Invincible

Everytime they made me doubt myself, I shrank back into my shell.
I read and understood. I pondered and wrote. I tried to get deeper into knowing my true self.

They didn’t like the results and tried to put me into one of those little boxes of their making.
I burrowed my way out of them each time they took a shot at me.

Frustated with how I was supposed to be inconsequential, they told me that I was a mere caterpillar, latching onto the leaf.
And I was a caterpillar. But I had a lot of feet to hold myself steady. I had a vision, to morph and fly out one day. I was young and inexperienced, but full of life.

They laughed at me when I went into my cocoon. They told me that I was done, hiding in a place of my own making.
What they couldn’t see was that I was building myself, changing, evolving. Away from their eyes, their scrutiny, a force of nature was at work. The universe was helping me get beautiful and strong.

They went slack jawed when they saw me unfurl my wings for the first time. Too colorful, they sniggered. Too delicate, their critical faces had sinister smiles, when I failed at my first few flight attempts.
I fell and I got stuck. My wings struggled against strong winds. I barely escaped the predators out there. But I didn’t give up on hope and belief that I had in me. I was finally closer to who I was always meant to be.

They were furious and unable to hide it anymore. They snarled at me and told me that I was useless in the grand scheme of things. That I was too dependent on the pretty flowers for my existence. They swore to kill all the flowers and damage all the gardens that I treated as my safe havens.
But I no longer cared for their empty threats and emboldened lies. I kept following my destiny.

Smart as they were, they forgot about the butterfly effect. Somewhere, a butterfly flaps its wings… And the rest was history.

They cry, standing on the rubble of all that they held dear, turned to dust by a tornado. And that unimportant butterfly, slowly glides over their heads, unharmed, untouched, uninhibited; one with the universe. Invincible.

When I’m me.

And I have days when I’d rather be
Alone and cold, far by the sea
Lost in my mind’s cruel traps,
I wont answer your calls honey

I’ll watch the sunrise with gloom
Laughing at my own doom
I’m scared yes, and I’m damaged
I won’t give you my heart Sonny.

I’ll stare at the walls in despair
Drawing knots into my hair
So quietly that I wither away
Out in the darkest river runny.

I won’t love you or let you in
My heart aches, deep within
My eyes are bloody from wars
Betrayals shape my head funny.

I’m a lone survivor of treachery
I live lifeless and die in misery
I no longer have freedom to love
Blackness warps; all days sunny.

The Conversation Hoax: Reflecting Judgements.

It’s true. People who own the aura of a chilling heat do exist. One day, you could be the most important person in their life and the next, you’re treated worse than the dirt on their shoes.
One moment you’re getting ready to bask in the glory of their warmth… And the next thing you know, they’ve bought out their launching pad and you’re halfway through the world to Antarctica.

As a naive teenager, I always used to think that we all should have someone who wants to listen to us. As an adult, I have come to realise that people want to listen to you… But not all of them are your friends. Some of them just want to know things about you, so they can judge you for themselves.

These people are great advocates for inter personal communication, but if you look closely, you are the only one divulging your personal information and when their time comes, they’re gone before you can blink.

They are a hoax, a mirage of a perfectly functioning social relationship. Once you get sucked in this whirlpool, the only way out is the one which lands you at the bottom.

These type of people are not anyone’s friends. Maybe this is why we come across these type of dangerous co- existence largely in professional life.

We all agree that it is a meaningless existence, the one where you cannot trust people around you. In my quest to prove the same, I have realised that it made me quite vulnerable to experience a breach of trust. Why are we increasingly becoming a society which doesn’t trust nor respects honest and straightforward individuals?

The earlier issue was looking at the world through narrow spectacles. The way to rectify it should’ve been by broadening our view and removing the biased glasses. However, instead of that, I have felt as if the majority of us have stopped looking at each other altogether.

Rather, we are staring at mirrors all day long, trying to find ourselves in everyone, therefore, forming opinions before the actual interactions.

This is an insane kind of bias. We are reinforcing our views upon others, not only in an upfront way, but also in private biases, which almost always affect our understanding about others.

And that, I’m afraid, is the real culprit behind that crippling sense of being knowledgeable about everyone and everything, without realising what we’ve truly become by reflecting judgements with or without being aware.

