Deformation and Discombobulation

I have broken and broken down enough to be broken down forever, yet I live and live on and live a lifetime of regret and self-loathing in one day

One day my pearls strewn across the table-top shoot me like daggers till my mouth bleeds of the words I should’ve spoken and the words I heedlessly spoke and the words I shamelessly shrouded from them all

All I do is try and try and try away and fall and fall and fall again and again

And again the rustle of every page sends shivers down my spine and I dream of running away, escaping from the shattering edges of my potential and the prickling agony that swells and thrives and spreads and kills slowly but surely and I..

And I live on in misery and my knees buckle at the sight of my reflection and I..

And I relinquish and I cry out it pain, “Help!” but I remain deadlocked in my puddle of tears, screaming and shrieking for something, really something, something really real wherefore I have a voice nevermore and nothing to cry out for and I sleep and sleep again and I..

And I wounded the best and embraced the worst and stumbled in class till I fell and never stood up again and I was stuck, about to fall apart in a tempestuous circumstance but I never said what I should’ve in the first place yet I blink away the tears

The tears that consume me entirely and I tumble into the perpetually incensed chasm of stabbing pain, stabbing hurt, stabbing agony

Agony leads me to cliffs and dead-ends. “I can’t breathe anymore!” Oh, what I would do to make this end

End the insurmountable uproar outraging in my mind and shun the blinding kaleidoscopic flashes of the film reel

The film reel I rewind like a hasty child because I bask in the past when I shone like a sequined gown on a dull night

The dull night that I miss so acutely, so fervently, so intensely

So intensely do I miss the night skies painted in starry hues and the moonbeam plunging into the lapping lake-water and the breeze rendering it so quiet, so tender, so calm, so perfect and I sit there

I sit there- a bundle of serenity and charm wrapped in bones and flesh and she beckons the messier me- the disheveled and unkempt version that limps a little and stares lifelessly with dewy eyes and I sit next to her and so much goes unspoken in the silence but so much is watched and observed upon till she whispers

She whispers, “You’re trying, you’re trying, you’re trying…”

“I’m trying, please I’m trying, I’m trying.”

“Please help me wake up.”

( I never do )

~ Riddhi Chakraborty

Notes: An ode to every mental and nervous breakdown I had in the middle of the night.