I love you so so so so much.

I think about you everyday.

Does that count? Please tell me it does.

They have free counselling sessions at health services. I signed up for some today. Im really good at playing it cool when im awake, but you come in my dreams, every single day. I wake up, cold sweat, tears streaming down my face, every single day. I mourn you, I hate you, I pity you- every single day.

I love you so so so so much.

- says:

id say you're beautiful but then i wouldnt know where to take it from there.

goodbye.

if only words werent your thing.

if only they werent mine.

yaaaaaaaaaaar.

Unlike most existential teens, I actually look forward to family dinners quite a bit. The crew, is crazy in the most entertaining way. Big hearted, loud, flamboyant, intelligent- they make a great group. So down I went, dressed in dads old bright green sweater, hair tied back, no make up, old frayed jeans and socks with cows on them to find the Dada Dadi the usual set of Chachas and Phupoos and one unidentified really old lunatic.

Here’s my deal, I don’t like kids. By kids I mean anyone younger than 16. No, I wont be your cool aunt, I wont oo and aa when you sing mary had a little lamb and I will definitely not do the baby talk. Anyway, I tolerate anyone older than sixteen, I adore the twenty somethings, I absolutely love the thirties and fourties and I can even handle the fifties and the sixties. Old people have stories, I like to listen, it makes a good match. I'm bitter enough for a 36 year old, idealistic enough for a 22 year old and cheery enough for a sixty six year old.

But then, these ancient people really freak me out.

If your old, then you fall into two basic categories. If male, you must sit in a corner, say NOTHING and smoke your malboro reds/cigars or sip on your scotch or whatever else you please. If youre female then you must tell me how pretty I am/look a lot like my mother offer to cook for me and generally be a delightful yet slightly senile presence.

But this woman, LUNATIC.

At 11-30 in the evening, she leaves, and im told that she has family in Minneapolis and the family has a son and the son is a neurosurgeon. The reason she took my name and number is because they are good law abiding muslims and we should all get together for some chitting and chatting and ‘get to know one another’. The grandmother knows my college is ten minutes away from the city, I gave her my MOBILE NUMBER.

I'M FUCKED.

I did however, look like a man. Perhaps that will deter this horrible horrible woman.

I'm being set up with neurosurgeons while one of my best friends in college is convinced im a suppressed lesbian.

Wonder-fucking-ful.

damnchange, damnthedistance, damnus.

Lips pursed, head shaking in beat to the music, hair tied back, a half empty bottle of Diet Coke somewhere in the background. A phone on silent, a landline plugged out of the socket, an ashtray and a pair of earings that were taken off just a moment ago.

Today, after sunset, I took the dog out, put on my headphones and danced in the garden. I sang out loud, did my jhatkas and my matkas, shrieked when my dog pounced on me, fell when he yanked me down, laughed like a lunatic as he attacked me and then went on a run with him with him jogging alongside.

Twas the best twenty minutes of my life.

Hey, I miss you. You came for, ten days? Ten days? Just enough for me to get used to you being back in my life, being part of my everyday existence and then you left me, surrounded by people that mean nothing to me. Come back. Please. Four months darling? With you staying back all the way till July for work. I hate you. Please, come back. I need no one, I require nothing, come back and Ill be happy. This little 'trip' of yours just made it worse, because as soon as I fell for you all over again you vanished. Fuck you, fuck this situtation. Come back.

3 in the morning, looking for cheap flights to Canada.

Damn my dog for being asleep.

keeps me smiling

Yeah, having some laughs.

Late night out, come back, sit on the computer, wind down before hitting the bed. Life doesnt really stop for much these days, time is measured in units of atmosphere. Looking back, ive done so much today, said so much, met so many people, but they all seem like specific instances that dont necessarily need to have come one after the other, seperate entities that dont have anything in common except for the fact that I was present in all of the them. We laughed on a balcony, sipped on some non-alcoholic red wine, crashed a mehndi, burnt our tongues from some sunrise kashmiri chai, all of those moments with different people, in different cars, different clothes. I dont measure in days or weeks or months anymore- I measure in instance, in environment. Fuck Monday Tuesday Wednesday, life seems like one ongoing struggle these days, the sun doesnt set, a new day doesnt begin. Sleeping is just one instance, you wake up brush your teeth and youve simply transitioned to your next one.

Guilt is a funny thing, it bites you hard and you feel like crawling into a quiet like black hole for a while, and your mind fucks with you and you wish you could change the past, but thats it, you just wish and think and experience. You dont do anything. Sure, it would be nice if I were doing things differently, but im really fucking lazy and im not getting off my ass to do jack. Theres a party in my mind always, always. But not the party at midnight, with the dance floor overflowing, the lights driving you crazy, your body moving because the music demands worship. This is the party at about 4 something in the morning, when the stragglers are left, the people are too drunk, theres been a fight, your favorite shawl has cherry burns in it and your ride cant find his keys. Things are sour, the ripe fruit is being attacked by flies, the flowers are wilted, the milk needs to be thrown out.

