We stop trying to kill ourselves because we have hope-
Perhaps it is hope that we are more than mere threads of smoke passing through cleaner lungs, only to be
lost, dancing into thin air, never to be breathed again.
Tag: pain
Clarity. Pain. Memory.
Clarity comes in waves, as does pain.
Pain fades with time, as does memories.
Memories–
“Can you forget everything that happened?”
“I can. I will. And oh dear God, I really want to.”
Talking In Eminem Lyrics (MeTalk #20)
Funny things happen, when you’ve been on vacation for a while. You get to reconnect with yourself, find your true innermost thoughts… or rather remember how much you don’t like being too emotional. It’s when I’m dangerously stressed and unstable that I become completely “soft” as I call it. I go back to being that kid who was afraid of the world. To be honest, the semester was extremely rough. First time living alone, the first time being thrown into fiscal responsibility, the first time facing consequences solely of my own. Even now, I have to take a deep breath when I remember that tight, trapped feeling. Of course, it was after some very traumatic events of my life.
I asked my mother why I was feeling so unsettled and scattered, she said I need company. I’m missing company. Of course, she has her own nefarious purposes for saying that (sigh, momma), but she’s right. Not in the way she thinks. I don’t usually require company. I’m extremely self-reliant. The last year, however, save one or two things, was perhaps the worst year of my life. I became very… not self-reliant. I gave up writing in my diary, which allowed me to reflect on myself. I forgot to read, forgot to learn, forgot to live—chasing a dream that was not meant to be. Come May, I finally realised that half of 2016 was almost gone… and how much time I’d wasted. Sigh. So many things. So many things that went wrong. I admit it, it was mostly my fault.
One might wonder what brought about this catharsis. The most unlikely things, really. Let’s go back to my peak emotional period in the last year. Yes, peeps. The Notebook. I really couldn’t have gone mushier than that. What happened was, a couple of days ago, I watched the Honest Trailer for The Notebook, and I was laughing my head off. I genuinely wondered what on EARTH made me bookmark that movie despite the fact that I really do have a limit for one mushy rom-com a year. In 2015 it was Sweet Home Alabama, but that was genuinely a good movie. I still watch it, it’s so dang funny (plus- just can’t wrong with blue eyes like Josh Lucas’). I can’t watch the Notebook twice, though, without getting somewhat bored. Yes, it’s very quotable, very sweet—but I don’t really like either one of the leads. Most girls would kill me for saying this, but Ryan Gosling really is overrated. Plus, HIS NAME IS GOSLING. Rachel McAdams was better in Doctor Strange, and if you’ve seen DS, you’ll know how bad her acting there is.
I realise I’m kinda reviewing the movie, but the truth is, it was a biiiiit of a bad movie. Yes, it makes one cry, but that’s just Nick Sparks’ excellent plots and writing. Looking back, I mainly liked this movie cuz it fit my emotional state back then, or as my mother would say, I quote-unquote needed company. James Marsden, doe. Heheh. The only good actor on the film. Anywho, that was actually what got me thinking. A part of me still adores stories like that, but I would never say that it’s not cheesy, or that it’s my “favourite” movie. They really… can’t be. If I had to pick a favourite movie, it would be Matilda or Inception, maybe even Gone With The Wind if it’s in the romance category. Because they make sense. They have something to teach, there’s something to figure out. They’re literary masterpieces. It’s not purely fluff. It’s not something that reminds me what I fall to when I’m at my weakest. There’s nothing to learn there, SHA and The Notebook are both movies that are as stagnant as I was during that time.
People would wonder why I say I was stagnant then. I did great in my exams. I see it as a failure because I hold myself to a different standard. I don’t remember much from the first semester, which means I didn’t learn anything. I studied to pass. That’s a shame for me. I have failed before in school, but I still remember some things of what I learned in second grade. Proof? I can read ahead without seeing the book when my sister revises history for her exams (she studies in my school). That’s how I know I learned. I remember things I learned a decade ago, but I don’t really remember what I learned ten weeks ago. I may have passed the semester, but I failed myself. That’s a problem most students face today as well: they used to be learned, not ‘educated’- now they’re ‘educated’, but not learned. Educated, that is to say, they have a couple of degrees hanging on their walls which get them a job. Then they walk for the rest of their lives, chasing their own tails trying to make enough money to put food on the table. Sad, but that is the human condition today.
To pivot strongly, money scares me. It scares me a lot. Because money has real consequences, just like politics. I don’t like politics enough to pursue a career in it. Many people ask me why I never went into debate. I would shine, I would bring glory to all those around me. But the truth? I’m afraid of success in that field. It would make me a person I can be, a powerful person- it would feed my ego—feed the egos of those who would use my success as a staple, as a justification of their arrogant nature. It may set me up for failure, and that would bring me pain. But if I succeed, I might become exactly like the people who screwed me over. I’m not going to be a punchline.
