Public Opinion

I don't like me anymore
I don't quite know why
Everything good about me
Is likely to soon die
It's not that I'm alone
I have my thoughts and prayers
It's people I don't believe
It's people who make me fear
It's people who don't uphold
The promises they make
It's people who never care
About the hearts they break
So people hold you close
Then one day throw you away
I'm not a people person
And that is my mistake
So as I'm growing older
And as my hair turns grey
I don't like me anymore
And hear what people say
Too jaded, too hard,
Over-thinker, not smart,
Too stupid and too slow,
Too rough to be mellow.
An ocean of opinions
A castle of mistakes
I'm drowning in apathy
And sinking in your hate.

Then & Now

I was in love before
Now I'm just sad
I had some hope before
But that went bad
He made me smile before
Now I'm just mad
That I didn't leave before
He made me sad
I used to feel before
I used to cry
I wasn't sure before
I don't know why
I used to trust before
He'd come around
I prayed to God before
I figured out
There was no love before
That'll never change
I never want my heart
To break again.

Dark Power

The streets of this city are awash with power. Glittering, running through its alleys and roads like a network of veins, pumping blood and air into it, keeping it alive. Everywhere you go, there is a sense of privilege, of glamour thinning the line between what is real and what is fake. They think I’m plastic, that my face, my tits, my hair, it’s all plastic. They’re right. The best cosmetic surgeons in the city work on me regularly to make sure everything remains eternal, alive, and unchanging. I pay them well to make sure they do a good job. 

I climb out of the Bentley, my hand held gently by my date for the evening. I use the term ‘date’ loosely, he is really more of an escort hired for the purpose of looking good, but not too good. Is there anything else I can call him? Maybe a well-placed Honey or Darling can complete the illusion that we are, indeed, a beautiful, happily glowing couple in this city of lights. I don’t care though; there are illusions enough around me.

As I climb up the red carpeted staircase, my gown flows behind me in emerald glory. Little beads of green baubles, sewn together to form a canopy that fits me like a second skin, hiding everything but revealing all as I move, making my way to the grand ballroom. I can hear the people gasp around me, perhaps a split second of movement showed a nipple? I secretly smile - the gown was just as I had imagined it would be. I would make sure the designer knew I was pleased with his work.

They came to feast, these people, their eyes condemning yet seeking more titilation at the same time. I have no intention of indulging them : my body is a temple that not everyone can worship at. It takes a special kind of man to turn me on, one who matches my hunger with his greed. The skin show was for his benefit, the plastic to make me beautiful to his eyes, the escort to make me more desirable to him. He was everything I wanted and I had no intention of letting him go.

Walking in, I let my eyes roam the hallways as other eyes roamed over me. Live and let live, that is what I believe, so I let them look. I never was a shy girl, even when I was younger and still working for a living. Not to be mistaken, I should clarify that perhaps I still work for a living. It is only the nature of work that has changed… and of course, the pay scale. I can barely remember what life was like before this now. What was I doing, trudging along muddy roads going from shop to shop trying to sell my company’s products? Did I think I could make a difference to anyone doing that menial work? No. I have come a long way since then. It came at a price, but it was worth it. That is what I tell myself everyday.

Sometimes, though, I miss it. The simplicity that was life then. Work hard, party hard, though all I did was work. Where was the time to party? And if I am to be honest with myself, I had no friends to party with either. So I worked and worked myself, by myself, till I fell exhausted in my bed every night. Such was life, that I fell into the first pair of arms that found me each time, and then fell out of them as they used and threw me away. There remains a faint memory of tears shed, of blood and scars and knives. I have no use for those memories now though, so I threw them away.