We drove by school today, and I commented about how I really didnt feel any sort of attachment or longing for those days. You speak to kids from other schools and its all about 'damn, those days and those teachers and those friends.' All I remember, was third grade, my F in English, and my mother telling me that my thing was definately Math and reading all those Archie Comics were going to get me nowhere. That beautiful 36%, which didnt get much better for most of my high school English career, was based on the fact that I used words like 'happy' and 'good'. You know, words that are too generic and too cliched and just not fitting vocabulary for a third grader in the snobbiest school in Karachi could get away with saying. My arguement, that I still stand behind to this day, is that sometimes, there just isnt any other word that gets the thought across.

Because right now, irrespective of however many instances ive been through, irrespective of how many times ive stopped breathing because ive been laughing so hard, im sad- always, all the time, its like the eternal headache that no amount of Panadol can cure.

Give me a synonym for what im feeling right now and then we'll fucking talk.

oh my good lord.

Hey, are you going to the beach tomorrow?

I dont know, are you?

I dont know, im just not feeling it. Not really very social right now.

And thats all it took. A two hour and thirty eight hour minute conversation later, im a lot less sadder.

Thankyou.
Thankyou.
Thankyou.
Thankyou.
Thankyou.

May we always be the best friends who look so alike that we pass off as sisters and who are no use when put together because we pretty much just cancel each other out.

Im so so so so so

so

grateful that you are in my life.

Anchor? Check.
A little calm after the ass-raping that the past few days have been? Check.

phew.

I was speaking to my dad today, and he randomly brought up how he had noticed a change in you since youve come back from school.

Oh god, more 'oh shes changed so much since college' talk.

No no, its not like that. He said, you just seemed different.

In what way?

He said, you looked happier. Like for the first time in a long time, you looked like you were full of joy or something.

Heh, really?

Yeah and I told him that you had always been a happy kid, but he just said that this time it just looked real.

Ive accomplished too much, gotten too far, dealt with too many issues. I cant, I wont let you ruin this for me.

Im going to remain happy.

And maybe, one day, ill forgive you too.

that particular time.

A couple of months ago, I was talking to a friend at school about my 'safe place' and how there are very few things, people and places that can claim to offer a sanctuary that I often crave. As the years fly by, the safe places tend to reduce drastically. We came to the conclusion that college wasnt really a safe place, it was too fast paced, the bonds here too new, the relationships too volatile. Then, came home, Karachi Pakistan. I claimed that the entire city was a safe place, I knew it like the back of my hand. But coming back, with the city looking so incredibly different, the old bonds having rotted rather than riping with age, I feel like the ultimate foreigner here.

And so, the safe places reduced even further, my city oddly alien to me, the social group getting recognizably smaller (thank the lord, fake conversation gives me cramps) but the family unit remaining the same. I began getting bursts of pure love for my parents, my brother, even my maid who I adore more than life itself. Coming home past midnight to see the little one staring away at the Xbox, seeing my dad fall asleep while watching tv- small things gave me such an unexplainable high, a high that I had never felt before, a high that none of the drugs could ever come close to giving.

Last night, four in the morning, the two of us staggered home. I put on my best sober face, concentrated on walking straight, put on the alarm and all the lights and made my way upstairs, a warm bed and mindless tv awaited me.

What in gods name are you doing up? Oh Eid Mubarak and Happy New Year and all that.

Your old enough to know now.

Know what?

I might be making a mistake by telling you, but its better you find out this way than some other way, through someone else.

Know what? You're officially scaring me now.

And so, when the head did touch the bed, I didnt pass out with exhaustion. My eyes were wide open, staring into the darkness, my mind too intoxicated to comprehend. I wasn't old enough to know anything, I wasn't ready to let go of my final safe place, im still such a child, cant you see that? The appearance, the deep voice, the psuedo intellectual conversation is just an act, was it so well played that you believed it as the truth?

And now, on the first day of Eid, I must act happy. I must act like I havnt spent the whole day crying like an infant and get dressed up and make small talk and play with my insufferable younger cousins.

I need to tell someone, and Ive spent the whole day trying to figure out who. I woke up to a million missed calls and messages, I still have people who care, I cant really run away from them. But I cant, I cant make myself talk about it, I dont want anyone to know, no one will understand, no one.

Infinitely alone.

With no anchor.

Must stop shaking.

You know darling, my hearts been broken.
Sometimes, sometimes, sometimes, my mind is too strong to carry on.