happy new year ;)

hello everyone, or to the few who come here sometimes, 

happy new year :) sorry for being a bit late. i have been enjoying life. 

by no means does this mean that there haven't been hardships. oh no no no. there have been many. but resilience is a nice skill to hone. 

besides, there are some people i quite love. and i might not talk to them everyday, but hey. i still love them. as of late: family, a, m, a, s, z, n, p... 

tiny little shoutout, i guess. 

there are still parts of me that pause in doubt before admitting that i actually do like someone and care about them. i suppose it is because i am scared they don't feel the same way. and i'm not saying that is isn't entirely plausible for them to not feel the same, but i guess i'm just scared of admitting that and then being openly hurt later. like with L. that was an L for me, lol, but still. i suppose it shapes you. 

i'm just grateful for life, and i am proud of myself. i really need to take a moment to realize that life has not been easy for me. just because i haven't told anyone about the great grievances of my life, doesn't mean i can't take a moment for myself to be proud of what i have been through and how i persevered. 

besides, i think, you - whoever you are - must know me well enough to be here. hey, if we haven't talked, and we are friends, just come and say "hi nalini". you never know what might happen.

dhamaka

alright, that is all. 

mini announcement: my second book will be published soon. well not soon, but yes. and i hope you like it. it's for you anyways. not for the world but for you. isn't that crazy? writing to reveal your deep, innermost fantasies, dreams, and thoughts to your friends? maybe you won't know what i mean, or maybe you will. i hope you do. 

have a great year!

love,
nalini aka
soberly drunk poetry 

the first time i got flowers

i would like to hike up to any gorgeous peak in Hong Kong and scream because i feel like my heart is going to explode. i would like to jump off from a cliff with a red wingsuit and dive right into the sea and skydive over a field of cotton balls and fly on the back of a blind dragon and roll over in bed straight into the arms of the person i love. 

50 roses don't encapsulate how loved i feel. the first time i have ever received flowers that are truly meant for me. is life real? how did i end up being so lucky? 

my heart is going to explode and i am smiling like an idiot. my professor must be wondering what the fluff is wrong with my face. nothing is wrong. far wrong wrong. life hasn't felt more right, i haven't felt this alive. 

i love that person so much. that person has made me the happiest person alive, given me back the laughter i had lost, made me more joyful, more confident, and stronger than I was yesterday, 

my heart is ever so slightly calmer now. thank you mum for the silver bangles that allegedly has the powers of calming souls. i need it right now, or i might run straight into a wall or chop my hands off unless i find that person i love deeply and release all my love to him. yes. 

i am so happy. 

edit: it's been a couple of hours and i am still smiling. my cheek muscles hurt... in a good way :D

Drawer

 Where can I start? Okay, so this is a new font. How about that? Pretty, isn't it? It is the kind of handwriting I would use to write someone a letter, you know, in its glory of parchment and ink. 

I have written many poems about my life but this time it feels different, and I can't seem to write about it. I feel unliving, but in a different way. I feel empty and hollow, my thoughts are not manifold or scattered, but merely a lonesome echo in the darkness. 

I feel disappointed, tired, but most of all, I feel unhappy. I'm not a perfect person, no one is, and I know I rank below average on the perfectness scale, but it doesn't mean I don't deserve goodness in my life. 

 When something happens, I take it in and stop caring about it, both inside and outside. When I learn something that has the potential to destroy me, I don't acknowledge it, and simply chuck it in the back of my mind, in a drawer covered with fake cobwebs: a futile attempt at warding myself away. I don't think about it, I don't speak about it, I program myself to say "Oh it's alright, don't worry about it!" to anybody who asks. 

And then later, at night, when I am tucked in and ready for a sound sleep, my mind decides to do a little cleaning. It brushes the cobwebs off, wipes the drawer until it shines as bright as any star, and then opens it with feigned shock. Well, well, well, what do we have here? Surely this is something we have NEVER seen before. 

Just like that, the "thing" is acknowledged, chucked back into the drawer, and swallowed into nothingness. It happens again day after day after day because it is never considered or let out, and so it becomes perilous day after day after day, until one day the drawer can't hold it in anymore and it breaks, sending all those "things" into my mind. 

One day, my mind, though infinitely large, will break too, and then so will I. And that will be the end of me. 

HELP

Help 

/noun/ the action of helping someone to do something.

Help is offered when help is needed. Agreeable? For instance, if I am thirsty right now, and request for water, you’ll help me by offering water right now. If you refuse me water today and come to my house tomorrow, bringing along water for me, it is not help. 

Albus Dumbledore once said, “Help will always be offered at Hogwarts to those who need it”. 

I want to touch an extremely sensitive topic today. I do not have a veracious term for it, but it is something that involves friends. For some people, it is really hard to share their problems with someone; it is even harder to ask for help. I would like to express my thoughts about this through a subjective way; using myself as the subject. 

If I need help, I will not ask for it. I will not hold down the mask that hides my tear streaked face, my red eyes and strained muscles when I smile. I will not risk raising my hopes for being gifted with a shoulder on which I can rest my head. I might make myself available for everybody, help them when they’re low and always be the shoulder for someone, because I am like that, because I spread love rather than accepting it. 

