We, the sinners.

Mayuri Makwana

From going to parties we don’t give a fuck about
to making love to someone who wouldn’t ever have the guts to ask us out.

We love. We sin. We fall. We learn.

The more we try to numb the feeling of being invisible,
the less we feel the need to live happily ever after.

After getting high we toss our shoes in some part of the sea we don’t know the name of,
losing something insignificant was just the start.
Then, throwing empty beer bottles on the ground,
we start laughing our hearts out when we see them break in a thousand pieces.
But we bleed when we step on them, heading towards wherever we want.
We leave behind bloody footprints
and learn from our mistakes.
Wanting to be found again,
we learn what comes around, goes around.

Then one of us says we should wait until we stop bleeding and our wounds heal,
the guy with the green hair refuses and says it could take forever.
It was difficult to decide whether we should move on or wait but someone said who cares and we moved on.
Being the prodigal daughters and sons we were,
with our riches, we make money rain.
Yet we spit on homeless people we come across.
Bare footed around 3 am we play hide-and-seek,
hiding our scars and seeking empathy to pour in our empty jars.
But we are too drunk to notice
and only wish we were sober again.

Wondering how beautiful the dawn would be at 7 am,
we find hope all over again.
But of course, we remember hope is a dangerous thing.
Never to love too much, never to dream too much,
never to hope too much were the promises we had made.
Yet in the 6 hours and God knows how many minutes we had known each other for, we knew we had to end it today.

Some of us fell in love that day,
we knew it was going to happen that’s why we carried the required first aid.
We help each other get over it and marvel at how similar were the situations we had suffered.
But back then we were alone and invisible, now we’re grown and raw, bold and loud.
We race as fast as we can to highest building we could see.
We stopped near the gate and decided to act sober,
the boys act like chivalrous gentlemen and the girls like the most respected ladies.
But we knew we were the fuckboys and sluts of the new age.
We hide our true selves but in vain.
We race up to the terrace.
Some of us win and some lose but nobody gives a fuck.
We feel our hearts beating fast and then faster than ever.
On the 108th floor, it truly was something of a different sort.
We sit down on the floor and confess our sins.
We laugh when we hear some and cry our hearts out when we hear others.
We are the sinners, the lovers and the misfits of today.
Oh the feeling of starting it all over again keeps coming to us, we ignore it and push it aside and curse it and blame it and hate it.
All seven of us get up and stand on the walls of the terrace then we sing our favourite songs.
Then one, two, three.
We jump.

(P.S: wrote this when I was 16, probably one of the most beautiful things I’ve ever written. Thanks to today’s writer’s block you get to read this! )

an empty shore

Ayushi Kenia
Sri Lanka, 2017

I feel like an empty shore inside my head.

My thoughts are like the loud waves, gushing and clashing on the walls of my brain.

Do they want to come out?

It’s an empty shore above.

Quiet, yet noisy;

numb, yet surprisingly alive.

Can there be such a state?

The one with two extremes?

I think so, I think.

That’s part of the beauty of a human’s existence.

The amount and variety of things that we get to experience is unimaginable; it’s beautiful

(and scary at times).

The empty shore is as empty as the bottle of wine I had on December 20th.

The empty shore is as deserted as the icecream tub I had on the night when I decided to give up trying.

Tired of fixing things- within and around me.

“What’s the point?”, I thought.

“No one’s watching, I can give up. And rest.”

So I did.

Built a shack on the empty shore, and did what I wanted to do- Rest.

thoughts pt. 2

Mayuri Makwana

1. i think sometimes when you look at people in the eye just enough, you can almost see who they are even if you don’t know them
i dont know if i think its lovely or if im terrified of it

2. maybe i could be anyone. i don’t know who i am, maybe i am ever changing.

3. its so easy to be hard on yourself. (i could write a book about this)

4. why must people die
is it just to show us we are insignificant and nothing is in our control
its like listening to a beat that makes you dance but you can never hear it again.
finally finding someone that you love and losing them to death, oh what a broken heart you must have
what an irony, we try to control everything when we can die the next moment
if you knew you are gonna die tomorrow, what’d you do today? you should do that as much as you can. thats the only true thing that matters

5. oh, how insignificant are you with your assumptions about me, with the love you have for me that i dont need, with your rage and hate and disgust, with your ideas of me
oh how insignificant you are

6. i have been trying to get my heart broken since January of this year just to feel something

7. today i feel like how i felt when i was 15.
helpless.

