Things Are Getting Hard Again

Things are getting hard again, and I don't know what to do. I don't know where to go. My belly is juggling coals. My skin is crawling to escape. And my mind is rotting. I am so tired of being scared. Being judged. Being fearful. Being less. Being mocked. Being excluded. Being looked at. Laughed at. Sneered at. And all I do is beg in disguise of fantasies. I sit here in a corner and make up castles that are filled with nonsensical hope and delusion. I have limited myself so much to a point of complete erasure that it is almost a crime. And I am just sad. Sad to be. It pains so much. To be lack of something. To be looked at and not accepted anywhere. To be not allowed to dream. What is it that smells so much? What is wrong with me? Why me? And why not me? I have dreamt so much to a point of praying to God knows who that it is almost a shame. And I hear back nothing. I get back nothing. More exclusion. More limitation. More nothing. I have lacked so much to a point of loneliness that it almost feels natural. To be unloved. To be understood. To be not believed. And it is cold. Lonely. Dark. 

It’s as if the walls are closing in, each brick a reminder of all I’ve lost and all I can’t reach. I want to scream, to break free from this suffocating silence, but the words twist in my throat. Silence chokes me. I watch life unfold from a distance, a spectator in a world that seems to move on without me. Life excludes me. Each day blurs into the next, a disposed thread of longing and despair. I search for a glow—a thread of connection—but it slips through my fingers like sand. Why do I keep trying when every effort feels futile? I think of the castles I build, elaborate yet fragile. They’re my refuge, but they crumble at the slightest breeze, the slightest connection with reality. Hope feels like a joke, a cruel trick played by fate. What is it that I truly want? Love? Understanding? A voice that echoes back when I speak into the void? I ache for the simple comfort of being understood, yet I feel like a ghost haunting my own life.

I hide myself underneath these flimsy covers and end this to force myself to fall into sleep with yet another delusion of the possibility of not waking up tomorrow morning. Please. If anyone is listening...

- Oizys.

A Collage of Micromanagement and Masquerades

Last week was a whirlwind. One of my professors finally defended his PhD, a momentous occasion that left everyone in awe. Meanwhile, another killed his father for being debt-ridden. The contrast was stark and unsettling, setting the tone for the week. It has been painting thoughts in my mind lately, filling my head with vivid images.

I decided to take a leave from work, my first in a long time. The reason? My new team lead. Once a close colleague, her promotion had transformed her into a micromanaging tyrant. She insisted on hovering over me or sometimes having me on her lap, her breath hot on my neck, as she nitpicked every detail of my work. Our relationship, once cordial, had soured. Her yellow highlighter slashed through my mistakes, while her use of a whitener to obscure my hard work and hardships felt like a cruel joke.

My family does not know I am on leave. I lie and sit in front of my computer, acting like I am working. I have been hiding a lot of things. Each click of the mouse the moment I (fake-)clocked in felt like another step deeper into the labyrinth of my hidden truths, where every corner held a secret begging to be screamed out. A week of leave passed by, which began with thoughts of accomplishing tasks and ended with the burden of being unable to accomplish them, with a garnish of regret for procrastination, of course!

But I did not entirely waste it. I fed corporations my same details again and again that I have been feeding since time immemorial to get a job. Inducing action verbs into my personality while keeping it compact and one-page since it is only an infant in profesh terms. Making it parse-able for the AI to grab it as someone exciting yet oppression-worthy. I did make one of those rejection email collages* to end this ephemeral week off. But I do not have an offer letter at the end to add the effect of success. Just a museum of failures. Normally, I delete one as soon as I receive one. I had a few lying around. Revisiting them was... fun and a masochistic ritual. The wounds are surprisingly fresh. It is good to keep picking up those past reminders of being unachieved and underqualified.

Amidst the chaos, there was a brief moment of joy. On Wednesday afternoon, I made sandwiches with my mother and sister. It was a rare, serene interlude. But even in that moment of nicety, my inner critic, the animal within, roared in disapproval.

- Oizys.

*Here it is:

April 8, 2024 - Cringosity and the Chasm

April 6th and 7th went by seamlessly, according to the standards I had set to my life and yet there was a hole drilled in my middle. I woke up this morning and fell into that hole of desolation with the gravitational force of my existence. Anyway here is a poem I wrote when I was 13 (or, I was already 14...? I don't remember well but all I know is, it was Valentine's Day and my grandmother was dying). and had just discovered my "boyfriend" was not exactly my "boyfriend". Don't proceed if you do not wish to get slapped by a bag of cringe coins that will devolve the entire human race by a smidgen.

"We are a collision that was never meant to occur.
I despise your temples, they are too seductive.
I don't need to work, I just need someone to worship.
I want you to see me right now, but you are kilometers, kilometers away.
I took the steps hoping for you at the door waiting for me with a jug of tea.
You used to be my favourite sample, you used to be the place I went home to.
One last touch was never enough, every street becomes a past polaroid of us together.
I trace our steps lingering mist, while you have dissipated the cobblestones of our time.
You are the only one who knows, I am not okay without you.
I'd write all my time to you, I'd rename all my past for you.
Your memories will return to dust, when my bones rebuild themselves.
Did you know? Abraham left Isaac for God?
We'll soar to lavender fields, where life's more than toil and fray.
Mr. Postman knocked today; room service for one, a solitary stay.
He is the one I long to be, because he has all the letters to your reach your doorstep.

