Poetry & Rebellion
Poetry & Rebellion is a pseudonym I once wrote angst-filled essays under. From 3am thoughts to images carved by mood swings, welcome to the art of gathering my mind when it doesn’t stop thinking.
Love,
Baroosh
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Last night, I went down a Bollywood rabbit hole and got nostalgic about clothes.
I grew up in Lahore. Right behind my school was a fabric market. It had incredible labyrinth like passageways, stores glittering with beads and colors on either side.
My friend and I would sneak out and buy yard after yard before dropping them off to a tailor. “Our” tailor, who sat on the floor in a dingy little corner with an old Singer machine by his unwashed feet. We would bargain over money and time and make him promise to deliver all our outfits combined by end of week because we had nothing left to wear. We would stop by the corn cart, kernels toasted in sand and fire wrapped in crumpled old newspapers selling for 2 rupees each. Then rush back to class so we wouldn’t be late, yet again.
I still have them. A mix of chiffons and silks beneath their never ending vines of flowers. Every now and then I pull them out then sit between the piles, trying to remember the person I was when I wore them.
-April 21 2020, 11:32p
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One of my favourite words is Asymptote. It's a mathematical term that refers to a line continually approaching a given curve, but never meeting at any finite distance.
Meh, right? It wasn't until I read a Nicola Yoon book where she describes it as a wish that continually approaches, but never achieves fulfillment.
I've been in love with it since.
It's not that I'm running with a silly wish wanting for it to come true. But this odd little sentiment, this feeling of being stuck at almost, it stays.
Lately I can't seem to be able to get rid of it at all.
-June 21 2019, 10:45p
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Two weeks. That’s how long it takes to get back at times.
It starts with small shifts. The mood darkens, your heart becomes twice it’s weight. The best way to describe it is as sleep paralysis. A part of you knows it’s illusory but the mind lacks control. Next thing you know you’re pulled into slow motion.
Time has a different texture here. Hours go by staring at the ceiling or counting cracks. You find yourself catching dust motes for as long as the light doesn’t shift.
Isolation makes it easier. It gives you time to push through misplaced thoughts and feelings and tuck them in neat little packages that tear at the seams. You tell yourself you’ll handle them next round. Just like you’ll handle those calls unanswered. Maybe you’ll lie, keep things comfortable.
Next, there’s intermittent crying. There’s always intermittent crying. But it’s distracting. The eyes get puffy the sinuses go whack. The walk from bed to grab a wad of toilet paper feels difficult, keeping you irritated enough to stop the sobbing.
Then there are sounds. Focusing on them helps. Muffled conversations, footsteps from apartment above. Wind chimes on a static afternoon are pretty.
When everything melts you grab your phone and get sucked into quotes by strangers. Pretty ones by Scott Fitzgerald mixed with shitty ones by Aubrey Drake Graham. But words feel like sunlight, like the kind of warmth you don’t realize you’ve been deprived of until it hits you. You read until they don’t make sense.
But mostly you just sleep. A little trick to fast forward time. Later you’ll notice shades of sky or flowers in concrete. You’ll sign up for a dance lesson even take a trip to watch the fireflies. You’ll meet strangers and turn them into friends, laughing with them the manic laughter of a carefree teenager . Till then you’ll sleep. You’ll sleep to make sure these plans don’t fade. Like a fleeting daydream.
-March 30 2020, 4a
She’s under your bed.
