Better.

The sky has changed its shades again and the clouds dance to the sound of droplets

The earth makes love so softly to the smell of monsoon and my heart flutters at the thought of new beginnings

Broken promises have gotten washed away with the hidden streams at edge of street corners and old pain has morphed into the shadow of what looks like a full heart all over again

The world does what it does best, the days do their job and each one turns into the next

With nothing said and so much meant, after all this time I’m almost whole again

Wings find their flight feathers and the fear of soaring turns to excitement and what lies in what is left unseen

I gift myself the pleasure of the unknown and the calm to explore everything inbetween

Words are no longer as heavy as they used to be, but their value has finally found its place in the crevices of my soul

Only days are left till another year gets left behind, like old skin I shed the dust that has accumulated with what was unknown but now doesn’t matter

And just like that, I know I’m doing better.  

Dilz

One Hope.

It’s 2:30 on a Wednesday afternoon, the trees are still glistening with the rays of the winter sun and I’ve found a cozy spot in a room away from the hustle bustle of work. Old Hindi music blaring in my earphones, I wonder about how to fix any of this… Or is there anything that needs fixing?

Am I in a web that’s woven tight enough to cage me from my own happiness or am I over thinking and creating an invisible barricade from everything that can be mine.

Worlds collide all the time and souls connect ever so often, but there’s always that one that makes you question the rest. That one that isn’t like any of the others, a little more meaningful, a little safer, a little more like you but different in all the best ways.

When they said ‘all roads lead home’ they meant a person, I know that now. How could it be a place? How can a place possibly give you the comfort of two warm arms and a heartbeat that matches your own?

I’ve known love is real and soulmates are destined since I was child, I’ve known prince charming is not fiction and my dreams are meant to be reality since before I could even fully comprehend the gravity of those things. 

New Year’s Eve is not too far along and another year has rolled by and drowned me in lessons that have helped me grow and lessons I wish I had never had to learn.

A few years ago I had jokingly told my mother that I never get things easily, that I always have to work harder than most for them or suffer unnecessary fates to achieve the things I desire… There are few times in life you predict the route of your own life without fully understanding the reality of the words you speak.

Two hearts. Two worlds. Two dreams. Two hands. Two eyes. Two laughs. Two thoughts. Two fates. Two souls. Two prayers.

One hope.

Dilz 

25

25.

The things I believed I would be at 25. The infinities I was convinced I would have created at 

25.

The world I was so certain would be mine if I just hit this number.

It’s been almost a week since I turned 25 and a quarter life crisis officially had the permission to knock on my door, and I still don’t know.

I don’t know where my soulmate is, how much closer I am to true love, how far my career is going to get to and how happy I am capable of being.

Seasons came and went and the trees taught me lessons about how to let go. Fairy lights laced through balcony grills, and firecrackers light the night sky.

Ink stains on my fingers, Old Monk on my breath, secret words on old paper and the world at my feet.

Old Hindi songs on loop, jammies with the lingering scent of innocence and maturity where it needs to be.

25, it’s been a long road to get here and it’s all been wonderful.

Passion, anger, love, faith, home, hope, family, dreams, and everything in between.

The universe kept its promise, after all this time and all these years, it’s time I kept mine.

Dilz 

I Am Everything You Will Never Be.

Sinning with the devil and making love to an angel. Keeping pace with hell and building castles in heaven. Who knew devils smelled so good and had eyes to make you forget what you thought you knew? Who knew angels could drive you insane and give you the comfort of home with just a brush if their hand across your cheek. Oh the intoxication of a forbidden fruit and the healing hand of a known comfort.

Oh the loop I got myself in where the exit is blurred and the next turn comes even before I finish the previous one. Words whispered at 1 am, forgotten as quickly as the sun starts to rise. Jack Daniels on lying lips and Old Monk laced with love. Plans made under grey clouds and then laid to rest when the sky shows it’s morning hues of blue. Castles of chaos and homes of heart, words of wisdom and laced fingers with lies at their tips.

Up and down back and forth, yes and no, an ocean without a shore. Walking through fire while masking all these burns with a cape of “I’m fine”. Fine’s a feeling? Right? Isn’t it? How could I possibly know. Numb from running, tired of trying, irritated with my own skin. Fingers through my hair, my tongue on your lips, your lies on my breath, my stupidity in your hands. Hands around my waist that feel like a noose around my neck. Madness in your eyes and fear in mine, a game of hearts and a winner on top with poison arrows and neglected instability.

