I’ll give you all my words if you take them
I know, how circumstantial and ordinary is the title of this post. Almost a plea to my readership. I was not like this. It took me six months to pick up some words again.
I was proud, I would save the joy of fitting a title at the last, after I’d finished telling the story, a finesse, my Gordon Ramsay salt moment. Today, I am unable to contrive my thoughts in a readable form. I read and re-read my past stories, poetry, prose and comics, I should’ve been moved by them but I let them pass through me. “I want to write something new”, this thought has muddled the creases on my forehead in the past month. Struggles with reading are far from over, but I have managed to finish reading at least one book a month this year. Now, I struggle with writing.
Poetry eludes me, I am determined to find the third sentence of all my unfinished poems, their drafts being mostly in my head. The title is one such sentence — I’ll give you all my words if you take them, and then nothing would be left to say. Its almost funny. Words did abandon me. I can’t think of a better sentence that would make the condition more poignant.
I figure it would come to me, in time. Without delving into more self loathing for not finding the right lines to write, I’ll write the ones which are here, not my best ones but bear with me.
My city is full of flowers these days, too many actually. Everywhere I look there is a beautiful tree trying to get attention from the bees. Its hard to have a serious thought beyond these appearances. I take my child like sense of self for liking the colour from one part of the city to the other. Pandemic seems to be receding from the shores, beaches are bright and sunny again. Last week, my blood alcohol rose to an alarming level, and I, being who I am ignored it believing that I can take it.
Nope. Couldn’t take it, crashed on the fifth day.
Rebooted, and drank gallons of water like a sensible adult. Imagining the water diluting the toxicity of my blood with every sip, I walked slowly that day, ate slowly, breathed slowly like living in the 50s black and white era, only flowers with visible colours. Alcohol was merely one of the things I was overexposed to. There were people, chairs, and screens, meetings, whiteboards, and sounds. There was social anxiety, and restlessness, and hence the urge to subsidise them with inebriation. I was thoughtless for several hours, did everything I could to make it look sophisticated. Weekend dawned and suddenly all that was behind me. I looked forward to nothing, even though I said it. That auto ride back home with music filling my ears was almost like a reward for putting up with the world for a total of seven days. I am even smirking right now. Watched the French Dispatch today, didn’t know it was on Hotstar. I feel revived, my colour restoring, my body thanking me for the rest I have given to it and my mind, well, let’s just say, is still wrapping itself in cushions of beautiful fictions.
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Or not. That’s also fine.
