I Choose Love!

I was on a midnight stroll when I came across the doomed cracks in my castle. They were long, tracing the length of each magnificent wall, running around the deep carvings, distorting the beauty to their taste.

Their taste- bitter taste;

And I, for the longest time, seemed to have given into it- given into the trap that was set to lock me out of my own paradise, to put me behind barbed wires that had me feeling devoid of love; despite how beautifully abundant it seemed on the other side, no part of me had the courage to reach out for it.

Picture Credit: Pinterest (Poosh)

It was in this place where the importance of love dawned over me. Whoever had pushed me downhill had only helped me realize how everything I ever did, was motivated by a desperate need for love.

For me, love was the center of it all, and I could just never identify it. 

Truly, ego is blinding; and whoever accused love for the blindness was living an illusion woven by the charms of a thick ego.

If at all, love is awakening; it awakens your magic. It helps you touch all those hearts who had ever harmed you.

It is the most beautiful spell that Gods ever came up with.

And so, I spent the last night falling in love with love again, for I don’t know another way to get rid of the shackles of my empty heart.

The Leap

The Sun is shining down upon your brow, making it gleam until it shines enough to deserve your glory. 

The grass under your feet is tender- as tender as this newborn beginning of your life-long journey. Tender enough to be cradled to the glee of their greens. 

The path ahead is unbiased, unforked- leading you to your paradise, to the sweet victory, to sweeter smiles. 

The path lies unbiased, across the edges of deep darkness. 

Should the need of leaping across a deep dark abyss hold you back from reaching out for your dreams?

Should your disbelief in the power of keeping faith hold you back from believing in the strength your heart carries?

If you crowned your fear and chose to never take that first step, would you have given your destiny a fair chance?

The One about Rains and Hearts

I spilled colors on a rather blank canvas. They dripped off the edges, down in a puddle of water, giving colors to a rather blank sky… An illusion some people so need.

Rains mark my favorite time of the year. Those few minutes of Earthen fragrances sent afloat by the happy soils… The beauty of the greens hanging in the air and rustling every now and then to sing songs of merriment. Dancing hearts, joyous smiles… I don’t know what could possibly make one hate such raw charm. But then, some people do.

Some hearts who had to let another go in one sad monsoon don’t find their bliss in the rains anymore. All they can think of is the way their heart burnt like a forgotten lamp waiting to die before someone remembers it. All they can hear is the sound of their tears falling into puddles that the rain must have filled. All they can find is the melancholy trapped behind the blue hues of water ridden clouds. All they see, all they smell, all they feel… is bereavement.

Bereavement of the rain washing away the last few marks of the last walk they had with their beloved; of new life growing from the old flowers they had buried underneath; of trees falling and withering away, taking along the marks of their journey; of a traveler traveling farther away from her childhood home.

Separation leaves hollows where once life was, and just like an abandoned crevice, these hollows fill with memories when rains fall, but the water dries away- memories don’t.

They stay behind, adding shades of sepia to the neons of joy. Adding rust to the sheen of gleaming metal. Adding gore to glory and pride to prudence.

They tell stories like a charm and make you forget others like magic. Before you know, that void is like the Sun shining upon your midnight fog. The one you can’t resist following, not once in seven moons.

The one about Butterflies and Hope

Have you ever seen a butterfly grow out of her cocoon? Her wings are the first to greet the first Sun of her new life. 

Do you know why?

It’s a victory ritual. A token to celebrate everything she survived. To celebrate all that made her into who she is now.

The last of the thins of her cocoon break soon. Her struggle to break free ends sooner. The light at the end of the tunnel flows out of her daydreams to bring charms to her reality… A reality she once wanted to run away from. She eventually did… She ran, but only to get closer to who she was. 

Have you ever noticed how often writers sell hope wrapped in this exact same tale?

Have you ever wondered why? 

It’s a peacemaker’s chant. One meant to make you believe in the power of fallen joy. Meant to make you believe that one day you will wake up to realize how you had never fallen prey to the dark but had only been pulled into its embrace till you got stronger to face the world again.

It’s a poet’s favorite metaphor; her favorite choice of weapon to spill beauty in a world that is threatened by it. 

It’s an intricate piece of abstract art, with love spilled all over- a little to see and a lot to feel. 

