Is it Clickbait if I say I am Depressed? (Part 1: World Wide Web)

There are only two ways of beginning this: I never thought it would be as bad as January 2017/it is as bad as January 2017. In the September of my 2^nd year of college, I felt as though I was losing grip of reality. I was swimming. I was writing essays for class. I was volunteering at the hospital. I was nursing a gigantic crush on the guy I would go on to date. I was the thinnest I was in college. I was scoring the highest I ever did on assignments. I was curating a poetry project. For myself, I said. I was productive. I wanted to die.

That semester was The Semester When We Read The Crack Up. When F Scott Fitzgerald was 39, he was no longer happy. It didn’t come suddenly, this unhappiness; but slowly built, spinning itself round him, spool after spool, silken and thick. People around him knew—he wrote this unhappiness so frequently, it was impossible to not know. 

I was 19. I imagined him holding his pen up, uncertain how to phrase this next part
authoritatively, as an author must: 

“the test of a first-rate intelligence is the ability to hold two opposed ideas in the mind at the same time, and still retain the ability to function. One should, for example, be able to see that things are hopeless and yet be determined to make them otherwise”. 

I thought of him, Arachne-like, holding his pen like a knitting needle, trying to put a positive spin on this story of brokenness; determined to make it otherwise. I imagined him covered with the silk of his sadness, picking at this silk for weaving his stories. I imagined how he got entwined in the spool, how his armchair, his feet, his torso, were all covered in web after web of silk. How he saw the web; and was "determined to make it otherwise", see his trap as a chrysalis.

*

Spiders wrap their prey in silk. They are expert spinners, covering their prey, line by line, with their own sticky creation. Before long, the resisting prey surrenders, surrounded by the spool of silk. The silk paralyzes the prey; slowly, literally consuming it. By the time the spider finally feasts, its prey is indistinguishable from the sad silk it is wrapped in, trapped in.

I always knew I was sad. This primary knowledge is integral to how I wove myself. I sought out the most tragic of stories and read until the tragedy in the story was indistinguishable from the tragedy in my heart. I wrote Mother’s Day cards fueled by self-sacrifice, demanding "nothing except more love". I wrote diary entries informing myself I was a terrible daughter, a terrible friend. The first word I remember learning is ‘Sorry’: a ‘Magic Word’. Where the word implied healing, I would weaponize it, use it to become sacrificial. In my sacrifice, I would become the scapegoat for the pain of others. I would be glorious. Instead of wafting into the spider’s web, I decided to invite the spider into my home to build its web. Instead of being hung and killed by the spider, I would choose to die the death of a martyr; my final moment, being crucified at the centre of a shining web.

You could say I harboured a romantic notion of self-sacrifice. I could say that is what we value in women. 

*

In September 2016, I lay in my hostel bed, slowly thinking that if I did it, who would find me first, how they would tell my parents, and how this would irrevocably change my family and my friends. At that time, my mother was running around Calcutta, building a home. Papa gave her the money, she ran around the city, talking to carpenter, electrician, painter, mechanic, glassblower, about how she hoped to build a home, possibly a final home. She spent all day working, laughing to me over the phone that she had dreams about the house, about how it all coming together. She sounded exhilarated and exhausted. When the house was finally made, it was something to behold. I stood there, in February, when the house was complete, feeling the earth shake.

Nobody else did, but I could feel the earth spinning, as though it had been bearing the brunt of something heavier than itself. I paused, gripping the marble tabletop, and felt my legs shake. Almost in response, the tile had grown a slim crack, evident only if you were looking for it. Around me, everyone applauded, praising this house with its golden lights and filigree woodwork. I saw it crack.

When I returned, I turned to Vrinda and Sanna asked them to tell me why not. I had made a list of reasons in September, and the only item left in why not was that my Mum was making the greatest project of her life—I couldn’t do it to her, not then. The reason was over. The house was complete. They said something, and it was good enough. It was reason enough, to not—or it would be, in a while. On the best days, I can remember what they said. Right now, I cannot.

*

I have always found the word clickbait strange. Click, implies action; bait, implies trap. Surely one cannot action themselves into a trap—if you walk into a trap, surely you wanted to, and if you wanted to—it cannot be a trap. Why would someone will themselves into a trap?