8. if you stop loving someone because they hurt you, destroy you
was your love unconditional after all

9. this feeling of losing interest in someone who’s not good for you
how with every line they say that you used to adore makes you roll your eyes now

(part one link: https://mayurimakwana.wordpress.com/2018/03/04/thoughts/)

by myself

Ayushi Kenia

Lonely v/s Alone

It’s such a powerful and important distinction.

Having an awareness of this distinction is essential, I feel.

I experienced the power and impact of this distinction recently.

I was walking on the streets of Bandra one afternoon. I was on my way to grab a snack. I didn’t have company. I kind of wanted to be by myself, to have that time for myself.

I didn’t feel the need to listen to music while walking. Else, I’d generally prefer plugging in my airpods and listening to songs; partly to not let my presence on the road to appear “lonely” to the people around.

Have you ever done this? Put on music when you’re out alone, by yourself, just to appear that you are engaged in an activity? To not come out as a “loner”, as the word goes these days?

I have done that a couple of times in the past.

The fear of being judged- by strangers around me, the people I haven’t even come across in my life, and will probably never see them again- was bigger than my need to not listen to music and just simply walk around, unbothered.

That afternoon in Bandra, walking on those streets without music, I experienced freedom. Looking at churches, shops and traffic lights, I felt free and at ease. There was nothing extraordinary about these sights, but the plain act of me walking by myself, without any music changed everything.

It was so (fucking) simple.

It felt so (fucking) good to not think about other people’s opinions about my “lonely” ass walking around alone.

And speaking of, I did not feel lonely. I felt complete. And that felt right.

You see, spending time on ruminating about “what will people think of me if I do this?” will get you nowhere, and I am affirming this by experience.

There’s something cathartic about breaking the misconceptions that you have formed of yourself, and intentionally working towards perceiving yourself differently. Everything changes after that, trust me. And that’s one hell of an experience!

How drinking water from a mason jar can change your life

Mayuri Makwana

As always, I am late to the trend. This time for mason jars. I bought a mason jar a couple of days back. I stared at it for two days, wondering what I should put in it. I didn’t want to do the fairy light crap. I wanted to use it for drinking- what? I didn’t know. I didn’t want to use it for milkshakes or smoothies either (i wasn’t willing to clean the crap out of the jar, 100%).
Then, my very clever brain told me- why not use it for water? And I said heck yeah, why not.
I have been drinking water from my mason jar non-stop for the past few days. My water consumption has increased by 88% (no, I will not show you how I did the math).
Drinking from a water bottle? A bottle’s entire purpose is to hold water. What’s the fun in that? Drinking from a mason jar? WITH A STRAW? I could be drinking smoothies and iced tea in this. But I decided to drink something as simple as water. The special treatment I am giving to water, oh, I am treating that baby right.
Romanticizing something like drinking water gave me a healthy body, healthy skin, a healthy mind (I am no scientist but, I am sure there are other benefits too.)
I have learned if you romanticize the right things in your life- you will change your life. How? By increasing the likelihood of that good thing happening, just because it’s so fancy. I am no life coach and probably haven’t done half of what people do in their lives (or are supposed to do?). But if my lazy mind can come up with such an innovative idea, it’s safe to assume you can think of such simple ways to have a better life too.
I have never heard of a better deal than 79rs making me drink enough water every day. ( + more trips to the washroom = more steps 😉 )

Reiki

Ayushi Kenia

I was asleep, I was awake.
It was a trance.
Very peaceful.
Felt my energy, my aura,
flowing inside me.
Watching the pranic energy in my hands,
feeling its power, the vibrations.
The possibilities.
I perceived the universe.
My eyes remained closed.
I travelled through the ocean of stars.
Met the sun, felt its heat.
Worshipped it.
Time had come,
for me to return.
I thanked the Universe;
The giver of Life.
A mentor.
The mighty and the just.
I was asleep, I was awake.

