Silencing You

Guilt is not pain. Certainly it is not.

Guilt is dejection.

In a day, how many times do you encounter events, circumstances, and actions that test your guilty conscious? How many turn out to be true? And in that number, how many really worth your guilt? And in that, do you actually need to feel the guilt?

One, perhaps?

Two, maybe?

Or, three?

How about none at all?

But what if all of them were true after all?

What do you do then?

A conscious mind would try making up with that guilt. Offering little tokens of support, fragments of a joke, and sometimes, hinting a change in the topic of discussion. But then, do you really need to do so?

They always said, there are always two sides to everything. Like a coin. I mean, you never get a coin whose both sides are the same, do you? And sometimes, it just is. It simply takes one hand to make a sound. It only takes one side to cause uproar. It only takes a person to feel dejected.

And that is guilt.

Getting your way is not always the best option available. Being silent is always the available decision in every contemplation, however hurtful and spiteful it might get. Nevertheless, it disregards one’s judgment on you. 

And then, they think you are just another boy who only lurks in the shadows, never trying to come out and feel light. The thing they don’t know is that, only when there’s light, there’s shadow. And without a light, there will never be a shadow. So whose side is the better one? The independent or the dependant? Now, again, there are two sides to everything.

What I mean is, silence may not be the ultimate feedback, but it certainly takes guts, patience, a heart and a clean mind to pursue it.

Having your way, the way you intended it to be, will not necessarily grant you the satisfaction you desire. It only adds the guilt.

After all, as much as pain can be inflicted from guilt, guilt itself dejects one’s soul and heart from the vessel.

And here, I sit, keeping silent.

For I know, there’s two sides to everything. Including silence.  

Growing

I realized one thing. Growing old and becoming matured are two things far apart. Every year, we celebrate a year older. The special day that we dedicate to all our successful years behind of being able to completely finishing and walking through it in times of good and bad. A day that becomes the signifier that on that very day we have grown somewhat bigger, taller, smarter, and even matured. However, how many of us actually sit back and think whether in all this years, on that very day, have they truly become what they thought they have? I mean, saying that I am officially 20 today does not mean that I have what it takes to be one. Just because I appear somewhat physically larger get the woos from the ladies does not account the real self of being a 20 year old.

My mother used to say that some people, though almost in their golden age, seem to act like a new born, demanding things way beyond apprehension and comprehension. It is sad in a way that when I see you over there standing and behaving like somewhat, I had rather refer to as a lone individual; I sometimes keep the words in my mind to myself. They say, the more you keep silent, the more the lone individual sits and rocks on your head. I understand and I believe the statement. However, should I be teaching you morals? Should I be telling you the things we should or should not do? Should I say my mind off and hurt everyone, though it initially was not the original intention?

What should I do then?

Silence.

Sacrifice.

And I keep quiet knowing that, one day for the effort you deliberately kept aside, and for the times I spent covering you, not knowing you realized it or not, would grant me a recognition beyond any rewards, gifts and compliments.

Satisfaction. Acknowledgement.

And so, you once again preach about your age of turning into the adult world, realizing that, everything, once a taboo, now an option. And then you preach to everyone about how good you are, how much efforts you have put, how great sacrifices you have done, belittling those who barely did nothing.

One phrase; pot calling kettle black.

Today I stand on a cliff and you below me, looking up to me. It does not mean that my achievements are greater than you for above me, lies a mountain waiting to be hiked and conquered. And till then, go on preaching of how matured you have become, for it is only to fill the empty slates of your fragments of life. When we age, let not the physical attributes, the proficiency, the knowledge, the do’s and dont’s  only grow, but leave some space for maturity.

Being 20 and acting like a 5 year old.

Now that is something to ponder on.

