My birthday and I don't mix well.

My birthdays have a tendency to go wrong.

After a 30 of them, I should've gotten used to it.

But, no.

Well. Happy birthday to me!

What's the half-life for a splinter?

A part of me chipped away yesterday. And I didn't get a chance to mourn it even.

The part that chipped, an eerie fear has taken its place. It has dug in to me its tendrils, while sitting there innocuously... Or so it seems superficially.

I'm having trouble breathing right now. I can't seem to draw enough air into my lungs for them to feel okay. There's a violent riot going on inside my head.

B didn't lie to me. But he wasn't completely honest either.

Where did I go wrong?

And then there's that narcissist inside me that feels wounded because well, hello reality check, it wasn't enough.

 No, I'm not the best thing to have happened to him.

A part of me wants to mock the other part of me.

I'm nothing.

Apparently, I'm so much of nothing that I wasn't even worthy of being told the whole truth.

Honest to god, never in my wildest nightmares did I ever see insincerity as a threat to our relationship. Yes, it brushed up against me very rarely during the worst of our fights but... not in its true sense.

Aitebaar... I'm in a daze.

Two days and a half perhaps, and I have hardly had 2 meals.

I've lost my appetite. And I've lost a part of me too.

Phaans chubh gayi thi mujhe aur uss phaans ko nikaalne ke bajaye kisi ne andar he ghoonp diya.

What's the half-life for a splinter?

A dense feeling of overwhelming helplessness has wrapped around me... you've seen how they wrap your luggage at the airport? In the cling film sorta plastic, right? Helplessness is that cling film and I'm a sorry piece of luggage.

A luggage that might be the last one left at the baggage claim, a luggage that might as well get lost and would never be claimed.

My self-esteem didn't need this. It was at an all time low anyway.

I've got a slit right above where my heart is inside my chest.

The voices in my head, they're whispering to each other, and sometimes to me... so many questions. Some even mocking me.

Did I fail? Just like that?

Was I really worth all this?

A part of me smiles - in disbelief. This all has to be a big joke. It's not real, right? It's...

A draft suicide note.

One of those days, I would have killed myself. And once that happens and you find my lifeless corpse, please remind yourself that it was my fault. That I was wrong, that I did not respect you. That I had no consideration for you and/ or for all the things that you've done for me. Please remind yourself I never tried to reconcile and it was only you who tried to make things work. And most of all, please remind yourself that whenever things didn't go as per my wishes I wreaked havoc. And there we'll be - my lifeless vessel and your well-meaning thoughts for me.

I'm not okay today. Wasn't yesterday either.

I feel on the edge these days. Agitated to the core. It's... It's tragic. My last week with my parents... at my home. The only place in this whole wide world that I can still call 'home'. And I feel so wretched.

Ammi mentioned about me being in a furious mood all the time. I'm a ticking time-bomb. You'd never know and something you'd say could make me go off. I've been acting so deplorably with both my parents. Especially when I should love them as much as I can and gather as much of their affection to last me however long it will be. Because these are the only people in my life right now who love me no matter what.

But I'm not very much in my senses. I feel ungrounded. My mind is a hot mess, not so different from my life itself. I end up venting out at them in the most wrong and undeserved ways. I feel so sorry! I feel so helpless! Everything just keeps adding to this profound feeling of self-loathing.

I blame him for all of this. I'll probably never forgive him for this madness that has seized me - that makes it so hard for me to breathe.

He has no realisation of how his actions and behaviour have morphed me into the worst possible version of myself.

Life will go on. I'll get back to normal again... whatever normal refers to, that is. I'll start talking again. Life as we know it will resume, once again. But all this, that has happened will leave scars on me. And I'll remember.

I'll remember that somebody fucked my head up so miserably that instead of cherishing my last few days with my parents before leaving for another year perhaps... I fucked things up.

That nasty blob inside my ribs.

I am tired. Extremely. Tired. And yet, can't seem to fall asleep.

Something's weighing me down a bit too much tonight.

It's my aching heart. I can feel it aching but not kist inside my ribs, in the palms of my hand, in the back of my neck, in all my limbs.

As if pain was not abstract but matter and my heart was pumping atoms and molecules of it into my veins.

It doesn't cease to hurt. Not when I'm lying down staring at the ceiling, not when I'm watching TV and the visuals and sounds fade away into a void, not when I'm leaning against ammi like a disorderly clump of existence, not when I'm driving, not ever. It hurts, incessantly.