A letter I never sent

Mayuri Makwana


Hi.

Of course, it is a normal piece of paper. Can’t do anything too fancy (maybe later). I don’t know if I’ve ever written you a letter. Maybe today I have missed you the most, maybe it was enough for me to sit and write. Missing you like I would miss a fresh splash of water on a sunny day, missing you like I would miss the cool breeze of air that makes a night walk perfect. Sorry, but when I write letters they ought to be romantic. I don’t think letters are letters without their romance. I just realized that July is such a weird month. What even happens in July? It’s right in the middle. No one remembers what happens in July. I am happy that I gave something (this letter) for you to remember (and for me too) this July of 2021. It makes me feel bitter how difficult it is to write about someone else, even if you’ve known them for years, even if they’ve lived in your dreams and thoughts for a significant amount of time. How can we be so consumed with ourselves and everything around us that we give others no power to even be remembered deservedly? Anyway, turns out exercising does release a lot of the oh-so-fucking-good hormones. I wish I can make everyone exercise. Is it boring to read about someone else’s thoughts in a letter addressed to you? I would have hated it. On that note, I really do miss you today. I think I am feeling really grateful for someone like you to be a part of my life. It is like having a bench only to ourselves in the middle of an apocalypse. Buildings are burning, there is no hope for tomorrow, people are killing each other, there is a stench of malice in the air- but somehow, none of this reaches our little bench. It’s just you and me smoking a nicotine-free cigarette and laughing at existential jokes- mostly made by you, you’re good at that. Well, I guess what I mean to say is, I love you.



untamed

Ayushi Kenia

Ari: Why do birds exist, anyway?

Dante: Birds exist to teach us things about the sky.

If we studied birds, maybe we could learn to be free.


What is it about birds that makes us think of freedom? 


Is it the act of them flying in a colossal open canvas? 


Or is it their ability to decide for themselves if they want to fly with or against the wind?


To me, it’s just their way of existing. 


Is it their purpose? I don’t really know.

I don’t know what to call it. 


But I think the reason why we perceive it, rather associate their way of living to freedom is because of the seemingly uninterrupted time they have up there. 


And yes, the idea of flying is very eternal and soulful.

It’s actually a power that a lot of people want to possess;


I, being one of them. 


PS- The dialogue above is an excerpt from the book “Aristotle and Dante discover the Secrets of the Universe” by Benjamin Alire Sáenz.

something like that, more or less

Mayuri Makwana

and then i started looking for things that won’t hurt me.

something that doesn’t have a heartbeat.
something that doesn’t have charming eyes.
something that doesn’t know what my favourite show is.
something that doesn’t always know the right thing to say.
something that doesn’t stay up till 7am for me.
something that doesn’t teach me how to love my mother.
something that doesn’t spend every festival with me.
something that doesn’t send me songs every monday.
something that doesn’t say i love you twice in 10 seconds.

more like,

a sad movie in a fresh blanket,
a spoonful of peanut butter,
a shower after working hard,
a sight of stars,
a splash of colour on a canvas,
a sacrifice of sugar,
a shiny earring,
a song in my “recommendations for you”,
a sea reflecting moonlight,
a sandwich with cheese.

something like that,
more or less.


Boundless

Ayushi Kenia

An empty road
Decorated with somber street lights
A hint of cold in the air
Letting the sweat on my skin vanish
My hair floating ecstatically with the wind.
Accelerating wheels
Unsure of the destination.
Trembling mind
Throbbing heart.
Firm hands
Determined to dissipate.
No commitments
No regulations
No routine
No fear.
My individuality below the colossal sky
My soul ready to soar towards the horizon.
Leaving back
the unpleasant memories
the sleepless nights
the fights
the pain
All of it.
To start the creation of a new self
Devoid of:
fear
self doubt
expectations
The sky is now showing its true colours
orange…
…red…
…yellow…
All spreading and making room for the sun
I halt and behold this blissful sight
Closing my eyes
Feeling the heat;
The hope it carries.
Perceiving the new beginning..