The second day of the new year is when the new year turns into another year. The second day of the new year feels like flipping the calendar only to find the same chapter as if the fresh start is just a rewind button to the familiar pages of yesteryear. The 31st midnight is a trip outside to look at the sun with a glimmer of hope that maybe it has turned Pentagon or is diminishing, but the rays of light chomp on the glimmer of change. And the first day is just the hangover from the light's voracious appetite. The second day—back to square one!
The second day's dawn mirrors the unvaried routine of the days before, each tick of the clock underscoring the stubborn persistence of the status quo. It's as if time itself has chosen not to partake in the newness promised by the calendar. The resolutions made just 48 hours ago seem like distant echoes, drowned out by the monotony that has crept back in. On this day, aspirations collide with the reality that change is an elusive quarry. The second sunrise of the year casts a stark light on the challenges ahead, with the shadows of yesterday refusing to dissipate. It's a peculiar dance between anticipation and disillusionment as if the universe has conspired to test the resolve declared amidst the cheers and confetti of New Year's Eve.
Remember my last entry's ending? The pretentious bollocks of me and my droplet against the ropey fabric of society? And I went to sleep, thinking I would turn my droplet into a rebellious ripple tomorrow morning. It's not just about navigating the same mundane script; it's about injecting defiance into the routine. Each task, no matter how trivial, has to be a subtle act of resistance. The meetings, the chores, the predictable rhythms—you have to consistently and performatively morph into opportunities to defy the gravitational pull of conformity. So, I wake up thirty minutes late to work; my blisters are all gone, and my uterus has gone on a monthly riot. So, yeah. If not a shift from square one to square two, surely an elevation of it. As the day unfolds, the rope frays your edges, testing your collective insistence that you need to do something until your ordinary is no longer synonymous with the predictable. The ordinary is no longer a passive landscape; it's an active battleground, and you have to conquer the change. Every minute becomes a minute. And, even if you are putting on your best fight, it feels as if you are just waiting. Doing nothing. I was just waiting for the minute to pass. Just to pass the elevation from square one to square two, so it at the very least feels palpable. Laden with conformities, and defiance against the mundane becomes a shameful rebellion. You do it secretly. Quietly. Shamefully. You close your door, detach the plugs of reality, separate yourself from the fabric of a collective entity, and try to bring about change. But the change is supposed to be etched into the fabric. Fought and inked with the reds of shameful floundering and blues of under one's own steam.
I took a few hours to entirely detach myself and, most humanely, pluck the tendrils of conformity one by one. In the privacy of my sanctuary, I unravel the threads of conformity. The shame is not born from the act itself but from the realization that this defiance is deemed subversive. It's an acknowledgement that society frowns upon those who dare to question the predictable and who choose to colour outside the lines of conformity. And the constant fear of taking your secret colours outside sets a nest in the back of your mind. I come here, and I think about what to write. And, whenever the door creaks open and reality's plugs are reattached, I drop the act somewhere in the corners of the web, but the shame lingers. It grows out of you as if it were your own motherly creation, not chopped out and laid bare open by the hands of a morality sheepdog. The rebellion may be quiet, but its impact is loud, and it sometimes drops down your cheeks or climbs up your throat. And you either let the shame do its job while you continue your silent defiance or you give in and etch the fabric with the bile of atavistic instincts.
Either way, you never know what additional features of the struggling game get released and added to your character every morning, so don't make categorical statements a couple of hours before to the public (not that anybody actually witnesses this gory act of textually-induced logorrhea) that you are on the verge of changing the mattress of your long pedigree.
- Oizys.
Tuesday, January 2, 2024
January 2, 2024 - The Taboo Tango of Veiled Realities
Monday, January 1, 2024
January 1, 2024 - Stale Resolutions, Fresh Trauma
You say it's the quiet decisions, the daily choices that accumulate like droplets forming a mighty river. Then why are our hard-earned droplets licked and sucked by the royal pond of stagnation sentinels? You say, after all, change begins within the confines of our hearts. Then why are the custodians hell-bent on stomping on our resilience to try something new with their boots of conformity? You say it's not about grand gestures or sweeping transformations but about embracing the power of incremental change. Then why are the routine rulers throttling our personal evolution with the coded habits entrenched deep in our amalgam that wallop any kind of deviation? For how long do you think you will attribute individual drawbacks and wellness pieces of advice to the problems that require a grotesque transmogrification of intricately woven unequal threads of the conglomerate tapestry, where somewhere some are stretched thin to their ancestral cores and others suffocate under the weight of uniformity, casting shadows over the once "vibrant diversity"?
