Monday, December 11, 2023

Oceans tell more tales


And like gravity, she brought me - her. 

I name my years. As odd as that may sound, the sturdy creak before ever step tells me what they next step will be. I hear the creak of the new year before it dawns; in December. Since 2016 I have felt so. 2016 was the year of change, 2017 the year of exposure. 2018 was the year of evolution, 2019; year of war, 2020; year of mystery, 2021; year of - err I forgot that one. But 2022 was the year of gravity. 

It was in Matara, on a solo-trip to rediscover myself. I had gone to "Paravi Dupatha" early in the morning. I sat there breathing with the ocean. From the crevices on the rocks near shore, to the small balcony that I was seated cross-legged in I breathed in every detail and exhaled with a glance at the horizon leading to the far south of the Indian Ocean. 

The silent roar of the ocean slowly matched my pace. With every wave that wiped upto shore; loud or silent - there was a space in me to let it in. I took a breath with every time the sea came inwards. With every breath I could feel the ocean inside me, just as much as the ocean was bound by me. But something in my mind wondered - why does the ocean breathe? Why does it keep breathing? Loud and sometimes silent. The deep sea blue waves glisten in the night sky as they whisper to us. But why? 

It hit me then. Gravity. The waves move because they are made to. Because mother earth controls it so - gravity lets the ocean breathe. Gravity helps the ocean whisper into the hearts of men the beauty of life that awaits. Secrets about the future and hidden gems of the past, are some of the few things that the ocean speaks to us; all because it knows how to gravitate things to itself. 

That was when I named it - the year of gravity. In December 2021, I named 2022 as the year of gravity. And everything that I had wished for in life came true that year. The most kind girlfriend, a State-Award - the highest honour in the nation, my dream job, travelled abroad for the first time - and so much more. Everything that I had ever wanted; gravitated towards me. 

But then came 2023. A different year. A year I named revival; a name I could not come up with for the first time in my life until January 2023. This year I went through a lot. 

But just two days ago I was back in the southern coasts; looking at the ocean and I realized something new as I once again synced my breathing with her. With every deep drawback of the water, comes a tide bigger than anyone could ever imagine. And my waves crashed ashore making noise in 2022. 2023 however the waves receded. They've gone back. They have pulled back because this year was a year of revival. The revival of a boy who dreamt of a dream larger than life. The boy who became a man in pursuit of love and support. The boy who had dreams was revived. And the ocean kept seeping away; because the time to shine is not yet here. Until then the ocean prepares. It takes slow breaths and makes us all remember why the ocean is one of the strongest forces of nature in the planet. And like gravity I am once again revealed of my next year through the waves and tides. And like gravity, she brought me to her. 

- Circa 12.12.2023 

The Garden Circa 2021

A piece I submitted to a poetry society in 2021. The website has been deleted since. Here is the original, in the hopes that I will write more on this blog. I need to let my creative out. More than I usually do/did.

-

The Garden. 

"Destiny is what you make for yourself." I have always known this. What was it that came over me? Two heartbreaks in a row had left me devastated. I had left my job, I was mentally exhausted and broken. Have you ever been run over by a bus? Perhaps cut by a chainsaw? Felt a needle sink into your skin? Have you been choked so bad that you could feel the last quivering seconds of your life? It was all combined to one pang of pain. The Pain plummeting through every living cell in my body, decisions taken away from me, love taken away from me, and most importantly - peace of mind. The first breakup left me unable to speak in public for months. The second had left me distanced and alone from the entire world. But both of them opened my eyes, to see. Was I a demon stuck at an Angel's door?

 What happens when Lust is the only thing you see? Desire. When a man lives a life that has always whispered in his ear telling him that he can never have anything in life because he could never amount to anything. The whispers trickle down your ear and pierce your heart when they talk of how you are nobody. No legacy from your parents. The boy whom nobody knew. The boy who loved reading books in a corner. The spectacled geek. What happens when the world whispers this in his year for 16 years? A phoenix grows inside him. He becomes the unburnt, born from within the fire. One who will take on life with desire, a will of fire. As he did, fame became his fellow mate, privacy became a long-lost friend. He was named after Alexander The Great. 

Desire did lead him down the paths of a King. And like a King he gave, he moved mountains for his loved ones. Gave more love than he received, always. But what happens when you take away the will of a man who has always achieved what he wanted? And what If the man never saw that coming? That happened. He was dominant all his life until he met his match, a love that would conquer him. A love that would leave him wild, but would blind him at first. His desire was nowhere to be found. Her love conquered him. And when the time came he was helpless. The phoenix forgot how to be reborn again, and lay a pile of ashes. And for months the great fallen King could not realize why he had changed. What really happened to him. Why had he lost everything, that he had? What happened to his flaming fire of Love and lust? "If you ask someone about love, they would quote you a sonnet. But you've never looked at a woman and been totally vulnerable. Known someone that could level you with her eyes, feeling like God put an angel on earth just for you. Who could rescue you from the depths of hell? And you wouldn't know what it's like to be her Angel. You don't know about real loss, 'cause it only occurs when you've loved something more than you love yourself." 

They say a soul mate is one who challenges you, and I would like to think that I had found mine, in her. Because she challenges me to rediscover myself from within. All these years I have fought battles in the light and failed multiple times, and won more. But her energy forced me to reinvent myself. I had realized how vulnerable I am to love. I was always one of fire, to get what I wanted If I felt I was worthy. Nothing in the world could stop me, I thought. But someone could stop me. Myself. Why? Because in love I am limitless. Energies intertwined with surges of passion and synergy one could easily read each other's mind. Words were optional. Eye contact, and nights of irrevocable intensity, zeal and warmth. What I had wanted most since I was a child, was also my greatest fall. I wasn't careful about what I wished for. A love that consumed me. Consumed me, it did. But why? I love letting my thresholds down. Because it makes me think that I relinquish more. But in reality that was me obliterating who I was individually. Piece by piece until I could not recognize myself, and I did not comprehend that sooner. She was an Angel who looked after me like a mother, cared for me like a sister would loved me as a soulmate would. But I was not ready for a love so real. A love so wild. The universe sensing this, wrote our fate. 

And fate happened. Boundaries became my bane. But is the Universe is lazy for coincidence? What happens when you buy a plot of land? What happens when you plant little buds of seeds, that will later grow. Would you let anyone trample them? Destroy them? Never. Because those are buds planted with love. Acorns that will one day become benevolent Nut trees. Such is the case of the soul. If loving means to ruin oneself, be absorbed and cause chaos in your soul - it is a love that will die soon. But the love that is sustainable, revisited but not overused. A love that is so powerful together that is synonymous with controlled chaos? That is formidable. One cannot achieve that unless one has revisited, reconstructed, and reimagined the gardens of their souls. These gardens are sacred with your sole presence. A boundary made of love may exist to protect your garden. However, boundaries are never walls. Walls forge out of pain. Boundaries form when pain heals. Walls cascade when one blooms with grace. I found my garden, in looking within. 

The universe made clear to me now, why it took hold of my fate. It is in the hopes that one day I may reconstruct my soul, and find the Garden within me, and one day soon, I may deserve the love that was taken away from me. On that day fate will be overwritten. Destiny will be my friend, and the universe will be too lazy for coincidence.