Between the lines: Personal Essays

the loneliness of being an intellectual omnivore

Anwesha — Sun, 09 Aug 2026 19:34:16 GMT

I don’t think we talk enough about the loneliness that comes with being an intellectual omnivore [as lightgraypaint rightfully termed it]. Yes, we love people who can talk about art, philosophy, supernovae, Trump, and grocery pricing in the same breath without any of it feeling awkward, but it is lonely. It is so uncommon that it becomes exhausting to socialise. There is this comfort in solitude that comes with knowing too much. In knowing that no one sees the world like you. And you have to pretend constantly. Dumb down your dumb questions and thoughts just to fit in, to seem normal. This is not about being so intelligent that you feel like an Einstein, lmao- No. It’s about curiosity and the ability to feel so much.

How do you engage in a conversation about a movie that made you write an entire essay while the others discuss how a better actor could’ve played the role? How do you talk about a book knowing that they haven’t read it and if they have, they didn’t annotate and mark it like crazy, like you? How do you switch from talking about consciousness to panpsychism to Matrix Resurrections and tell them it’s all interconnected when for them they’re all different realms altogether? How do you just act normal when every word, every piece of art evokes so much emotion that it gets overwhelming? How do you explain how difficult it is to make small talk without appearing crazy or overbearing or borderline emotional-whore-psychotic? How do you even tone it down when you don’t think linearly or even logarithmically for that matter? When it feels like you experience everything exponentially. Because speaking is so much different than writing. It doesn’t give you time to assemble your thoughts before blurting. How do I hide into a mould without metaphors and poems lacing my thoughts? And over time I’ve begun to realise I have indeed become a ‘what you would call a boring person’. Not that I take offence at it. But I can finally understand why all those years I’ve been called ‘an old soul’, ‘you talk like a grandma’, ‘you read before you sleep and then wake up and read. Is it not boring?’, ‘What are you even doing when not watching a video essay or reading a book or just writing something?’ It feels like I carry universes in my brain that don’t compartmentalise the way books on a shelf do. No. They keep blurring into one another, and when I find an overlap, I cannot remove it.

It is not a colloid. It is a proper dissolved solute in the solvent—a perfect solution. I mean, look at me; I can’t even detach science from metaphors. For instance, once I realised Shatter Me is more political than bookstagram makes it look like, there was no going back. Even as I read other fantasy novels, ‘Fourth Wing’ as of now, I see that perspective. I see that anarchism and rebellion coming even though I am just three hundred pages into it. And surprisingly, it is not exhausting. It just is. It is exciting. It is what it is. It feels so- idk, so me.

I don’t think I’ve ever been more me than this phase of my life. For a long time, the idea of being alone had scared me, but I am just realising I have always been alone. Alone in my thoughts, in how I think, in how I process things. I used to think if I could talk with someone about all these things it would keep me sane, but I actually never had that person. They talked to me because it was I who was excited. They talked to me about politics because it was I who initiated that conversation. They talked to me about science because I couldn’t help but bring it up all the time. They talked to me because they cared for me, not because they cared for the conversation. And as flattering and beautiful as it sounds, I don’t want that. I want them to have that same urge to talk about it even if it’s not me, but maybe enjoy it a little more if it’s me. ~~I want a mind that defies Newton’s Laws and is constantly in motion.~~ I want a mind that is as insane and as curious and as overwhelming. I’ve been the enzyme that initiated all those conversations, and I deluded myself into thinking maybe we were equal participants. And sometimes it’s sad.

What if they didn’t want to engage with it but they had to? What if it was overbearing for them? What if they thought my reasoning and arguments weren’t landing at all and I was crazy?

between her kitchen and my keyboard

Anwesha — Sat, 20 Jun 2026 13:30:11 GMT

~~You see I have grown up in a city~~.

No wait, I’ll rephrase it.

I have had the privilege to grow up in a city. I see grief through the glass panes of my home. A sight so clear, light and blue. But, my grandmother’s grief is buried between the pleats of her sari. She saw her grief from inside the veil of her saree. Blurred, tainted, full of a red hue. The only time I’ve seen her weep is when she sees me staring at my grief from the panes of the windows that caged me/ caged us. She seals hers in the pickles she makes, to make me happy. She wraps her struggles in the pitha that I love so much. She finds her peace in pakhala, so I can find my joy in these fancy pizzas, she doesn’t quite understand. She speaks the language of selfless love, so I can choose to be selfish. She says how one day she wants me to do a job/ I wonder when did she understand my dialect so well when I failed to understand hers for so long.

I remember visiting my grandma a few days back and not being able to find a towel. Only to dab my face with the pallu of her saree. And on the days when I miss her a little too much/ we live in the same city/ we live in different worlds/ I imagine the smell of her love in the whiffs of my handkerchief. I wish we never had to live apart/ but when have I understood love if not in the presence of distance? She still offers the morsels of my grief to the pigeons in the day. And the pallu of her saree still brushes the wounds of the night away. I speak in English to paint my scars in yellow but how foolish of me to think grief needed the grandiosity of verse. As the tears smear the keyboard keys with my melancholy, I wonder if I couldn’t see hers cause she soaked them in the dough. On nights when I weep my failure, I think of her/ I wonder if she weeped a world where she never had to marry/ How dare she dream of something other than her family’s happiness?

They say women have gone too far but I am still the Matryoshka doll. I am the bigger doll that screams privilege, but she is the smaller one that stood tall for long enough for me to spread my wings. For someone who doesn’t like hugs so much, I see how she makes an exception for me, on the nights I sob. I wish I spoke a language in which she felt heard for the older I grow, I realise the past I weep for, is the past of her. As I write and write, am I really so different from her? She cooks to prevent thinking, I write to make sense of the grief that is me and her. Her chapped feet tell the story of the abuse we all put her through. Look at me trying to seek justice in telling a story that’s hers. If only I learnt to find her in the spices of her love, before I ventured into the stories of the women I have never met. She still cooks to hide the flavors of her abuse. I still write to shame the guilt I hold in all my muse. As the same inheritance still sweeps my reflections of this epiphany, I look for scrambles of forgiveness in the softness of her pallu.

Until the next one,

Love, xoxo.

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death: a lover

Anwesha — Wed, 10 Jun 2026 18:40:33 GMT

Death.

Something I think of too often now. How it would be a hug, a long hug where it wouldn’t release me as long as I cling onto it. A lover’s caress. A lullaby my mother never had time to sing to me. A pat in the head, my father never gave. A comfortable home- where you don’t expect the shoe to drop, where you don’t have to think twice before deciding what to wear, where you can dance and sing without a thought, where love comes to you naturally- never shoved down your throat. Death stopped being scary a long time ago. Now it’s a destination I look forward to. With longing. With pleading doe eyes. With everything I have. With desperation, I’ve never known.

Death is a prayer- a hymn I offer to God everyday- hoping one day he will finally listen. It is an aftermath. It is the present. It is peaceful. It is everything life could never be- It is calm. It is an onslaught of solemnity. For my heart still believes, in death there would be sanctity. In death there would be no slut shaming. In death I wouldn’t be average- just another soul in god’s embrace or better in the lap of the devil. In death I wouldn’t have to fight, I’d just freefall. Into nothing. Because nothing has been everything for a while now.