More than anything, at the heart of that is thr question of what it means to be human. Where do you really begin and end? In horror films, you watch the protagonist walk into the haunted house, unassuming. You call her stupid. You know what will happen; you hate her for not knowing her own fate. You still scream. In watching her, do you become her? 

*

I stepped out in the sun after four days today. I walked down the road, starving, and went to Pret a Manger. I saw a man and a woman sit on a bicycle parking bar and talk. I saw a family of Hindi-speaking tourists say it will be cheaper to take the metro. I watched a man pass by where another had asked for my number last week. None of them felt real. Sign 1.

I took the brioche I wanted and took a second one. I considered a bottle of juice and I picked it out. I thought of how matted my hair was, how unwashed I was, how evident it was that I hadn’t been able to sleep in two days. The shop assistant called me love, like he knew. Sign 2.

I walked into Sainsbury, casually picked up two packets of chips, instant ramen—food that I wouldn’t have to leave my room to make. I smiled at myself. This was so clearly. Sign 3.

Papa called. I felt relief I had missed it because I wouldn’t have to pretend to be fine. Sign 4.

I guilt myself for the relief and call back. Mummy asked how work is going. I shout at her in fury and burst into tears I didn’t see coming. Sign 5.

I write on my weekly planner list, in big blue felt pen letters: DO NOT SELF HARM. DO NOT SELF HARM. DO NOT SELF HARM. DO NOT SELF HARM. DO NOT SELF HARM. DO NOT SELF HARM. DO NOT SELF HARM. Sign 6, Sign 7, Sign 8, Sign 9, 10, 11, 12, 13.

I fantasize about how one little movement, a tiny one, not too dangerous, could have been mistaken for an accidental scratch, really, how a slight swish, could make it all a little more tolerable.

Sign 14.

*

Crossing Over/Love Poetry to Make Amends

You are young. 

Softer than you think, a 

Mountain range made by a seven year old 

Curves and soft lines, 

Pastel shades running amok

Not perfect, but 

Loved,

Stuck on your mother's pinboard-heart. 

You are young. 

The sun falls quieter. It is Delhi, it is hot

In a way no other place is 

It is Saturday

In a way no other day is 

And the sun is streaming in, making little storms 

out of the specks. 

There is nothing to do except admire the blankness of the sun

Turning the floors golden. 

Turning the bed stands golden. 

Turning the ends of your fingers pink,

Your cheeks golden, 

You do not know it 

But you are a lion cub, 

transforming. 

You are young. 

You stay up full nights, re-viewing people fall in love 

In the cheapest of ways. 

There is nothing novel about love

Or its massive potential,

yet each second watched tells you the familiar ways

We invent to be made softer, made more tactile;

the familiar ways 

In which we always search for lost objects. 

and what do you do with lost things 

except 

make vague maps and ways

to remember? 

***

Found:

A bubble blown in a child's face. 

A leaf turning crimson where Autumn doesn't happen. 

A bottle of perfume you only remember my scent. 

The white flowers left after sudden rain. 

A dog sniffing your hand, wagging her tail. 

A poem you copy out because it 

made the world slow down 

and made you want to do something with your hands. 

Found:

The sound of laughter as the sun disappears and the cool breeze breaks making the branches break into waves and a make a brown dog circle his tail and two coffee cups on a red table tap dance and shake and you realize it was you, the sound of laughter was you, and all this magic and not for a second did you think that

Everything in the world loves you.

Vacation

We are on vacation. We are dressing by turn in our AirBnb.

My mother takes out our clothes. She irons out the creases.  She hangs them at the bathroom door. She budgets well, that is why she said “I’ll do the cooking”, so she does the cooking. She measures out Rice, watches it boil while chopping up garlic and ginger. She stirs the sambar she got for free from the Indian Deli. She hands my Father his glasses. She calls out my name, thinking I am asleep. I do not Stir. She is rinsing the dishes. She packs dry lunch that she knew “would last us the trip”. She budgets well, that is why she said “I’ll do the cooking”, so she spent the day before our trip chopping, frying, rolling, roasting.

She hands my Brother’s hand outstretched from the bathroom, a towel. My Father asks for his Medicines. She puts tea to boil and asks him “to take it out of the blue suitcase”. He cannot find it. She steps over the bags in disarray and hands him his medicine, taken out with a Clean Sweep. She asks him to watch the tea. The tea is about to boil over. My Father does not know how to turn the stove off. He tells my mother “I don’t know how to turn this off.” My mother steps over The bags in disarray and turns off the stove. She calls out my name, thinking I am asleep. I draw the Covers Closer.

