A boy, i meet.

I once met a boy, and his eyes were one of the first things that I had noticed about him. His eyes looked like they were constantly weaving stardust into dreams, and scattering them over my eyelids in the same span of breath. They looked just like the fairy tales that I had begged myself to not believe in, anymore.

This boy had a smile, that damn near disarmed me the first time I witnessed it. Slow. Unsure. Blooming. He smiled the way a rainbow does, bending his spine to capture the small bubbles of joy life sent his way, and preserved them over his whiskey laced tongue as souvenirs of nights he wouldn't remember later.

And over the years, when I first started noticing the cracks, I forgot to look for the sunshine that he might have stored within them. Darkness was all I had looked for, and darkness was what I lost him to. Forever.

It doesn't overpower me anymore, you know. The loss. It isn't staggering, and I breathe much easier nowadays. But on days when the road leading home decides to elude itself and abandon me, I often find myself wandering back to the place that once held a boy with unsteady eyes, rumpled hair and a fragile smile. I sit there for hours sometimes, trying to read an old earmarked book and lose myself to water spots that blurred and blobbed itself into existence maybe years ago.

I don't hold myself to promises of faraway places anymore. For I have known, places that reek of peace, of hope, and sparkling sunshine, somehow seep through a crack and escape the shadows, only to become one in the end. I have also learnt to not try and build a home out of scraps that make a human, our human. They never last anyway.

And yet, I don't let go. I don't want to go home. Maybe it's his words that linger around, or maybe it's my remembrance of the way he would place his lighter over the pages so they couldn't fly in the wind, I find myself not reading the words or understanding them anymore. Instead, I hungrily absorb the shapeless blob of ink, and try to make sense of its being, immersing myself in his thoughts once again.

Soon, a nameless number is all he will become in my memory. I carry this knowledge everywhere with me, because I already am losing the details of his face, one part at a time. Shadowy fingers and crumpled sheets, maybe that's what the last stage of grief does to people? It takes away the person, and reduces them to a sum of body parts, like fallen soldiers at the mercy of life, no longer winning, no longer willing. And I know, eventually, he will find his way to my diary, maybe as a nameless entity. Maybe as "the boy". Maybe.

Someday, he will, though.

For I will write about the boy who I once met, the boy who smelled like burnt out cigarettes, shattered dreams and untold stories over countdown clocks.

I will write about how I have never met a boy who smelled more like himself, even when he was unsure of his own existence.

And on days when I will still ask myself why I don't want to head for my home, maybe I will understand then, that I don't have one, anymore.

My home town

I like this Hometown of mine,
However of eclipsed importance against the casting shadows of proximal metropolitans.
The closet in which the city encapsulates its people, the places, and the pale patch of sky remotely leering in from above the skykissing concrete, like a blue water droplet on a grey canvas.
The serpentile, congested lanes like the interlacing strings of fibre,
The streets we once frequented, lying numb and deserted under the flickering lamp lights on the serene nights at the outskirts,
and the sinister wintry wind.
As the twilight fades into the engrossing night,
Passing by the scattered bunches and circles of people by the sides of the roads,
the puffed up hollerings of rigidly opinionated people on their pet topics at tea stalls,
The monotonous lamentations of the unemployed over foiled efforts to success.

A pandemonium of people with different trades and varying shades.
The ambience. The pacifying solitude, the bliss and yet the sense of belonging the city caters to the weary souls.
Ah! I like this hometown of mine.
A dead city in its scratches.
Moments, lost childhood and 'The roads not taken'.

Young world

ONCE WHEN THE WORLD WAS STILL YOUNG...

Once, when the world was still young,
A time, when orchids were not sold.
A time, when water neither was bottled nor brawled.
A time, when land was neither claimed nor battled.
Once, a long time ago, that young world, cherished love.

Once, when the world was still young,
Flowers bloomed there all day.
Trees claimed the sky and questioned the sun.
Chirping birds, roaring beasts and echoing winds,
Sang jubilance all day.

Once, when the world was still young,
Men and women wandered there in naked skins!
Nomads, unclad of fear and shyness were they!
Lust, greed and desire were not yet learnt!
Killing and owning were not the customs then.

Once, when the world was still young,
A time, when boundaries are not known,
Love held in heart, with no crown to run,
Men and women walked down to corners;
The corners of that young and beautiful world.

The shift of time has aged this world,
Men and women, agile, they become now!
They sail, and they fly!
Yet their land is margined and narrowed.
Rivers and seas, and even the very land they claim and own!

Killing has become ritual and routine!
Nature, cease to exist; money tends to fake it!
Flowers are grown and trees are planted!
And that very love is margined by mere words.
Soon men and women will mourn, and will mourn alone.

Once, when the world was still young,
There prevailed love that conceived happiness.

A teen..

I don't know how it happened. I don't know how it came to be, but what has happened has happened and for that I cannot do a thing. I remember those times, that now seem far away, when I without a doubt, was happy and carefree, but now I spend my days yearning and helplessly trying to break down this blurred wall, which is clouding my vision, pushing me down harder than gravity can and  making me feel weak. My mind races back, picking out  and showing me glimpses of the days of my childhood times, happy moments that seem so far out of reach now. My throat swells up, and I feel a lump in my throat.
        
I used to be that nerdy kid in school who people always call "not emotional". That's right, people who study well in India are called people with no emotions. I wanted to change this perception and came to college and socialised very well. I am really happy I'm here, but at times, I showcase my emotions too much to few people, who tell me it's unnecessary. People have called me weak, fragile, artificial, and tell me that they feel indifferent when I'm being nice to them. I've been accused of expecting too much from others. All I wanted was to shrug off the 'emotionless' tag, but no one's willing to accept it. It was a sincere effort put in by me to tell I too had feelings. People say emotional people are wonderful, but the fact is no one wants you to be emotional.

Life is such an irony. The general perception of a moral quality and the perception of the same quality possessed by someone close to a person , both don't mean the same to the person with that perception.A person's character is structured on what he's gone through. Most people don't know how to understand other people by putting themselves in their shoes. If this was the case, I'd have rather been isolated. The world dwells on the negatives in you and points them out, completely ignoring the positives in you.

Well, that's how it goes. I am stuck inside my own castle, where the cold, hard walls cut off my supply of air, choking me, making me feel claustrophobic. People in this world seem to have lost the connection they have with themselves, they seem to have given in easily, to have let go. But I do not want to be that way. I want to live, be brave and experience even the darkest traumas of life with courage and to find happiness. I want to run around, my feet feeling the lush green grass, my hands playing with the air, my hair flowing in the wind, I want to feel absolute. But is it possible? I do believe it is.

Often I drift out of this world and go into one of my own, a world filled with happiness and wonder, driven by kindness and loyalty, where fear does not exist. When everyone else is sleeping, I walk out into the night, silence enveloping me, and look up. The twinkling stars and the bright moon bring my mind to rest. It is now that I realise that along with sunshine, arrive the dark clouds, which bring forth rain and sorrow and finally culminate into a beautiful sight, a bright rainbow. Coal undergoes exposure to intense pressure to transform into a diamond. Why am I saying this? Because I know plenty of people can relate to my situation very well and whoever is reading this, listen. You're in for great things, just stay in there. You'll surely see your rainbow soon. It is up to us to notice all the colourful things and bring them into our lives. After all, hardships in life are meant to make you stronger. Have a blessed day.