In death there would be regret, there would be flowers, there would be guilt, there would be gratitude. What there would never be- is resent, unabashed hatred, loathing that crawls at skin and disgust that brings tears. And if it would still be- wouldn’t I already be dead to pay heed to that? Wouldn’t that be enough?

My prayers were finally answered.

For death has arrived. My knight in shining armor. The protector I’ve seeked in god. Who knew, this was God’s plan? And I am finally happy. The lover I’d yearned for is here, right before me. My eyes shimmy in tears as I breathe, breathe life in death. I soak in what I have always known- life was never worth living, now that I am finally holding hands with him. He looks into my eyes and I feel seen. I see pity. So much of it. I should loathe it, I have loathed it, but somehow the concern drapes the pupils of pity. He cares. I think he cares. He takes his hands and cups my face in his palms. The pad of his thumbs wiping away the tears, I didn’t realise had slipped. It is caress. All this love I’ve held in a closed box, is now overflowing. I am melting at the mere touch. Hating men all my life, only to melt at concern when traded with life. He doesn’t speak. Just wraps his arms around me and I’m heaving. Sobbing. Crying. Big, ugly tears.

He smells like home. Like all those men who shamed me. But it doesn’t stink; it is an apology wrapped in warmth. I think he listens to me. Someone who had been a silent witness, every time I thought nobody cared. Someone who kept me alive even if he wanted me close- because he wanted me to live. Someone who loved me, when I didn’t love myself. I think he sees my pain. I don’t know how long he holds me. Until I am exhausted. So much so that his arms are the only things holding me. He pulls me back and holds my hands, and we walk. We walk side by side.

He taps my shoulder, and poof, I’m a puddle, suddenly getting out of the muddle of thoughts. One of his hands rests across my hip as the other one links my fingers with his. Soon we’re dancing a waltz, I know no steps off. I am pretty sure I stepped on his foot more than once. But he doesn’t make a face. Can you believe that? He let it go, he didn’t scold me, and I didn’t flinch. We dance and dance until my feet give out.

I close my eyes, and I see myself. The little girl humming as grandma combs her fingers through my hair. I see the little girl sitting across from grandpa, listening to his tales. The little girl who rushed to the terrace to retrieve the pickles that had long gotten soaked in the warmth of the sun. The little girl who eagerly roaa ms off from room to room, seeing uncle and aunt arriving from the balcony. The little girl who loves walking bare feet on the mud as the wind silently fans her face. The little girl who dares to dream, to hope, to create something out of nothing. A reverent soliloquy that plays in loop.

We have now shifted. My face is in the crook of his neck, and I’m holding him so tight. Afraid he will abandon me like everyone else. Afraid he will scold me if I cry again. Afraid this moment will disappear if I am not careful. My legs don’t work anymore, but we still dance. We dance in the silence of all the forgotten versions of me. Versions that the world and I collectively decided not to remember.

In the tune of unheard prayers. No one sees us. They never did. But I keep swaying—because it’s the only way I’ve ever been held.

When I finally open my eyes, he is looking at me with an emotion I can’t quite pinpoint. I rest my head against his chest. My breath slows. His heartbeat doesn’t exist, and yet, it’s the only rhythm I hear. There’s no music now. Just quiet. The kind I begged for all my life. And I don’t wake up. I don’t want to.

I don’t look back. There was never anything worth looking back at. In death, there is him, and in him, there is peace- just as I had predicted. Maybe the apology god wanted to send me was him. He is perhaps the eulogy god wrote for me, for all the times he should’ve been there with me. And just maybe I am loved even if it is in death- in the quiet echo of a waltz, the world will never know about.

(Can’t believe it’s been like two years since this entry. Can’t believe I picked myself up after this. Sometimes I wish I could write like this again, but then I don’t know if I can ever survive it all over again.)

Until the next one,

Love xoxo.

as if I did mourn him.

Anwesha — Tue, 09 Jun 2026 08:05:22 GMT

I remember my answer to ‘If you could go back and change things would you?’ being ‘no’. But now as I write this, my answer is yes. There are so many things I wish I weaved poetry about right then and there. If only I preserved his memory better. If only I could feel it all over again. How I saw his messy hair and thought to myself if only I could run my fingers through them. How I thought the sun was speaking poetry to him when it flashed its bright yellow on his eyes, the chocolate brown turning hazel. I have never loved anything hazel until I saw it in his eyes. How his smile had this innocence that dug craters across his lips. How I could see the moon I wrote about for years, in him. How his tired body felt so safe, so perfect next to me. As if he were the earth and I the moon, perfectly free yet always having in him a home I forever would yearn to go back to. How his lashes fanned out across his cheekbones when he slept by. How I saw poems etched on his palms and the veins popping on the hands that told a story. They always told a story, all of him. How I wished I could hold him close by and he never even existed. He has only ever existed in my dreams. They say love is a black suit and a yellow dress but we have always existed in a black and white palette. I see him every time I sleep like an invisible string that ties us across parallel universes.

I yearn for him. I yearn to hold his face between my hands as he softens his gaze. I yearn to brush off his tears with my thumbs. I yearn to kiss him, soft and slow as he melts against my arms. I yearn for us to stay in that yellow haze forever. Like pieces of clay fitting perfectly against each other. I yearn for him in memories I haven’t lived but I have…. I have lived it so many times in my head, it could never not be real. I live in a quantum superposition where both my realities collide- for when have love and grief ever been untangled? I mourn him and I love him in the same breath because that is what poets do.

For someone who has never held hands, I wonder how I can feel so much as if our connection spans across universes. I feel like a fibonacci spiral that has a centre that never changes. I talk to people, pour my heart out and yet manage to end up in his eyes every time. As if all those Laplace transforms have been translating the dimension of time into frequency just for us to finally find the resonant one- so the poles finally become real and the undefined gains meaning. As if all those machines have been trying to teach me the language of phasors because they knew it was transcendental. Because it was the only way to represent something invisible. As if I loved Poisson’s distribution not because I loved mathematics but because somewhere I knew, maybe I could find the probability of these memories happening in this fixed interval. As if he has been the event horizon that leads to the blackhole of everything beautiful and safe. So, I keep reaching out to the equations for I hope to find him someday when I finally solve them, when I finally solve the mystery of him.

I see him in how the gravity grounds the earth. I see in him meteors that grace the sky with so much meaning. I see him, not in romance novels but in the ones that are tragically selfless. As if I lost him in another lifetime. There is this heartache of losing someone when I have never lost anyone like that. What then I do with this hollow of grief that stares at me like a complex number- as if it were imaginary, not real. What am I supposed to do with the memories that seem not to exist- so I unravel all science fiction, looking for this love in people who don’t seem to understand what I talk about. Because when I close my eyes I see a lifetime, I haven’t even lived. It is in the poems that I write that feel so real, as if I was in them. As if I held him. As if I did love him. More than anyone and anything. And I did let him go. As if I had to. As if I did mourn him.

It is all in the poems that I write, it will always be. And that will have to be enough, for now.

Until the next one,

Love, xoxo.

the secret lives of everyday objects

Anwesha — Mon, 08 Jun 2026 18:39:29 GMT

A forgotten umbrella was left in a café, waiting for its owner.