We sit in our fields of labour, yearning for a beacon of change. Some days, we succumb to weariness, letting the weight of the world convince us that our small, quiet acts of defiance are insignificant. Staring at this sea of monotony, we awaken our quiescent competence somewhere within us. Because if we don't propel ourselves forward, the suffocating grip of the corporate matrix outsources its job to the relentless assault of hunger and begar. Our pale legs and parched throats reek from waiting for freedom since forever. Can we collect all the droplets into a raging river that sweeps away the barriers to progress? Or is it just everyone for themselves, each with their own droplet, attempting to win the fight?
I begin my new year, hopefully, with a new thought, if not a new life, a clean slate, or a new page. Just me and my droplet.
- Oizys.
Sunday, December 31, 2023
New Haircut, Same Rot; New Year, Same Plot
On December 31st, I started writing this at 11 p.m. I have procrastinated writing things for so long that there have been feelings covered with tarps of dust, time, and rust. What's happening? Well, a war. For days, weeks, and months, I have been yearning for the tips of my fingers to rebel and push out these emotions for the world to see (or just this creepy little corner of the worldwideweb). And all it took was a calendar change. A partition of lines between two numbers to make me sit and crap a few words. Let me give you some highlights of this so-called war machinery:
- The Battle of Self-Doubt: The soldiers of my inner child and adult critic march on the streets, declaring war. The trenches of self-doubt ran deep, and the fear of continuing to live became a formidable opponent.
- The Skirmishes with Time: Time, my relentless adversary, seemed to slip away unnoticed. Days turned into weeks, weeks into months, and my aspirations to write became casualties of an ever-advancing clock. Procrastination, it seemed, was winning the temporal battles.
- The Confrontation with Limitations: The demand for perfection in every sentence and every paragraph paralyzed my creative spirit. The war cry of "You are not good enough" echoed louder than the call to simply be and create. The battlefield was littered with unfinished drafts and stangant blood of dead dreams, casualties of an unyielding pursuit of flawlessness.
- The Negotiations with Inspiration: The teasing muse, the inspiration, a fickle ally, played hard to get. There were moments when ideas tried to flow effortlessly, and then there were barren stretches where the well of creativity seemed to run dry. Negotiating with this unpredictable force became a constant struggle.
- The Siege of the External World: The onslaught of modern temptations from the external world, with its sirens of social media, the clamor of daily responsibilities, and the allure of mindless entertainment, besieged my creative fortress. Distractions were like invaders breaching the walls, diverting my focus from the writing battleground.
But here I am, at the eleventh hour, facing the final skirmish of the year. The pen is indeed mightier than the procrastination that held me captive. As the clock ticks away, I'm daydreaming of emerging victorious in this personal war. The arsenal of words is my weapon, and the battlefield is the blank page. Perhaps, in this late-night scrawl, there's a ceasefire. A truce between the excuses and the act of creation. The war is not over, but at this moment, I've claimed a small piece of peace. So, here's to the war of words, fought in the quiet hours of the night, and to the hope that the coming year brings more bits and pieces.
In this very moment, we sit and ponder. Try to go as far back as possible, wondering where it all went wrong. Trying to pinpoint the exact moment we could have stopped, the exact action that could have been omitted. The battlefield of retrospection is strewn with the debris of missed opportunities and the echoes of decisions that led us to this late-night confrontation.
The ink on the pages of the past is smeared with the stains of hesitation and indecision. Each missed deadline, every postponed commitment, is a marker on the timeline of this ongoing struggle. The war drums of regret beat in rhythm with the ticking clock, amplifying the urgency of the present moment.