A cage around your world and a noose slowly creating itself around mine, love is the medicine for all aches but for your it’s tears and turmoil. A game of chase ending in the death of my soul, I won’t allow it anymore.

I am more woman than your insignificant manhood can tolerate, I am more strength than your weakness has ever known. I am a walking heart while you are a writhing world of filth.

I create infinities of purity while you create a vortex of insanity.

Darling, you thought my innocence wouldn’t see through your toxicity, but guess what?

I am everything you will never be. 

Dilz

Vial Of Hope.

When all doors close and shattered piece lie on the floor

When meanings come from silence and words mean far less than they used to

When the pungent taste of past pain claws it’s way into crevices of my soul

And murky waters are no longer safe to swim in, and my lung fill with toxicity

There exists the cleanliness of soft new beginnings, and much needed goodbyes

My skin no longer lingers with the melancholic scent of old flames

And my scars no longer have the claw marks of hands that no longer feel like home

A heart that hold lessons that will only be learned and perfected with time

A soul with severed threats of ties made from lead instead of love

Songs sung through voices that weren’t made to caress

And dances exhausted from a rhythm that has no melody of comfort

A year has come and gone and only now I’m finding my way out of this quicksand

Months of torturous maybes and unending if onlys

Mistakes made twice over and wisdom learned once in the dark

Love is waiting for me at the gate, the one you never let me walk towards

Home will one day be two arms, a heartbeat and eyes that breathe relief

Until then there’s laughter, healing, soul wrenching pain and a vial of concentrated hope.

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Somehow lessons always come from arms that were supposed to feel safe and a voice that was supposed to supress past demons, I've been on a rollercoaster of endless nooses for a year and finally it's all crashed. 

My soul has ben wrung dry of it's pungent joy and my heart has been stabbed out of his once familiar scent of love. But only through storms are rainbows created. Only through pain are souls enlightened. 

And only through extreme heartbreak will I finally find the true essence of my being. 

It's time to give time, time. 

Dilz  

Be The Best Part Of Me

Same questions, different answers. Broken strings, songs played through a memory. Beats to remember and a rhythm that feels like home.

Wondering how to make peace with the past and how to come to terms with the future. Two hopeless hearts, or so it would seem. Unwritten words decaying within a confused soul. Smoke on my lips, 

Old Monk in my veins, you in my heart and unsettled fears in my soul.

A romantic mess of tortured could bes and hopeless prayers laid to rest on grey monsoon clouds.

I keep telling myself I’m okay, but then it’s 4 in the morning, the wind is crisp and you come to say hello in all my dreams.

Maybe some nightmares too.

Forced into making decisions that I’m not prepared for, to say words that I’m not sure I can own up to later.

You with your ambitions and me with my tainted intuition.

You with your pretentious patience and me forever grateful.

You all wrapped in failure and me just waiting to unravel the hope.

You in your sure suit and me in my delicate lace.

You with hands to heal and me with eyes to speak.

You without me.

And us without we.

Contradictions fill my lungs with silent screams, but your voice has the power to gracefully set me free.

A novel written together but now I rummage through all my old pages and new, to find you sitting somewhere on one of the old forgotten corners. One pen on one paper to form millions of joint thoughts. Now, empty pages, an inkless nib and two chapters with one ellipsis.

Meet me at the line, the one where we make peace. Let’s hold hands and dance to our understanding.

You bring the softness and I’ll bring the fierce fight.

You bring the confidence and I’ll bring the forever to celebrate.

You bring me cherries and I’ll bring the chocolate cake.

You be the layers and I’ll be the finished masterpiece.

I’ll be your sanity and you be the best part of me.  







Dilz

Constructive/Destructive

“I am a human being. Nothing human is alien to me.”

I was watching a video of Maya Angelou talking about the most valuable lessons she’s learned over time and she spoke of this quote she has once read, I forget now who the speaker was.

This saying, in its entirety, means that nothing that another human being says or does, no matter how bad or awful, is something that I myself am not capable of. Whether it’s the woman who killed her children, or the man who raped his wife, or the poor boy from the streets who became a millionaire, nothing another person does be it good or bad, is something I am not capable of.

