Broken

Sometimes, a part of me, the angry part of me wishes that he destroy himself in the fire that he lit for himself.

But then, there's a bigger part of me, the part of me that loves him and cares about him that makes me hate myself for thinking something so horrible..

It hurts, and there is nothing I can do to fix it because he is wrapped around little fingers that play him like a puppet, just as they have played many before him and along with him, since he is not the only puppet on the strings those fingers hold.

And for a long while, the part of me that is broken irreparably, the part of me that cries when it is around him, the part of me that is oh-so-very angry and the part of me that knows he doesn't care wished that the two of them would just get together and  destroy each other with such vengeful passion, it scares me- because I believe that is the only outcome for them.

I am hurt, I've made that abundantly clear.

Why is it so easy for people to take me for granted? I'm the friend everyone goes to when all their friends have turned their backs on them. But that's okay, its the story of my life. I wish it wasn't but it is. I'm the back up. The one that doesn't matter. And in the grand scheme of things I don't, but just for once I wish I did. I wish I was the one they came to when things got bad. The one they were excited to share their happiness with and comfortable enough to share their sorrows with. But I'm not. And I suppose that will just have to be okay.

Give him a chance, they say- I have. But yet he has time for the whole world but no time to take the steps to mend this broken friendship. I rescind any right he once had to worry about me- because it is blatantly clear that he doesn't. I'm done with the lies. His words are hollow and his promises count for nothing but more pain. Why must he inflict me with this pain? Was it something I did or said? Was the fact that I cared, so fucking horrifying?

He's going through a lot, they say. Aren't we all? But I only have two months. to fix this. So tell me if I'm wasting my time. Don't take his side. And I don't care if you laugh at my pain. Just tell me that you don't want to try and I will push away. Just stop leaving me hanging. Stop leaving me hopeful and then crushing it with your callousness. Because I'm giving up on hope and I can't do that. I can't afford to do that.
 I CURSE THEE. I CURSE THEE with the pain that I feel because I can barely contain it. Barely hold it together, and the only reason I can is because I know that in a little while longer I will be so far away that it won't matter. That you won't matter anymore.

And that maybe, just maybe, I can start a new life. One without the residual pain of this past.

Why are you doing this?

He's acting so weird.

He's hugging me, rubbing my arm and back in comfort. Before he'd cringe. He'd have died before he touched someone in comfort or let them comfort him.

I don't recognize him.

He asks me if he should change his plans because I asked him if he wanted to do something in the spur of the moment. When I said that it didn't matter, he gave me an alternative option. While not new a new trait, the extent to which he is going is new!

I don't recognize him.

He asked me to go on a walk with him. He NEVER wanted to go on a walk with me before. I'd asked him so many times!


Who is this person?


I don't want you to do me any favors. I don't want you to try to make it better because I'm leaving. I don't need that. I don't need you to be someone you're not. Not for me. I've wished you were different. But I've NEVER tried to change you. Not for me.

It hurts. So much worse than all those other lies.

Is it because He's been telling you what I've been telling him? Because I've been telling him how I'm hurting because of you. Is that why you're acting this way? Being this person I barely recognize?

Is it because you know I've been thinking so much about cutting you out of my life? Is that why?

Or is this just your way of saying goodbye before you cut me out of your life?

But in any case. Talk to me. Because more than all this bullshit touch-happy you, I want to know why. I want the real you. Because that is my best friend.

The thin line between courage and cowardice...

This post deals with sensitive, serious and controversial issues.

I can't believe a story got me to write it... It's been lingering for a couple of weeks... since an episode of House that I saw... but it was the story that finally got me writing it...

It deals with a very serious issue and I don't think anyone who doesn't want to should be subjected to it. I'm not one to hide my demons or myself AND I think might use it as the premise for a future story.

ETA: This is serious... like death.
ETA: If you do choose to read this, please know that I am not in that head-space anymore. I am better. I just needed to unload with all this talk about the issue on TV, in Fan-fiction, music and movies.

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Why do people kill themselves?

Every time I read about suicide, people around me ask the same question. But I can't because I know why. It might not be the same reason for everyone but I know the feeling. I felt it. I reveled in it once because it was all I had. Like this overwhelming tsunami, it destroys everything that's good. It wasn't just depression or despair it was so much, so much more. A torrential downpour that wipes away everything in its wake.

What kind of coward would do that?

We are remembered as cowards, and maybe to some extent we are. But it also takes a great deal of courage to take your own life, I know, because I couldn't do it. My best-friend knows, because she could.

I can't believe I almost never got to meet her. If her parents hadn't have found her I'd never have been able to shine in her light. Even today her close friends celebrate the day she was in the clear. The day they knew for sure she would live, her 'birthday'. I thank whatever deity exists that brought us into each others lives, because as much as I hated my boarding school, the only good thing that came out of it was my friendship with her.

People who say they are going to commit suicide don't do it; The people who don't say it usually do.

A statistical study I once read said that. But it isn't true. I know. My best-friend knows.

I am a survivor.

Will I ever go back there? I don't know. But everyday I work to stay away. Everyday I know I'm better off, I know I am loved and that I can love back. I know that I never want to go back to that place because I know that I will be missed, even if its for a little while. I know I will have brought sorrow to the people whose happiness I would want to do it for in the first place.

Yes, its still a lingering thought. I think that maybe it always will be. But I know now, in this moment, it isn't cowardice that is keeping me from taking that blade, bottle of sleeping pills or even the ledge on the 14th floor. It is courage.

I've been there before. But, I will try my damnest best to keep away, and I know I can do it...

