Scars.

They caught a man harassing a woman on the street.
But little do they know, the verbal harassment he weighs on her, daily.

They found a girl, brutally raped lying in an abandoned house somewhere in a deserted city.
Little do they know his brutal insults mentally strip her naked, daily.

When she decides to fight back, the world judges her.
When she doesnt, the world judges her.

Screams heard from within the house, paint her as the culprit while he comes out, helpless and taken as the victim.
They look at him with pity, while their eyes follow her path, with thinly disguised malignity...
...But little do they know, her shouts of protest, are the result of his cruel words breaking her spirit, thwarting her mind, leaving her uncomfortable in her own skin.

Words, they say make a person.
Words, they say break them too.

What however, of the words that do neither the former nor the latter, but instead leave a being dangling, suffering..
...looking...
...grasping...
for little hopeless shreds of hope.

He breaks her, hurts her, cuts her up with words sharper than knives, leaving her body lifeless and sore.
And she...she gives in to this poison that she knows will make death inevitable but very very painfully slow.

While the world convicts a man for wounding a woman physically for everyone to know.

The firebreather that once stole her heart, damages her mentally with words...
...leaving scars that will never show.

Me, Myself and Time.

2011. December. Winter had just begun to set in. Slowly but surely the iciness was starting to creep into the wind. But the chill in my heart had already settled in way before the weather. I walked home from college, despite the cold, hoping to calm my mind. The slow pace I was taking along the Carter Road boardwalk, breathing in the air would, I assumed, help clear my head. At 16, I was battling the very problem that every girl my age encounters - boyfriend drama. Except it was a lot more complicated than just wondering whether he thought I was pretty enough for him or not.
Mum broke the news to me that morning. I was packing my bag getting ready for college, when she excitedly came up to me and handed me an envelope. I looked at her quizzically wondering why she was grinning so widely. Upon opening the envelope only did I realize.I felt a flutter of excitement for a second as I read how the US Government had decided to grant us permanent residency. But almost immediately my heart sank as an epiphany dawned and all but one thing evaporated from my brain.
What about us?

A LIST OF THINGS MY BEST FRIEND AND I GET ALONG ON:
Coca-cola
John Mayer
The Beatles
Castle
Chinese
Mc.Donalds
Pizza
Playing the fool
Falling in Love
Falling out of Love
Harry Potter
Books
Blogs
Tumblr
High Heels
Sweat Pants
Singing
FanFiction
Ian Somerhalder
Youtube
Coldplay
Imagine Dragons

It's a Wednesday afternoon, in March 2013, when I get the news. Bored out of my mind from studying for the paper of a subject I don’t really like, I jump at the first ring of my phone hoping it is some kind of distraction. The distraction comes in the form of a suicide. One of my classmates, a childhood friend, has hung herself. My mind races, as everything within me suddenly goes numb. Distinctively I can hear my mother come in and ask me what the matter is. When I don’t respond, but instead fall to my knees, she panics and calls my father. I can feel hands around me, shaking me. As I clutch my stomach I look up at her and open my mouth to tell her what the problem is. All I can manage however, is a blood curdling scream.

THINGS PEOPLE HAVE SAID TO ME THAT I CAN NEVER FORGET:
Hi.
SHUT UP.
I don’t love you.
You have such pretty eyes.
What a beautiful voice!
You probably didn’t know, but I had a huge crush on you back then. Still do.
I hate you.
You’re the best thing that’s ever happened to me, and you’re mine.
WHY ARE YOU SO LOUD?!!
You’re very hyperactive.
You’re short.
I miss you
You’re too much drama
You’re just not good enough.
Always
I love you. Always have. Always will.

2026. I sit on the steps of the church. We do not have spring in India, but it is an equally beautiful day. The sun has chosen to shine through bits and pieces of the clouds passing by instead of coming out in full swing. There are children in the courtyard playing a game called Catch and Go Cook, not cook in the literal sense, of course. At 6 years old, my little girl is just as lively as I was at her age. She’s got Will’s smile, but her eyes, hazel melting into chocolate brown, are wide and mischievous- a trait I was fondly known for all my life. I can hear her screams and the giggles that carry back to me as I sit in quiet thought. Thoughts of how a 6 year old me would play in that very courtyard. Of hanging around with a group of close friends after choir rehearsal or Sunday mass. Of secret hideouts and competitions in the adjoining school auditorium. Of romantic little rendezvous’ on those very steps or in the classrooms. Of jumping about in the hallways or learning about God in Sunday School.
Dreams...
Memories...
Hopes...
Desires...
Sitting in the church pews and looking for strength when all seemed lost. It has been 12 years since I last came home. I expected difference and change. Instead everything seems just the way it was when I left. The memories come- straight and fast- as I move to sit on that corner pew, the one I almost always associated with his presence. It amazes me that a part of my mind remembers him still. The way he walked, the square of his shoulders, the tangled mess in the front that was his hair. His eyes. The love, the laughter, the hurt, the passion, the anger, the indifference in them. And that guitar on his back. So used to him I was, that despite the distance, all these years, I have every inch, every feature of his face commited to memory.