Maya Angelou said that if you could soak in even 10% of the gravity of these words and live by them on some level in your life, then you have known what it’s like to be human.

For some reason, these words struck me. With all the awful things people had done to me, all the hurtful words, actions, thoughts, reactions.

I had faced and known a lot of hate and a huge lack of love.

Through all of this I would always tell myself that I could never do that or say that or act that way. I would tell myself these people are bad people and so they do bad things. While this is still true, and cruelty is something I am still incapable of, I know now that all people are a product of something, even the most hateful ones.

I need to remind myself that the reason I am incapable of such harm is because I reacted to my life and to my situations constructively, rather than destructively. That not all people have the same strength or the same environment to choose otherwise.

People are only as good or as human as their choices.

But not everyone is aware or fully capable of understanding that every action or word they speak is a choice and is a responsibility of the highest order.

And this is the fundamental difference between a good person and a bad person.

The war between constructive and destructive.

Dilz 

Peace.

Maya Angelou and Oprah Winfrey have soon become the guiding lights that my life so desperately needed, apart from my angel of a mother.

Sometimes when lessons come at you faster than you can catch them or understand them, the overwhelming feeling of not being enough tends to take over.

My teachers come in all shapes and sizes, with different hearts and eccentric souls but each one full of a knowledge that I don’t yet know. 

Each one making me want to explore my own being and find in its depth if there are the same thoughts or feelings that I harbor.

What makes me so different from the rest? What ingredients do I possess that makes me feel things so differently or understand other souls so deeply? Is it a curse, could it be a blessing?

All these years of loneliness, wondering why God picked me to be this carrier. Why I was chosen amongst so many others, more deserving, more capable.

Sitting in rooms full of people with opinions, strong views, strong ideals and knowing that mine don’t fit anywhere. Knowing that mine have a depth that might not be understood or appreciated. Maybe they won’t relate to the wholeness of my feelings or the reality of their density.

That one statement I couldn’t accept until now. Just three little words with the power to change everything.

I. Am. Different.

Three words. So many years. So much trauma. So much lonliness. So many questions. So many sleepless nights.

One realization.

So much peace.

Dilz

Words.

Of all the lessons I have learned recently and all the powers I have witnessed, the greatest realization to me is the power of words.

The power every human being has to change lives just with the sentences that they spew in the direction of another person. 

The worlds they can build and the homes they can destroy. 

The dreams that can be given life and the hope that can be put to rest.

The power of words exist in the sentences I type. In the humor I invest in, in the people I talk to, in 

the smiles they react with, in the tears that flow and in the wake of everything I know.

The power of words is one so grand and one so large that all that there is or all that there could be exists entirely within the combination of 26 alphabets and many millions of tongues.

Words can hide inside closets, they can make their home in the crevices between people’s bones and in the molecules within their being.

Words have the power to give, to take, to hold, to break.

Words create love. As they create hate.

Words create homes. As they create faith.

Words are the center of every human being and the most expensive freedom we possess.

Dilz 

1 Week And Counting

Castles were painted in your eyes and dreams were whispered in my ears

Fingers laced to form the foundation for our home and life happened nice and slow

Your eye like a child and innocence to match, your smile full of joy and my heart didn’t stand a chance

A year came and went and our love triumphed through thick and thin

A year flew past us and the world was silenced in the face of our love and its strength

But when the wind blew out the man I was in love with and gave me who you became, I’ll never know

That cold 4^th of June, it was just another Saturday in the story of trial and triumph

The hours rolled by and your eyes suddenly spewed anger in place of the love I’d always known

Midnight came and I sat alone in a taxi… Numb.

Counting street lights and wondering when my phone would light up with an apology

Words of venom left your mouth and their pungent rawness created bullet holes in my being

The sound of laughter surrounded me while my world fell apart

It took you just one night, to crumble everything we built over 1 year

Every beautiful thing you had ever said played back an old song in my heart

And my head reeled in disbelief of how you could play both parts to such perfection

A week has gone by and as I sit at my desk, surrounded by chaos

The weight of loss fills my veins and my soul starts to search for its friend again

“Let it go” they say, “you won’t even feel it one day” they go on

But they don’t know… They will never know

I have counted the hours that you didn’t exist in, and the minutes that followed

I have recorded the seconds that I’ve sat in silence and the days I have slept by the phone

How easily the universe took from me all the love I had every known

How carelessly you threw away all the love I had ever given you

Forever left to hang on a noose in the dead of the night

And just like that castles turned to dust, dreams start to rust

And all I’m left with is what could have been the most incredible ending to us.