Because if High School at my boarding school didn't tip me over the edge, and I came really really close to doing it again, nothing will. I don't want pity. God knows, I do it enough for the rest of the world and I know that most of people have it a lot worse that I do. All I want is that people know that you can't always know what a person is thinking, behind the smiles and the laughter, nobody did with me, and nobody does with my best-friend. The only thing you can do is treat people with respect and dignity because nobody deserves to feel unworthy or 'less than'.

In a sea of strangers I find myself bereft...

How can someone feel so alone in a world of over 6 billion people, country of over 300 million people and a school that has over 150 thousand students?

How can someone have no real friends in a world of over 6 billion people, country of over 300 million people and a school that has over 150 thousand students even after having lived in 4 different countries?

Recently, I was talking to one of my 'friends' and I told her that I hate being alone... and she turned to me and said "but you seem like a loner". I am not. I know tons of people. I say hi to tons of people. But for some reason I can't find a friend in this sea of strangers. I try. Lord knows, I try. I try to talk to people. I try to hang out with people... "I think I'm too intense and scare people away"... "I can see that" my 'friend' says.

A while before that one of my other 'friends' asked me "How do you deal with being alone all the time? I'd go insane." She had recently broken up with her boyfriend at the time and even though she was always surrounded by her friends who she loves, who adore her. Who want to hang out with her. But because she didn't have more people in this group, she felt alone. I looked at her, the incredulity blatant in my expression, but I answered her anyways. "I don't deal with. Its all I've ever known". and it is. I can go days without any human contact. Nobody other than my parents call me. Nobody ever drops by my room to say "hi" to me. My roommate who doesn't consider anyone who isn't from "back home" her friend, has more friends here than I do.

But its more the question of how. I wish I knew how to do it. I wish that 20 years of being all alone could have taught me how to deal with it. Because even though I don't have friends, I always clung to someone so that I would have at least one person to share my emotional burden with. But what happens where there are miles and miles of metaphorical ocean between them and me, because I, for lack of a better way to put this, force them to be my friend.

Maybe I'm just an epic failure at making friends. Maybe it happened when my life changed in 3rd grade.

The saddest part of the whole thing is that everyone I come into contact with is always telling me how I'm such a fucking nice person anyone would be lucky to have me as their friend. Then why the fuck won't you? I don't want to be nice. I just want one, just one real friend because without even one connection, when I fade, there won't be anyone who will have noticed. Nobody will have cared.

But then again. Maybe that is for the best.

Crawling Under My Skin...

There isn't a day that passes that I wish I wasn't dead. Everyday ends on a sour note. Everyday I wish I'd just die already. Everyday the thought of consuming a bottle full of Vicodin or Valium Every time that I look at, or talk to someone they are hurt. I am a hurtful person and I don't like it. My family is the first of all that I hurt. Everything I say and do hurts them. The fact that I can't trust them hurts me, and inevitably it hurts them. I'm the bane of everyone's existence. A big fat unwanted blotch on the face of humanity. Some would call it self-pity. I call it self-preservation. I'm trying to live. I'm trying to be me. Experiences make you who you are and I am what I am, accept me the way I am and don't expect me to change! I love you the way you are. I love you regardless of what you say and what you do. If you think hurting me emotionally is going to bring down those carefully constructed impenetrable walls that I've put up around my heart, you're wrong. It'll only reinforce my frigidness towards life and all that I believe in letting go. Yes, the past haunts me. Yes, it affects my decisions and my life. No, it does NOT make me unhappy or resentful. I believe in love and second-chances. I believe in miracles even though I'm not quite certain about a certain supernatural force, I am willing to believe in all that is good in the world and trust that the world is a better place.

I'm not suicidal, not in the least. I do occasionally wish I were dead, but don't we all at some point of time or the other? I'm too cowardly to take my own life and too brave to commit suicide. I'm a paradox of paradoxes. But death intrigues me and it is crawling under my very skin, burning my insides as it slithers through and permeates my blood....

A Tale Of Insomnia From The Nights Of A Sleeper...

in·som·ni·a (ĭn-sŏm'nē-ə)n.
Inability to obtain sufficient sleep, esp. when chronic; difficulty in falling or staying asleep; sleeplessness.

I begin now, to understand, why lack of sleep is so addictive. The last few nights have been overwhelming in the sense that I've barely slept at all... my brain and eyelids feels heavy but I feel alive. Caffience humming through my veins dousing me in wakefulness even though my body is protesting endlessly...

sleep (slēp) n. A natural periodic state of rest for the mind and body, in which the eyes usually close and consciousness is completely or partially lost, so that there is a decrease in bodily movement and responsiveness to external stimuli. During sleep the brain in humans and other mammals undergoes a characteristic cycle of brain-wave activity that includes intervals of dreaming. A period of this form of rest. A state of inactivity resembling or suggesting sleep; unconsciousness, dormancy, hibernation, or death.

Try as i might sleep evades me. In the tresses of my unconsciousness looms a great darkness. Fear reverberates through my very core... I'm scared... of sleep and dreams, of the nightmares that plague my usually dreamless sleep.

Who is that, there in the shadowy darkness? Who is it that frightens me so?

I'm here now and this is me.

Broken, ridiculed and confused.
Alone, afraid, lost and abused.
I thought i didn't deserve happiness,
To feel free, loved, smile or enjoy
I was ready to give up and be done.

They broke me with their hurtful words.
Like broken-winged, helpless birds;
My reality and faith was blurred.
I didn't run away from the pain
And I couldn't forget even though I forgave.

I fought for me.
I fought to be.
I fought because I knew i'd regret otherwise-
Everything I was, everthing I had
And then I knew I couldn't give up.

To smile and know i'll be alright
Hold my head up with pride,
To be able to smile-
Despite the unbearable pain,
I grew up regardless of what they'd said.

I'm here now and this is me...

- Tanvi Damani
(March 26, 2007)