As the night wears on, the shadows of doubt lengthen. The pen, poised and resolute, faces the impending dawn with determination. It knows that tomorrow morning, the war will resume. The battlefield will once again witness the clash between creation and procrastination. We sit in contemplation, we feel time slipping, and we hear the clock ticking. As the night gives way to the approaching light, I gather my thoughts and prepare for the final chapter in this ongoing saga. The war between pen and procrastination will continue tomorrow morning, but for now, in the quietude of the night, I find solace(?) in the knowledge that the battle is not lost (over..?). The ink flows, and with it, the promise of (sigh...) living:
- This is never, ever a do-or-die situation. Always do or sit and wonder why, and be forced to do so by the consequences. I was in the same position when I wrote my last chapter. Nothing changed. Well, from an outsider's perspective, the insides have been rotting. Soft mass, all liquified in a bottled body. I don't talk anymore. I have stopped saying things to people. I wake up, I work, and I go to sleep. I daydream in the background to stop outside stimulation. I have erased all previous memories. Deleted all photographs. I have successfully butchered all the relationships (not that I had many to begin with...). I have not replied to a single person in months, not even the ones who live with me. I have made my life as thin as possible. She is an old, anorexic, malnourished crone. Who exudes fragility. Holding the knife pointed towards her stomach, waiting for someone to accidentally give a push, and she can part reluctantly, the way she was born. Full of wretchedness. Like a disgusting fruit with a rotting smell and dark spots on her skin. Head full of white fungus. Mouth full of blisters. Reduced into nothing but an embodiment of decay and despair. Her seeds cry, carrying the burden of a life that withered away, a lament for the potential that never had the ability to bloom.
- There is a child who lives in a house behind mine. He cries. Alot. I have never seen him. I have only heard him. His cries. Oh, the painful cries. The ones where each wail comes from the depths of the stomach and pierces into the world but hits no one. Today, it felt as if his tears were silent echoes, seeking refuge in my vast silence. But I have no place and no refuge to offer. I wonder about the burdens he carries. His voice, raw and unfiltered, makes me sick. It is almost like the wail is trying to reach my own dormant pain, stirring the echoes of my past. Invading the house of memories. Angry that it finds nothing, enraged that everything is erased. Searching further, all there is is an inner child. They exchanged looks. A look when a failed prodigal daughter sees a forefather from her ancestry. Like a disgusting tale of fractured heritage and unresolved pain that fuels a rage at the erasure of histories, at the silent screams echoing through generations. I stand near my window searching to catch a glimpse of that poor boy at the intersection of two realms, where the child behind me seeks refuge in his cries, and the child within me responds with a silent acknowledgment—a subtle nod to the vulnerability of unresolved pain. The prodigal daughter fails (falls...?) at the feet of history standing infront of her, and the forefather smites her with a suppressing gaze, a poignant narrative unfolds—an intricate tapestry of sadness and anger woven through the threads of forgotten histories.
- There is some talk about building a house. My parents talk. There is another person, I hear. Their creative discussion turns into an argument. I hear my father begin to raise his voice while the other person backs my mother's argument with reason. Soon, the voices stop talking once the father puts an end to the discussion, and there's silence. I wonder. What do we do with more rooms? I have been effectively decreasing myself to take up less and less space. The clash of opinions in the adjacent room mirrors the internal conflict, a tug-of-war between the desire for expansion and the impulse to retreat further into the shadows. What would it mean to occupy more space in the physical realm when the instinct is to shrink into the margins? The dilemma is softly interrupted with a muffled cry. I think it is my mother. I recognize the cry. It is the same cry she cries after every discussion ends. As the cry permeates the silence, it's as if the walls themselves absorb the emotional residue of the unresolved debate. The dilemma deepens, intertwining the practical consideration of additional rooms with the emotional complexity of familial dynamics. The cry becomes a melancholic punctuation mark, underscoring the emotional toll of the ongoing struggle for space, both physical and emotional.
Oh, look, we have crossed the blurry lines of 11:59 p.m. and 12:00 a.m. We have (dis?)successfully stepped into January 1st, 2024. Did something change in the physical world at the stroke of midnight? Nothing. We wrap up our day and go to sleep. Knowing fully well, tomorrow we will wake up the same way, brush the same teeth in the same mouth full of age-old blisters, pick up the same weapons of lowly daydreaming and incapability to unlevel the will to live, and fight the same war. The clock may reset, but the essence of our existence remains tethered to the unyielding grip of the status quo and the cruel leader who always wins.