Suddenly I’m 15 again with not a care in the world. All that matters is that boy. That boy and the emotions he could awaken within me.

Wish I, I Wished.

Wish I'd eaten something for breakfast this morning.
Wish I'd left a minute earlier and gotten the train I just missed.
Wish I hadn't accidentally missed my station because I was too sleepy to pay attention.
Speaking of which,
Wish I'd slept early last night.

Wish I'd bought that Tuna sandwich.
Wish I'd picked up that extra complimentary pair of free headphones.
Wish I hadn't left an important valuable on that counter, absentmindedly.

Wish I'd paid more attention...
..to everyone and everything.
Wish I'd been smarter, wiser.
Wish I hadn't worn my heart on my sleeve.
And to the advice that told me to stay away and run as fast as I possibly could, wish I'd paid more heed.

Wish I didn't know...
Didnt know then, didnt know now.
Wish I hadn't seen the way you looked at me...
Looked at me then, looked at me now.
Wish I hadn't fought for the love I believed I wanted
But rather lived with the love I knew I had.

Wish I stood my ground for what truly...truly mattered.
Wish I hadn't seen the side of you, or me, that almost completely broke me.
Almost.
Wish I didnt know all the things I know about you...
...like a keeper to your Fidelius Charm.
Because it makes me sick to my stomach to know now, that I'm not the only one.

Wish I could still have it in me, to love you the way I did.
But the answer, after months and months of searching, is that I dont.
I Don't Love You Anymore.
And I wish, every single day, that I could just pluck up the courage to let you know.

So many wishes, all left unsaid.
All left undone.

The Diary Of An Abandoned Heart.

"You're the best things that's happened to me in all my years on this earth" is what I would've said to him, had I gotten the opportunity. But no. There were no explanations or words of depart. He left without giving me a chance to even say goodbye.

Every morning, its the same sinking feeling as I open my eyes to the harsh stillness that is his side of the bed. I still haven't quite gotten used to waking up without him...
...How he'd tell me I was the prettiest in the morning.
Sheets that usually are a bundle of tangled linen from his tossing and turning all night, remain neatly folded and untouched. The eerieness of it unsettles me. I can still smell his scent all around me, on the bed, on my clothes, my body. Or maybe its all just in my head.

I go through the day. Quietly and subtly. A song reminds me of him as it blares on the radio and appeals to listeners all around. But not me, no. For me its a bittersweet symphony. For me, I'm transported back to what seems like ages ago. To a conversation..
To a corridor...
To a beautiful blue eyed boy...
As I go through the day, I pass the town square, the park where we used to meet. I pass the chapel on the corner, while The bells chime over and over again as if to say, "He's here. He always will be."
But it doesn't feel that way.

My loved ones are watching me, cautiously. Waiting for me to break or implode with the sadness and pain his departure has caused. I tell them I'm fine. It is a lie, told ofcourse in the hopes that one day ill believe it myself.
They're waiting to catch me if I fall but the truth is, I've been falling ever since that fateful day.
Falling into a bottomless pit. Slowly getting sucked into oblivion...
And there's nothing they, or I can do about it.

The nights are the worst. Its when the nightmares come. He'd always have some kind of music playing, pulling me into his arms and twirling me around the hall when we got home. Now all that's left is a cold and empty space. Just like the one im in within my body.
I go to bed and lay there for hours, hoping that at any minute Il wake up from this nightmare and he'll comfort me back to sleep. But it only worsens as I close my eyes and let all of his haunting memories take over me...
Slowly...but surely.

Truth is, I haven't been the same since the day he walked. And it shows through slight cracks in the facade I put on to convince the world im okay.
Truth is, I don't think I'll ever recover from this loss, this abandonment. With him gone, the ground has slipped from under my feet. And I've been running ever since.
Truth is, this nightmare will never end, I know. But there's nothing I can do about it.


Another day. Open my eyes. Repeat.

Home.

Resurrection Ascension Church, Woodhaven Boulevard- Queens.