But mostly, it’s a reminder, a letter speaking about all our lost smiles and addressing them back to us, exactly where we had lost them. 

Have you found yours yet?

Homecoming…

I build. I break. I love. I berate. 

When birds build a home, they travel far… far away to distant lands. They fly to the highest branch of their favorite tree, only to find a void left unhealed, just for them. 

How do you know if you weren’t shying away from healing that one last wound in your heart in the wait for your person to come back home and caress it?

Someone once called love the greatest healer of all times. Years later, poets began writing verses about how love broke them. So, is love a beautiful irony that breaks you and heals you in the same moment, or do we admire our scars so much that breaking away from them is the kind of bereavement we can’t take?

Four walls, two windows, and a heart. That is all it takes to build a home. Then why does it feel a little less complete in the absence of someone to share it with?

People are lonely. Their hearts are lonelier. Smiles, sadness, storms, or suns; they need someone to share them all with. But then, they fear- what if that one hand that they want to hold for the rest of their lives chose to part ways one day?

Well, there is nothing scarier than fear itself. It can make you fight demons that weren’t even at war with you in the first place. It can make you lock the door that could have taken you to your bliss. It makes you believe that every person who has your back will stab you one day. It can make you change paths right before you were about to catch the road back home. 

Why would you want to make friends with something that keeps you away from home? Why leave hands only because you fear they won’t keep their promises?

Why not love fearlessly…. like a wanderer would? The one who knows he is to part ways one day, no matter how far that day is?

No matter how scared you are, bring comfort to your heart, and make it feel safe to love again. No matter how many times you had to leave hands you didn’t want to, find the courage to hold another, just for one more time. 

No matter how many times your nest was broken down to shambles, build again, only because you deserve its warmth. 

And lastly, no matter how many times fear made you turn the wrong corners, take the road back home. Embrace your homecoming. 

– Gauri Walecha

To the one who is afraid to heal…

You know, our ego does this strange thing. It tries to build an identity around our traumas. It wears scars as badges of honor and flaunts them in front of carefree smiles. We define our worth from the tears we shed each day. Pain validates us, we go around collecting it just like a kid with a newfound interest in collecting pebbles. Except, for us, the jar never fills. Our heart is like a deep well where we keep throwing stones just to check if it has run out of water yet. Sadly, it never does. No matter how many years we spend trying to empty it out, each thrown stone makes it weep a little.

Such identities are scary though. Not only because they are too fragile when built on loamy grounds but also because they are afraid of losing themselves in the web of their own lies. Lies about how our beloved trauma is our ultimate story, about how what was once broken can never be healed, about how the grudge we pamper each day is the lesson our trauma left us, and also about how letting go is a crime against our heart.

But the question is, do you really want to spend the rest of your life hurting yourself like that? Isn’t it an act of self-harm to be clinging to pain longer than how much we can endure?

Don’t get me wrong! I am not asking you to stop feeling what you feel. Rather, I am asking you to drown deep into your emotions once and for all.

Reach for the deepest parts of your heart. Take hold of every string that connects you back to your pain. Hold it with love, kiss its broken ends, knit it back where necessary, and break it off where not; do that and a lot more but once and for all.

I know stories of pain are strangely celebrated. Scars are decorations in our strange strange world, but you don’t have to follow suit.

I don’t want you to live a life full of agony. I don’t want your trauma to define you. Instead, I want your smile to be your sigil in this world of royal battle flags; I want your smile to shine not only because it speaks of a prettier story, but also because it celebrates the spirit with which you overcame everything that fell your way.

Yes, life is a war and you are a warrior, but even the most ruthless of fighters are allowed to return home once in a while.

Then, why do you feel the need to build your home on the battlefield of a war long dead?

– Gauri Walecha

Sometimes I wonder…

Sometimes I wonder if the leaves have stopped rustling with you not being around. Did you take the wind away or is it just the silence you left behind? Flowers have wilted down, and those standing have lost their charm. Did you crush them under your spiteful steps or is it just the love you took away?

When people pass away, they inherit their life down to those who stood the closest to them. You chose to abandon, and my life has since been a staircase spiraling down to the hollows; an unending funeral in my heart since your feelings died. Is it the void that they bequeath me of?

