August

Fat raindrops began falling from the sky, out of the blue. Quite literally.
There was no premonitive drizzle.
Neither did the sky betray its intentions by inking itself a deep blue.
The imminent stormy gusts of wind were missing; as were the people feverishly rubbing their eyes due to the piercing, flyaway dust particles entangled between their lashes.
It just simply began raining heavily.
Thick translucent drops, from a bright blue sky.

Trembling hands.

We sat next to each other on his bed. The room was faintly lit by the light that floated in from outside his window. The dense, shadowy orange hue softly outlined this face. Street lights in the bedroom.  This city really never sleeps, I thought to myself distractedly. I tried looking at his mouth wording the sentences but the darkness had almost swallowed him whole. Instead I focused on the outline of warm light bouncing off the edge of his jaw. I want to remember this, I remember thinking then.  

She sat next to me that evening. We were alone and the house sounded eerily quiet, pregnant with uncertainty of things left unsaid. Maybe the quiet was because some strange forces haunting the house knew of impending storm. Maybe it was because the ones who usually raised their voices had left for the night, leaving me behind. Maybe because it was her and me again. Her and me after all this time. Maybe.  

Why did I call her here? And why didn't she refuse? If this is supposed to lead nowhere why are we here? 

He was unusually talkative that evening. 

He spoke about the last time we met, college pressures, work, the last girl he slept with and what went wrong between them, the wedding his family had left to attend that evening, his friends. It was strange to see him like that.  In the facade of buoyancy he had put up. 

He just kept his head angled straight ahead and went on talking. I was worried, but I didn't say anything. I was afraid I'd rupture the thin bond that his words had manifested into. Curling around the two of us, binding us together. So I let him go on, we had nothing better to do other than talk anyway. But I couldn't help notice his sentences were strangely random. Scattered. There was no visible sequence threading his thoughts together. His eyes constantly kept combing the dimly lit room as if to reassure himself everything was the same as it was the last time he checked. He tapped his feet incessantly on the floor. He repeatedly kept running his fingers through his hair.  

Should I have been worried? But what could I have said? I'd forgotten how to speak to him. 

Suddenly, he sighed, shuddered slightly and then sat absolutely still. As if something in him, something small, valuable and delicate, something that had kept him alive all this while had just fallen off the edge and broken. His eyes stopped roaming. His feet stopped tapping. He lowered his gaze from a random spot on the wall straight ahead down to his hands resting on his lap.

His mouth stopped talking. 

She directed my trembling hands away from my lap cradled them in her own. I looked at her, surprised by the gentle reassuring gesture. Did I even deserve it? I shifted slightly and looked at her. At first, she herself looked taken aback by the boldness displayed by her hands. 

She looked at them as if they were a detached entity with an entirely separate and functioning brain. One that ordered her hands to envelope mine within themselves. Slowly, she tore her eyes away from our hands and looked up at me while tilting her head softly to one side, her eyes crinkled as they examined mine as if trying to fit in a stray piece in jigsaw puzzle. Her eyes searched my face as if she were trying to remember an ancient, half-forgotten memory and my face was the only catalyst which would help her siphon the memory out of the murky recesses of her mind.  

All at once, something burst inside me. Something vivid and clear yet indescribable, something desperately urgent. Everything around me began to assault my senses: The painful heaving creak of the fan above our heads, the smell of dinner laid out hastily on the kitchen table, the faraway groan of the elevator shuttling up and down the length of the building. I looked at the delicate face opposite mine. I cupped her chin, leaned in, and kissed her.

I checked myself in the mirror. My face looked flushed, hair askew, breath heavy; irregular. I closed my eyes as I turned open the tap and splashed the cold water that poured out over my face.    

I felt the icy water hit my skin. I felt the droplets racing down my face.  

I felt his touch burn my skin. I felt his heavy breath on my neck. 

But that was all I felt. 

With my eyes still closed, I shut the tap, took a deep breath in, fought the images of what just happened from my head and opened my eyes languidly. I chuckled to myself for no particular reason. I felt a senseless urge to laugh out loud build up inside me. The impulse suddenly became paramount. I doubled over, sat on the washroom floor and shook in silent laughter. 