Judgemental.

My take? Maybe it’s time we just let each other be. Maybe we need to stop playing with relationships, even if they’re strictly professional, and start working on them in an ethical manner where we’re not gathering information on others for power, and just let a conversation be what it should be… A medium of building mutual trust and respect.

Rewritten

And I keep telling him, ‘See, this is not the ending! This is not how she ends!’, but my agitated cries fall on deaf ears. People want to hear what they like. He pours me a glass of wine and ask me to relax.

But that’s the thing.

Because I’ve always been a whiskey kind of girl.

And once again, I rewrite the parts that were going wrong. The best part about being a storyteller? You can tell a story, retell it, tweak it, mold it or tune it down- But you will always know where it’s heading. And because of that knowledge, you will always be able to control it.
If that doesn’t give you an upper hand, then what will?

The animal in me.

Something is changing inside me. I can feel it, clawing at my insides, make my stomach churn over, mind twisting and turning until my brain turns to a mush.

Its awake and now it won’t let me sleep. For years, the animal in me has slept, not content but bored, kinda dissatisfied from the way I lived. But it kept its calm when I fed myself lies about who I was and what was the best for me. It yawned when I planned my life time and again, with purposes lesser than my stature. It gave me a blank stare when I tried walking with people lower than my cadre. Always dissatisfied and disappointed in me.
But he awoke when I needed him the most. He is violent, shaking for retribution, going crazy with an inane hunger. He won’t stop until he gets what he wants. Every time I try to get the control back from him, he just roars at me and shakes his head. The animal in me is furious, even at me. He is protecting me, giving me the backseat, letting me enjoy the ride. Of one thing, I am positive… he won’t let me hurt myself anymore.
The animal in me, he’s grumbling and growling at the same time. He’s pissed. He wants me to shed my skin and let him be in full control. He wants to be unleashed and maybe that isn’t such a bad idea anymore.

The animal in me is needed. Not only by me, but also by a lot of compromising souls out there.

He paints such Art.

Drawn to the worst of hearts,
Like an artist to a piece of art.
He whispers of a wonderful life;
Of one with love, no more lies.
Thundering minds across miles,
He paints stars in deepest skies.

She rolls like a wrecking Ball-
To take the blame for each fall.
Being both flame and the moth;
She is often found distraught,
Breathing in the terrors of past;
Watching his art, like its her last.

Hazy eyes with old fading wonder,
He captures his own need for her.
She runs, resists, fights her heart
As he paints her world with his art.

The king’s strength.

I lie beside him, as he falls asleep, trying not to think about his confusion. I sit by the entrance to our cave, licking my paws lazily as he paces, agitated.

He feels trapped, even though he’s the king of the jungle. Even though he has been accepted by me as my king. He doesn’t understand why he is scared. I know exactly why. 

He’s scared that he’ll be trapped in the same cave all his life. What he doesn’t understand is that I am a hunter too. But I can’t say that to him. This is something he has to figure out by himself.
He lets out a roar every once in a while, scaring all the lesser beings around us, who for the love of their lives, cannot recognize it as his anguish. He sees the chaos he has caused around the otherwise calm jungle and lets out another roar. This one is lower, deeper and full of sorrow.
I slowly get on my all fours and saunter over to where he stands, radiating anger and fear, all at once. I want to roar back at him, to try and make him see reason… But he’s not ready.

So, I nuzzle at the side of his mane and purr softly, appealing to his protective side. He turns around, his eyes darting around wildly, scanning for threats. He finds none, then looks down at me, licking my nose. It tickles and I jump playfully. We get into a play session and he forgets what had him on the edge since the morning. 

All because he cares too much about me. 

Never mind that I already dragged the carcasses of the two hyenas across the cliff, when they’d dared to venture out here while he was sleeping early in the morning.

I bow down, as a sign of giving up, and he lets out a true; magnificent roar, befitting a true king, reeking of male dominance. Then he bows down, recognizing where his true strength comes from, and licks me as its acceptance. 

He walks over regally and settles beside me by the entrance of our cave, nuzzling protectively, and all is well in our little cave again.