- Oizys.
Tuesday, September 19, 2023
Echolocation of the Caged Tongue
Wings emasculated and legs tied.
Fingers stuck in my ears.
Tapping the voice in my brain shut.
Forcefed ink and forced to puke poetry.
I try to regurgitate meals of ponder.
Thoughts gnaw the metal as a relentless hunger.
They pluck a feather.
Dip it in the inkwell of my mouth.
To make it a quill.
Days become decades.
Bits and pieces of reality evaporate.
Ink congeals at the tip of my tongue.
The inferior umbilicus is trapped.
I close my mouth as I widen my eyes.
I gulp the blob of ink.
I chew the quill.
The mind hopes for a clot of words to release.
No one comes near my bars.
They say, a stench lingers.
No one comes to open the cage.
They say, it is my asylum.
Why?
Is it fear of my wild heart?
Or, is it repulsion of my rotten belly?
~ Oizys.
Monday, September 11, 2023
The Unweaving
The morning sun, once a symbol of hope, now casts long, gnarled shadows that writhe and contort like serpents. My footsteps echo through the barren chambers of my soul, empty rooms in my broken mind, reverberating with a mournful, discordant symphony of despair. Each step feels like a rusty blade carving into my fractured psyche. Each leaf, once young and soft, is getting crunched and crushed underneath my feet and getting stuffed in the cuts and bruises, their tender innocence sacrificed to the brutal landscape of my existence, each bruise and cut now holding the remnants of a world that once held promise but has since crumbled into desolation.
The mundane rituals of existence have become rituals of self-flagellation. I scrub and scrape my skin until it's raw and red, hoping to wash away the stains of regret that cling to me like a malevolent parasite. Each moment etched in my skin feels like an open wound, a relentless reminder of choices made and opportunities lost as if the past were a relentless predator gnawing at the edges of my body. The mirror reflects a visage distorted by torment, a visage I can scarcely recognize as my own. The eyes that once held a glimmer of hope now stare back, haunted and hollow, as if they have witnessed the darkest depths of the human soul. It's a reflection of a self fractured by the weight of regrets, a face worn and weathered by the storms of anguish, a portrait of a soul adrift in a sea of remorse.
My thoughts are a swarm of locusts, devouring every vestige of serenity within me. Doubts, regrets, and self-loathing spiral into an abyss that threatens to consume my very essence. It is a descent into madness, a grotesque carnival of self-destruction. I see the voices in my head as they deplume me of my vision, like someone pinching the wick to snuff out a candle in the cavern. Each whispered thought is a deathly squeeze, extinguishing the fragile flame of clarity that once flickered within. In this cavernous silence, I'm left in the inky blackness of my thoughts, groping through the labyrinthine passages of my mind, searching for a glimmer of understanding that has been cruelly slaughtered with forced subservience and indoctrination.
As I scrawl these words with ink as dark as my cavernous eyes, I am both the executioner and the sacrificial lamb. This unweaving feels like a gruesome dance with the demons that reside within, a waltz of self-annihilation and freedom. With each stroke of the pen, I unravel a piece of my own tapestry, shedding the weight of the past like tattered rags, and in this act of self-deconstruction, I discover an odd liberation, as if dismantling the old self paves the way for something rawer, unburdened, and authentically broken.
Tomorrow, I may wake to a world no less distorted, but I will be reborn from this same wreckage. This same chasm. This unweaving is not an end but a metamorphosis, a baptism in the blood of my own suffering, and a testament to the yield of the human spirit. It is the relentless yet foolish resilience to rise from the ashes, to unearth some worth in the fragments, and to precariously juggle the duality of existence—the darkness and the blindsight, the broken and the each scattered pieces—as the raw, undeniable core part of being. It is in this ongoing battle that the haunting truth of my humanity reveals itself—a truth woven from the threads of vulnerability and resignation, despair and exhaustion, and the ceaseless floundering between the fragments of my soul and the sad, stubborn life that still manages to find its way in.
- Oizys.