  

Dilz

A Fool

If the roses at the flower shop down the street from your house could speak, they’d tell a story of how they never found their way to me. They’d sigh in pain over my hands that didn’t get to caress their smell.

I’ve beaten myself up many nights over what I could have, should have, must have done right. Definitely done wrong.

But, this is no longer my fault and you are no longer mine to hold.

Lonely nights and busy days.

Night fall and darkness all around me as I waited for my phone to light up and my room to sense the spark of your midnight love, but it never came. I love you’s spewed from your mouth like water, with no actions to match. You were a boy, working hard to be the man you could be and I lent my hand, head, heart and soul to be your comfort through the storm. I walked through fire and became armour to your dreams.

Oh, what a fool I have been.

Long nights, frivolous fights, you were always ‘tired’ of me and my constant whirlwind of hurt.

‘Don’t be a child’, you said.

Now, questions swirl and the ‘drafts’ folder is piling up with words you will never read and heart songs you will never hear.

I still remember your smell, of cheap cigarettes and Old Monk, laced with the sweetness of your just-out-of-the-shower scent. Your smile that lit up my world and your laugh that brought out the innocence in mine.

Missing you has become second skin, being angry at you is still taking some getting used to.

You promised to love away my demons… Oh, what a fool I was for not seeing that you just wanted me to love away yours instead.

A sweet talker with eyes that make me fall softly in love over and over again. Hands that laid the foundation for every forever we could have had.

But those lips.

Lips to kiss away my every fear, lips that spewed lies to give birth to new ones. You’ve made a fool out of me too many times, you’ve sorryed away too many unnecessary jibes.

Practiced signatures on old tissue papers, dates noted and forevers put on a calendar made of dreams. 

Movie tickets in an old memory jar and your shirt tucked away in my closet, tucked away in a small corner of my heart.

Goodbyes are never easy and we had too many for me to count. But this last one, this painfully real and horribly prolonged one is going to cut deeper than anything that can be stitched up.

You promised… What a fool I have been. Oh, such a fool for you.

Laid To Rest

When we break down in shards and not in flowers, when we create a warzone and not a meadow, how can I still be stupid enough to wish for you?

When frustration replaces love and anger replaces joy, that is usually an indication to pack your bags and look for greener pastures. But, somehow the smell of you and the comfort of your arms are all I want… Or so I seem to believe.

Pungent what ifs and melancholic maybes are all we have left in this chess game of forbidden possibilities. You were the king, but you took my role as the queen too seriously. As days passed and I kept protecting you, I somehow lost my sense of self and my ability to be enough for me. What should have been an equal relationship suddenly turned into a one way street that sent me crashing into a reality that I never planned for.

Skin on skin, we created the only magic I’ve ever known. Forbidden kisses left on my hopeful lips while our fingers trace my every outline, I fell for you so deep with no harness to protect me. With no you at the end to catch me.

Like dew drops lay on barren leaves, your smell lingers on me after all this time. Your signature scent mixed so perfectly with the smell of freshly smoked cigarettes. Your skin tells a story that my soul is not willing to forget. No one can kiss these pained lips like you can, no one can fix and break me all at the same time, like you have.

Why?

The universe lets out a sigh every time our fingers touch or our smiles dance. Almost like it knows we’re about to create sin all over again. My mind says no and my body starts to tremble but for some reason my heart walks every path that could lead me back to you.

Why?

Eyes that have seen harshness and hands that can caress my every fear into comfort. Our worlds don’t fit but somehow I feel like our souls do. So easily you slid into my universe and changed its colors. So completely my eyes laid to rest what my heart already knew. Weeks have passed and long nights have gone by with me staring at my phone. That one call or one message, that one indication that I run through your mind just as much as you race through mine.

My love, you have changed my world. And as much as I never wanted to admit such failure or accept such helplessness, you have laced your being through my every thought, my every inch and I will never again be the same.