chaiNboli

  Dear reader, So yesterday, my hostel roommate went home. She has three days of leave. Now, obviously, why spend three days—aka 72 hours—aka some ridiculously long number of minutes, aka  unnecessarily large number of seconds  (I’m very bad at maths, apologies to my ancestors) in this  little room, sweating under a half-dead fan? So yes. She took her backpack and left. Not before I reminded her to come back with a packet of homemade pickle or chips to help me survive the unforeseen future, obviously. Anyway. I was alone. And then, suddenly— POW. The power went off. And as always, my hyper-independence took charge. With great confidence and determination, I walked towards the adjacent room. Only to fall flat on my face in the hostel verandah. Well. It was dark. And most people clearly possessed common sense and were safely inside their own rooms. So, naturally, my first concern was not the injury. It was first-hand embarrassment. Because imagine f...

  Dear reader, Have you ever received a bouquet? Or a flower? Maybe from your lover. Or a friend. Or perhaps from some kind soul. Or, I don’t know, a TikToker for a video? Because I have never received one. Yep. Not even a single flower. Forget a bouquet. You may find it hilarious that I feel bad about never getting a bouquet. Yes, I feel sad thinking about it. Maybe even a little jealous when I see those romantic reels and cute relationships where someone casually shows up with flowers because “I saw these and thought of you.” And please, don’t tell me to preach what Miley Cyrus said: “I can buy myself flowers.” I can. But I don’t want to. I mean, look—I can buy myself flowers. I have money. I have hands. I know where the flower shops are. I am perfectly capable of walking into one and saying, “One bouquet, please.” And it’s not because I’m a stingy one. (Well… that’s questionable. Anyway.) It’s because… don’t you see how intimate it is when a person sees a flower and...

 Memento mori. Remember that you must die. The orange peel left curling on the kitchen table. The old man feeding pigeons outside the railway station as though he had all afternoon. A cup of tea cooling beside an unopened book. Your mother's voice calling you from another room and you answering, “Coming,” though you are not. A shirt still hanging behind the door because no one has needed to move it yet. The photograph you almost threw away because you thought there would always be another. Memento mori. The light changes on the wall. Someone laughs in the next apartment. A train leaves without you. The blue candle slowly sleeps.  And somewhere a child is learning the word for forever. You know better now. There is no forever. There is only this orange peel, this afternoon, this hand reaching for another hand before it disappears. Memento mori. Remember. Not the dying. The having been here.

 My pain can't be measured Within the space between your Thumb and index fingers . Your embrace is a Warm scented grave , Where lemon trees have Monkey eyed children Climbing and singing. You feed them your wasted tea, Illuminate them to a yellow Found only in sea. I salivate on the Solitude you enjoy , Knitting my loneliness Into the wing of an eagle. You wrap blanket over baby wipes, Feed tulips a fat spoon of honey, And makes  the sky carry Two small black moons. You call me a knife, Perfectly knowing am only good enough to cut  ribbons and butter, Not throats and hearts. You murder my marine life. You scatter me like seeds Over the rocks of a beach, And tell me to grow. You guide the roots: But am a desert.

  If I walk to tides Will it be a comfort ? You look at me Like you know my darkness. Like you know that am a singer of a forgotten empire. While I am the ruination, Not the song . I am a soiled chest Where birds sit to enjoy a nap. And then fly away, Criticising the lack of warmth. Am a stinking quilt, defending the theory of rain Only to be forgotten at the sight of a sun ray . So If I walk into the tides, Call it homecoming. Not Madness.

I was watching an Instagram reel. A man sat in a train with his little daughter while the child's mother did everything she could to make the baby laugh. The little girl giggled without restraint, and the father looked at the woman with a softness that needed no words. It was one of those ordinary moments that somehow held an extraordinary kind of love. I found myself smiling at complete strangers. The hopeless romantic in me, however, felt something else too. Jealousy. Not the bitter kind. The quiet kind. The kind that whispers, "I hope someone looks at me like that someday." Then came a notification. A message. From someone I used to know. Someone I once considered the center of my world. My ex-boyfriend. He wrote something along the lines of, "You'll always be a loser. What gives me peace is that I'm not with you anymore. By the way, I'm getting married." Not those exact words—they were in our mother tongue. Forgive my translation. But...