By Default

The sounds are so faint. They have started fading in the background ever so quickly yet you cannot hear yourself. It should be easy, you think. This. It should be easy. But things never turn out the way they seemed to be in the beginning.

It gets hard around here.

You feel pressured, stressed and constantly worried about the next screw up, about something going wrong and then you worry about fixing it till you get it done. Once that is out of the way, more things follow. And you find yourself between this and that, hardly ever listening to yourself thinking. 

All you hear is chaos.

Interrupted conversations.

Missed signals. 

Then you worry about all this too. You also worry about worrying. You worry that if you are worried too much it is going to get your spirits down then you worry that being optimistic will only mean getting your hopes crushed with disappointments. And then some more. But when all this clears out, when you are no longer in confusion, things become crystal clear. Things start to take shape, come into focus and align perfectly in front of you.

For how long though?

Mere minutes. It does not stretch for long. Moments of absolute clarity are always fleeting. They just vanish out of sight before you could even let out a sigh. Yet you stand there, confused. Not knowing whether to feel happy or worried. But because that’s what you have been doing for so long..

You become worried again. By default.

Why you write, and why you stop writing.

You write because you want to read your thoughts. You want to see them embodied on paper. You write because there is something you want to say. You write because even if there is no one listening, you would have still said it somehow. You write because when people fail you, words remain visible. Clear. Those journals? They account for something that happened once and might not happen again. You write because you want to hang onto the memories that faded away so long ago that it feels like they were never there to begin with. With the curve of each letter, emotions were stirred. With each set of ellipses used; a hesitation. A pause. Moments of deep thoughts. Of belief and doubt and everything in between.

And then you stop writing.

You stop writing because what you write suddenly becomes too much. You stop writing because you realise it does not do you any good, if anything, it engulfs you in this little bubble whose walls became so thick that you can see them. You stop writing because the way out was never the way in. You stop because the words.. Your words.. They hurt. They hurt to look at, to think about. They hurt because you are constantly reminded of what could have been but hadn't.

Finally..

If piles of nonexistent letters could exist, then it'd be those I'd never written.

Manual

What if every time you can't make a choice, you refer to a manual. A guidebook that is alphabetically categorised with possible situations which start with ifs. You just flip through the pages in a hurry, find a solution and you act accordingly.. 

But it's never that easy.

Even if you do exactly as it said, not missing a single step.. There are so many variables that are going decide whether the thing you have done is good or bad, stupid or wise. 

Till you find out, keep turning. 

Of Mistakes

The thing about mistakes is that they loom down on you when you least want them to. They hover around; remaining still and silent. It does not matter if you tried so hard not to think about them, it does not matter how long you have tried to accept them, they will still be there. A wound as fresh as new.