Unwanted

Your words weave a flowery tale of care

But for your tone

Your hands caress in motions of concern

But for your touch

Your face tells of the love of a thousand angels

But for your eyes

Your life speaks to your devotion, your doting, your dedication

But for three calls later "I'm busy now, what do you want?"

But for "I'm so tired of you"

But for the truth you're afraid to unleash

I am weird. 

And not just in a quirky, manic-pixie-dreamgirl (TM), OMG-so-random way. Sometimes I genuinely fear for the safety of those around me. Like I'm on permanent psychiatric hold of the self or something. Hey, bro, you're a really good friend but I'm randomly thinking about the different ways I could both kiss and kill you despite the fact that I feel neither sexual attraction nor hate towards you*. It's that feeling when you stand on the edge of an extraordinarily high cliff and you have to simultaneously battle your fear and your desire to jump. Just to feel the sensation of falling through the air. Reckless abandon. Leaving everything behind. Reaching escape velocity. And then you walk back down the path to your tour guides and your jeep.

You know, I imagined the trademark gasp of a friend of mine when I typed "kiss". That's why I love her (don't worry, not that way! That you know of, anyway) - she makes me smile even when she's not here. The mark of someone important in your life, although by that sense Ian Somerhalder, Matthew Goode, Candace Accola, Billie Joe Armstrong, Conor Oberst, Felicia Day, Alex Day, and Oscar Wilde (and so on) would be my rocks (they're not). I meant what I said, though. I have the most horrible thoughts. And like most times when you fell alone and disgusted, the internet proved that being crazy is nothing unique. Warning: if you read about intrusive thoughts, you will have intrusive thoughts. You're welcome. 

I think in the beginning of most blogs, you're supposed to say a bit about yourself. Fill out the form. Check boxes, if you like. But what I can I tell you about myself, world? I don't know who I am. I hope my writing will tell me, as it will tell you, because I come across more honestly in these few paragraphs then I do in my day-to-life, and I'm still holding back. But, am i really? I always think I'm putting on a front, because how I feel is so radically different from what I portray. Yep, nothing to see here, just another straight-A girl with plenty of friends, overprotective, conservative parents and dreams of far away places. Inside I'm - just not always there. Are these identities distinct, or are they just two sides of the same Rubik's Cube? Am I putting it out there because it's fake, or because I'm a fake, and I can't bear to reconcile that part of myself with how I feel inside because I know that something or the other will get destroyed and it could lead to either a new whole or even more broken pieces for me to hold together? It's that old story. Once burned, twice shy. Because we can't, I can't accept that fact that to feel a spark, a flame, a fire, we inevitably get burned and scarred and shattered and broken and battered and bruised and cut and struck and warped and wounded and it hurts goddamit. It hurts from the inside. 

My Mom doesn't want to believe I hurt. I wonder what she would say if she read this. She'd probably cry and say she's never seen me particularly sad, and what do I have not to be happy about anyway? I don't blame her. I put her through a lot and she doesn't want to go through more. We all avoid the fire. 

Anyway,  I don't want to get too butterfly-and-rainbows on you or anything. Back to the what was supposed to the point of this post, intrusive thoughts: I think that repression in modenr life is what leads to intrusive thoughts (duh-doi, Farheen. Very original). But in Pakistan more than anywhere, because our society is so freaking repressed the society is ugly. There is nothing physical about that ugliness. You can feel it inside you as you walk the streets. Some of us, like me, are lucky when we retreat to our sheltered homes. Most Pakistanis, especially women, aren't. Repression is everywhere, though. I remember once in my fifth grade class some girls were discussing how Pakistani girls would never know what it's like to be kissed (which, first of all, WHAT?), so to get the experience we should press our fingers against our lips, and, well. Looking back, I realize how ridiculous that was. I mean, once again, WHAT???!!!! I've never tried it, but I imagine them doing it, and I feel a little sad. Because I remember how crazy my little Lahore private school was. And I wonder, at the marvelous paradox of privilege in a Pakistani society. Especially of a girl.

But that is a story for another post. G'night, fellow homo sapiens. 

*not that the two are mutually exclusive

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Joey: If the homo sapiens were, in fact,  homo sapien, is that why they're extinct?
Ross: Joey, Homosapiens are people.
Joey: Hey, I'm not judging.

Image credit: Some random dude on the internet, probably on imgur. Sorry dude, but thanks!