“Sometimes I gotta remind myself that I am… I am phenomenal” -Eminem
As much as going to Australian National University would have brought me glory, it wouldn’t have brought me peace of mind or peace in general. The incident exposed some people who would tear my family apart. Yes, it pains me to think of it. But I don’t want it anymore. Sometimes, life forces you into situations you can’t bear. It hurts like hell. But as you take a step back, the pain works itself out. It really is up to your whether you’re going to accept the road Allah has shown you. You can fight it all you want, but like me, you’ll probably remain stagnant—pushing at a sealed door. It’s still a sick churning feeling in my stomach—the last year. But I’m better than this. I’m not dependent on emotions. I cut through emotions like a sharp and precise katana. That’s how I keep myself calm and ready for the big things in life, and put fear on the back burner.
“‘Til I woke up to discover that that dream was dead” -Eminem
Depression is sometimes a misunderstood friend. Like all poisons, in small doses, it can be a medicine. In this case, depression dampens my emotions enough for me to get a clear picture. It’s the numbness of depression that any truly depressed individual dreads. But it works for me. Fear still slinks in, but depression doesn’t let it take hold.
To go back what I said in the beginning about “needing company”, to a person like me, who plays this dangerous game of flirting with a psychological disease that kills thousands each year, company is counterproductive. In company, you must be social, you must be kind and loving, which takes me down the emotional rabbit hole that turns me into a helpless little child. You see the contrast between you and a relatively unbroken person. Weakness is truly a trait I don’t accept from myself. It makes me sick. So solitude it is.
“I’m just relaying what the voice in my head’s saying
Don’t shoot the messenger, I’m just friends with the–
I’m friends with the monster that’s under my bed”
Many people have told me that I can’t possibly stay sane without “going out there” and hanging out with people, and even during the last semester while I was so confused and needed someone to speak to, I knew that one truth about me. Company won’t help. Company will keep me emotionally sound, yes, but it won’t help. I would fall back. My productivity will be stunted—I’ll lose my focus even more. A comfortable place to lay your head leads you to more dreams, not accomplishments. I push myself a lot, to the extent that it might even be unhealthy—but to quote Eminem: “Success is my only option, failure’s not”, so I don’t really have another option. Not that I want one.
“But I don’t want to go forth and back in constant battles” -Eminem
Anyhow, I’ve written a lot today. Turns out, once I start typing I can’t stop. Lots to say, I guess. The good news is that I’m coming back to myself. 2016 is slowly seeping out of my blood. The year is almost out, and inshaAllah, so are the poisonous words I had to hear. Sealed and locked up. InshaAllah, they’ll stay that way, and after this little retreat, I can zoom out and refocus (photography metaphors FTW!). Going to the beach later in the month. Should be nice.
Nobody asked for life to deal us
With these bullshit hands we’re dealt
We gotta take these cards ourselves
And flip them, don’t expect no help
This. Is. Survival of the fittest. Mind. Screw emotions. :3
PEACE!!! (20th MeTalk, yay!)
We Are Born (MeTalk #19)
It’s only when you’re belting this out, with goosebumps, with pain, and the screams… you realise what you’ve survived… and you’re still breathing. Everything else doesn’t seem all that bad.
I have made every single mistake
That you could ever possibly make
I took and I took and I took what you gave
But you never noticed that I was in pain
I knew what I wanted; I went out and got it
Did all the things that you said that I wouldn’t
I told you that I would never be forgotten
And all in spite of you
Ain’t it funny how you walk out of hell and you forget that you’d survived it. Somehow the pain of that time is minimised in your mind. In your mind, you keep downplaying it.
It wasn’t much… other people have survived worse… It wasn’t THAT bad…
But you forget that you’ve played with knives and stabbed yourself just to stop the pain you felt from people’s words. When you’d dragged the knifepoint across your skin, because you can’t draw blood or cause yourself permanent damage because it’s forbidden, but you still wanted to feel the sting because your eyes were numb and swollen. It wasn’t just something small.
It all sounds very poetic in retrospect. Very raw and curious. Our brains don’t recall pain all that well. We feel pain, and eventually, it fades. We forget. Until we feel the same pain again. And then it’s like a healing wound is ripped open again.
Unlike the song’s lyrics, I never told anyone “I’ll show you what I can do” aloud. I knew one thing, it wasn’t just someone’s dare that was driving me, it was my own pride. And pride is fragile. If it breaks in private and I fail, I’ll fail. But if I don’t, those people who feel (felt?) I am beneath them would stare in awe and applaud my rise to the top.