 It's over, it's all over. There's nothing left. Tonight, I had you, you had me but what did we really give each other? For the longest time I thought I loved you. But do I? I got up, still hiccupping silent bursts of laughter. I read the names of the shampoos lying on the counter by the wash basin as I toweled my hands dry. Right before exiting, I glanced at the mirror again, frowned at a developing redness on my neck.  Should've been more careful, I thought while my trembling fingers lightly lingered over the bruise under my ear. 

Quietly, I stepped out of his washroom, made sure he was still in the kitchen, slung my bag over my shoulder and slipped out of his house soundlessly.   

She left. 

I heard her open the washroom door and slip out. I heard the main door in the hall slide shut.

Why didn't I stop her?

I looked down at the two (now) useless cups of coffee I was in the process of making. I poured one down the drain and picked the other one up. Her cup. Sipping the concoction I walked up to the window overlooking the road, and saw her exiting the building premises. My head began to hurt. I slumped down on a nearby chair and buried my head in my hands. 

We'll figure this out later.   

All we had is over. 

And all that was left was a semicircle of teeth-marks on a honey colored neck.

The Girl With No Name

There was this girl last year, she always dressed in black and had the deepest eyes. She seemed to have no friends, she was always walking alone. But she had this amazing sense of...self, I guess. She knew who she was and she didn't care what anyone thought of her. I always wanted to talk to her and then one day she was gone. And so was my chance to ever get to know who she really was.

*

Once there was a girl who kind of liked someone. And he liked her back. Then they got scared. Fear changes everything.

*

When everything ended there was a girl left alone, picking up the pieces. In the picture, you can’t see her face because she's got her head down. There is a storm brewing somewhere in the distance, but in the horizon the sun is still shining.

*

There was a girl who was anchored to something once, but she never wanted to be anchored to someone. Maybe that made her driftwood but maybe it made her, her own person.

*

Today she saw all these business men crossing the street at lunch. They all had the same suits on and the same faces on. She just kept thinking about what they were like when they were younger. Were their faces always this serious?

*

She's different. Late at night, when the phone has stopped ringing, the cars have stopped driving by outside, that's when she feels best. It's when she feels most like herself inside her head.

*

There was once a girl who wondered why thinking you've lost someone makes you realize you love them. Decisions made for the wrong reasons don't last. One can't let impulse, jealousy, override reason.
But then again, what does reason have to do with love?



(This is incomplete, because her story is. Sorry.)

Begin the Beginning.

“So tell me your story.”
“My story?” I asked, playing dumb.
“Yes. And this time tell me the truth. Why did you really push everyone away? Why did you really become like this?”

I looked at my drink blankly.
My mind fumbled for the right words while I pretended to idly look at the condensed water droplets slide down the smooth surface of the glass that held my soda. I traced the slithering rivulets with my finger. 

He looked at me intently.

I set the glass aside and looked into his eyes. Brown. Like limpid pools of molten chocolate.
I remembered telling him that once. Almost a lifetime ago.
But today there was something old and haunted in them. Something knowing. Something wise.
 I looked away, suddenly shy and eager to unload my story onto him.
“Are you sure you really want to know?”
“More than anything.” He reached out and took my hand in his.
I looked up at him, surprised.  Then I smiled sadly. And began.
I spoke haltingly at first. Then my words came faster and faster, I couldn't stop.


“Life changed, after you left. I wasn’t the same. Nothing around me was.
Over the months after you left I made myself strong in such a way that my walls were impenetrable. I didn’t let anyone get to me. Or through me.
I stopped talking to people who wanted to help. I pushed everyone away.
You were the only person I wanted. But you weren't there.
And soon enough I realized I wasn’t left with anybody.
Every time I looked in the mirror, I knew I was looking at someone who wasn’t sure she deserved to be loved at all.
I had no friends. Maybe I never had any in the first place.”

 “Your definition of a friendship is very different from mine, Tofu”, he interrupted.
I smiled. We both knew that only too well.

“I couldn't find the motivation to search for people I could invest my trust in. Besides, that would be incredibly absurd, wouldn't it? Making new friends only to burden them with stories?
The word 'Relationships' had begun to scare me.
And that's when I realized I'm scared of attachments. Because I believe that every attachment that I have will finally break my heart or leave me.”