A plethora of words, a muse’s tragedy, to be spoken of at length, only to be replaced by another one someday. My ribs that have witnessed the brunt of unspoken words, now sigh in unison, in retrospect. For how could my canopy shield me from their riptides of emotions? Hence a witness, a charcoal that sucked in all the tides of ardour and passion they felt. Only to leave me stranded, as I bear the weight of fervor compliments and cheeky watery smiles. The phrases that were spoken under rain, around the lamp-posts and dark alleys, and the kisses they shared on a prospect of finding peace. For, I am a keeper of stolen moments, whispered sins and fleeting passion.

So here I wait patiently for my owner to claim me, if only I had a thimble like the one I offer to be. Sometimes though I wish, they were gentler with me, opening and closing me like I am a breathing entity. But how do I blame them, for they have never known, the trouper also craves for a companion that cares.

A book that has been read so many times it knows the reader better than they know themselves.

The crinkly pages, my extensions, have curled around the edges, slowly weathering with me, the hands that have turned these pages. The brown that covers my body is like body paint, I can never get rid of it. Stories I hold in pages and beyond its limits, the tales of the readers and their cosmic crises. As they scribble across the printed letters, their frustrations and insights, little do they know how I’ll always know them better. Looking for certainty in the ink spilled across my symbol laden body, little do the mortals know how I’m a being full of contradictions. A simple academic textbook, of Database and Management, I am, with-holding satirical amounts of data in the depths of its soul. How my reader likes their coffee hot and revenge served cold, little do they know how I know it all. They return to me again and again, hoping to one day etch my spine on their own. But I am the muddy clay, supposed to win their loyalty by absorbing every detail. The parody of humans, grieving loyalty, as they clutch me in desperation, cramming their gray matter with information. Only to abandon me the very next day, once the exams are over.

They think books are their best friends because they can’t speak, for if they could, we’d have more enemies. Tired of being embraced upon only when needed, if only I could walk, how I would abandon them in minutes. On days when I feel lonely, mostly every other weekend, in the chamber of my hushed knowledge, I look at the umbrella still waiting for its owner. One day it too will stop waiting, as it’ll forget their sighs and whispers. The umbrella too will earn its freedom and we’ll grieve together as sisters.

A cracked mirror that remembers every face it has reflected.

A bend in a road. A twist in fate. I pray for an escape in the ungodly hours so late. The men look at me and I see confidence in fat-ass and thick thighs. The women bleed mascara and disappointed sighs. I see the castration, I see the ministration. The cracked ends of my mutilated spine hold so much desperation. Misogyny I see, gender stereotypes they scream. Free me from this trap of suffering, free me from this nightmare being masqueraded like a dream. The tragedy of my fate to remember every face I’ve reflected. Only to bear witness to oppression, that has me infected. Please crack me whole, let the ultraviolence revolt. I choose redemption, I refuse to bolt. But I share their fate, the women I adore. Even broken I obey, singing praises I loathe. I look at the umbrella, I look at the book. A shared solace in finding the same devastating look. Am I next? Waiting to be forsaken like the rest? A silent shrine always meant to be toyed. For if I die, bargain it with shards at me, they deployed.

A pair of shoes that have traveled places their wearer has already forgotten.

The same fate, the inescapable misfortune, slowly fading into psychosis. If we disappeared tomorrow, would the world even notice? We have traveled the world, kissed the dust of the forgotten alleys, waded through the desert sand and tip-toed the edges of the lakes. If only my father hadn’t forgotten them like all his past mistakes. I have carried his weary feet to funerals and been witness to all the dirty dancing. We waded through monsoon puddles, soaked in the brine of unsteady promises. We have bathed in the dwindling yellow of the lamp-posts. And now I lie here ditched, courtesy of the forgotten lores.

But I miss my father, when he walks right past the door. I feel the echoes of his phantom soles weighing down my body. Does luxury too, know, longing? Missing the roads it once ruled, a stranded maserati? Slowly succumbing to the amnesia but I still have hopes. I know I’ll wait for him like Argos (blind and breathless) did for Odysseus. They say sadists leave crippled legacies behind. And Christ knows how I’m tempted to braid our regrets, longing and pain into their bones. I look for someone to blame, the cruel play of the reiterating destiny.
My twin whispers, “I rolled the dice and it landed on our father.”

And now we twins live in this gruesome epiphany.

Our reflection held hostage in the cracked mirror, a haunting reminder of the truth the umbrella and the book hold.

A lamp that only comes to life when nobody’s watching.

I am the string that ties the loose ends of the objects. For if Ed Sheeran’s ‘Kiss Me’ needed an MV, I’d have the best of it. So many gooey tales of ‘How I met your mother’, I hold. A hopeless romantic, I’ve become one that comes alive at midnight. For what is girlhood, if not dressing up to overthink and buying ginger and cinnamon? In all the melancholy, I see an invisible string that weaves love into innocence.

And yet I sigh in relief- thank god child marriage isn’t an option anymore. For some were shackles, now no longer. My desolate heart and its pining, waiting, hoping, praying for fate to thread its way into its life. I stitch my daydreams beneath the yellow glow of my existence—my own cinematic La La Land. What use is it to weep over the devil’s dice, my huge personal problems, while angels sip their vice? Beyond the solitary existence of the umbrella, book, mirror, and shoes, I choose to remain in my dream world.

Until the next one,

Love xoxo.

when gravity smiles.

Anwesha — Mon, 01 Jun 2026 16:05:27 GMT

What if I am just a pit after all? A black hole that envelops, engulfs anything that crosses the event horizon. A line of no return. I consume. I consume, I give, I eat myself up in the process, I keep fooling myself to believe this treadmill is life. Dear Diary, I don’t think even being seen is enough anymore. They read my words like titles of books stacked in a bookshelf. They scroll past the blurbs trying to figure out the author, never knowing she is doomed. She thinks she wants it until it is close enough to be real. Then she runs. She runs before they can realize oh what a horrible nightmare she is. Before they realize what a blunder it was. How miserable she is. How exhausting she is.

And I wonder what could’ve fixed me? Reading the books I recommend? The shows I binged? Probably sharing earcords? Maybe a vent out? A horrible horrible pit that swallows everything they put in. Cause I can’t feel anything at all. It is never enough. It is never enough for me. I thought maybe being seen would be enough, but it turns out it isn’t. I bare myself over and over again, only to find myself floating on the surface like a carcass. I overshare, I relive terrible times over and over again until I can’t feel the pain any more. Until it’s just a story that doesn’t feel like mine to tell. Useless. It is so useless. I could have so much in me and yet nothing all at once (speak or die?)

Where do I go from here? If it takes everything in me to write these words, is it worth speaking or just dying?

Where do I go from here? I try to translate into words, leaving cues as if it were a map, but does having a map mean finding the destination? How selfish to want the weight to be shared instead of holding theirs?

