Faithless

Faith.
An anchor that keeps one from being sucked into nothingness.
A glue that pulls together all the broken pieces, fills the cracks with hope and makes one appear whole.
An illusion really, which fools one into believing that all the pain and tears have some absolutely unquestionable yet valid reason behind.
A panacea for the blind-by-choice.

Shrouded in mystery. Dripping with myths.
Faith lives in stones and expansive incomprehensible texts.
Then there are some fools who build theirs in live, pulsating, fickle stones.
Wherever one chooses to surrender their reason, at one point or the other, faith fails.

The correct amount of pressure and the correct timing is all it takes to crack the cocoon, to restore and repair the eyesight  and see faith waver, crumble or break.
Anchors rust. Glues expire. Illusions break.
Reason dawns. Faith walks away.

I am left alone.
Bare. Mangled.
Faithless.

Empty words

Words.
Hollow echoing empty.
Tons of words.
Bumbling. Crashing. Cacophonic. Catastrophic!
Hollow empty words.
An eternal race.
Between the thoughts,
And the words.
A race lost.

Blame it on the words.
The empty words?
No! They are warriors on a mission.
Doing up the thoughts in pastels.
Layering them in meaningless blabber.
Covering up with art.
For stripped off the layers
they are stark dark vulnerable.
Words know...
the World loves Strong.

So there is no choice but win.
Out run the thought. Catch, cover,
kickback or just drown them.
The thoughts.
Before the damage.
Before the heart is laid bare.

The jeers or the utter disgust,
the exasperation teamed with taunts,
At various stages of the race?
Acceptable. For all of these are but
a small collateral damage in
the bigger picture.

Win the mission.
Protect the heart.

Eglaf

I can fit anywhere.
No! I am not boasting of my adaptability.
I fit.
I fill.
The gaps.

My presence is forever conditional.
Conditions driven by need, fancy,mood.

Do I mould easily?
Well...I try.
There is too much of my own baggage.
I try to throw some out for a comfort fit.
For a good fit ensures strong stable bonds.
Oh yes! That comes from my freakingly unstable brains.

The baggage. It has stuff collected
out of My need, My fancy and My moods.
Collected over time, with lots of love and care and contemplation.
Each little thing in there is hugely possessive of me.
They refuse to let me go.
Tug me back hard...
Till either I leave or am pushed out.

I squeeze out.
Leaving a bit of me in those gaps.
Till someone with less weight finds the way
Into those punctuation spots.

I move on.
Yeah well.
I try to.
Those lil scraps of me, left in those spaces
Of my illusions I guess, pull me back
Trying to pin me down.
Tug of war it is.

Between the nomad and the tired soul.
I remain
Eglaf.

Hiraeth

My home.
Existed in a very familiar place.

You had seen me there often.

Remember, when you stood over me, 

screaming, trying to grab my attention, 

while I appeared to look through you,

swinging on the hammock. 

You called me insolent and stormed away.

I was inside my home, the walls were sound proof. Pity you couldn't see them.

You must have seen it! 

Maybe you didn't realize then. 

The day you walked in on that ugly, screaming scene. 

I haven't forgotten that look on your face.

You did hear my unspoken mollifying though?

I later heard you had said that I appeared thick-skinned.

That I had stood there with a silly smile, so not 

appropriate for that particular clip.

No! you didn't hear! Neither did you see.

The curtains that buffered and butchered 

every ball of hateful, scathing, blame before they reached me.

I didn't have to thicken my skin.

I had my home.

My home.It was mine alone. Built out of will.

Peaceful. None paralleled the blanket of comfort.

Cost me not much. Except a few labels that

at times a little hurt. You know, some financed by you...

Self-centered, Drama queen, Rude and oh yes!

Volatile, Fragile, Stubborn Egoist.

But when has a home come free?

I had invited you in too. Often.

It was only right, for you helped me build it.

A few bricks in there were yours.

Where is it you ask.

It was! Right there you know. 

I just had to close my eyes for a second.

Two deep breaths and I would be in.

Now, I can find it no more.

I try time and again. Revisit familiar paths

in my mind, that in the past I had taken.

But, nowhere are those walls, the windows.

That strong door and that roof lit by a thousand stars.

Gone are all the shields.

What remains is Hiraeth.

A yearning for that comfort. 

Bring it back. 

Anything in return...

Inked

It is funny.
The way my actions belie my words.
The way I etch on my skin
what brews in my heart.
The three, they don't match.
They are the fragments
Of the split in me.
Confusing, lying, laughable.
Or maybe it is just the dark strain in me.
With every little prick on the skin,
I dig the words deeper.
A reminder. A benchmark.
Of this is what my life has been.
This is how it will always be.
So the words I say and the words you see,
See the link? What about my heart then.
Nope. Heart ain't always a mushy pulsating lump.
It can be battered tough ball of strength.
That goads me to ink the words.
Funny. It is painfully funny.
The way my actions support my words.

Mea Culpa

Time and again, Life gets down to teaching me.

Different situations, multiple examples,

The lessons, more or less, the same.

Head held higher, heart swaying between 

warmth and hurt. 

Both grow in endurance and strength. 

I think to myself,
there are forces without,
that conspire to push me over the edge 

of patience. 

Maybe their idea of fun. 

Or, within my bubble of supreme confidence, 

maybe Life has nothing more to teach. 

"Smile and the world smiles with you..."

But it is only with pride that I flaunt my pain.

"Set the bird you love free..."

But the only cage is around me.

"You hurt me once, your fault. You hurt me twice, my fault." 

Between counting hurt and totalling fault, didn't I make my fort strong?!

"Do unto others as you would want others to do unto you"

I did that. Still do. The lesson I learned?

Pardon me, but that is not always true.

Chapters end. New books roll in,

alluring me with their fresh smell.

Untangling myself from the clutches of past

Hoping for better, excited for newer, I surrender myself. 

Life, stubborn life! Still keeps drilling the same.

Time and again, I fail, miserably fail,yet ignoring 

my argumentative but set responses, patiently,

Life gets down to teaching me the same.

Give up now, Life!  It is high time You learned...

Within the maze of  'mistake-learn- repeat', I have found myself, the incorrigible and stubborn me.