“But what happened, Tofu? You were one of the strongest people I knew. You were MY strength. You should have just gone back. They're your friends. They would have understood, I'm sure.”

I laughed out loud. “What happened? Really? I can't believe you're asking me that.”

“Well, I am. Tell me.”

“You.” I said quietly. “You happened.”
“I got scared of losing people after I lost you. I don't have any friends, because I'm scared of losing them. I live in the perpetual fear of breaking ties with the people I love.
I know I'm the one who shut everyone out, but the funny thing is as much as I know how to say sorry, I can’t get myself to say sorry.
As much I love hugging people, I can’t hug old friends and ask them to come back to me.”
 
“Why? Why is it so hard?” He looked desperate to know. Like a little child craving a piece of candy.
But his ignorance exasperated me.

“Because I couldn’t do it with you.” I answered simply.
“I hugged you and I begged you to come back to me, but you didn't.
You went away and with you, you had my heart aching on a leash, bumping behind you, lurching over leaves and small stones. Bruised and almost broken.
I can’t do it anymore. I've lost that quality; I've lost the ability to call people back.” 
I slumped back into my seat, sated and exhausted. 

For a long time neither of us said anything.

The many voices in the cafe began to swim into focus. Some in slow moving conversation, some raised in argument. The place suddenly seemed small and dark.

“You know, sometimes you have to be apart from people you love, but that doesn't make you love them any less. Sometimes you love them more.” he said carefully.

I processed what he said. 
I felt empty, but it wasn't unpleasant. It was a nice feeling. A feeling of buoyancy. As if I was finally ready to start again, to begin filling myself with good things. Things that were of my own choosing this time. 
I looked at him and laughed. A happy laugh. He joined in.

“I love you”, said he, in he midst of peals of laughter.
“I love you too.” I echoed woodenly, wondering if I really meant what I said. 

Then I laughed some more.

I like you so much better when you're naked.

Say what you have to say.

The number one rule about getting into a relationship with someone is giving them their due respect. Respect (and expect) their loyalty, respect their boundaries, respect their opinions and respect their decisions.
Keep your hands clean, your thoughts cleaner, and your wounds covered.
The second rule of a relationship is when you start finding rule number one, too restrictive (and being as nosy as we are, we are bound to), stop right there. Because while loyalties and respect are right in their own places. I have a massive issue with prolonged barriers people set up claiming to shield themselves from emotional blows aimed at them in their vulnerable state.
In my opinion, setting up defenses, building boundaries and  erecting walls around your head to filter people out is a bullshit idea. Yes, BULLSHIT.
Because sometimes your partner needs you to intervene and save them before they're too far gone. Whether they know it or not.
It feels cruel and against common sense at first, but it works.
Sure, you could always argue that after bringing your guard down something might whirl in to hurt you, leave you wounded and scarred all over again but hey, that's that whole point of life. You learn. You get wiser. And you learn to fend for yourself and not repeat your mistakes.
You can't keep burying things inside, you cant keep running from the world and building walls to keep people out. Unless of course you want to wind up alone, old, in a room full of cats. Then, yeah. Go ahead and knock yourself out.
Picture a garden. Lush. Green. Now, picture your mind as that garden- Full of whispers and the scurry of ghosts. Trecherous vines glisten with sparkling dew drops as they curl themselves around you with invisible cords, cutting into your skin and sucking the trust out of you. On the outskirts ancient walls, streaked with moss, buldging with supressed memories like a dam nudging you impatiently, waiting for your permission to burst.
Isn't it easier to just let yourself flow? To not worry about the consequences of evrey little action you make? To not disect every situation and contemplate on its inevitable results?
To unentangle yourself from that choking vine?

Strip off your insecurities.Shed your fierce defenses. Stay emotionally naked, not with everyone, but with people you trust.
You're so much more attractive that way.

The healing process begins with simple words, an effort, the tearing down of long guarded walls. You have to expose every little shadow of negativity to a world of probabilities and fresh beginnings.
You risk exposure for the sake of healing, and when it's over, once the long caged demons have been freed, trust me love, you'll thank me.

- A rather pissed off Tangledtofu.