Look at the knee where there is a circumpolar black and brown splotch- peering dubiously like an ugly cabbage that has been re-peeled and kept outside the fridge for forty-five hot degrees too long. Gaze at it like- how you have seen the Draco constellation in the North every night with all the ACs buzzing around and take a minute to recognize it. Do you know that the Draco never sets below the northern horizon, so you can see it all year round? Think about the γ Dra like the ocean that stares back at you from the periphery where the lighthouse stood while you cried. The mosquitos draw blood like the nurse in the ER at Five o five. At an ungodly hour, you eat Al Tāis[1] straight from the pot. Blood mixing with forage. Who needs a zoom lens?
The missive, is massive.
Fifty solid minutes of a dream you cannot move beyond. One sixty-eight light-years of solidity. Thirty percent of your monthly bearings. A spindle and a cat o' nine tails for company. Frozen in time. Friend or a foe? The ra’s ath-thu’ban could be anyone or anything. [2]
Like when “Hey Hey, My My”[3] played in your ear pods, far away from your ears, the pods whispering in your pockets, a slow sizzle of medley that cracked as you cracked. Like the time when you were looking at the sun till it became the moon and Kaleo had sung - Way Down We Go far too many times. Three sixty-five times to be exact. A year wrapped in a day, a teardrop at the climax of every way that wounded, furthering the wounds. Do not go down to that song where Tove Lo becomes you. Like it was meant to be the love of your life but not a soul mate- gaze at it like how you would gaze at yourself when you hate what you have become- stare but kindly- gaze, intently at your love that is now gone. A love that is sixty times more luminous than the Sun. Still just a massive disk of dust.
It is time for LP to stop being the most replayed artist on your playlist and it is high time that you buy that Spotify premium for all the songs that got interrupted and all the times you did not cry. The splotch is not forgotten- it lies almost exactly in the zenith of your hubris. The oddity has an apparent visual magnitude that sways as your mood does.
At a friend’s, you forget the definition of what a friend is. You forget to even ask. You remember the deal.
“Wear a kajal[4], do not listen to those who ask for you to buy mascaras that will be lost in the potholes of nightclubs you will never go to…” trailed a friend turning into a foe to a confused grimaced me, “ and, in the morning, smudge the remainder of the kajal around the tips, where your eyes droop, you teary-eyed and inconsolable, cursing loudly into the pothole, trying not to vomit! Let the universe hear you!” I squinted at her bewildered, as she never stopped speaking. She never stopped.
“When you are sore from the threats of your ego blabbering, put the kajal back on, your party shoes, and then girl, listen, highlight your eyebrows with the littlest of kajal, and never use micellar water on it- never erase it. Let it grow and die on your eyes….”
Her voice whispered in my ears long after she had left. “Download the apps that tell you about your mood on all the days of the week, a to-do catalog, a bucket list, and journal your fears in all of them- till you find a boy you like…walk away but make sure you don’t tell him that you loved him- walk away before he tells you that he never loved you…”
Empowered by the voices in my head, I deftly felt devoid of reasoning as I muscled with the idea of romanticizing a foe who could haunt me forever. There in the cold afternoons of Iowa, I was bait for mercy. My cold hands flopped for the ear pods and froze after as I steadied the pods in my ears, the wind making it difficult more so.
***
Go to the parks at night and when no one is watching, watch the moon watch you. Cry in the park as if your lover left you at seen and you are never going to heal.
Buy an ice cream and eat it in the heat- lick the wood that holds the ice. Lick the last of the saccharinity from your fingers, dripping mellow blood which falls from your heart onto your newly brought huaraches, the strings come to untie- now walk backward and do not look down where the ice is now dust and sand. If you fall, you must get new bruises. Call them scars. Call them affronts. Make them yours, bruised and peeled, produced to shine in grossness.
Do not read for a while. Just listen to yourself and try to smile. Do not listen to Psych Central and Healthline. Do not fall for the neighbor again. Do not cry into pillows. Do not stain where you are trying to sleep. Do not walk their dogs. Do not think of asking for sugar ever again. Stop drinking tea. Stop it. Do not fry. Do not twist your hands and toes. Do not cut your nails. Let them grow like a tiger. Like a feline animal that maybe you won't recognize. You won't descry. Do not read Ingrid Holm-Garibay, and Beverley Engel but instead write yourself a script- that starts with your non-lover's name and ends with you.
When you are in a state of osmosis, watch the water in your tap or find a stream in nature- watch the water flow away- see your thoughts struggling to drown and if you must, save them for another rainy day but let some go, some washed down with Pepsi and hard Coke.
Stop reminding yourself that you are not the victim here.
When the day comes for celebrating your future, hold a candle in the wind and wink at the dark- blow out the candle if the wind does not. Smell the whiff of the last of the flame, the strong air burning your nostrils just like over-crying did when he touched you and ripped you apart a few moons ago.
It is a full moon. It will always be a day when the moon’s water will mock you. Do not forget to drink the blessed water after the conclusion of a fortnight. Your pigeons will drop their eggs and you will hear the eggs crushing against the asphalt. The aggravation and the nariyal will rot till the next full moon, in the sun, in the rain and when nothing happens all day and night long- you will rot with them. You will piffle like the morning bins on their way to the landfills.
When you cannot acknowledge the seasons, stand naked under the shower, your safe place- turn off the lights and take deep breaths as the water baptizes your friendship to fray the dark as the moon outside melts in front of the sun somewhere.
When you pass a church or a temple, do not spit. It is the same as worshipping Ravan in Ram’s temple. “Watch out for false prophets. They come to you in sheep’s clothing, but inwardly they are ferocious wolves.”
Watch a movie that is about revenge and write down your favourite quotes.
Mouth them till you cry and then laugh like a maniac- a bedlamite
Cook a meal for three. Give a meal to someone who asks for it. Give a meal to a dog outside that you will never meet again. Third, let it grow fungus- let it smell, and when your kitchen is overpowered- count till you cannot bear it anymore. Write that number down and flush it down your toilet with the remaining fungus-infested meal for one. Never eat your meals in the toilets again and never pop your pimples when you had enough.
Go to a trail that beckons you often, trust it to keep you safe, and just before sunrise, start walking. Do not stop till the sun is overhead. Stop if you feel like your heart will pump its way out of your frail chest.
Drink water and pee. Drink lots of water and pee lots.
Bake a cake and stick knives into it. Then let the urgent run through your fingers. Do not lick it.
On the morning of the end of the month of all the festivities that did not entertain your vibes, put Henna on your hair then sleep till it is dusk. Now as the sun is setting down with the final colors disappearing, wash your hair- start with the roots and then take your time. Moan.
Every day that you do not run, you run in your dreams. So, get up. Get out. Get going. Running. Pant.
When you run, the first thing you must do is unclench your fists and jaw. Unclench your guts and your thaws. Juice.
Build yourself a small garden- house those plants that you do not see every day. Name them. When they die, bury them six feet deep. Necro.
Say thanks every time you think of your wounds. He won't like that. He will go away. Trace the wounds that are going away. Kill.
Download all the dating apps and loathe yourself till you find someone who loves how you look. Pill.
Then delete the app with that person if that person loves how you are. Barren motherfucker who is stale and rotten.
Blast The House of The Rising Sun - The White Buffalo on speakers till the vigilantes call the police and when the chief arrives, tell her that you are still alive, you did not die.
Motherfuckers don’t die so easily.
