we distract ourselves so we don’t have time to be alone and overthink,
To stay silent while we let our thoughts overflow and sink.
we find happiness in other people and in other places,
in unfamiliar eyes and just not our own faces.
we search for meaning and often there is none,
so we hide from our thoughts and decide to run.
we run from ourselves in search of an answer,
we put ourselves in their hands, making them the commander.
we look for happiness in others instead of looking inside,
killing and demolishing it, the very act of self love has died.
a meeting by chance
A meeting by chance, I couldn’t force it if I wanted,
He was an idyllic city but I was a ghost town, haunted.
I could tell from the way he offered me coffee that he wasn’t aware,
of the girl that broke everything she touched. No one to spare.
A warning wrapped in delicate packaging, so fragile he broke her before his first touch,
Or maybe this is how she always was and no one noticed as such.
She was always a memento, a scrunchie, a token, or a piece to remember. Broken art.
He kept putting her pieces together, not knowing simultaneously she would rip them apart.
He couldn’t understand and she couldn’t explain,
Why anything she loved would never sustain.
Dear Silence,
Dear Silence,
We meet again. Although unwarranted, I’m not particularly disturbed by your presence. Okay, but who am I kidding? We all know what you do to me. Forget me, we all know what you to do to everyone else. You’re always there. With misery there is silence, with discomfort there is silence, with pain there is silence, and with mourning there is silence. There you are, dressed in black or white. Actually who really knows ? We feel and contemplate your presence more than we should. Instead of observing we are deflecting. Anything to not feel your presence.
You bring out qualities in people that we do not want to see. The kind that we ignore, the thoughts that we repress, and the books that we put away and forget about. Just when we cease to forget their existence, you come and bring them back to us. The problem with you is that you never bring good news. Okay, maybe you do sometimes. But even when you do, we just want the news and not your presence.
Don’t get me wrong, I’m not writing to tell you that you’re unwanted. Okay, maybe I am. But the point is, you scare me silence. Forget me, you scare us. You’re there at every funeral, miscarriage, and breakup. We feel your presence when we’re uncertain, when we don’t have answers, and when we just want to escape. You’re always there.
But silence there’s one more thing I want to say to you. Don’t worry I’m not criticising you again. I’ve done enough of that. You keep us grounded. You make us realise things that without your presence we would fail to notice. You bring pain but you also bring realisation. You bring discomfort but from that discomfort stems our strength. You bring bad news that we try and deny, push away, and fail to accept. But silence, without your presence we would not even know what acceptance is.
You’ve torn us down a bunch of times, been there when people are taken from us, and somehow the only person comfortable in your silence is you, yourself. With all that you’ve done, we should despise you, alienate you, send you off, and never try to meet you again. But the truth is silence, you’re always there by us.
You scare me silence, you scare us. You’re there at every funeral, miscarriage, and breakup. We feel your presence when we’re uncertain, when we don’t have answers, and when we just want to escape. You’re always there. But you’re also there at every surprise, ultrasound, and onset of a relationship. You break us silence, but then again you also make us.
to my friend
to my friend:
I wish things didn’t end this way,
I wish when we left each other it was on good terms and that we had more to say.
I wish we could go back to being okay, I’m just picturing that illusion,
Don’t get me wrong but fixing things would further add to the delusional.
The delusion that we had a perfect friendship that could go through thick and thin,
While it could barely survive the thin, a low blow and not an easy win.
As much as I wish I could fix it all, forget and let go,
I can still hear you screaming, watching me breaking, painful yet slow.
I know the words you say but they don’t meet the words you mean,
Every story has a side and unfortunately here, all have been seen.
Board Exams
I was sitting in my room with my face buried in my geography textbook when my mother came and told me that my board exams got postponed. 19th March 2020, the day my batch group was flooded with messages that discussed the future of our exams. We had got no further information about when our exams would be held and we just sat there contemplating whether this was a good thing or a bad thing.
Since the beginning of tenth “after boards”, was a commonly used phrase among students. “I’m going to throw a party”, “oh when?” “After boards”. There was some sort of pressure that the words “board exams”, made us feel. Although there were some who kept their composure, others were scared of not living up to their expectations. Each day went by and we felt our board exams approaching. “you’ve studied so much”, we told ourselves to calm ourselves down before going into the examination hall. We found comfort in our friends as we were all in the same boat and we found comfort in our seniors and teachers who told us that we will be just fine.
The first exam took place and we were fine. We wondered why we had put so much unnecessary pressure and stress on ourselves earlier. We got used to it and we were in the flow. Some students were happy with their exams while others spoke about making careless mistakes. All in all, we learnt from them and we moved on.
Then came 19th March, we were confused and stressed but we were okay. “We’ll get to know soon enough”, we thought. But it was now April, 11th grade had begun and we still did not know when our board exams would take place. We were in 10th grade and 11th grade at the same time. While some of us continued to diligently study, the rest of us focused more on 11th grade and waited for some sort of confirmation.
After waiting for what felt like forever, on 22nd May it was announced that our exams would take place in July. At this point, we were stressed and most of us were out of it. We had been preparing for these exams since April 2019 and it was now May 2020. Even the most diligent and hardworking students had lost most of their motivation. As time went on, the lockdown kept getting extended and the situation kept getting worse. It reached a point where the only place we were going was to the kitchen and back to our rooms, as going out was just not an option. We heard about the cancellation of other exams, just not ours and we were confused. There was so much going on around us that we didn’t even know what we should put our minds to.
Which brings me to the question, should exams be conducted or not? There has been widespread discussion regarding this topic where people have put forth their views. Some talk about how when exams got postponed there were fewer cases and it was safer then. They talk about how it’s just not safe for so many people to gather, especially seeing the current scenario regarding the increase in cases. While others argue that the necessary precautions are being taken to ensure the safety of the students.
As students we’re confused. If we were to go and give our exams, we’d be doing this in the middle of a global pandemic where many other exams got cancelled. And if our exams get cancelled, how would our results be tabulated? Each school has different pre-board papers and judging based on that would just not be fair. We’re neither here nor there.
suvitti's sight 