someone asked me when the apples arrived, I would not know. My focus was always on the moment’s aesthetic. I had always been on the outside of my life, looking in.

It was paramount for me to note important details and dates down, else I would miss appointments, forget birthdays and stay befuddled for what I was to do in a day. It was shocking how I could keep a worldly life afloat better than most people. I rarely missed appointments, usually ran on time, and managed to get a significant amount of work done every day. Perhaps, my strength was my natural indisposition towards it all. I never took my ability to forget for granted, so I wrote most things down.

In any case, out of the original dozen, I ate most, some rot early which was natural. These four, however, stood the test of time. When something is a part of the picture for long, we stop seeing it. Even the brightest red apples merged into the obsidian background of a shelf if not looked at and appreciated daily. The bowl looked like it belonged on my orderly shelf long enough for me to forget I was to pick the leftover apples up and eat them.

I noticed one of them started rotting today. It broke my heart and gave me a sense of regret I cannot comprehend yet. On the one hand, I know the apples were there, and apples rot when not consumed in time. On the other, they looked like such an incredible part of the picture together; I barely noticed them. Now that I see them again, it reminds me of how my forgetfulness wasted delicious fruit.

It makes me wonder if this was why most things rot—not to die, no, but perhaps, to be seen once again.

To be yourself, you had first to reject the idea of there being a normal. This was easier said than done. Normal was what most people knew, and yet, if you asked them to define it, you’d find them tongue-tied, at a loss for words and absolutely baffled at their own stupidity. It was a good thing—to feel stupid. Once a person learned to be stupid, they learned to reject normalcy.

Then, you had to learn to change. This was easier than most people would ever believe. We changed faster than we could craft a story about it. It was the perk of being a human being to change on a whim. You could choose to wake up on the other side of the bed, change your favourite flavour of cake and the way you carried yourself, and no one could do much about it. Of course, they could say a lot, but doing anything about it was out of the question.

The next step was to be a part of something bigger than yourself. No, not to change the world and other things the spanning concrete forests echoing with repetitive platitudes will have you believe, but instead to test the limits of your dependency on others as well as the amount of horseshit you could consume without imploding. To know your limit for both was to be discreet at navigating the games of society you don’t enjoy.

Naturally, then, you had to love something to the tip of devastation. You had to drown into nothing but passion, enough to have songs sung or cautionary tales written about how not to love—all the while knowing how all the songs and tales were wrong. You’d know how powerful it made you feel and how weak, simultaneously. Someone who loved regardless of the cost mapped the depth of their own heart; to know your heart was to know yourself.

The last thing to do was to question everything, even the truth. It would destroy you. The last thing to do was to be destroyed. Love handled this quite well for most, but if you were a straggler, the truth did a fine job as well. Once you learned to question everything, including these words, you were yourself.

Of course, nothing much would change, as nothing seldom does, but you’d live a life most won’t fathom during your lifetime, and more importantly, after you were gone.

I remember the first time I had to leave; I went to the desert. There wasn’t much else left to do. I wanted to get away from the city where it never stopped raining. More importantly, I wanted to get away from you. You see, when you’re in the middle of the desert, you only see sand all around. It isn’t until you climb a nearby cliff that you see it for its truth—for the expanse of it. We only saw the big picture when we were not in it.

It bothered me for years—who left first? It was a difficult question, given we both left on different occasions, and it had been far too long for me to rely on my memory. Not that one should trust memory for inquiries of importance. Like a madman trying to solve an ancient mystery, I scoured the decade, flipping years like the pages of a long lost tome, going over and over the same information, hoping for an epiphany.

It didn’t occur to me at first. I was too close to it. I was in the middle of the whirlwind, and the sandstorm was swallowing me whole. Of course, I couldn’t see! But now that I’ve walked further away from you, enough to see the expanse of the destruction we brought, I see it all. For what it’s worth, I don’t regret much about what happened to us, about what we did to ourselves, except one. I regret being the one who started it.

It wasn’t until I was sitting atop the cliff of my flaws that I understood. The fault was never in the leaving. It was bound to happen. The question of who left first was of little consequence. The error was in the beginning. Some things were doomed from the start. I hate being the one who started the collision course. If I could turn back time, I’d go back to the day I told you I loved you. I’d decide against it. I’d never tell you at all.

No, not for your sake, but mine. Perhaps, then I’d still have some love left to give. It’s a foolish thought, now that I’ve thought of it. The love I give is my own. It had nothing to do with you then. It has nothing to do with you now. Maybe, all I need is a scapegoat, and who better to blame than oneself? As if I didn’t see you looking straight at me from the other end of the room the day we met.

But who am I to trust memory in matters of love?

Art was corrupted. Writing was dead. They wanted to win. But, there was no prize. Not that anyone knew it. If they did, they ignored it like they ignore a fly in the room. It bothers them at first. The buzzing and the way it moves about gets on their nerves. They chase it. When it manages to elude them, they make do. Humans were incredible at making do, and forgetting.