I sit on the third to last pew on the right side of the church.  Sunlight streams through the tainted windows that depict various scenes and different incidents from the Bible.  The 11.00 mass has just ended.  The crowd slowly makes its way to the door.  Some stop to greet people they know.  Some try to keep up with their four and six year olds as they run along the benches and down the aisles. Others converse with the pastor who has just celebrated the Eucharist.  The sacristan clears the altar.  He puts the chalice in a rectangular little box with a cross on it, and puts the Eucharist in the tabernacle set in the Blessed Sacrament behind the altar.  The cross on the left is covered as a reverence, and the coming of Easter.  A little ahead of me, sits a man probably in his late 40s.  He doesn't seem to move, or want to make his way to the door.  On my left, in the center of the church, or at least somewhat in the center, sits a Baptismal fount.  It is a circular basin that overflows water into a pool at the base.  I was told that people, who wished to convert to Christianity, were dipped into the water and baptized as Jesus was, at the river Jordan all those lifetimes ago.  The basin is used for newborns, while the Easter candle which bears the symbols of The Alpha and Omega – The Beginning and The End, stands tall at the side of the basin waiting to be lit during the Easter Vigil.    

I’m not that religious, really.  Do I believe there is a god?  Yes.  Do I believe that everyone should believe the same?  No.  For me, coming for Sunday mass has become more of an obligation rather than keeping the Sabbath Day holy.  I look on at the pastor, as he greets people, and imagine the things transpiring between the two parties.  Some ask for his blessings and to intercede their prayers, while others tell him of marvels that have occurred in the name of the Almighty Father.  No, I’m not religious.  Nevertheless, it doesn’t mean I don’t have FAITH.

May, will mark a year since I first set foot into this country.  In these past months, I have had ups and I have had downs.  Times when I have wished for nothing more than to go home.  Back to where I came from.  Back to the known and the familiar.  Back to where my life meant something and my dreams were just dreams.  Back to the comfortable little bubble that I built my whole world in.  I have had moments when I have felt lost and defeated.  Let down and thrown off guard by that cruel visitor called Change.  And at that time when nothing seemed easy and everything seemed lost, that time when everything around me felt strange and alien, this church, this 3rd to last pew on the right hand side is what reminded me of home.  Of the all the times I spent at the back of that church back in India, and had screaming matches with God.  (Well, technically I was screaming in my head because we were supposed to observe silence.)  It reminded me, of the days I sat and cried through my first heartbreak and begged Him to JUST MAKE THE PAIN STOP.  The times of immense joy that I shared with him in the form of swigs of wine sneaked from the Sacristy.  This church reminded me that no matter how lost I am, or however defeated I feel, I could always come home.  To Him.  Because he was home.  And ALWAYS would be.  Right in the heart of the unknown and the unfamiliar.

The man sitting ahead of me still hasn’t moved.  Maybe, like me, it isn’t only mass that confines him to the four walls of this place.

Things she said...

"I'm lost." she said.
"I can't do this anymore." she said.
"It's too much." she said.
"I'm a burden" she said.

"I've got nothing" she said.
"I am nothing" she said.  
"I will always be nothing" she said.
"I'm not capable" she said.
"It's too painful" she said.

"I'm not strong enough" she said
"I'm not good enough" she said.
"I'm not worthy enough" she said.
"It's too much to bear" she said.

"I'm happy" she said.
"I'm okay" she said.
"I'm better" said.
"I'll be fine" she said.
 
"This is it" she said.
"No more hurt" she said.
"I'll be free" she said.
"It's over" she said.

"Goodbye, pain" she said.
"Hello, death" she said.

The Last Song.

The last song we sang was a song of hate. A song that I'd gotten so used to hearing. So much so, that you could say I'd even begun to love it...
The masochist that I am, I'd even come to enjoy it...
But there was only so much even a masochistic being like me could endure.
It was the final hurtful notes I would encounter at your hands.
The last song we sang was one of insults. Where you ran me down in the only way, the only language you knew I'd understand.
The only thing that you knew would hit home...
For months I listened to you compose ballads about how I was never good enough. How despite how many times you said it, eventually, I was never the girl you loved.
It never really settled in, even now sometimes, I go back, play the song, listen to the tune and wonder why?
But I realize that deep down I always knew this song- OUR song- would be over...way before its end was nigh.
And all those months I believed you... Just like I'd believed you whenever after any song, your eyes would meet mine. I had a hard time accepting, what everyone else around me already saw, I had a hard time accepting that you couldn't be anything else, but right.
If I could now, I swear I would go back in time and listen to my own subconscious subtle song of advice.
So this last song... The one that you filled with hatred and painful words, was a song of acceptance. A song that cracked through my dark hole and finally gave me a glimpse of light.

A light, a song, a melody that will now forever be MINE.