How lovely is laughter—forgive me—but how lovely is laughter.
Who put you here, little dove?
It is a moment of the gentle uprising of the heart. I think I have ached for a little too long, all alone—but alone is the currency of a fugitive life. I think I am hiding from my nation, my body, my friends, my family—but I still dream of days when I will lie on a wide open pavement and fall asleep, my eyes tired from staring at the blue sky. And much of my pain will be panting behind on some other street. There will be no more gunshots. Children will form a circle around me and read poems aloud, and the presence of that moment’s joy will be far greater than all the joy I ever missed along the way.
How lovely is laughter—forgive me—but how lovely is laughter.
It has been so long since I wrote here, and so long since my body was pain-free. I am never not in pain. I am always in pain. I am in pain writing this, and I will be in pain tomorrow and the day after that. I am a petrified dog. I am under the bed. Loud sirens outside the house.
Close the windows. Close the windows.
All I dream about is having a pain-free body and quitting my job, a system that has no consideration for different health needs. I think my hate for capitalism consumes me, and working at the heart of it consumes me even more, and I am really going through one of those times where I constantly wonder where I am headed. I want to work remotely. I’d play with your kid if you want me to, or clean your bookshelf or something. I don’t know. Just not this. Just not this.
I don’t remember the last time I felt present or real; my dissociation symptoms have completely taken over. I have a long list of mental illnesses that govern me, that I no longer want to define myself by, but nonetheless have taken away so much from myself and my life.
Anyway, that is that. Every time I write here, I feel my writing gets progressively worse, and my heart progressively sadder. But no, no, I still have loud laughter, coloured hair, and weird dancing moves—bizarre ability to amuse myself and others. Sadness is not my legacy. It is what I do outside of it. And outside, I am married to poetry—oh this poetry—at the center of the stunning sorrow of life, this weird ability of strangers to pull out words and untether each other from the unforgiving shackles of life.
Who put you here,
little dove?Outside is a world
full of consideration
and deepening furrows,
things that jump & dance & survive—there’s a stairway to escape,
where your body is the singular
most important thing in the world.If you come with me,
we could almost fly
and be happy.
Do you ever feel that the possibility of newness is gone from your life? I almost feel I will never make new friends. Whatever is going to happen is going to happen within the life that I already have. I think it is very important to constantly have something to look forward to; otherwise, it becomes very hard to live.
All of life seems to have happened before. It is like looking at a picture from your childhood and remembering it was a kinder time, not always, but at least some of the times.
I think I’ve always associated my face with loneliness. Looking back at the pictures—and looking at the pictures now—I can recognise the loneliness very clearly. It’s the same old one that has always been so visible on my face.
“My mother, now covered, was no longer my mother. A covered apple is no longer an apple. A sketch of a person isn’t the person. Somewhere, in the morning, my mother had become the sketch. And I would spend the rest of my life trying to shade her back in.”
― Victoria Chang, Obit
I think I write because I can’t speak about things. I have trouble speaking. The way something quietens within me year after year. The way memory offers a blank page only, and not a loud voice I could screech with.
I think this life is all about writing. There is a great extinction of words, and that is why you have to really visit and imagine scary places to bring back a few that help you put down some pain, and that is why those who read are almost menders.
Read, so you could mend something in someone’s broken house.
Some poems for you:
In a Time of Peace by ILYA KAMINSKY
Inhabitant of earth for fortysomething years
I once found myself in a peaceful country. I watch neighbors open
their phones to watch
a cop demanding a man’s driver’s license. When a man reaches for his wallet, the cop
shoots. Into the car window. Shoots.
It is a peaceful country.
We pocket our phones and go.
To the dentist,
to pick up the kids from school,
to buy shampoo
and basil.
Ours is a country in which a boy shot by police lies on the pavement for hours.
We see in his open mouth
the nakedness
of the whole nation.
We watch. Watch
others watch.
The body of a boy lies on the pavement exactly like the body of a boy—
It is a peaceful country.
And it clips our citizens’ bodies
effortlessly, the way the President’s wife trims her toenails.
All of us
still have to do the hard work of dentist appointments,
of remembering to make
a summer salad: basil, tomatoes, it is a joy, tomatoes, add a little salt.
This is a time of peace.
I do not hear gunshots,
but watch birds splash over the back yards of the suburbs. How bright is the sky
as the avenue spins on its axis.
How bright is the sky (forgive me) how bright.
For What It’s Worth by ALICE JAMES
I’d repeat my sons exactly
as they are, even the one
with the now blue hair still asleep
at the foot of my bed. I’d repeat
the night I met my wife and even
the middle years of purgatorial sorrow.
Three times, at least, I’d repeat last
night’s sunset, of which I could see
a framed square of downy furrows
deepening from rose to bruise
while I sat in the filling tub, book
in hand, already part way out
of this world. Though it would not
bring me any joy at all, I would
repeat three times the day I did not
pull the trigger, or the day I almost
pushed the sharpest knife
we owned between my ribs.
Three times, at least, I would
enter the water, walking toward
the sun, the water needle cold,
all of it, in its own way, surging
toward an epic repetition—
I may be on the other side
of some things, but I have not
yet seen the longest night.
The Sutra on Creed by PAMILERIN JACOB
Something to watch for you:
Helping hands?
Even if you are not in the capacity to help financially, do share my newsletter with those who you think might fancy it. I am sending you love and gentle pats regardless.
I am still not comfortable with the thought of monetizing my writing. It almost puts me to shame. All I want and wish for is stable mental health and a stable financial life, even if only for a little while.
Until next time, my lovelies!
With love,
Prashant.
This really gives Kafka, indeed it does
The shiv Kumar Batlavi’s reference🤌🏻