Truth was a fly in your room that came and left on its own, enough to rile you up, but nothing you could do much about. You could kill it, obviously, if you were fast enough. Perhaps, that is why art was dead. They were all fast enough.

Me, on the other hand? I was terribly slow, and I was indifferent. Most people I’ve met have told me my defining trait was consistency. They weren’t wrong. I displayed an immense capacity to continue with anything I set my mind to. My defining trait, however, was indifference. The consistency was an undesired result of it.

I was remarkably aloof, almost like a bug sitting on a leaf, not making an effort to jump or leave when a child starts to notice it or the wind begins to blow. My only concern, like the bug, was to do what I was doing, which was nothing in particular. I couldn’t care about most things. Any care I showed to the world came from a conscious decision. Anything beyond that just passed right through me.

Perhaps, at one point, I wanted monuments to my name and songs sung about how I marked the world somehow. Now, I have no desire to be in any book of history. I have no inclination to lead. Don’t get me wrong, I want to do things—write more words and make more art. Learning about history and people is never out of the question either. I’ve always been interested in what makes us human.

I have now learned the cost of winning, for whatever it means to anyone, is too high. I will do all of what I want and more, in my own time, at my own pace, and it still won’t be enough for me. With my capacity to not care about much came a need to be continually occupied. Perhaps, I may make a mark on the world after all.

But first, I must get some rest. The cost of restlessness was too high. You ended up scarring whatever you touched.

Growing up in a market neighbourhood, I wanted to escape. It was the only dream I had. I pictured myself living alone on some remote hill or a beach, a cottage with a small café for lost travellers, serving coffee and conversation for chump change. Like most things in life, this changed in a manner so uneventful I still can’t put a finger on when it happened.

To love a city demanded attention to detail. It was a love story unlike any other; to love a city, you had to be patient with it. You had to trace its streets and alleys like you’d trace the skin of your lover, slowly and with unparalleled softness. It was all about the time spent together. Like someone you adored, you had to understand you couldn’t own any part of it, and yet, all of it was here for you. You had to understand it changed without rhyme or reason, that old places shut down all the time, and new ones popped up continually.

To appreciate a city, you had to learn to zoom out. You had to learn it was not about you. You were but a part of a remarkable story being weaved for generations. When there have been people, there have been cities and towns. On every old building lingered a passive scent of what once stood in incredible glory, of an older generation trying their best to survive.

Cities were the testament of dreams dreamt year after year, of people working hard to exist together, of smiles exchanged in coffee shops, of letting someone go first, of keeping an elevator door open for a stranger, of the shop on the corner of the street you waved hello to, of so much more happening together, continually, over and over again.

The mess, the raucous traffic, the screaming, the fighting was all part of the deal, and it wasn’t easy to love it all but to love a city meant you loved people. The cacophony and chaos wasn’t a curse but a blessing; it said there are people here; there have always been people here; and where there are people, there was bound to be love. Tucked between an argument or a sour exchange, sometimes, but there it was, all you had to do was look.

It was a story like none other. It had never been about you, and yet, it could never exist without you.

If I were to let you in, I wonder if you’ll see beyond the neatly arranged boxes, parallel to the rug, parallel to the couch, each lined properly with the tiling on the floor. Will you tell me how I have a beautiful place? That, it isn’t expected of people my age—especially men—to possess such fastidiousness. That, no, no, it’s a good thing and that, you meant it as a compliment.

Will you appreciate how well the colours go together, or will you notice how there’s nothing but hues of blue and grey around? I wonder if you’ll see how the jacket on the couch is thrown in a controlled mess, as if it wasn’t thrown at all. What about how everything is almost always in the right place? Will that pique your interest?

Or will you see beyond the neatly arranged mugs in the cabinet and the symmetry and the lines? Will you see how every drawer and box hides a mess of its own? Will you see the chaos without the order masking it?

I wonder what you’ll see when you see me from that point on—all with the clear thought, the articulation, the drive, the bland routines, the elaborate plans. I wonder if you’ll see what I see in the mirror.

If I were to let you in, will you see the ruin? Will you choose to walk by it, pretending you saw nothing?

What will I do with the time? You ask.

I’ll learn to walk again. I’ve been running for a long time. I seem to have forgotten how to pace myself; I shall learn it again. Often, when we’re running away from imminent danger, we run like there’s no tomorrow. When we’ve run far enough, something within us assures us of our safety, and our steps become softer until we find ourselves walking. A few steps in, and we come to a standstill—heaving. Brimming with adrenaline, we start laughing hysterically.

From that point on, we always remember the moment. We recognise the feeling of it all ending. We remember how to run, but we often forget to walk. We tend to forget how to gallivant without a destination in mind. For a long time now, walking to me has been an act of arriving, but more importantly, leaving. I’ve come a long way since I started running away from you, but I have yet to learn how to walk again, to go back to my flaneurism.

I’ll also learn to write again. When we’re far too caught up in wars inside our own heads, we tend to talk about nothing but devastation. Naturally, all wars end and all trenches are eventually filled with dirt where grass burgeons. Scarred, of course. One could quickly point you to a field where a battle was fought and show you the remains of what once was a desolate landscape of hellish proportions, but cracks do fill, and grass does grow. If the Earth can move forward, perhaps, so can my words.