Thursday, June 29, 2023
"My Liberation Notes" - Yeom Mi-jeong
Wednesday, June 21, 2023
That English Family
Tea, Dreams, and Bittersweet Realities: An Envy-Fueled Odyssey Of That English Family
While doing my research on the postgraduate college I wanted to attend, I stumbled upon a piece written by one person with a sketch drawn by his brother. When I read a bit more about them, I came across a blog by their mother. Her blog, her words, and her pictures of her sons, grandchildren, and relatives became a soothing balm for wounds I didn't know I had. Her little stories of faith, her memories of her mother, her entries about her elder son getting into university, her videos of playing with her younger son's kids She had lived a difficult life yet managed to make the most of it. She and her family look very, very happy. Not the Instagram happy where they morph their differences into lies to get coins and likes. Genuinely happy. Smiles. Guitar. No lies. Their eyes sparkle. Their moments attest to genuineness. The comment section is a giant, soft quilt of compliments showered by her friends and extended family. I do not know how they are related to each other or what kind of relationship they maintain. But she seems like a genuinely good person. Just humans and goodness mixed like sugar and butter. She reads and writes beautifully, and her words have turned me into some sort of "fan".
I recently saw her update about visiting her elder son, who is studying in a different country, in a beautiful city in Europe. He glowed. He exhibited luminosity. His face just sparkles. He makes music in his free time. He had multiple bands. He uploads them on YouTube and sells them as well. He is studying hard to build a career as well. I watched some of his music. There's freedom. There's passion. There's love. There's acceptance. I imagine them to be a family of love, freedom, and acceptance. Living in a home filled with warmth and good tea I imagine them meeting on holidays and celebrating with their friends and family, exchanging gifts. I imagine them saying goodbye before the elder son leaves for university and sharing tears. I imagine them having video calls where they try to match their timezones. I imagine her elder son taking her mother around the city, showing her the museums, parks, and famous eateries. She is writing another book, and I have yet to buy her first one. I am saving money for that. I imagine her meeting her son's friends as they show her around. I imagine her going back home and reminiscing about her time with her son, which is reflected in her blog.
After glancing a bit more at the photographs she had uploaded with tiny notes about each of them tucked underneath, a train of reality hit me. It is the same university that rejected me. I looked at her son, standing outside the university. Reality—my grusomely bland reality—pulls me back to my cold room, to my cold cot. And I think about my interview with the professor from that university, which was flailing and embarrassing. I think about the non-existent photographs of me with my family. I think about the screams and angry silences around my house. I think about the last time I spoke to my sister, who is from a completely different country. I think about the last time I spoke to my father, who had just moved in downstairs. I think about my friends who have left to pursue their dreams in different cities. I think about my mother, who is sleeping next to me. I think about last evening, when we all made our teas separately and drank them separately.
I check flights for cities in Europe. One leaves tonight. Should I go? Should I pack my bags and just leave? Should I visit the university, talk to the students and professors there, and talk to her elder son about his experience there and his music? Should I visit her as well? Tell her I am saving money to buy her book. That would be ridiculous. I don't even have the money to buy her book, and yet I am visiting her from a shabby little town in a shabby little country. She doesn't even know who I am. I decide against it and go to sleep. Try to sleep. With fantasy and reality fighting over my head. I lie there while they both rip me into pieces. I think about tomorrow morning and how I have to pick up these pieces and face life in this room. I imagine what she must be telling her son about how much she enjoyed her trip to visit him. And I imagine her son reading her mother's happiness while walking to the university while passing a park where she shared a cup of tea with her while telling her all about his studies. I think about the last time I took a trip and shared it with anyone and glance over my empty gallery. I close her blog and try to forget her URL so as to match my fantasy with my empty reality. So, it can be a fair fight.
- Oizys.
Friday, June 16, 2023
Diary of a Whiny Goddess
Welcome, dear (literally non-existent, I guess?) readers, to the confessions of my oh-not-so-delightfully mundane existence. If life were a symphony, mine would be a melancholic melody peppered with whimsical outbursts and a touch of existential pondering. Consider me your guide through the labyrinth of my ordinary days, where I navigate the treacherous maze of questionable decisions and an uncanny knack for attracting bizarre misadventures.
