Oh that fucking clarity in him

when everything is up to me

Oh that fucking calmness

when I scream, run, weep

The only thing he wants to force

upon me he says, is to live

That is, to not die…

The perfect him

who made me who I am

Much more than the Atticus clan

to be whoever I want

when he continued to love..

And only love..

All of it intimidates me

which made me run

to mediocrity where

I felt in control…

Alas! now, its all out of control…

True love is not just unconditional

It’s fucking out of control!

My body is not mine

I gave it to you

Along with my heart

And you nurtured it

far better than I did

I oil it, scrub it, perfume it

all the lush products in the market

My eyes all kohled up

dark and smokey

hair short and long

curly and sleek

But you held my heart

in your soothing, but firm palms

even when I was lost

you lent your shoulder

and kept my feet firm

your eye-lashes soothed

my eyes during insomnia

you nurtured all of it

every bit of it

every cell in me

the true essence of my body

because you had my heart

above all and foremost

a heart you took years ago

with that twinkle in your eyes

when I met you

in that dingy corridor

for the first time

beside the 5p coffee machine

my hopes and my dreams

Became you in a jiffy

the blood that run in my veins

has your colour and taste

my heart smells like your palms

no matter how much perfume I put on

It has your fragrance

My heart was yours

as long as I can remember

Perhaps before I even met you

By that 5 p coffee machine

People do not fall in my eyes

what I thought about them do

people do not rise in front of me

what I feel about them do

It’s simple

it’s within us

as simple as that

I am no expert in raising kids by the way, but if I have one, I would want to do the below as well I think… Perhaps an emotional reaction to too many #MeToo stories and also some traumatising memories that surface sometimes from my own childhood and teenage times here and there like most women of my generation.

Abused children, even children who witness abuse, have a high chance of becoming adult abusers and the cycle goes on, studies say. Even if that is not completely true, it is better to raise healthier kids for a healthier society.
To reduce the number of #MeToos for the next upcoming generations, teach your children – boys and girls – what counts as abuse be it sexual or non-sexual, how to respect fellow beings and treat others with kindness, how to not take something from anyone without consent, even if it is a toy or a “Yes” to be a robber or police, and how to seek help if something did happen to them and how to live without scars but grow up healthy emotionally and physically. No, it is not creating a paranoid generation, but simple life skills that you can teach. If one abuses one’s own child, one is an irreparable monster and that is a very extreme case. That is why always pay attention to kids around you, even if they are not your own without intruding too much, but be vigil. It doesn’t matter if you’re wrong: it’s better to be wrong than sorry. All it needs is your time. Yes, TIME! A lot of Time and willingness!
When a child fails to seek help from their own parents and near ones or their teachers, yes you have failed. You need to take responsibility for that failure in one way or the other. When they feel trapped due to the conflicting affection they have for the abuser, or because of the power the abuser has over them and the society, they suffer silently, to go to places where they might never come back healthy emotionally. The emotional scars remain and will surface as wounds again sometime in their later lives or it will be buried without being dealt with for years to come maybe all their lives. Most of the post-abuse stress can reduce to almost nothingness if they are heard at the right time and helped and counselled and reassured. Someone groping you or touching you should not be the end of the world, you have not lost yourself or dignity, we have to move on and live life without losing the spark and love for life. It is the burial of it as a guilt and wound to stay there and become an inner lesion that makes it all unhealthy and hard. The trauma is a society induced one, the loss of dignity is a self-created one within, an abused child or adult has not lost anything, but should rise. We have to create an environment where calling out the abuser itself is normal and easy and also the trauma the abused should feel should be almost nil. That is where we should get to and I think we are on our way. Our children will be better off than our generation where we were told to feel low and less if we were touched or groped, because we were asking for it, or gave the wrong signals, or did not avoid getting abused etc. Our children should face the world out there with awareness. They should feel they are not alone nor did they did anything wrong to be abused but call out the abusers then and there, leave the adults to deal with the abuser wisely and legally, and pity the abuser, heal and move on to be happy adults with less MeToo to speak about after decades.

I promise to be fit and healthy so that we can make up all the time we lost by living longer hopefully

12 July 1998, It was a Sunday(WC final day), and I was going to board the night train(Malabar express) to go back to college after a weekend home. Ache came to drop me at the train station, we were discussing football a lot that night, in the car and at the station waiting for the train. I have always loved Ache’s stories about football and cricket and Tennis, hence my deep interest in sports when I was growing up. We used to watch sports together, my sister and Amma hardly stayed awake to beat the timezones, since most games started the late night as per Indian time. Ache an ardent Brazil and Holland fan (and maybe Italy as well) though he wasn’t fanatic like me about any teams or players. He always wondered why I did so much drama whilst watching sports. “You are just like your mother” he used to say 😛.

Too many goal kicks, fouls, running around, the anger…the game was a very emotionally charged one. I was covered in beer. 🙂 But the ambience was amazing.

Someone who is always resolute, forget cheesy, hardly expressive and even his smile is sort of rationed out. Everything sailor does is special, perhaps that’s why I keep testing him, I don’t want to though…coz every other day feels all new. A decade passed by with so much drama and experiences and he always surprises me:-). When we were apart we were a heartbeat away when we are together, we were like eye and eyelashes, sometimes tearful, sometimes smiling…

This is what I wanted, to surrender deeply, to feel like a satellite around a planet, to see the world in someone’s eyes, and boy I have searched and searched and drifted and run and walked and swam..These blue eyes I surrender for, rest of my life, till I breathe I want to be that sail for you in the ocean…next to you.

So England scored, and he smiled, and I wanted to capture it with a selfie, and he kissed me softly on my cheek, like a brother, like a lover, like an angel. And I melted into nothing.

I am in the palace of winds…oh that goal kiss! 🙂

Me: English patient is such a yummy book!

C: Hmm

J: Rather suits you boy, he was an “English Patient” infected by an Indian princess

Me: Oh give over

C: Wat!

J: Well, it was love at first bite, never seen you like that, C.

C: Whatever! ( Rolls his eyes)

Me: Blushhhh!

Page by page, I tear the miserable chapters

I burn them in the flames of the candle you lit

the ash forming a small heap of misery

the lonely hours I filled up with verses

which belonged nowhere but my laments

which means nothing now but ashes

The empty words vanity that got me

to grow up to be wise to be older

to be toothless and wrinkled with you

when my lazy tongue finds your mouth

when I surrender letting you drown in me

when I lie beside you when you sleep

when I play with your golden hair

singing a lullaby with my breath

when your blue eyes twinkle

like the mighty ocean that you love

you are in me and me in you

and I see my history as a dot again

A red dot with a green halo

and the universe seems trivial

because in you I feel alive

finally, I feel at home on earth

my tears my laughter

my desires my poetry

my whole being

feels enslaved

to you

In you

Was it you or me, I wonder

who kept the candle lit

amidst the chaos and pain

and absence and loneliness

it burnt like the sun

which never set in this case

in the east or west

in England or India

it was lit by love

nurtured by time

the candle

my sun

-Atticus Bluebell