Where do I go from here? Maybe the map isn’t finished after all if I am still asking for directions. The irony of hovering around a choice while actively making one. I speak cause if I don’t, ain’t I as good as dead? So we loop in. We keep going to the start. The doom, the inevitability. We don’t consume art to feel seen; we consume art to share the weight of everything we’ve been carrying. And in that moment, it doesn’t matter if it is fictional, if it isn’t real, because sharing that agony for even a split second is. It is more real than the faded memories and jagged remains of wounds that never healed. A semblance of peace, a shield to the anxiety of looking for things, one will never find. So I fill this void, this black hole, with the museum of everything that seems real, close enough to feel relatable. Gravity smiles every time it succeeds in warping my reality to its own, and I let it. I let it take over because what else do I do? What else do I even do? Except sticking to building museums of poetry, books, art, photographs, philosophy and fragments of people’s lives and my own. I try to hold on to scraps of conversations, stories, and people because that is what tired people do. They metabolise existence into something palatable to seem less needy, less human. So I do just that, hiding under the blanket of metaphors from space, I intertwine my fate with the tragedy of forgotten stars, so every time gravity smiles, it knows it has been my only ever home.

Until the next one,

Love, xoxo.

...and when the maggots come to take me away.

Anwesha — Sun, 12 Apr 2026 04:10:38 GMT

I’m sick. But this feels like a weird kind of sickness. The kind where helplessness and loneliness converge into a mural of despondency. A temple that shrouds the echoes of ‘help’, but never loud enough to be heard. It is the urge to be explored, but without the bargain of banter. The urge to be touched but never enough to haunt the depths of the soul. To be held but without feeling helpless, without losing control, without being judged. It is how the more I grow up, the more I feel Jo March’s words right to the bones. The monologue scratches my brain and hollows out the performed sanctity of being alone. How do I ever outrun the sabotage if I never let anyone in. Not even myself. How do I ever hold onto myself if I shut down the pleas that bubble the surface of my throat. The emptiness I decorate with everything I love is slowly eating away every little aspect that I’ve tried to heal. But is it ever enough? Is there a fix? How does one fix oneself? How does one escape the suffocation they built for themselves in hindsight? It’s the stubbornness and the refusal and the denial to admit that it’s killing me. It is exhausting. It is exhausting to feign nonchalance when it hurts. It’s the random breakdowns I get from the middle of nowhere. It’s how my body refuses to comply as I lay and rot on the bed for days, until I have no other option but to go and attend classes. It is how my impulsiveness acts as a facade to hide the pain and the hollowness. It almost feels like I’m living a life running away from everything. Running away from fears, from connections, from humans, from academia and everything I once used to love. It feels like I’ve become a hollow shell with so much loneliness that I have nothing to give anymore. Every human connection takes away a little more and then a little more and then a little more.

And if everything I once loved slowly gets eaten away- what is even left of me? But who do I even have to blame? The fake nonchalance? The performance of a joy that chaps at my survival? The need and the constant urge to hide away and tuck myself in memories of times when it wasn’t so heavy? Where does one even go from here? When does it even end? It’s how it feels like it’s going to be over now but then happiness has always been a mirage too faraway. Close enough to touch but never tough enough to hold onto. It’s like grains of sand that slip away from between the fingers every time it’s here. Always disappearing. Too quick. Too hurriedly. It’s how I am happy, always happy but the sadness is eternal. The grief is a nameless shadow until I’m alone. Until suddenly one day I just can’t move for no apparent reason. Until one day a random Novo Amor song just makes you bawl cause it’s always there. It never goes away. It is a sickness that stays. Incurable. A slow poison. Until I’m left with nothing but this emptiness. It’s in how I eat away the chapped lips. It’s in how I know I’d rather die than ever seek again. Because when I’ll finally be one with the soil and the maggots will eat away my skin, they’ll finally find all the pleas I never sent, stacked as the endless love I had for strangers who made me smile. The friends who I’ve never met but god they don’t know how loved they’ve made me feel. Like I mattered. Like I should choose to stay. Cause, when the maggots finally come to take me away they’ll find all my anger molten into letters I never sent. And maybe then the solitude will make sense for what is even the point of all this love if never felt. They’ll find all my hate morphed into faceless poems that got tucked away into drawers. For there is no hate without the precursor of love. There is no anger without a love that wasn’t met. Perhaps in death they’ll find a sadness worth listening to. A grief that matches their frequency of pain. For when have we loved someone, whose sadness we didn’t feel in our bones? It is pain that unites us all. In the end maybe it will free us too. And when the maggots finally arrive to take me away, they’ll find all my musings not in words, not in poems, not in fear, sadness or love but in the tears I held onto and refused to shed.

Until, the next one.

Love, xoxo.

like because, love despite

Anwesha — Mon, 19 Jan 2026 09:54:21 GMT

‘Like because, Love despite’

But, I can’t write anymore. Where did God make space to store hurt? I stand at my grave with flowers wondering if I’m the only one. There is so much peace in the idea of death but I wonder if it’s worth it if there’s no one to mourn your death. How stupid of me to think I have escaped the matrix? Only when you see the glitch do you realise, you’re still in the matrix. Do you still feel loved even when they can’t see you dying? I thought we built the same mosaic house. Only to see mine was made of bricks and theirs was built on mine. I grieve a home that was never theirs. Only mine.

Humans. Tiny little beings but filled with so much grandeur. I miss them when I think of rain, when I eat something I know they would’ve loved. I miss them when I see the clips of how my laugh once synced to theirs. I miss them in the wishlists we wrote together. In the victories we had together. I miss them when I see the streets we once treaded upon together. I miss them when I hear their name across the street. I miss them when I cannot find them next to me anymore.

How do you miss someone who is right next to you?

How do you grieve someone who is right next to you?

How do you grieve someone who would never grieve you?

What if I forced them to choose me? What if I told them, you’re half of me now? What if it’s me who can’t make them stay? What if I loved them when they didn’t like me at all? Is it even real if they can’t speak their mind?

I don’t think we talk enough about losing bonds. About people whose entire world revolves around the ‘chosen family’ because the family they were born in never chose them. They look at their friends with hearts in their eyes. The people who depend on friendships so much that sometimes it scares them to picture themselves without those friends. The ‘ride and die’. The way they feel so safe to be themselves, to be everything they can’t be at home. The way it’s so sacred. An oath that they took secretly. To cherish these humans. To keep them safe like a photograph in the wallet.

But that is why it hurts losing them. When they treat you like you don’t mean anything at all. The silent sobs. The silent cries. The urge to scream to the world how you feel ripped apart. Like someone scraped off your skin. The texts become rarer. The calls become non-existent. And suddenly it vanishes like it never existed. You wait for this pain to go away. But you don’t know how. How do you erase memories? How do you erase the laughter you’ve already laughed? How do you cope up with the fact that you never mattered enough?

I try. I try to be an empath. I analyse a thousand possibilities. But what if I can’t erase how they made me feel? What if I cannot erase how they couldn’t hear the scraping of my bones against each other? How they couldn’t hear the screams? Or maybe they chose not to. I am twenty and I still become the child who was an option. Why do we always choose people who never choose us? Why do we crave to be loved by people who can’t love us back? They say, ‘you chose the love you think you deserve’ but they never say how you out run that? How do I decide what kind of love I deserve when I have never been sure if I deserve the love at all? What if these are reminders that we never deserved love in the first place?