Lonely

its a lonesome place
in a lonesome country
for a lonely man
around this lonely self
i stay awake alone.

i walk by these corridors
only to see mirrors of myself
and then i laugh at them
knowing it is a lonely place.

i sit in this stall
and ordered a latte
i look at this child
and i smile to myself
i used to be one too.

i stand on a hilltop
preaching what i want
and then i hear replies
the wind blows and the birds call
and then i know God knows.

i sat in the bus
in a ride around the city
i stare at the old building
and i know time passes on
not waiting for me.

i paddle my tricycle
in a porch and gates looked
i smile for a flash
and then i recall of this memory
of my childhood.

i sit by the river bank
and i wonder far
for what is to come
and a fish submerges for a breath of air
and i think to myself
when the time is in need,
then the chance is yours.

i sit on the bench
in this garden with lakes and ponds
i saw this girl pass by
she smiles at me
and i look at my hand
for the silver band saying
Forever.

i sit in front of this screen
and i type of my past
hoping for a future
better than the present one.

and in this lonesome place
in a lonesome country
i sit upon this chair
with a loner whom i call
my self.

Tears

Tears are not just drops of salt water.

Tears are not just proof of your feelings.

Tears are not just pain.

Tears is the purpose of one's desire to communicate in a way that one sees as something beautiful and truly honest. 

It is the way of how you and I see things and perceive it to be sad, pain, loneliness, and deprivation.

It teaches us to be strong and put up a face tougher and a heart stronger.

It provides the courtesy of feelings and humanity.

It is will.

It is power.

It is desire.

It is a message sent from one's heart to another.

It is a culture.

Indeed, tears is not just drops of salt water, proof of your feelings, pain but a new chapter of a new beginning.

Tears.

Being a Gold Coin

An advantage is like a gold coin. Off all the coins that you see in your wallets, piggy banks, and even collector's album, you never get to see a gold coin. Coins are common and they are everywhere, but a gold coin is random, peculiar, awkward perhaps, but it certainly is something not what you and I see everyday. Coins come to us in different values, sizes, maybe weights, but the fact is, all of them are coins. A gold coin however, is still, permanent, one of a kind and is somehow interesting.

What differs a common coin to an interesting gold coin, despite of them being coins and come in values?
Should a common coin be tarnished, what of the gold coin? Will it be too? Or shall it sustain its interesting personality?
And what makes a coin common and a gold coin interesting?

When the day gets hot, a boy uses his last few coins in his pockets to get an ice cream. It was strawberry and he licked it off his hands.
The economy was at a point where notes became nothing but coloured papers. So, a man went to the bank, depositing in a private account, a safe, better said, a bundle of gold coins.
A man was about to cross the road when he received this gold coin, and then smiled, thanking God for the lorry that zoomed past missed his cane.
A boy got so mad at his friend that he took one of his coin and threw it into the lake where it was seen no more. The boy lost a coin but gained a weight lighter.

What all of us are, are like coins. A bunch of coins together in a sack, with different values, shades, designs and the years! Its a common things that we get to know things the common way, do things the common way,  perceive things the common way and responding to things the common way. As much as almost every transaction demands a certain number of coins of different values, depending on the currency, the same goes to how we as people react and respond to one another, or to any situations. The irony is, as different the value of one coin is to another, we, living beings maintain a parallel property to the coins. We act differently, respond variously, and even comprehend unlikely.

A lady seeing a boy beating up another boy might call him a bully, but for all you know, that victim was trying to disturb the "bully's " sister.

A man calling for help might be seen as weak, for the fact of him being a man, but the next thing you know, that man died or lost in the battle in agony, while you watched prejudicing him.

A girl calling a shy boy 'chicken' for not wanting to face his bully might seem hilarious, perhaps pragmatic, but, deep inside, the boy may have had a trauma and this mental sickness is eating him by the minute and by your name-calls.

A boy who has the passion for cooking, mostly, are referred as a girl's boy, sometimes, a sissy, but what about the chefs around the world and the fact that men are indeed the best in the field?

So, all this is just another bunch of coins all having different values. We all are made to complement one another, filling the gaps between the innocent and the rebellious. We come as beings to this world to proclaim what has been destined for u since birth but all we do is sulk at the misfortunes and the short comings of our lives. We come to this world as a player, but clawing others acting as champions but not realising that the same player and Champion are taken deep under six foot, side by side.

The gold coins are the little gifts that God put among us. They are within us, only waiting to be harnessed. These gold coins claim a much better respect, look, acknowledgement and confidence, knowing that they always put a smile on our faces. They lie deep in the minds, in the hearts, and in the conscious self, always reminding us that, in every coin you see, there is a drop of gold and it is this gold that makes it, no matter what year, what value, what currency, a gold coin.