I’m slowly achieving catharsis. Maybe I’m just always looking for a fight. Maybe there isn’t one here. Maybe there isn’t anything to fight for. Maybe I can just… flow. Easy. 
Yes, I’m fairly certain that my exam results aren’t going to be that good. Maybe I’ll have to repeat something. But no biggie. Many have. I’m no exception. Just one more long, long climb to the top.
Haha. Took me 18 years the last round.
And we are born. Again.
Quotable #43
“It’s like I’m taking five steps forward and ten steps back
Trying to get ahead of the game
But I can’t seem to get it on track
And I keep running away from the ones
That say they love me the most
How could I create the distance
When it’s supposed to be close?
And uh, I just don’t know, but I be out here fighting demons”
-I Tried
Alhamdulillah: A story of my life
Trapped. Not breathing for fear of being disliked. Fear, fear, fear. Hiding in the corner. Yeah, I remember that kid all too well. She lived in her books, dreaming beyond reality that she’ll be like those princesses and confident ladies in suits someday. Then she grew up, and dreamed that her life could at least be better than what they insist it will eventually become. Then she died from her stupid expectations. When she was reborn, she kept the dreams in her dead skin. In this new life with duller colours, she couldn’t afford them. She edited her dreams self. She got herself goals from the dreams. She didn’t become a princess, but a confident lady in a suit? Check. And she ignored the world that didn’t accept her colours, and showed them her darkness. She showed them how a hopeless child can banish the demons by inviting them in. One dose of maturity, coming up. She kicked at the door to her goals, shedding hope and remnants of her dreams, her ambition until the iron bars turned to black feathers and gave way to a land of sunshine.
But she had given up her old skin of colours. Now, even the bright world looked dark to her. Back in the darkness, she had found a spot of moonlight, but the sun has to rise someday. She was left in the light, burning when it was too harsh, dancing when it was mellow. Even then, one 
day, she felt faint. She felt the darkness coming out again. She again found herself trapped in a place she wasn’t wanted. Like nausea. She needed to find a way out. And do it now. Being in a cage in the dark isn’t as bad as being in a cage in the sun.
And then, as always, Allah didn’t let her down. Allah reminded her that she was becoming too distracted from her gratitude. She was putting too much pressure on herself, still being the demon-infested soul she was. Goals are not for now. The sunshine is back. She needs to figure out what to do. She needs to be okay, because she is always strong enough. Even as a frightened little kid with blind optimism, she was strong enough.
Today, she is trying to find the dead skin.
That’s just it. Alhamdulillah. No, life won’t get much easier. The days will still be the old grind- wake, walk half a kilometer, class, eat, walk half a kilometer again, sleep. But at least now, it won’t be so that I have to stay out of my room for some peace. It won’t be that I’ll cry from the stress work, time and then cry again because I’m being a bother to someone else. Stuck somewhere I don’t belong just like back where I was.
I spoke to Abbu today, and he said I can move from my twin-sharing room to a single room, even though it’s more expensive. He said I’ve already given up a lot for him, so even though it’ll be a little harder, he’ll manage. Bhaiya came over to college yesterday to talk to me because I was crying the night before. I am so grateful. So extremely grateful. I’m not great at expressing love anymore, for my family. But they do come through. I don’t have to live with another person, trying to be someone I’m not anymore. I’m not nice anymore. Being nice, I become too nice and end up hurting myself, same as ever.
I’m moving to the hostel closer to Monash. It’s way farther from the college, but I am so relieved. Still a little scared of change, as I always am. But InshaAllah… I can risk a little more light. I always take care of myself, and I wouldn’t have been given recovery if I couldn’t.
My best bully
Why can’t you leave me alone
I screamed
Because even you know
I make your life more interesting
I snickered
You need me more than you hate me
Happy Birthday. Mocking you is my pleasure.
Spark
There’s light in your shadowed eyes
There’s a fire in your cold, cold heart
There’s sunshine in your dark soul
Find the embers in your dying mind
Light a fire with embers, sunshine will come.
Sometimes my brain makes up stuff so I can post stuff on my Instagram. Sometimes that stuff is GEWWWWD. OwO
Lose Myself
Found this poem from 8th August of last year (2015)… don’t exactly remember what it was about. It’s been edited for profanity. :3 Obviously, I was upset.
Today, I realise
My life will always be
A gamble in disguise
A game of Russian Roulette
With a fully-loaded gun.
Let me cry,
I’d rather lie here
Than give a damn
About there.
PEACE!
Paradox Tonight
Tears fall thick and fast
But the voices don’t stop
The mind screams loud and deep
But what is empty is never filled.
What does one do?
But write down words
And wish they won’t be seen?
But they show them still.
I hate weekends. And I have never drawn a more accurate picture.
It. Starts. Now. 