I have never believed in grand gestures. I love through the excitement that lights up my eyes, knowing I am about to meet them. I love through making plans with them. I love through writing poems for them. I love through making edits, through giving them hugs when physical touch is not my form of love. I love through seeing the world through their eyes. I love through listening to them and loving the world through their eyes.

But some days when I try to gaslight myself thinking the hurt never happened. I feel ashamed. I feel ashamed for finding excuses to defend them. I feel shame for putting them before me, yet again. I feel ashamed for thinking my hurt doesn’t deserve any space. I feel ashamed knowing that I cannot forgive the disrespect. I feel ashamed realising they were never excited for things that excite me, as much as I have been excited for them.

And then I think what if, it is indeed me. It is me who has mastered the art of camouflaging the hurt so well that even they can’t see it, if I don’t show them. (But isn’t that exactly what they are supposed to know?) Maybe I should’ve given a clearer sign, maybe I should’ve stopped talking altogether to be clear that I am indeed hurt. (But how do you do that? How do you walk into them and pretend you don’t know them just because you’re angry and hurt? How do I pretend that I don’t miss them when they’re right next to me? How do I pretend when I have witnessed them cry and learnt their language? How do I just pretend when my care and concern has always outmaneuvered my hurt?) It has always been easier to sweep the hurt under the rug and pretend everything’s okay even when I am falling apart. Because then I get to hold on to us. To this moment. To feel like this is forever. To feel and live in the nostalgia of everything we used to be. I hold on to the crumbs of whatever I can get, I try to salvage everything out of this because I know I have slowly been letting go. Cause I know it is burning me to hold onto this rope. Cause I know I will have to let go. So I hold on. I pretend that it is not making me crazy. I pretend because I love them. I pretend cause I know they’re not giving me any reason to stay.

I think losing friendships is like static. It is this ringing tune that you hear when you dial someone. It is confusion, uncertainty, hurt, sobs, numbness all spilling into the void. Where you don’t know what you’re feeling. You don’t know where this is going. You just know you have to leave before you get left. You just know that you feel what you feel. In that static you know what you want even if it’s for a fraction of seconds. With every passing ring, you count your descending priority. You realise they never feared losing you. And that stings. It stings to know we had different ideas of the world all along. Suddenly you are literally on the opposite sides of the phone, opposite spectrums of everything. Friendships never die for nothing. They fade over time because one speaks too much and the other listens too little. They fade away because people are not heard. And soon enough you’re listening to Radiohead, watching Dead Poets Society, re-running through all the pieces of art you’ve so dearly loved because the humans you wished saw you, didn’t. I wish I could see the perks of being a wallflower, but I still can’t.

Until the next one,

Love, xoxo.

the autopsy of an almost

Anwesha — Fri, 14 Nov 2025 14:12:48 GMT

They say the rain washes away sins. But perhaps mine has me stuck still living the fate of Ophelia. The water from my city’s hoods slushes past my calves, and it only mirrors the sombre that has always clung to me. For when has mirth ever hugged me long enough, for me to forget the fiery pits of desertion? I whine. I cry. I plead my case a million times. But what justice will there ever be when the jury is ever all the same? The shallow depth of my incompetence sings the forsaken melodies of my failure every night. The mirror that once taught me how to love myself now gazes at the porcupine of all that I could never be. I weep. I sigh. I follow my pride. But what use could it ever be? For the rain never rains enough to wash my sins away, as I still live to witness the prophecy of my slow and miserable death.

The illicit affair of my dopamine with that which warms my soul- they still hush in whispers, debating the illegitimacy of it all. But how do you ever ridicule the art when you’ve never lived the life of the artist? My empire stabs me just as it elevates my state of affairs. The innocence of sadness is now the only protagonist that ever welcomes you to my show. I lie in the mud as the muddy water performs the autopsy of everything I couldn’t be. I wait for the rigor mortis to set in before I can finally let go. This death has burdened me more than life ever could, so I wait to decompose- a final show for you all.

They look at my work as if the work isn’t me. I decorate my bruises like the shiniest mirrorballs. In my words, I’m the most naked I could ever be, and yet they critique the authenticity of my faded scars.

On days when I’m the poet, I think of it all. Everything I’ve been and everything I could not. But my greatest failure will be still hoping for it all, when my destiny has conspired time and again to oblige this rot.

The audience applauds my pain, in warm condolences and finds a piece of them in me. Words will forever remain the forbidden fruit that I, as Eve, swallowed ever so delightedly. The despondency of Ophelia is no longer a Shakespearean lore but a life lived enough to be a memoir. I stare back at the mirror. The mirror stares back at me. Only we will live to yearn for the tragedy of should’ve-beens.

A million little deaths in forever being the loosely strung word in the aftermath of a comma. In the uncertainty that bred this wild soul. A carcass on display that lives, laughs and loves just enough to be on the brink of insanity. I run from the sadness, but it always gets to me. In the scent of the rain, I look for the whiffs of forgiveness from the gods I upset with my words. The clandestine meetings still perform the CPR, never knowing the rigor mortis has long set in.

Until the next one,

Love, xoxo.

how much of my life was even me?

Anwesha — Wed, 29 Oct 2025 05:27:06 GMT

As a kid, not being lost to me meant following the tribe. Finding joy in whatever everyone said was the best for me. Going along with whatever my friend said. Nodding a yes to whatever my teachers and parents told me was the right thing to do. In fact, now that I look back, there are so many instances where I wasn’t even offered a real choice. I never wanted to go to coaching, but I had to. I had to forcefully attend lectures and give exams for five whole years of my life. Yes, I am privileged to complain about it. But being privileged doesn’t necessarily mean I consented to it. How much of my life was even me?

But there are choices that I made that were different from the choices of my closest friends. For instance, I decided to take NCC even when my best friend opted out of it. I opted for PCMB even when everyone warned me against it, and even still, I scored just as much, if not more. If it counts, never have I ever regretted any decision that I made on my own. You cannot convince me otherwise. But do I wish there were better alternatives available to those choices I made? Yes.

So, what’s new about now? Aren’t we still the same people making different choices? Why is the prospect of college ending so scary? If there is anything that college has taught me, it is how no individual is even eighty per cent the same. Maybe it has to do with the lack of uniforms, too. Bad joke, never mind. It is in the way it is, so disordered, so unstructured compared to school. We could dress alike and yet think in directions that are poles apart. I think what scares me is the striking realisation that despite hailing from similar upbringings and similar lifestyles and similar thought processes, two people can have so much clarity about what they don’t want, that you just know, if y’all ever ended up at the same place, it’s gotta be a hell of a coincidence, kismet and voodoo. What do you mean, 180 of us can study in the same branch and end up in 180 different professions? What do you mean, none of the two hundred people have the same thoughts around a topic of discussion? What do you mean both of us want to escape home so bad, but with altogether different priorities? What do you mean, no one will ever walk on the same path as mine?

Humans have been social animals ever since I was taught so in Social Science, the moment we kick-started our learning about early men. So if there is anything that can scare a human this much, it is the idea of having to travel a path so lonely that maybe no one would ever relate. How do I accept this idea when you’ve done things together, without having the freedom to think through decades of your life? How do you trust yourself enough not to make a decision that you’ll regret?

