And Then, I Found Home In An Unfamiliar Voice, And Peace In The Familiar Noise.

I wanted life to fill me,

to make something of the hollowness I carried.

But life was demanding—

it asked me to fill it instead,

to give my all,

to talk more than listen,

to be seen rather than simply see,

to laugh more than savor the moment.

I drained every bit of myself,

trying to stand at the forefront

of my life and that of others.

Until every bit of life was drawn out of me.

I was meant to be a simple soul,

finding joy in whatever came my way.

I don't know why the world

was so desperate to make me the engine,

when all I ever wanted

was to be a floating boat.

From hollowness to hollowness, I returned,

but now with a deeper yearning—

a longing to exist

without judgment,

without scrutiny,

without every step carrying consequence.

Now, I want to do things for their own sake,

to walk for the journey,

to breathe just for the next moment.

To let myself be filled of life,

Of the moments that don't carry meaning,

Just peace.

Areeba

I Paused

I paused to look around,

I paused to feel.

I paused to look back for a moment,

To know what I need.

I paused to realise where I was,

How far have I reached.

I paused not for the desire to be seen,

I paused solely

cause' I wanted to breathe.

Belonging

I let people go while I hold onto things. People drift apart, flowing rivers and I remain a shore, holding onto their fragments. The letters they wrote, the illustrations, the conversations, I preserve them, becoming soil, fertile and fruitful.

I hold onto memories, capturing the person I know would change eventually. Who finds the same person twice even in the same person anyway?

So, thereby, my efforts are never focused on caging the flowing river rather, take a part of it and make it a part of mine. 

Be it good or bad, I absorb everything to nurture my being, to experience bliss and pain, to experience fertility, to experience solitude when called barren.

The rivers become a medium of change sometimes, I flow through them, my silt deposited where it didn’t belong but still absorbs in it, becoming a part of something different yet I remain different. 

I wonder whether my identity of being silt was just an imagination. Being a human, I must be a river, ever flowing, irrigating fields of livelihood, ever changing, giving and taking yet never keeping.

But that’s where the difference came. I too give and take but after making it mine. 

I possess; hence, I belong. I belong; hence, I remain trapped.

I Will Die Happy

In the forest of green, I ought to see the brown. Everyone restless to see the moon, I wanted a hindrance promised by the clouds. A fury hidden beneath me, I was the bearer of the burning crown. Turning the leaves in the ashes of nature, I found solace in the cracks of drought. My eyes were a curse, mind as well, Was I trapped in a spellbound? With the desire of another wound, I peeked inside my hatred profound. Relics of my happiness unalive, Made me suffer the pain they gave me throughout. Unaware of the path I'll choose, 'I will die happy' I vowed.

~ark

Guilt

The urge to remain where we are, not wanting to move, not wanting to change and then feeling guilty for not achieving, for not changing, for not beginning, for not ending, for not continuing.

Standing in front of the mirror yet avoiding it to not witness the failure achieved, to avoid the reflection of the coward who refused to give the best, who chose to ignore everything.

The guilt of not putting efforts and then reading the disappointed expressions hidden beneath the acts of consolation. To show that you worked when you never did and when they say, “At least you gave your best. That’s what matters” 

How do you break it to them? How do you present your cowardness, your lethargy, your unfaithfulness. And then, you opt for a path you never thought you would take. You become something with a void building within. All the emotions that were never expressed eventually stop hurting, they become a habit. The void gradually growing consumes all the emotions leaving a creature too selfish to even care. Showing acceptance for something you should’ve fought harder for but you leave it, you leave yourself where you were.

But in all of this, one thing remains,

The guilt of not feeling guilty. The constant war to define it, to categorise it as justification or an excuse. But these words seem inappropriate, what do you think would fit?

Cowardice, distracted, remiss or the inertia of not moving ahead from the information to know the difference to the wisdom of making one?

Forgotten Death

Wandering in the endless desert, I searched for a stable land. But who knew I searched for more time, Just a little, to live and die once again. Enclosed behind the bars of glass, My attempt to avoid the pathway towards the end. I let those pages free, but the memories, Tried to recollect the pages falling into shreds. Living like I have centuries tomorrow, I held the needle, with a little thread, Who knew, my eternal life ran, In the hourglass of my forgotten death.

~ark

The Changed Tables

The tables stood there,

Watching new faces every year.

The words unsaid,

Were written on them everywhere.

Tired minds laid,

The tables wiped the shed tears.

Handling the burden of books,

It was their duty,

That I couldn't share.

Years after, I visited them,

Venting out my fears.

The tables stood there,

Watching new faces every year.

But today they had changed,

Maybe I could've changed earlier.

~ark

How do I teach myself?

What else should I say?

~ark

Undefined

The noise of the world penetrated within, Settling deep inside,  Trying to stir the dead silence that hung,  Hiding beneath the mask of peace.

I never knew why but a sense of void grew, A hollow too stubborn to consume me and not contain me.

I remained indifferent, a way to run away, Forgetting, remembering, cherishing, regretting, Thoughts like water, flowing through my fingers, trying to cage them.

In this whirlwind of life, The feeling of being lost lingered, The fear of messing up,  The embarrassment of being monotonous,  Being too weak to overcome, being too stubborn to move on.

Forcing myself to understand everything, To make sense, to become understandable. Not being too loud, not too silent, Nothing extreme, to avoid attention.

I kept searching for definitions, A way to find meaning of something in my life, A way to define myself, But maybe,  I was fluid, changing itself with changing places.

Too difficult to be bound by boundaries, Yet too soluble, To completely dissolve in me to feel me To be with me was to be contaminated by me An existence, to be ignored for being a necessity; valued in scarcity, A shape, full, but never whole. A story remembered but never told.

~ark