She pours out his tea in a mug and passes it to him. My Father sees his WhatsApp messages. Bored, he lifts his spectacles and turns to my mother’s messages. He tells her that her Father has sent her a message. She asks what about as she takes out detergent. My Father tells her what it is about, but she is half-listening. She calls out my name, thinking I am asleep, and tells me to “Go bathe after bhaiyya”. She calls out my Brother’s name, noticing that the shower has gone silent, and tells him to leave his clothes so that she can wash it. My Brother paces out, says

“Fast Fast Fast get ready Fast”

To me and that is when I Finally Disembark from the little attic I was sleeping in.

Half an hour later, my mother is waiting for my Brother and Father to leave so that she can change her clothes for our vacation. She wears her jeans, blue top, and begins putting away the blue bags in disarray. She tells me “Go downstairs and tell them I am coming” before borrowing my earrings and kajal and lipstick. As I leave the door, she is brushing out her hair. I climb down the flight of stairs to meet my Brother fuming. “We are FIFTEEN minutes late!”

My mother follows in two minutes, carrying the boxes of lunch she made earlier. My Brother turns to my mother and

Scowls.

“What Took You So LONG?"

My Mother says nothing.

Dreamcatcher/Lullaby for a Friend with Nightmares

Dreamcatcher/Lullaby for a Friend with Nightmares

The night has broken in, like a thief
And entered through the window,
Held you hostage
In your own bed, and is making you watch it turn
Your room into the shade of blue that the night likes. 

Yesterday we sat, unfurling ourselves like orange pieces
Today you draw yourself tighter, saving the unfolding
For when you are asleep,
Your limbs hanging loose, your eyelashes curled tight.
A voodoo doll controlled in the way the night likes.

You know those stories in which you fall asleep
And your toys come to life?
Your are sleeping and so is your room, but you are in two rooms
And when you wake, you will tell me about this other room you
Were pulled into because that is what the night likes.

You are fourteen again and racing barefeet
Until you watch yourself become a dandelion.
You are six again and feeding the wolves
Until you are sixteen and the one feasting.
You are twenty again and naked on a metro
Until you are twenty and awake again and googling "exhibitionism".
You think about the dreams about sinking, and wonder what if you were born
Landlocked, instead of salted by the sea.
What would the night like?

Yesterday you woke up, and felt your paperweight heart sink.
Yesterday you woke up, and felt your heart punched and filed away.
Yesterday you woke up, drunk on some amnesiac
Yeaterday you woke up, drunk on some aphrodisiac
Each time turning to the other side,
Each time muttering angrily:
Who knows what the night likes?

Tonight I will curl by your bed, hissing like a cat
At this burglar of time, this villain of light,
This absconder, this overstaying guest, this red tapist who refuses
To tell you if tomorrow, there will starlight.
Tonight, I will be mosquito net, lampshade, ghostly comrade,
Tonight I will hold the night by the collar
And tug every time it brings a shadow upon you.
Tonight I will orbit you like the moon, and bare my teeth
In a sinister grin, just the night turns dark,
No matter what the night likes.

You are asleep.
Here, your heart and light squarely cut
Here, your thoughts breaking beams in your body
Here your skin on fire, here your breath of water,
Here, you becoming the music, the dance,
the disco light too cliché for the day
But exactly what the night likes.

Pyrotechnics

Tiredness/My Facebook bio

is being unable to create something
beautiful,
unwillingness to think beautiful, let alone be beautiful,
wearing the same Hufflepuff sweatshirt
Being reminded when you glance in the mirror, that you last brushed
Three days ago.

is opening up your laptop to work, and then watching that same show
Playing that same game
To remind yourself of when you didn't feel like this

is putting your feet against hot water bottles and willing them to burn
So that the hot water bottle does not have to be filled again.

is mindless scrolling, refusing to do anything that requires you to think for longer than two minutes
is refusing, nay, denying yourself, the right to write this poem
To write anything, to remember how to love
In that big elastic balloon way that swells until
you float

is to whispering "thank god" when it bursts.