No two individuals consume the same content, have the same lifestyle, or make the same choices. How do they even reach the same conclusion? So, how do we reconcile our beliefs and find common ground? I have fought to be free my whole life, and now that it’s literally in my reach, what do I even do with it? How do I even trust myself with this freedom when all my life I have been fed and trained and groomed in a cage? The gates of the cage no longer hold me within, but how do I teach myself to fly again if I don’t know where to fly? If I don’t know what the possibilities are, and the map of the world I have is the map that only I have? Now that I know I can run, where do I even run to?

But hey, I’ll not throw you into an existential crisis just cause I am having one. Thanks to college, we have figured out some of these things at least. You see, there is a reason why people daydream, believe in simulations, alternate realities and discuss so much about multiple universes. Because there is no way you can know if you’re making the right decision. All you can do is trust how you feel and make the decision right. The past few years have taught me so many things, one of which happens to be that you can, after all, regret some choices, but what you gotta keep in mind is that the next time, maybe we can reconsider the priorities. Or maybe sometimes the wrong decisions make you reconsider your priorities. What served you before might not serve you now, and maybe that’s okay. There is only so much you can do at a time, and so it’s okay to let go. Not everything is equally important. It never has been. It never will be. And that the way to learn to fly again is to just dare to step out. Despite everything that is stopping you. The way to know where you ought to go is to take that baby step and see your immediate options. To see which one feels the most right, right now, right here. You keep taking the baby steps till you’re ready to fly.

It is so easy to watch movies where the protagonist finally figures out what they want to do, and it leaves us wondering if one day we’ll get that sense of realization too. But maybe we never figure ourselves out. Because the day you do, you stop reinventing yourself, you become a stagnant museum of everything you are, instead of everything you could’ve been and everything you will be. So keep reinventing. Keep unlearning, and maybe one day we will all reach the same shore of satisfaction and peace. I wish I had a better punchline to end this, but this is more of a rant than a polished essay.

Until the next one, love xoxo.

a thing of beauty. a thing of wonder.

Anwesha — Thu, 18 Sep 2025 15:57:41 GMT

"What kind of things does the universe hide from us?" - The curious mind asked.

"Everything you gave up to know," - The universe gently answered.

Crazy how it was a playlist titled, ‘you’re an astronaut lost in space discovering things that humanity will never be able to’ that inspired me to write this. Or more accurately, it was the comment section filled with people wondering. Crazy how all the four thousand five hundred sixty-one people looking at the very same stars I look up to, wonder different things when they look at it. Someone sees a brother in the star about to become a supernova. Someone sees their childhood dream of becoming an astronomer. Someone exclaims, ‘Oh boy, how little do I know of the universe’. Someone sees their future, ‘well, one day I’m gonna become an astronaut and feel the beauty of the universe like the hundreds of astronauts who have had the privilege to do so, before me.’ What is common, however, in all those comments is the wonder, the child-like awe in looking up at the stars and wondering how little we know about the magnificence of the universe and how much we will never unravel in this lifetime, before we hit the grave.

What if the cosmos is nothing but a dark skinned goddess and the stars, the freckles that add to her relentless and unapologetic charm? What if the moon is nothing but a bindi she wears? The nights of amavasya, the days when she decides she doesn’t need the vermillion of a chandra to look pretty. The universe to me has always been a woman, a goddess- everything combined- life and death, wonder and boredom, creation and destruction. A woman we look up to, just like the mother we look for in our times of sadness, joy, and rage. She is nothing but oh boy, what are we without her? Trillions of her children are unaware of the existence of their siblings, who are also as clueless as they. The sounds of space are the lullabies she’s singing for her sons and daughters from the different planets. She is the woman you write prose of glories for. The woman you die trying to touch, to feel, to just get a glimpse of what she is like in person. The reason you can look up at the stars all night and not get tired is that she is beautiful. She is an enigma we’re too proud and dumb ever to unravel. She is longing wrapped in mysticism.

Who are you compared to that? The vastness, the enormity, the beauty that stretches for who knows how long? All you do is try to catch your breath once in a while, so you can find joy in small things and not be perplexed. You live enough to take some secrets just meant for you and her to know. You live long enough to know you’re so beneath everything you thought to be true. You live just enough to be a moth to this ever-pervasive flame that billions before you have pondered and ruminated over.

I found a beautiful poem in the comments, one that I have to mention here.

once you told me a story of how
an astronaut could die in space.
if they were to float away with supplied oxygen,
they’d have to wait until it runs out,
orbit until their last breath,
staring at the only home they’ve ever known.
you’d said this to frighten me,
to discourage me from going.
but isn’t this a beautiful way to depart,
watching the sun cast a rising serpentine shadow
on our small corner of the planet;
i imagine that soft orange glow
as i wake up next to you,
staring at the only home i’ve ever known.
— perhaps you’ll look up tonight and think i’m a star.

One of the simplest yet beautiful pieces dedicated to the love of space. Because, exactly. What better way to go than in the lap of the woman you spent an eternity chasing? If I had to die a gruesome death anyway, I’d choose to die floating in space. Where the sun isn’t too far away to look at, where the moon passes its grim goodbye on the way, where the earth looks more like the home I'd come to grow up in but never looked up at, where I feel like the stars I used to stare at for hours. In a long while, nothing reminded me of John Keats like this piece. For what is a thing of beauty if not a joy forever?

“A thing of beauty is a joy for ever:
Its loveliness increases; it will never
Pass into nothingness; but still will keep
A bower quiet for us, and a sleep
Full of sweet dreams, and health, and quiet breathing.
Therefore, on every morrow, are we wreathing
A flowery band to bind us to the earth,
Spite of despondence, of the inhuman dearth
Of noble natures, of the gloomy days,
Of all the unhealthy and o'er-darkened ways
Made for our searching: yes, in spite of all,
Some shape of beauty moves away the pall”

How do you refute a beauty like that? I’ll be the Icarus who died trying to learn the secrets of the universe.

The universe of my existence, the reason why I will always wonder, because didn’t she program us to stay in the loop, by forever trying to place understanding and wonder in the same bracket of logic? We’re only after all abiding by the laws she meant for us to follow.

“Wonder is the beginning of wisdom,”- Socrates said.

But I’d argue, is wonder only worth when rewarded with wisdom? What is the charm of the wonder when we understand its mechanics like an engineer deciphering the working, just to create a duplicate? I wonder about the mechanics. I wonder about the use of mechanics. I wonder about what I’d do if I understood the mechanics. I wonder if the charm will disappear once I understand the mechanics.

I ask. I pry. I wonder.

Because after all, she did program us to stay in the loop, by forever trying to place understanding and wonder in the same bracket of logic. We’re only after all abiding by the laws she meant for us to follow.

"A Little Life"

Anwesha — Sat, 23 Aug 2025 06:15:49 GMT

If this book were a song.

