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! )

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.