Thursday 15 August 2013

I am colour and I do not taint

I do not taint or corrode.
I assimilate and expand endlessly, like the very universe we inhabit.
I have an identity that is plural, uniquely Indian and universally recognizable

I am not defined by any one element, no matter how big or small a part of me it forms. I cannot be defined by time or age or singular histories handed down through unbroken lineages of culture and tradition. If I have changed, if I have been blended in world culture, then that change is me; that culture is me.

The insensitivity and illogic of my past are not immune to the winds of new thought that blow from all the corners of the earth. In the midst of these storms, my traditions and cultures are not weakened or sullied. The voice that calls me freedom to choose, the voice that says I should not be painted by just anybody and everybody who wields brushes, the voice that shrugs to say anything is okay, any one set of these voices do not define me. They all do; collectively.

In the wake of countless opinions, I am not the right or wrong one. I am the freedom that enables all those countless opinions. I am the collage of countless ideologies that clash against each other, merge, wind and wrap around the waking spirit of my people.

I am light and every single colour makes me India.                             
I am colour and I do not taint.


Thursday 8 August 2013

This is not me

Trigger Warning: Self-Injury

This chasm is all I feel
This emptiness that just won’t leave
Defines everything I succumb to
Dictates inaction, saps the will to move
Dictates action I subject myself to
Dictates moments that I break and dissolve into

And everything I grasp I try to keep within
I will not call your attention to the cracks in my skin
I will not stop cracking
Do I want you to look, but what if you look away
Do I want you to see what I cannot explain?
Is it silence I seek from the blood and the pain
Or just the company of retards that cannot complain
Or testify to fell deeds of shame

I try to retrace the moment it all fell apart
The restraint, the reason that evades me now
This person, this leech I’ve come to embody
Is only similar in form to past reflections
This person, this flea that I’ve fallen to be
Is not who I am, not who I should be

This person, this silent monster I’ve given free reign
To do as it pleases with my physical being
This monster I birthed, I braided into
Is so very like the person, the being of before
And frequently it fools even itself
Into thinking it’s the same old, same old
Preserved so well
But this monster, this person
With thirsty, sharp teeth
This is not me, this is not me

I am not so fell, I refuse to believe
I can go against everything
I have etched into every last fiber of me
I tell myself I can choose differently
If somebody taught me how to
Somebody other than me
Somebody unavailable, immortal
Not effervescent human like me
I wait for somebody that will never come or come to be
And yet I wait oh so patiently
I tell myself I can do differently
That there doesn’t have to be a next time

And I’ve already thought of, planned out next time
And I’ve already tasted the rush
And no, I am convinced
This is not me, this is not me
I am madness and wildness and reason and all heart
And this is not right, this is not right
This is not me