I started reading this book, “A Little Life”, to cry, obviously. But the more I get into it, the more I realize how sometimes I keep forgetting crying is not dissociating, it is feeling, feeling too much. Around fifty pages in, my heart was bleeding for Jude already. And just crossed the threshold of around two-ninety pages, and I knew I had to write– I scrambled for my laptop quite literally. The urge to write as if it could ease my pain, cause if I don’t, I am afraid the words will die in my throat. I have never highlighted or annotated, or marked a fiction book this much. Although another reason could be that I read wonderful books online, rather than in hard copy, I am eternally grateful for having purchased a hard copy for this one.
The bond the friends have. The breaking of the friendship. The inability to forgive. It is giving me major deja vu, and it’s scary how I can relate to almost everyone and yet none at all. This is a book that I know, and I will see it through differently every time I read. I can already see how my insights will be different and shaped if I read it in my thirties, forties, and then the fifties. As happy as I am that I am finally so invested in a fiction which is not thriller or romance after so long, this book scares me. It scares me that I will not see things coming, and it will break my heart. The thrill of the chase lessens, and yes, I guess I will be documenting this read way too closely.
Oh god, this book. It is so disturbing that I can’t sleep properly if I read it before sleeping. Last night, this was the last thing I read, and I couldn’t put it down, mind you. I half-slept last night- tossing and turning the entire time. I remember my mom’s phone buzzing at 3:30 AM. Normally, I am such a heavy sleeper, you could be screaming in my ear and I would hear nothing. It’s not even the book my mind can’t stop thinking of; it is the pain and grief that I can’t wrap my head around. I just woke up, and I dreamt of one of my biggest traumas. Or could say something that I don’t speak about often- it wasn’t even something that was talked about in the book. This is– idk. The last time I was this disturbed was while reading ‘I am thinking of ending things’ by Iain Reid and probably watching, ‘House of Secrets’ documentary. Yet, as I begin my day and now that I am awake, all I want to do is continue reading the book.
Last night, though, I was annoyed. The kind of things the author has put Jude through is so much that, at times, it feels like trauma-porn. At this point, yes, it is.
I had to actually read what exactly the author was thinking while reading this book- cause wtf? I can’t believe this book, written exactly a decade ago from when I was reading, is still so impactful. I am kind of relieved that I didn’t read it before and that the current age and stage is the appropriate, or let’s say fairly better time to read this, than previously.
As much as I appreciate the fresh insights and perspectives the book offers through its characters, it is also making me ask those hard questions I have often tried to ignore or run away from as a writer. Should we as writers delve into these kinds of subjects so explicitly, knowing well enough that the book is accessible, and a depressed person could actually consider harming themselves by reading this stuff? Despite the multiple perspectives, if a patient were to read this, would they empathize or would they see so much of themselves in Jude that they would consider doing to themself everything Jude was doing? If someday you do realize that your writing and book have acted as the final blow and pushed someone to the edge, do you feel guilty or still say art doesn’t exactly influence people?
I am at around 390+ pages right now, and yes, that is how I feel. This book makes me scared to know what’s up next because I am too afraid I know the answer and what will be, so pathetic.

A few years back, I couldn’t even comprehend the idea of words on pages making you cry. When I first heard that people cry over books, it was as funny as it was bizarre. You know it’s fiction, right? Why would you cry over that? That is so silly.

Now I wonder, why do I love sad books so much? Isn’t it crazy to read something knowing very well it’s going to rip your heart apart? Willingly choosing sorrow? Deliberately?

The truth is, I think there are multiple reasons why people do it.

One reason is that it makes you feel nice. It is comforting to know someone, even though it is in fiction, who has it worse than you. It is validating to know your grief isn’t the worst, and people do have it worse. It is in the comfort that lies in finding the darkest, most despicable parts of yourself in characters of fiction. The companionship we crave is the companionship we find.
Sometimes it fills in for the desperation. The desperation to cry when the tears wouldn’t come to you. So you read. You read so you can cry because crying is therapeutic. Because tears feel your helplessness. It is sometimes good to know that you’re still human, to get away from the doubt, have I stopped feeling altogether?
The necessity to mourn. Mourn yourself in the funeral of characters you read about. Find your misery in their stories so you can say, ‘You feel that too? Yeah, me too.’ It is the urge for your sorrow to be seen.
You read sad books because the truth is that no happiness can ever compare to the vulnerability and intimacy that comes in sorrow. It is only in your nakedness that you are truly seen.
And the most important of all these reasons, I believe, is control. The control is, for once, being able to choose misery instead of it being shoved down your throat. When all your life, something gruesome and cruel always follows the moments of mirth, you start expecting it. You start to feel you deserve it. You start to think it is inevitable. And what better way to feel in control than to choose a sorrow of your own (a sad book of your choice), every time something great happens. It is the feeling: Well, it’s gonna happen to me anyway, so why should I not take the chance to be able to choose while I can?

Was this the book that made me cry the most? No.

But the reason why I feel so touched by it is for multiple reasons, again. This is a book I couldn’t finish in one sitting, and so I swallowed it in chunks and pieces over a span of a week. The more I ruminated over it and contemplated it. A book that I know, I will never have the courage to read again. It is a plight. It is a literal cry for help. It is so human that there is no way you can read this book without feeling. If humans could form coherent sentences in despondency and agony, this would be it. This is the book that has made me think and reconsider so much that it is only fair that I give the credit where it lies instead of tiptoeing around it.

I have never highlighted a fiction book this much- so much so that I can’t even lend this book to anyone. The writing to me definitely stands out, and if I had to rate it, I think I would rate it a 4/5.

Generally, when I rate a book over 3, I mostly recommend it. But this book is so triggering. I am glad a lot of the portions weren’t that relatable at this stage of my life, when I read it.

The story follows the lives of four college friends, with one of the friends being central to the rest of them. The book is a tour of this little life that all of us live through.

From adulthood to old age. From mirth to grief. From permanence to fleeting.

One thing that I would like to mention, though, is that this book is essentially trauma-porn. Every single type of trauma you can think of, the book has it. I was genuinely annoyed halfway through the book because of the unnecessary bombardment of trauma. So much so that I had to look up what the author had to say about it and what was going on in her mind when she wrote this. Apparently, Jude is a reflection and a quiet, literal metaphor of trauma. Since it is obvious that one person possibly can’t live through this much. It is a reminder of how trauma keeps showing up and how it is an inevitable part of life. It is always going to show up, and eventually, we have to live with it.

While there is so much to say, I think I’ll just put out the questions that I had as I read it:

The constant tug of war between safety and desire, between comfort and the insatiable hunger to accomplish- who do we let win in the end? Is it even our choice to make?
“But what was happiness but an extravagance, an impossible state to maintain, partly because it was so difficult to articulate?”
What is our life if not just a series of agreements?

“Was it better to trust or was it better to be wary? Could you have a real friendship if some part of you was always expecting betrayal?”

People give us meaning. To us. To our lives. Who are we then, without the people who love us?

This is not even the end of it. But I just finished reading it, and these are the only pages I can bear to look at. I still don’t know if I recommend this book. If everyone should actually read it, but for all I know, I am glad I did.

Thank you for sticking till the end.

Love, xoxo.

joy is a wild soul like me

Anwesha — Sat, 02 Aug 2025 16:51:04 GMT

The only composition that played in my head as I wrote this. Might as well add the track so you get the full experience as you read.

Why do people have to leave us?

I am not sure if it's my love for certain movies and books that makes me grieve a love or warmth I haven’t even lost- or if it's just a parallel timeline.