We are a story that was never meant to be.
Poets are pretenders but I am a nostalgic devotee.
Is this thing on yet? Does this thing rhyme yet?
This is the line I'd delete if there was a button for that.
Romance is not a race, yet we are all the rats who are left behind.
Will you cancel your plans for me, to eat lotus seeds by the beach?
I feel spinning planets around my head while all your messages go to my junkmail folder.
You are the white dwarf I have molded into a diamond in the sky, disdainful yet luminous.
I recall your heartbeats with the memory of your wrists while all your visits went unmanned.
I'd like to see you at my fashion show, etch a smile on your face even when your grief pours onto your shoes.
One strike won't keep me away for life, we live in glass houses afraid they'll break.
Wear your sunday best for the shrine hopping, this is the memory I will never bury.
Nobody sees the trouble I've been through, the brown box on the highest shelf.
We shared a drink over my patterned grandma quilt, lies shrivel up when it comes to you.
Mr. Postman stopped by today; front row seats to the disaster show, eagerly awaited.
He is the one I long to be, because he has all the letters to your reach your doorstep."

Reading back on that poem from my 13-year-old self feels like stumbling upon a buried treasure chest filled with embarrassing relics that was meant to dissipate with time. The cringe-inducing journey down memory lane, but there's a strange comfort in revisiting the melodramatic musings of my teenage years. In retrospect, it's chucklingly sad how I thought my world was ending over what now seems like trivial teenage drama. And, I kept going on. I still wrote in my diary, miserably passed my exams, and half-leggedly finished my sleep. But in that moment, every word felt like a dagger to the heart. Amidst the cringe, there's an underscoring of innocence and intensity of teendom. It's a reminder of how deeply we can feel things at that age, even if those feelings may seem exaggerated or misplaced in hindsight. And, this sad monster named Nostalgrox comforts the adult me. Pats my head, runs its fingers through my crony hair and tells me to keep going. It chokes my body in its arms, under its foaming mouth while it regurgitates my past to forcefeed me the wisdom of this hole. The rock-bottom is an absolute, pants-on-fire mirage. It's hard, cold and unyielding. I prefer this chasm, it has a soft ground and I have absolutely all the time in the world to dig, let the dirt bathe me, let the roots choke my wrists to spasm my heatbeats. And, I am sure, somewhere in the quiet trenches, I will find solace in altering my pasts by sowing seeds of delusion and pies where possibilities stretch out like endless constellations in the night sky.

As I close the pages of my teenage diary, I can't help but feel comfortable at the absurdity of it all. Life moves on, and so do we, leaving behind a trail of embarrassing poems and awkward memories. And maybe, just maybe, that's part of what makes it all so grotesquely human. Finding comfort from past's rot to escape present's turmoil.

- Oizys.

March Thirty-First: NaPoWriMo: Cage — Behind the Bars of Time

We’ll be back tomorrow with our first daily featured participant and resource, along with a prompt. But for now, and to help out all of you for whom April 1 comes a bit earlier than it does to Na/GloPoWriMo’s secret headquarters (yes, our lair is built into a volcano), here’s an early-bird prompt: Pick a word from the list below. Then write a poem titled either “A [your word]” or “The [your word]” in which you explore the meaning of the word, or some memory you have of it, as if you were writing an illustrative/alternative definition.

Cage, Ocean, Time, Cedar, Window, Sword, Flute.

I cannot believe I am doing this again this year. After last year's miserable attempt and getting my site removed from the Participants’ Sites due to sheer embarrassment, and then getting it added again this year moments before starting the response for this early-bird prompt for reasons I cannot psychologically concoct right now:

I will probably not post this link in the comments. So, I am choosing the word "Cage." Could it be any more obvious? (I mean, I highlighted it above; that's why...)

In a world where time dances with shadows.
There dwells a bird in a cage of illusion.
Trapped in a cycle of self-doubt's spell within the bars of fate.
Marinated in procrastination's fear,
Its wings, once vibrant with the colors of dawn,
Now wilted, tangled by the ego's sneer.

Each day, the sun rises in a golden blaze.
But for this bird, the dawn is but a distant memory.
It believes it has all the time to spare,
Confident it can step out whenever it dare.
Its cage a prison of perpetual lateness,
A cruel symphony of missed opportunities and regret.

Crispy wind blurries the day into evenings.
Oh, how the bird longs to soar through the skies.
To feel the wind beneath its weary wings,
To embrace the freedom that beckons from beyond.
As it finally moves to take flight,
Reality's wind slaps with all its might.

The world outside moves with purpose and grace.
For time waits for no feathered friend,
While the bird languishes in the sauce of its own making.
Its cage, a silent witness to the passage of time,
a reminder of all that could have been, but never was.
And the moment of freedom finds its end.

The world spins on without it.
Late to emerge from its self-made prison,
The bird learns the hard lesson of time's precision.
As it mourns what could have been fair,
A symphony of regret fills the air.
Soaring dreams now shattered on the ground.

Forever late to the dance of life,
In the cage of hindsight, the bird is bound.

- Oizys.

April 8th, UPDATE: After marinating this piece with self-doubt, procrastination and ego of having all the time in the world, I am posting the link to my response to this early (but, actually, super late..) prompt hoping no one will discover this humiliating chronicle of tardiness.