Retirement

They ended his services. That was his death sentence. He couldn’t afford to stay in the country any more, so he went back home to a family that neglected him. He was old and he was sick, which was why his employers let him go. They let him go to save some money. And his family let him die, so they could inherit his money.

Feeling

Sometimes it feels like what you feel in the moment is all there is to feel, and all you should ever feel and all you should have ever felt, as if you owe this feeling your loyalty, and you feel guilty (alongside the original feeling, even if that feeling is guilt) about all the other times in which you didn’t feel this feeling, and all the other feelings you felt instead of this feeling; you plead with yourself to never forget what this is like and to never let it go, but of course, this is futile as each moment is transitory and soon replaced with another overwhelming feeling that imposes itself on you. 

[Previously posted on Instagram, with minor edits here.]

Between the Blog and Instagram

I've been posting on Instagram the pieces that got more hits on the blog, but after a few times it didn't seem like there's a necessary correlation. Meaning if a particular post gets clicked on more on the blog doesn't mean it would get more likes on Instagram. So yesterday I posted the Jigsaw piece on Instagram, though it hadn't gotten many clicks at all on the blog, and sure enough it got more attention there. I guess I have to be more conscious of the difference between the two audiences. Not that I know anything much at all about who's reading me here.

On Remembering

We forget what we once knew, and we inevitably replace it with what we think we now know. It happened in a certain way, but there are details that I don’t remember, and therefore my memory of the whole thing without those crucial details does not make sense. So instead of sticking to what I do remember, I distort it into something else and fill the gaps in a way that does make sense. Other memories help support this distortion and a reinterpretation of events reinforces my new narrative. It is imperative to forget, however, that this was not how I always saw it. I must also forget that at some point there was much I remembered not remembering, and much I intentionally forgot. 

[Edited: 20/10/2022]

Not a Poet

I never became a poet. 
Though I once thought of a poem 
or a few verses 
to write about you, 
but you vanished 
before the poem was born.

[Posted three years ago on Instagram, but written more than 8 years ago in 2014.]

Non-Vegetarian

Ethically speaking, he didn’t know how to justify eating animals. His only defense was that God had made all things for Man. “If I ever stop believing in God, I would have no justification to eat meat,” he would say. (This was more reason to keep believing in God, since he didn’t want to stop eating meat.) One day, however, he did stop believing in God, but he did not stop eating meat. “I lost God,” he said, “you want me to lose meat too?”

[Posted on Instagram.]

She Wrote

He came across the name of an old lover of his in an article about writers on love. She hadn't been a writer when he loved her, he had been the writer between the two. The title of the book supposedly containing her writings sounded familiar to him. He looked through his books, suspecting he already owned the book, and there it was, innocently surrounded by other books of the same genre. He thought she must be one of many contributing writers, which would explain why he hadn't noticed her name before, but he was surprised to find the book had only a single author, her. The book inflamed him with jealousy for various reasons, starting from the quality of the writing, to questions about when she had written this and whether writing had been a secret she had actively kept from him; had she been writing every time he hadn't known where she was; had she been writing when she had ignored him, when her excuses had not made sense, and finally to the aching realization that the content of the writing completely excluded him: every man she wrote about, deemed worth writing about, he was not one of them. 

His Rules

It's not that he didn't have any rules, in fact he had many rules. Perhaps he had too many rules, she first felt. But she came to discover that he broke the rules he had, or the rules he said he had. Or he said he had a rule, but he didn't say (at first) that he hadn't always had that rule, that he had done certain things before that were against that rule but later (perhaps as a result of doing those things) he made a rule to not do them. Or he did always have that rule, but he did not always stick to that rule, though he wished he would always stick to that rule in the future. So when he said he had rules, he listed those rules, which he wished he followed, which he wished he was the kind to follow, the kind to have always followed. 

الشوق

إنّ شوقي لكِ حبرٌ

ولِحبري لك شوقٌ.

[In my notes since 2017, at least. Posted it as a story on my Instagram three years ago on 18-9-2019, decided to share it as a post today.]

Could-have-been

When she thought of it, which she tried not to, but when she did think of it, she scared herself. She knew she wanted him now just as much as she had wanted him then, and she wondered, if back then she had been who she was now, how much bolder she would have been. How she would have pursued him. How many wrongs she'd have done. And if it had been with the easier technologies available to them today, what she could have done! She feared herself and the possibilities within her that no one else could see, the possibilities that were hers alone to fantasize. 

[Edit: 16-9-2022]

Wants

Many wanted what she had, but she wanted him to want what she had. She wanted him to look at her, to see what she had, but she didn’t want him to know she wanted him to look, to see; she didn’t want him to think she was the type of person who would want him to see. She wanted him to want to look at her, to see what she had, so that when she would allow him to look, to see, he would think, “I wanted to, and she let me because I wanted to, not because she herself wanted me to.” 

He did want what she had, he wanted to look at her, to see what she had. He wanted her to want him, and to want him to want her, to want him to look at her, to let him look, to see, to show him what she had; but he didn’t want her to think he wanted her before she wanted him to want her, so he waited while she waited, and there they still remain, waiting. Wanting. 

[Something I wrote a while ago which I liked and hoped to post somewhere more public, but gave up, I guess. Edited 16-12-2022]

He returns

It's been almost two weeks since I posted anything here. I was on a trip to Bali, Indonesia. I did try playing with a short piece I'd written before, I rewrote many versions (almost on a daily basis) but I still don't know if I'm content enough with any. Even though this is supposed to the place to post drafts, but I guess it's not as easy as I thought. And then there are pieces which I like a lot and so try to find other places to post them in, public platforms that accept submissions. Actually the piece I was working on in Bali is one which I have submitted somewhere. So far I haven't heard back from wherever I have submitted anything. I'm trying not to feel too discouraged. "Write it and they will come." 
Anyway, now that I'm back at my desk at work, I'll find more distractions to write down.