I'm tired. Extremely.

The ripped fabric of somebody's once beautiful existence

I feel like parts of my soul are tearing away from my existence. Every single time I hear a rip, I feel an excruciating pull, and something leaves me. How long before I no longer have a soul, it makes me wonder woefully.

I want to see my therapist and speak to her. She's not the best, if I must say. But she's my safe space. I can tell her anything, say whatever is in mind and know for a fact that it won't be taken against me. It will not incriminate me. It will not blow-up in my face. I know that she will understand and may even offer a theory on why I might be feeling how I feel. Without patronizing me. Without making me feel emotionally unsafe.

Thoughts I'd tell her today - thoughts that kept me awake last night:

I have a theory, and I think it's a good one. You know how when a piece of glass or ceramic falls and breaks into pieces - if it shatters into a few pieces, let's a couple or more, some of us might pick them up and try to put them back together. Glue them along the cracks. Make it whole again. Not as good as new, but... whole. 

If it shatters into a few too many pieces though... would anybody pick them up? Try to put them back together? Not a chance. 

In fact, we'd try and be careful around those shards so as to not get hurt by them. We'd tread carefully, we'd be careful not to touch them as they might pierce our skin. Make us bleed. We'd get a brush and sweep them up and into a bin.

They can never be whole again.

We're kinder to things that can be made whole again. Hence, we pick them up and put them together. We're crueler to things that are beyond repair, more so if they have sharp, jagged edges. So, we stay away (from) and cautious of them, and make sure they end up in a bin so we don't get hurt.

I feel like a once beautiful ceramic urn that broke into 'one too many' pieces.

How did my life break into a free fall? How did people who used to look up to me, love me - unconditionally(!), turn against me?  I've not hit the bottom yet - because every time I think I've hit the bottom, I'm made to realise that there's further down to go.

It's an abyss.

I don't want to go back. Allah saaiin, please let me die before I can ever go back.

شیشوں کا مسیحا کوئی نہیں 

کیا آس لگائے بیٹھے ہو 

Recurrence.

Tum jaanti ho tumhari ghalti kya hai?

Tum apni auqaat bhool jati ho.
Tum kuch nahin ho. Tum koi nahin ho.
Tum yeh bhool jati ho.

Raining cats and more cats

December of 2012. It was then, I think. It rained cats and dogs one night. S and Z were visiting Bj. Ammi and papa were asleep. And the wind was going just mad. Banging on the doors. With bouts of rain water slapping equally insanely, and instantaneously with the wind. The rain tonight reminds me of that. I was looking up mails that I wrote that night. I couldn't find them. Was looking for a needle in a haystack anyway. I found another email thread though. From October that year. I was going to six flags. B was going for laser-tag. Both of us had a good time. The idea seems quite remote now. I made pakoras today. Aaloo. They were really good. Thought of B, B would have liked them too. I slept after Fajr last night, I believe. Woke up after three. Whatever sleep I've been getting has been a weird sort. Very 'awoken', very conscious. My flu has gotten a lot worse today. I pruned and washed all the plants. They still had fairy-lights hanging over them. It's been, what, 7, 8 months now. I took them off and wound them up. They had a thick coating of dust. B sends me cat videos almost everyday. Our cat's videos. She's absolutely silly. My mind wanders in all directions these days. Leaping randomly between multiple timelines. It makes me very dizzy.

Jet & other lags

I woke up a little before one in the afternoon today. I was a tad relieved it wasn't three again. I woke up and had chai and biscuits. I missed having chai-biscuits for breakfast, as I simultaneously remembered how being stuck with chai-biscuits, and not a rather hearty breakfast, used to agitate me back then sometimes. My home's the same, but a little more aged than I remember. Just like my parents. A part of me dreads the day I'll have to go back away. My mind is making my jet lag worse - with useless thoughts of future that I cannot do much about at the moment. I'm having a hard time staying in the moment. Especially at night, as I lie down futilely in search of some sleep. Hundreds of unnecessary thoughts shape shift into creepy tendrils protruding out of my bed and clutching me in their not tight but eerie clasp. I sat with ammi for a while in the afternoon. Told her about the meetup plan with my KP friends. A part of me wanted the plan to get canceled, but didn't want 'me' to be the one cancelling. I dropped a text on the group: "Are we on for today?" "Yes!", responded Ibis. I pulled myself up and went to pick out my clothes. More later. May be.