My heart’s greatest desires are confined to one day and someday there is so much for me to offer yet you remain stuck at my shores
So I hope that one day you’ll meet me in my depths embrace me like I dreamt you would Unafraid of the immensity
I’ve been seeking words for so long it’s almost as if I’ve lived an infinity trying to express myself, someday I will Unshackled that day, I will rage like the sea
My heart’s greatest fear is that one day Time will stop ticking, stop running I might crumple beneath the pain What then of my one day and someday?
Maybe today is all I have, all we have Today is one day. Today is someday. Will I have the courage to live it?
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Hello dear reader, I don’t know how many of you are reading this. I used to have a very loyal group of people who always supported me with my writing. I have been inactive for so long, I’m afraid you might all have forgotten me. Med school has been tiring and trying, but i have been writing. And i think I’ll try to be more loyal to this blog from now on.
All things that begin must come to an inevitable end. A cry of distress, in an unfamiliar world and hence begins life.
Some live for a 100 years without being alive for even a second of it. We are our own undoing. Blessing or tragedy?
Stop and smell the roses, they say. Maybe I should become that rose and carry that beauty within me.
I wish to forge my own path. Untethered, free and wild. Liberated from this worldly cage, and when Death finally finds me may it find me alive.
The other day, I came across an African proverb : “When death comes to find you, may it find you alive.”
We spend a lot of our lives being held back by trying to become what we think others expect us to be. We let ourselves be trapped in a cage.
Our soul knows what it wants. At this very moment, it’s speaking to you. Listen. Then go do it, grab it, live it.
Something went wrong with my WP a few days ago, and this got posted before I was done editing it. I removed it as soon as it happened, but a few of you had already read it and left comments. I’m sorry I had to delete that post because it just wasn’t ready. This is the final and improved version!
1. Life existed, but was I living it? My world came to a standstill, but time kept ticking. Such was quarantine.
2. Neigbours waved from the abode of their patios. Quarantine had coerced the otherwise estranged humanity to connect and join forces.
3. Calloused fingers ached from typing night and day, night and day. Life Goal: Write a book. Quarantine made it possible.
4. “I love you,” she whispered to the camera, he smiled at the screen. Quarantined miles apart, their hearts beat together.
This is in response to the Twenty Word Tuesday organised by Bulbul’s Bubble (https://wp.me/pbcaAs-wd). I somehow ended up writing 4 different pieces.
This week the prompt was – Quarantine
I wanted to try and highlight some positivity that arose from the confinement and isolation, as well as the adversity and heartbreak. I hope I was able to do justice!
A bonfire, a friendship and a paradox. Three unrelated entities that came together. This is a story of how.
Completely different yet somehow bizarrely functional, such was our connection.
This is how I met The Boy Who Loves Bonfires.
Click.Tap.Click.Tap.Click.Tap. I had come up with a rhythm to which I bobbed my head, sitting impatiently. It was yet another day in a class I wasn’t very fond of. Don’t get me wrong, I was great at the subject.The class, however,was a borefest.
There is always that one class where no one pays attention. Everyone is either dozing off or daydreaming. The latter is more my thing.
The seat next to me was unoccupied…until, it just wasn’t. My daydream came crashing down when I heard the sound of metal screeching as the seat next to me was pulled backward.
Within seconds, a complete stranger who I had occasionally seen in the hallways, sat next to me.
That is probably the most boring and cliched starting to what became one the most beautiful friendships of my life.
While I admit that the beginning was awkward and rocky, a few months later we were inseparable.
“The Boy Who Loves Bonfires,” such was his epithet.
Bonfires? I mean what’s so out of the blue about bonfires?
Fire. An element of life, a symbol of damnation, a source of energy, the hallmark for death. A purifier and a destroyer.
A paradox.
In the last sacrament of life in many cultures, corpses are burnt. Day after day, countless people die, yet the living wish to live forever.
The bodies of the dead are burned as they depart on a journey to whatever lies in the afterlife. Smoke stacks choke the skies.
The holy element of fire is hence linked to the end of a loved one’s journey amongst the living.
Fire, then becomes eerie and sinister to many people.
While my friend envisaged a starry night, sitting across a bonfire, with blankets and marshmallows.
The heat from the fire soothing the frigid air and the shivering toes. Consuming, devouring, annihilating the wood in order to stay alive.
Orange flames cackling while they dance, throwing vivid shadows and shapes under the dark of the night.
Its reflections in the eyes of the people gathered around, whispering secrets as its warmth caresses each soul.
Burning with the valiant desire to breathe. It reminded him of the beauty of being alive, each day.
“We can complain that rose bushes have thorns, or rejoice that thorns have roses,” while I had heard this many times, The Boy Who Loves Bonfires brought it to life and made me live it.
The Boy Who Loves Bonfires taught me a way of life.
I like to think of fire as the calm before a storm. Sometimes, the storm strikes and there is death, devastation, and loss to deal with. Sometimes, the storm passes over. It doesn’t strike. On those days, there is relief, warmth, calm and joy that the fire itself spreads.
I wonder sometimes, does fire know of its power? To create and destroy. Or does it remain an oblivious paradoxical element.
A paradox contradicts itself. It has various faces to it. The one we choose to focus on arbitrates much of our lives.
This I learned from him.
Who would have thought that a friendship that began in the dullest possible way would spark a fire. Dazzling and alive.