There he is. My goal for the evening, standing there resplendent in his tuxedo and black bow tie. The tie is a little crooked as always, doesn’t he know by now that it makes me itch to straighten it? I can see his eyes turn towards me. Now they look over me, through me, as if taking in my dress and tearing it apart. Finally they meet my own grey irises, and I finally see the fury reflected in them. I smile coyly - was I not expected to come to his birthday party? The thoughts flit across his face. Who let me in without an invitation? Would I cause a scene if asked to leave discreetly? What was I doing wearing that ridiculous dress in his house!

“Hello Mrs.Raman, congratulations”, I said politely to our hostess for the evening. “Mr.Raman may have turned 50, but he doesn’t look a day over 35!”

“Thank you dear… I’m sorry, I didn’t quite catch your name. What did you say it was?”

“I haven’t offered it yet Mrs.Raman, don’t worry”, I smiled at her while she quickly glanced at my cleavage - was a nipple showing again? - and then back to my face. “I’m an old colleague of Mr.Raman, I used to be his secretary a few years ago and we’ve been corresponding ever since.”

“Oh that’s wonderful, so nice of you to have come then. Although Mr.Raman never mentioned you before.”

“That’s only natural ma’am. You don’t talk about the people you’re fucking to your wife.”

Silence. Had he really thought he could get away with it? It’s been so many years since he’d raped me, maybe he’d forgotten why he had hired me in the first place. I never forget. I never forgive. I never give up. 

Happy Birthday Mr.Raman.

*Disclaimer - Yes it's all fiction. 

A Glimpse of Futures

15th March, 2018

Teleporting is fun. Accidents are rare and traffic jams are now a thing of the past. They don't make you wait in lines for a simple ticket because practically everybody has one these days, everybody who is anybody anyway. There are still some poor people around though who share Teleports. So strange, that, like sharing a public toilet, paying a dollar for every time you use it. You'd think people would be a little more picky about who they scrambled their molecules with! The body is split apart every time we use a Teleport. Some naysayers even say that you even leave behind some of yourself in that deep space between two ports. I don't believe in such nonsense though; it is, no doubt, invented by those oil companies who still want people to burn fossil fuels and use large SUVs and such.

No, teleports are safe and reliable, and that is all there is to it. A few molecules lost here and there are not depleting the ozone layer like the SUVs did, or forcing me to become a passive smoker while the fossil fuels burn up the world.

30th May, 2030

The world has changed. Teleporting is not an option anymore, its the rule. Even the poorest of the poor own one per family - the last government gave them away for free in a last-minute "reform", conveniently just before the great election of 2024. They won that year, but were replaced by the Democrats again this year. Now the Democrats complain that the treasury has no money for running and maintaining subways and roads, thus forcing every person to use their feet or a Teleport to travel. Factories have now been built in the vast underground tunnels that were once subways; that is where all the remaining fossil fuel is used these days. That and for electricity, although even electricity is mostly generated through the nuclear or solar plants.

Still, life is good, the air is clean, there is plenty of food and water for everyone and people visit each other almost everyday across the world. Travel from third-world countries is still limited because they don't have the monies to build Teleport factories, and use airplanes even now. Most of us have now learned to ignore those irritating naysayers of teleporting. Some scientists are even calling this decade as the "Age of the Great Loss", owing to the millions of molecules we all seem to have collectively lost while teleporting through quantam space. Some say that even the weight of the human soul seems to have decreased among those of us who teleport often. Can this even be possible?

20th July, 2035

I just came back from the fertility labs in South Malta, where people of the world are gathering their sperm and ova so they can be matched for the highest rates of successful fertilization. My results were disappointing, to say the least - I have been declared sterile. No doubt my partner Mia will also be saddened by this, but we'll move on and she'll find a more suitable mate, like everyone else does these days. Heartbreak is not an emotion we feel deeply any more, neither is joy or elation. Fear, now that I can still comprehend.

Fear. The one emotion that I still feel, though I wish it had been the first one to go. I feel fear at the loss of my soul, fear that more and more of us are found sterile everyday, fear at the rising shadows that now press against me when I teleport. Fear that the naysayers and the oil companies were right, that the loss of the ozone layer would have still been better than this emptiness we now feel inside.