But when I do ask for help, it takes every ounce of strength within me to make that move. 

How do you think it feels when I do not get help in return?

It hurts. 

So, friends and strangers, if your friend is visibly asking for help, please do not leave them there. It can break their might, and if not taken seriously, it can break their soul. 

My not so happy birthday was yesterday

Yesterday I completed sixteen years of my lovely life. I have walked on the grounds of Earth for sixteen years, treaded its mountains and swum in its oceans. Since I knew what birthday meant, I had been super excited for my birthday. I used to tell my parents,"Oi! Exactly one month left for my birthday!" or even "5 months left!". Absurd as it sounds, I now realise that it was an innocence that bloomed within me. My father used to tell me not to do it because I was only reducing the surprise element for myself. However, I continued with my mission to continually remind everyone around me that my birthday was just around the corner. Sometimes, to tease my father, I would say one day after my birthday "Woohoo! Just one year left for my birthday!". Ah....what a time that was.
Apart from my birthdays,  I would also get enlivened for the birthdays of others. My mother's, sister's, brother's and father's birthdays were as special to me as my own.
This enthusiasm for my own birthday lasted only till my fifteenth birthday.
I dreaded yesterday. For a month, I wished September to pass by quickly, and along with it, I wanted October 1 (my birthday) to pass by as well. My family brought me lovely things. In our family, we do not believe in materialistic love. It is about what truly matters. My sister brought me three novels, my younger brother made a large and beautiful card and a chocolate, my mother baked cake for me; my friends brought me chocolates, lots of love, pendants, scrolls and some even wrote for me (in the form of poems and proses). I am truly grateful for that.
But my sixteenth birthday didn't feel like it was supposed to. I didn't hype up, I wasn't excited for any gifts, my school day was exactly like any other, yadda yadda yadda.
The question here: What was missing? What was the problem?
While writing this, I found the answer.
October 1 is my birthday, and there is a very long story attached to it. Maybe, some day, I will post it here. But anyway, the point is that I was originally going to be born in the last days of September but my father said he greatly despised September and wanted me to have the same birthday month as his: October. Exactly 4 days after my birthday, comes my father's birthday. October 5.
Revision: a birthday marks another year that one has lived.
So, now I know why I couldn't feel this birthday of mine.

It is because as I grow a year older, my father does not. 

Love: a riddle that needs solving

When we say “I love you” to a person, the meaning depends upon what we think we would do for the person, what the situation is and what the person did to receive an immediate response of love declaration. 

We define love the way we experience it. There is no feeling greater than the feeling of being loved. But how?

For some, it is knowing in their minds that they have a safe place in the arms of that person and nothing can harm them there. For others, love is knowing that at the end of the day, they are happily accepted as who they are (all versions of them). 

Love is that presence beside us in our ups and downs. It is the wind that dries our tears, the waves that push our raft, the moon that guides our boat on a dark night. It is the peace in our mind that tells us that after a long day, when all our masks have melted away, we have a warm cave to sleep in without being judged, condemned or hurt. 

However, love is also the line that makes us surrounded by a definite boundary: out of protectiveness, it is the reason of our dilemma and tears: making us question every decision we make, it is the itch in our minds, the pain of our heart. 

Love makes us experience EVERYTHING. 

That is why is it so rare, therefore, so beautiful.  

An apology

If you know me, you would know that I have always asked my friends to love themselves so that they could learn to love others. But today, I am going to write about self hatred instead of self love.

If there is anything about me, it is that I am not good at expressing my gratitude.
If I like you, and I talk to you a lot, you have probably noticed that I am caring one moment and completely sarcastic the next.
You must've seen a change in me, like multiple attitudes. And maybe, I hurt you because of it. 
I might've been very interested in your life one day, and extremely disinterested the other. 
Maybe you've felt bad...you might've changed your views about me but hey, I'm still the good person you used to talk to.

So consider this an apology, a letter, a poem, a song, anything, but know that it comes straight from my heart. 

You are so nice to me.
You seem interested in my life and show me lots of love.
You tell me that as friends: we were meant to be,
like the sand and the sea.
It makes me happy.
And whenever I am happy,
a feeling of fear, a chill creeps into my body from my heart.
I feel scared,
euphoria turns into despondency because of the fear
that I will do something wrong to mess it up.
And that feeling of depression and desolation ruins me.
It brings a change, a weak metanoia;
but a metanoia still
that destroys the moment.
And that is how one day you are speaking to an elated soul,
and the next- a completely different one.
And how I mess up perfect friendships just like that,
makes me want to run on the ground and fall into a hole.
How is it that I can wish so hard for a moment to come,
and then ruin it by doing something really bad?

My heart tears at my mind for doing that,
and I tear at my soul;
and an apology is required.
I am sorry for killing the sapling you sowed in our garden.
Sorry for killing something that was meant to be a giant tree.
And I know, if you cared about it, a mistake like this can never be pardoned.
I am sorry for all the stories I had to render incomplete.