Is to remember when your hair wasn't stringy
When you wanted to wake up
When you wanted to write good poetry
When you wanted to do things that did not involve
Folding yourself into corners
and sighing and popping a vitamin pill and
nodding at to this cut up handkerchief
you are sleeping with.

is moving a pile of laundry from desk to table to chair to pillow
is refusing yourself the luxury of
Ceilings and feelings
is crying when you didn't see it coming,

is crying because the puzzle is duplicating itself everytime you think
the pieces are all here.
is crying because you weren't supposed to eat another pizza
is crying because you aren't supposed to eat another pizza
is crying because you weren't supposed to
but you wanted to
is crying because why did you want to?

Is Sudoku for breakfast, pooptime, lunch, and dinner
is wanting to keep yourself sharp
and hating how much you have to bang your head against
The countertop to slice a tomato into pieces

Is watching people live laugh love and
laughing at them those basic plebs
and hating yourself for wanting it to be that easy
and hating yourself for not letting it be that easy

Is loving them and hating them, because they can
get that tattooed
and you can't remember what those words even mean.

is avoiding reflective surfaces because they demand time
is avoiding paper surfaces because they demand time
is avoiding the people who help you surface
Because you demand time
is avoiding yourself because damn you why do even want time?

so you fall asleep on fresh laundry, a pile of clothes from over a year ago
whose poor fitting is no longer a tragedy,
because you fit poorly in your own body.

A girl gets sick of a rose.

I want them, those women with purple teeth
Who have pearls around their necks, 

bare wrists
And daggers for fingers. 

When I say I want them, I mean, I want to be them,
Have gums that bleed unwaveringly with all the
Non-supplication, scathing insults, sarcasm,
Until the doorknob turns into your back
And you stand there, curiously open.

I want this cushion that has turned patchy

 yellow with tear marks and blood marks
To burst and reveal the teeth inside it, from

 the one skull I killed and buried
-not necessarily human-
And offer it to you in a little box so you know,
you know me,
Who collects relics of death, and makes relics of the living
Who would fashion a monument to resentment
And offer it up as a present, love me, it screams
I stare at it, the blood I have spent on it,
And I do not know which blood I hate more,
The whiteness of your love, or the redness of mine.

I pull my lips at the ends and stare wildly into the mirror,
And claw at my gums so they delicately bleed out what I want to say
Purple, fresh, a morning vendor's flowers for the temple.
Instead all I have to offer the gods today
is another
skull
taken apart
burnt
bit by bit
Ash, before it is purple. 

Things We Don't Talk About

How grave mounds and sandcastles are the same thing, except in one, we can
Pretend there are windows
How I build sandcastles over things I don't want to see
How that one time when I went to the beach
And I made sandcastles,
I could not make the windows,
Maybe I was making grave mounds.

How when I left, the sand clung to my clothes and shoes and skin
Till I could not walk straight
How I sat in the ocean
Seeking release
Except that was more
Dirt.

How I am here, but you know I'm not here
How the plastic bags we are carefully wrapping furniture in
Is confusing the furniture, has it become old, or are we moving again?
How I am here, but you know I am not here
And my ears are covered in bubble wrap
And how often I say "I misheard",
And how my friends are asking me to go to an ENT
but how else do you listen over the sound of your own screaming?

How this is trashy poetry, how everything stinks.
How juvenile, how annoying, how often I want to say I hate you
Like I did when I was juvenile, when I was annoying and I thought I had outgrown that
But here I am.
Out.
Grown.
And I really do hate you.

How sometimes we wrap furniture in plastic so that
When it falls it will fall without a thud, more of a plop,
So that we can feel the weight of pushing a chest of drawers down, then the shoe rack, then finally the study desk
My laptop and books and bra still on it
Plop. Plop. Plop.
Either my hands will tire or the furniture will thud
And it is kind of the same thing.

How it is hard to look at lamps without wanting to throw stones at them
How fairy lights are simultaneously the most frivolous and the most stubborn
Lights I have encountered
How feeble they are, how whimsical, how delicate, how pointless
To throw rocks at but here I am
Banging pencil boxes on them anyway:
Fairies, roaches, same thing.

How oceans were supposed to be blue
And here was the coastline
And here was the sunset
And here was the hanging bridge, that necklace
And here was my mother on a mat with corn on the cob
And here was laughter
And here was a purple dress
And how the ocean was brown
And tasted like crying.