A Vintage Print

  I know you want to talk to me too. I know you’re desperate to say something to me when I talk to you about how my day was. Or how the people in my life are treating me. I somehow blamed it all on you but it’s not your fault. I still tell you about my feelings. These bare feelings without any stains on them. No distractions from them. All these bare feelings pointing straight towards you.  I talk to you like you’re in front of me. I’m exhausted by the one-sided conversations and the smell of your house still stuck on my nose. I’m exhausted by your smile on my lips and your words eating away at my brain. I want it to end. I want the voices in my head to stop asking me about you. I need the roads leading home to stop reminding me of you. I need the stories to stop somehow making their way to yours. All my stories lead to you. All my words are yours. All my acts claim to be your result. All the bare feelings convincing people that I’m vulnerable, they’re all because of you. I’m...

I stroll around outside my house and look at the trees standing. It’s raining and I don’t bother because it reminds me of when I went on the terrace while it was raining on my birthday and on the day I was upset and on the last day of school. I spend a lot of time on the terrace and look a lot of time at the sky. I like how it changes colours every minute and people still love it. Apparently humans who do that are chameleons but chameleons are fascinating. And so is this rain. I don’t like going out in the rain but today I just feel like getting wet and smiling through it. I’ll smile through almost everything, make a joke about everything even when it gets worse. I don’t like to but then I’m not about to be looked at as some pitiful men who’s afraid to be sad. I’m not. I’m fine with it. Infact, I am always a little sad on the inside. That’s not an after-effect of some tragedy that happened, even though I’d like to think so. I have always been like this. “Some people are not built hap...

Tonight things are different. You recognize my breath for the first time in 2 years. "soo gaye kay?", you question. Tonight, I don't wait for you to disconnect the call. As you realize, it's me on the other side, I wonder what you think, what you must have thought all these days every year about these calls where I never spoke and you stopped at "hello". Tonight, I finally figure out that you knew it was me, that it had always been me for the last 2 years for never once did you miss my call let alone blocking my number. Your hello sounded a little worried tonight and I wonder, if he's not there beside you, listening to the silence on the other side of the phone. I wonder if you have saved my number as "mannu" or "chiku". Tonight, you whisper "chiku" and I sense nostalgia in your voice. Tonight, you finally believe that we, you and I rather, could've made it work. Tonight, you're sorry and I know that you really a...