Sometimes I wonder if the music has lost all its melody since you chose to take that step away. Have my ears deafened down, or are they just not brave enough to hear any lies anymore? I wonder if it is about the lies or just the ones that you spoke.

Sometimes I wonder if it was just the more of you or less of me, or simply not enough of everything- that made you- that made me- lose the fight?

– Gauri Walecha

Should You?

Have you ever paused just for the sake of it? You know, standing still on an old path, in the midst of a swarm… rushing through life just like you.
You find yourself greeting a strange kind of silence in that one moment. A silence, almost too magnetic for you to ever wish for a breakthrough. 

There are voices all around you.

Behind you, is a woman in her mid-twenties, shouting at someone on her phone. On one side, there’s a young man, with a baby in his arms. The baby chuckles as he speaks to it; his eyes though, are too worn to smile a full smile.
On the other side, there is an old woman, with a tired hunched back, passing glances to her frail hand hanging in the air. Is she trying to recollect how her lover’s arm used to feel around it?

In front of you, is a bright white light; around you, are people, as good as moths, rushing towards it. Yet you are not… should you?

– Gauri Walecha

When silence dawned over…

It’s not very often
yet just enough,
when my tongue glides
elegantly so,
To put ballet to shame;

Its rhythm 
sings poems
rich with lore, lure, and lies.

Lies 
have only proven kind to the truth, 
until they are silenced;
No sword kills
half as gory
as the one forged
behind the veil of secrets. 

It’s not very often
yet just enough,
when hearts don’t waltz in love
just like they are known to-
rather,
they run to dig a scar
deep into each other. 

How unfortunate
is love supposed to be
to have fallen prey
to its very own flames?

There are times,
when I lose hope;
I lose hope on the slim occasion
of ever being able to hold my lover’s hand,
and smile to my truth,
not to mask my miseries. 

And hope, 
no matter how powerful, 
often loses me;
I happen to walk down 
the prettiest of dark aisles
ever known to my feet.

The day before was beautiful;
I saw you basking in the joy of our story. 

The very next Sun saw us
drawing swords to the most tender parts of our souls. 

Today, 
we fought like we hadn’t ever loved. 

I will wait for silences to dawn on the morrow;
A silence long-awaited; 
One that we had betrothed our peace to-
I wish we hadn’t!

– Gauri Walecha

You will love…

Four walls, a number of bricks, and here you sit in the middle of this room finding solace in your own flesh and love in the mirrors. Mirrors, though, seldom lie. They may lie about a few harsh truths, though ‘lack of love’ stands high on the list.

You stand in front of this silvered piece of carefully cut glass, staring at every part of your scarred silhouette, yet the light shining on those marks somehow sells them as beauty spots.
In that moment, you smile, promptly looking at the delicate curve that your rose tainted lips have arched into; a careful moment of comfort, though you may only find it meandering away from your glistening eyes.

Why, you ask?
Because mirrors seldom lie; eyes, though, don’t!

Those two gleaming curves of crystal, sitting on your face, are windows to the truth-
You know it.
I know it.
We know it.
So, we shy away from glances!

We shy away from the mere idea of taking a look down those merciless voids, because we know, that the glance, if made, will hurl our entire existence into this gigantic spiral of a never-ending truth trail;
and you, being nothing but a mere speck of consciousness, will have to learn, not most, but all that this infinity loop has to offer.

You will have to learn why you desperately try finding hearts to love you because you deny believing how loveable you are, unless someone sweeps you off your feet.

You will have to learn how you deny yourself your own embrace because you are a little too scared of the thorns you planted in your own skin.

You will have to learn that you love your mirror because it is the sweetest of all the liars and the most innocent of all the sinners.

And lastly, you will have to accept how your scars are yet not dead and they still need love, regardless of how that silvered glass makes you believe otherwise.
——
You fretted and you still fear that moment of truth, so much so that it has been an eternity since you last stared down your own eyes. 

Now, you have forgotten their mystical shape, and it takes you a minute before you can remember the hue that danced in them.

You feel estranged; you feel endangered, from the very own treasure of your heart.

But, my love, I can’t sing it enough;
I can’t sing it enough…how direly you need to step forth on this path of serene oblivion.
Beyond the doom, has forever lain, a rose drenched dawn; the day you begin to love again… waiting for you, to dance under its skies!

– Gauri Walecha