Now, don't mistake me for a professional complainer or a seasoned moaner. No, no, no. I prefer to embrace my unofficial title as 'A Whiny Diarist' with a hint of pride. Picture a weathered, vintage sign hanging above a shop of paraphernalia that reads, 'Whines and Whimsies.' That's where I'd belong—a sanctuary for the lamentations of a perpetually perplexed soul.
You see, life has gifted me with a mesmerizing whine-cheese combo platter: 'Shitty Luck + Shittier Intuition.' It's like the universe thought, 'Hmm, let's see how many curveballs we can throw at this poor soul,' and then decided to crank up the difficulty level for good measure. But fear not, for I am armed with a thesaurus—a secret weapon I wield to veil my deplorable stagnancy behind carefully curated phrases and words that might just make you think, 'Ah, she's got it together.'
So, dear (actual and potential) readers, fasten your seatbelt and prepare for a rollercoaster ride through the depths of my mind, where I'll share (s)tales of routs that taste bittersweet, heartaches that leave an exquisite ache, and moments of vulnerability that will make you laugh, cry, doubt my existence and question my life choices and.
Join me as I navigate this messy maze called life, armed with zero humor, wit, and a flailing touch of sarcasm. Let's embark on this wild journey together, where my mundane becomes extraordinarily eerie, my whining transforms into subjugated art, and my tears eventually merge with hysterical laughter.
Grab a cup of tea, find a cozy nook that may or may not have a suspicious-looking stain, and let's dive headfirst into the unsightly, rotting chaos of my everyday existence. Trust me, it's anything but (un)interesting.
- Oizys.
Sunday, June 11, 2023
Lethargy or Lottery?
A while ago, there were small yet some regular goalposts in life. Maybe assignments, internals, internships or exams. But, college is over. Now, I am free to climb as high as possible or just fall. Obviously, for me, it is the latter.
It's only been a week I have started working. Menial and underpaid. All I do is wake up. Log in. Click. Click. Click. Type some. Click some more. Update your lead. Click some more. Log out. Lie on bed dreading about tomorrow's clicking. Sleep. Wake up and repeat. I feel as life I'm going to spend the rest of my life sitting at a desk alternating my day dreams between traveling and writing about the world and killing myself. Though, I can only daydream about them since I do not have the guts to do either. It's only been a week I have started working and I can't do this anymore. The moment I start working, I am reminded of my failures and inability to achieve what I had dreamt. All the dreams, hopes, desires and goals I had built for this year, all just shattered. And, I don't think I can take this failure. My bdy is ready to pop off. There is a ball of guilt in my throat which doesn't let me eat. Every moment I just wish I hadn't dreamt about all of that, so the failure and rejection wouldn't hurt so much. I had a life crafted in my head, my wings spread, flying around the world. But, nothing of the sort happened. I am stuck here, between this wobbly table and my side of the bed. With my mother, on the other side of the bed, breathing down my neck. With my father, near the door, keeping me chained. I wish I could leave everything behind and run away and breathe some fresh air. But, it's been months I have seen the sun. Every day, I sit and think. What was so wrong with me? Why did I get rejected? Is there something so repulsive about me?
God, I feel so stuck. Stickily stuck. So stuck that I cannot even get up and walk out of this room. Just stuck here in this sticky liquid of fear and lethargy. I just coddle and comfort myself by thinking this is the waiting room. Something is waiting for me outside this and when the time comes, my life will become a land of beautiful fields. Deep down, I know it is not real. Rather, it is a waiting room for death. And, not a very great waiting room, I must say.
- Oizys.
Wednesday, May 31, 2023
Random Diary Entry - 31st May 2023
I was waitlisted in late March, and I waited for a response. But, I didn't receive any. But today's the day; the waitlist expires, and no offers will be given anymore after this. Although, by the beginning of March, I knew I had no hope and had given up and accepted it as a rejection. I have already made up my mind to apply again next year and have accepted a job. I still feel very low and sad. After I was interviewed, I really felt like I had a chance. Anyway, it's just today, and then officially, the portal will close, and I will just have to wait and improve myself until the next session's application portal opens. I just thought people here would understand this emotion because my family and friends are not very receptive or enthusiastic about my grad applications. Just a vent. Thanks.