Most importantly, I’ll learn to rest. When we have run a long way and lived to tell the tale, there’s only one thing left—to get a good night’s sleep. It’s easier said than done, of course. I have twisted and turned in my sleep for a long time now. It is only recently that I’ve had some proper rest. Lately, I’ve enjoyed the sun, the rain, and the banalest of days. I’ve made the most of them all. All the running and all the fighting within can make you terribly exhausted. I will find respite tucked in the corners of all afternoons from this point on.

If you’ll take my word for it, I’m well on my way for all three. One tends to get better at most things if one can only make the time.

And making time is the one thing I have never had to learn.

The act of writing was rarely about what you wanted to say to others. Naturally, some idiot sitting on a comfortable chair writing some corporate one-liner may feel the urge to get off their seat, armed with a platitude on articulation and clear thought on a placard with space for two-hundred and eighty characters. I reckon they should sit down and do what they do best—but it’s not writing.

Writing was a dialogue. It began in your own head, as you struggled to make sense of experience, of which there was no dearth if you kept your senses open, especially your eyes. It began with the voice echoing in your head as you sat in a bar with the people you grew up with, a drink too many sometimes to make it stop for once. If you’ve heard the voice, though, you know that never worked.

It then became a conversation between you and a blank page; whether the page was on paper or glass was irrelevant. Anyone who thought it mattered might fare better in sales than writing. Not that I would know how one fares better in either; I tend to fail at both. Rarely, in a feat of genius, the conversation happened in a minute. Sometimes, it took days. Often, it took years.

The conversation never ended. Writing was imitation. You went to the greats if you failed. You often failed. You sat in the sun, a dark room, a bus or a train, and wherever you could read what was written before. More often than not, without you asking, the greats lent a hand. All your words sounded like theirs until they started becoming yours one day. The page guided you from that point on.

Then, you wrote until the voice stopped. It never stopped.

When it stops hurting, we don’t write a poem about it. At least, not at first. At first, we doubt ourselves. We doubt our ability to heal as if no one has done it before us. But then, we catch ourselves off-guard, basking in the sun without a care in the world. It doesn’t sit well with us, of course. How can it? It doesn’t fit into the story as neatly. Where is the catharsis? We ask ourselves. What about the closure we deserved?

And then, slowly, we start forgetting the sorrow. Of course, not completely. Never completely. But we learn to make room, and that’s when it begins. Happiness finds its way into little corners of our lives, in nooks and crannies of our days. Before we know it, it starts to settle in. It comes with the myna on the balcony, with its two hops and three chirps before it flies away to attend its worldly business.

It’s not always magical, of course. Our lives pretty much stay the same. Our days don’t change as much. We make room regardless. We make room for another houseplant we’ll probably fail to keep alive for longer than a couple of weeks. We make room for a book we might never read. We buy some paint and brushes, and we shove them into a drawer after painting the one masterpiece we’ll talk about for years.

Slowly, however, we make room for more and more until the heaviness pales in comparison. The grief starts to blur. That was the thing about grief and joy—they both expanded, given the room. And without anyone telling us how to, we slowly increase the space in our lives for the tiniest of calms.

And when all is done, we write a few words, and they call it cliché. As if that were a flaw. As if it was supposed to be hard. As if that was not the point after all—that it was easy; that all we had to do was make some room.

A few kids in the building I live in have been making the most of the winter sun lately. I was convinced there couldn’t be a much better use of the sun than reading and just lying down on a grassy balcony. But then, I saw them. They arrive at the grass patch shared by all residents every day when the sun breaks. Mostly, it’s just two siblings. Sometimes, they have a friend along.

The elder sibling, albeit still tiny, has a picnic mat that’s twice his size rolled. He arduously lifts it between his hand and shoulder like a miniature infantryman walking to his own war. His other hand has a few toys, almost always more than a couple of them. The little one usually has a toy in each hand, but I’ve seen him walk around with just a ball in his two little hands, stumbling but never letting the ball fall down. Once they’re here, they begin setting up for a time of what I can only imagine being absolute fun.

I often look at them carrying their things and think of how we hold things; it is a uniquely human trait to hold as much as we can regardless of how difficult, heavy or inconvenient it seems. I see their little hands trying to bring as many things as they can from their houses. Anything less would not suffice. I remember my time in another city—climbing the six flights of stairs to my apartment with three bags of groceries in my hands and a heavy backpack, carefully balancing everything, taking the keys out and unlocking the door after a long day at work. I remember how much I was holding on to at the time.

As I sit here writing these words beside the grassy balcony I’ll read from in a few hours, I have managed to let go of most of those things keeping me on my toes for years. I’ve let go of my want for more, of you, and of countless little things I don’t care to name, lest this piece starts resembling a note of inventory instead. I look at the kids every day and wonder, maybe this is how it was for all of us.

We learned to hold on to things, to carry as much as we could, and not leave something or someone behind. We never taught ourselves to let go. No one else bothered either.