A Change of Season or How I Like to Screw My Poetry Over by Quoting Kahlil Gibran Immediately Afterwards

Can it be the scowl of the sun that scalds my soul

Or is it just you, and your caustic indifference

I breathe in from afar

My eyes meet yours not at all

And are blinded by the star I dare strive to sight

And how dare I?

Can it be the wicked winds that wither my weary whole

Or is it just you, a cool breeze so bitterly biting

I let numb and elude

My hands though itch and grasp

And are cut by nothingness their only reward

Forever after your refrained melody.

Can it be the symphony of storm to spear my spirit

Or is it just you, your cadence caressing her neck

I wish myself away -

Can it be your angelic aspect to avail my ache

It is your arms lifting me from fallen leaves

I let myself drown

My being suspended into a potpourri of fantasy

And your secrets, the songs I never learned

Colour my world a shade of heaven.

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"When love beckons to you, follow him,
Though his ways are hard and steep.
And when his wings enfold you yield to him,
Though the sword hidden among his pinions may wound you.
And when he speaks to you believe in him,
Though his voice may shatter your dreams
as the north wind lays waste the garden."

-Kahlil Gibran

Conor Oberst Owns Your Soul

And it's too hard to focus through all this doubt.
I keep making these "To Do" lists but nothing gets crossed out.
Working on the record seems pointless now.
When the world ends, who's gonna hear it?

Conor Oberst wrote those lines. Conor Oberst owns your soul. 

Of course when you listen through to the end of the song, he ends on a faint note of hope, as he usually does. Though maybe hope is too strong a word for it. It's more of an inkling, not that shit will get better, but that you'll get better at dealing with shit. However, as a student who's currently studying Thomas Hardy, I felt it apt to focus on that part (all you readers in the house know what I'm talkin' about). It did inspire the title of my blog, after all, because I often get the feeling that nothing gets crossed off the list of whatever it is I want to do - and not necessarily "to do" lists. That seems too mundane a description. More like a "what I want to make of my life" list. Mind you, that sounds no less mechanical. Maybe that's the problem. 

I just noticed I had this unconscious alliteration of 'M's going on there. I mentioned I'm a literature student, and if this was a published piece of work (HA) by some random author, I'd be analyzing the pants off of it. That's what literature has been reduced to, hasn't it? Significance of the title, subject, poet's/author's intention, tone and atmosphere, rhythm and rhyme, rhyme scheme, alliteration, literary devices, and so on. "The alliteration of the 'm' sound with words 'mundane', 'more', 'make', 'mind', 'mechanical' and 'maybe' in the third paragraph create a tone of mocking and skepticism, due to the puckering of the lips that occurs when one reads the lines aloud, and the stress on the syllable where the 'm' occurs in each word emphasizes the effect. The author seems to be criticizing society for their tendency to categorize everything into simple numbered lists where items can be crossed off in very little time and then forgotten, instead of facing the fact that reality resists order and the truth resists simplicity." See, that last part, that's the heart of it, isn't it? Yet I don't think I would score marks for it, because it's too abrupt after the immediate analysis of the sound. I'm not ticking all the boxes, you see. 

And that is a problem for me. I like boxes. I like numbered, sequential lists. I like being able to cross things out. It makes me feel like I've been productive. Like I'm not a wate of photosynthesis. I *like* to try to impose order in my world. Who doesn't like ease and convenience? If you know what to expect, you can never be caught off guard. Right? 

Expect you never know what to expect. People are fickle. You expect them to clench your heart in their fist and run it through a qeema machine (meat grinder, for those not familiar with Urdu. And yes, that is an actual comparison someone has made to me for the romantic experience). Then they turn around and do something oh-so-stupid: smile at you, ask why you're feeling sad when you're showing the world a smile...call you beautiful. Somehow the effect is the same. And then they run over you anyway. Okay, extended bitter metaphor over. The point is, you'll inevitable fall behind when you try to restrict the universe to your schedule. 

Does that mean systems and discipline aren't important? Of course not. Anarchy is overrated. Structure has its place. Skeletons have their place. We wouldn't be able to function without them. But sometimes we forget skeletons are made to house souls. And what are we functioning for, but the delight of our souls?

And Conor Oberst owns my soul.

But if everything that happens is supposed to be
and it is predetermined, can't change your destiny.
Then I guess I'll just keep moving, someday, maybe, I'll get to where I'm going