“You think your pain and your heartbreak are unprecedented in the history of the world, but then you read.”
— James Baldwin

On further thought, it’s perhaps the mourning of something you know should have always been yours. It is the death you never grieved that you wish to relive the funeral again and again, in hopes that maybe you were wrong all along. Maybe it wasn’t death after all. But you know it is. You know this death is not worth the CPR of your love.

Maybe it's the sense of entitlement that speaks; of course, I did not deserve this. My throat is sick with hurt that consumes me. The hurt that coats my eyes like a snake waiting for this hurt to one day turn into a cataract and blur the vision altogether. So that it can wrap its body around the ache and suck the life out of the eyeballs that have witnessed it. Plenty of things don’t hurt when the wounds aren’t visible.

How do you undo it when you can feel it sitting at your throat just waiting to turn into a snarl that swallows all those lashes and jabs of a lifetime?

There is a him that all of us have that we hate more than anything in this world. The one we associate with disapproval- now a constant in my life, and disappointment- the one I have always been, no matter what I did or how hard I tried. It is the embodiment of everything I was expected to be, but fortunately, I am not. I loathe it and admire it at the same time.

I wish hating someone came with the power to not care. But sadly, hate doesn’t translate to power or control as I once thought it would. Hate is not enough. Not strong enough to erase the power they still hold over us, regardless. The words that still ring in my ears long after they have been spoken. It is the formidability that lies in the stringentness of phrases that are spoken with malice and hate, and entitlement. Not a day goes by that I am not reminded of the epic failure I have been, and I am only twenty. How can someone so young be a failure? Yes, when you face academic exhaustion, burnout and taunts in an environment that only looks into other people’s, windows, you can be much more than a failure. Every single moment of joy that has been stolen from me has an impending and ever-so-persistent factor: him. Can I even hate him enough? And hate, I will. Because hate preserves my energy, much more than love ever would. Love is grief. Love is hurt. Love is not what everyone deserves. Not really.

If there is anything I have loathed more than the hims in my life, it is their defenses and the power they still hold over me. It is annoying and exhausting how the hate mars my soul, but not the ones who birthed them in the first place. Every time I think life couldn’t be more unfair, life whispers, ‘God could have been and probably is partial for all you know.’

“Art is the only way to run away without leaving home.”
— Twyla Tharp

Text within this block will maintain its original spacing when published

It all sounds like I am on a bench reading a book with a mug of coffee as Mozart’s Sonata No. 11 plays in the background- a personification of the grim reaper- watching me with a smug smile as I stupidly spend all my time lost in words. Trying to ignore the passersby. The trains. The people who chatter away. Trying hard to ignore it all, even though it’s not the words of the book that swarm my head, but the indistinct chatter that makes up for the incoherent conversations I have in my head.

But what the Grim Reaper doesn’t notice is that I do look away from the book when he is not watching. I do take in the expanse of the blue sky. The bustle of the people is ever so busy in their worlds. I relish the grounded flavor of the coffee beans. Yet the spice of life is ever so fleeting. If I stare at it for too long instead of feeding my brain with more thoughts to think about, it is going to turn sour.

The blue sky is going to morph into the impending doom of dark clouds. The bustle of the people is going to drown whatever remains of my soul. The flavor of the coffee is going to broth into something bitter.

I watch. I take in more than I should, but that is it about the hunger to consume. Capitalism has made this hunger a pit that is never sated. Ironically, it’s not the lack of humanness that drives this hunger, as capitalism puts it into practice. It is the humanness that we deserved but were never endowed with that fuels it. We strive for that tiny moment of joy as we try to fold it into the memories where we preserve the good ones. Always coating it with glycerin of nostalgia- just in case we ever think it was bittersweet instead of just being sweet.

It is always tempting and worth it when it’s a fleeting joy. Because joy is a wild soul like me that refuses to be tamed and held captive. It refuses to remain as the notes of Mozart’s sonata when it could be Beethoven’s Moonlight. It refuses to mold itself into something familiar and monolithic when it has the possibility of being so much more.

And who else would understand that feeling if not me?

The satire of the essay is, it is the grim reaper’s presence that makes me alive. That makes me want to write, in the hopes of leaving enough of a mark to be remembered one day. ~~To not be forgotten~~. To still be found in the pages I wrote long after I’ve finished that mug of coffee, the book, and he has taken me into his warm embrace- the absence of which made me a writer in the first place.

Until the next one,

Love, xoxo.

adulthood: loneliness or liberation?

Anwesha — Fri, 01 Aug 2025 14:26:00 GMT

With both my parents working, I often come to an empty house. So, today, when I came back from college and found myself alone. I took a shower, jammed some music, cooked noodles in a different style, and decided to watch a movie that just landed on Netflix today. Suddenly I had this urge to document this specific chronology of events, cause I loved it. I enjoyed it. I love documenting everything I find joy in.

But that also made me think: is it that bad? Adulthood, I mean.

Adulthood teaches you to stop people-pleasing. It shows you the flipside of the quiet, of choosing not to speak, of noticing things, of everything you once thought made you boring. Sometimes, the boring is the actual living.

Adulthood- the growing up, being independent, financially, psychologically, and emotionally. The power to choose, to go wherever you want to, to do whatever you’d like to, to sit, eat, and sing however you’d like to. Without being nagged. Irrespective of being judged.

The feeling of having conquered the world, because do you even call it living when you don’t have freedom? When you can’t explore the things you’d like to. When you can’t find pieces of yourself in every single place you dream of going to. When you cannot sing your favourite song at the top of your lungs just cause you want to.

The things we have yearned for ever since we were children, and yet we mourn them the moment they’re in our vicinity. Maybe that’s because we have always been afraid of change. We fear change because of change. We fear picturing ourselves alone when we’ve had a shoulder to rely on all the time. We fear the time that we would have if we were alone.

But that’s exactly why, for some of us, being alone comes with solace. People like us who have lived more in our minds than we have ever lived in our bodies. Because we have been alone all our lives. Alone in our minds. In hearts. In how we think. In how we process things. In the pace at which we do things. In the emotional terrain we have been in. We’ve been alone even when we had a shoulder to rely on, even when we had time, even when we had people.

And so for us, we see it as a privilege.

Reminds me of the Charles Bukowski quote:

“When nobody wakes you up in the morning, and when nobody waits for you at night, and when you can do whatever you want. What do you call it, freedom or loneliness?”

I have always thought the answer was loneliness. But what if that loneliness seems tempting? What if I suppose I find my freedom in that loneliness, cause when has anything or anyone understood you like the silence?

For some of us, the answer isn’t one, none of them is better because they are the one the same.

Like the birds chirping, unaware of the fact that they are being watched.

Like the trees that don’t even realise how they withhold homes of the very same birds.

Like the sky that doesn’t know the trees, look forward to it every day with a smile.

Like me, who keeps forgetting how nature still holds my soul captive.

I think for me, freedom lies in my loneliness. And it's in my loneliness that I find my freedom. When you have a mind that works in tangents, that is really how it feels like, and I think that is the beauty of it. That is the poetry I have lived my entire life. Because some things don’t need to be a paradox or a dichotomy, their essence serves right only in co-existence, only in poetry.

Until the next one,

Love, xoxo.