Midnight thoughts

It’s 1:21am. I stand up rapidly like one whose head is the target of a falling object. I reached for my notebook turned journal and a pencil trapped, though serving as an indicator in between the literature I was reading. Rather than aiming to crash my head, the actual object was brewing inside my head. Threatening to spill in form of regret, anger and betrayal. But I was quick footed and denied it. The form I chose is that of storytelling.

I remember the day I bought this pencil. It was in a pack with 5 others. Black from graphite to body, solid color crystal in place of eraser. So unusual. I was in awe, just like a child. Same way I was in awe of the subject of this matter.

Oftentimes, when one comes in contact with the kind of love they envisage; the one that questions your deservingness of it, that tantalized you and feels like there’s not only butterflies but the whole garden in your stomach, that makes you tipsy and giddy even though you’re a teetotaler. So much that you dare close your textbook being a medical student. One with potential of being your muse for poetry, we tend overlook the layers of dangers that may accompany it and the pain it may confer.

I can choose to say I saw nothing but it’d be a lie from the raging pits of hell. The flag was as red as the eyes of a hardened thief. And as bright as a fool’s smile. The lies were in their bloomed form like a rose carefully planted, watered, nourished and grown before being presented. So much, so well that the objectiveness in me in fact, appreciates such masterpiece. My father says the person that plans to rob you is by default smarter than you. Because he had all the privilege to study and map out his plans.

But how do I tell him, that for every step he took towards robbing me of trust and of sleep now, there was a bell ringing and begging me to take heed, to listen to the voice of caution. How do I tell, that I once looked into his eyes and instead of warmth, it was so cold, so much that I shuddered in fear and never looked again. The eyes of a serial liar.

I mock and ask myself from time to time. Is life Bollywood? Is any love really strong enough to change the truth or reality. No matter how long, no matter how fierce, no matter how much you want it to? If you tell a single lie, you’d need another to cover it up, and another till you’re covered in nothing but a heap of lies, my mother says. And you can’t be saved even if it’s your deepest desire. You’d only drag your potential savior in with you.

Yesterday, I was heartbroken, Today, I’m grateful for my freedom. Even the trapped pencil has open ends. And So far it hasn’t been diminished by sharpening, it can always be smoothly pulled out and the book left to its fate. It doesn’t matter if it gets lost in pages of itself or not. Of course I shall love again because it is the essence of life. Just not by making excuses for obvious truths.