14th Feb, 2050

They say the sea is to rise tomorrow. As I lean over my balcony and watch the horizon, I can see the shadows in the distance. They moved from the quantam realm through the portal some years ago, first a trickle that nobody noticed and slowly increasing to a tide that no one could stop. They brought us face-to-face with versions of ourselves that had somehow manifested from our own molecules, twisted insubstantial entities that were hungry to become corporeal through the bodies of the creatures they had been born from, namely, us. But even fear has left me, and now I feel nothing anymore. The government that controls us forbid the use of teleports when the shadows finally became visible to everyone. Now we walk through narrow alleyways and between towers of steel to get to the nearest convenience store or to work. But I will not relive the past, we have been instructed to only concentrate on the present. The sea may rise tomorrow and drown us all, but so what? We will have lived for nothing, just as we will die for nothing. Life's like that, we've been told. Those who did not listen took off in their spaceships for different planets, while the government was left behind to call them traitors to the race. They will live for sure, but they will live with that on their permanent record, that which replaced the human "conscience" a long time back. My record has been spotless so far, with no violations, no thoughts of treason or murder, like many of my fellow men and women resorted to after the Sterility March. I will die in the morning, but I will die with a clean record.

Don't Wait

I haven't felt in a while
Not love, not hate,
Just whispers of late
When I used to wait
For a text or a call
For a sign that he thought
Of me sometimes
That was all I'd want
But the signs never came
And the nights grew cold
He'd tell me his dreams
And the dreams grew old
Then i knew him well
His ways, his tales,
He feared me then
I knew him too well
I wished him no harm
He feared me still
I'd pray for his dreams
He tore me till
I feel no love now
No sorrow, no hate
I pray for no dreams
No call I await.

Diary of Depression

Day 1

"No no no don't leave me please!", she said.

"Everybody changes. Everybody leaves", her mind whispered.

"But I can't help being the way I am."

"Neither can they."


Day 2

Dear world,

It's been a hard day today.  Not because I had too much work in office, but because I was trying very hard not to give up and come back home. I'm proud to say I didn't give up. My hands were shaking sometimes, I wish I could've talked to someone and told them how I felt, but still.. I didn't give up. The medicines helped, not much else. Everything feels overwhelming these days - driving, walking, standing up, blinking. Any movement feels forced, like I'd rather be frozen. Why am I feeling this way? Because something broke inside my mind, again. It happens sometimes, once in a few years I guess. Hopefully it will come slower and less frequently as I grow even older. Why does it break? Because I'm overwhelmed by feeling too much about something, many somethings. It's just the way I'm built, a little broken. Everything is too bright or too dull, life is beautiful or horrible. There's so little grey. So it breaks my mind up when there's so many colours, so much darkness all at once. Why am I telling you this? Because I have no one else to talk to.

Day 3

Another day has gone, every day feels less overwhelming than the one before. But it's strange that the whole week has passed by and I don't even remember anything between Sunday and today, Friday, except my doctor's visit. And taking medicines, so many little pills, morning, noon and night. I even forget if I took them sometimes, I don't know if I've skipped some or taken it twice. It's been a week that never was.

Day 4

It's easy to hide under my blanket on the weekends and close my eyes. If only I didn't need to open them again, I'd be happy. But I do have to get up sometimes, to walk my dogs, to eat, to take a shit. And when you start getting up for the small things, you think of getting up for bigger things too once in a while. Like taking that long walk with your dog, thinking about watching a movie. It's all possible as long as the pills don't put me to sleep again. Then I'll hide and not come out till I have to.

Day 5

It's been a bad day. Even as it started out, I knew it would be. I was trying to wean off one of the meds, I didn't like how it made me feel. Like a zombie. I wanted to go to the forest and start practising with my dog for long runs. Nothing much, 7km at first to begin with. We looked forward to it. Then I just didn't get up. There was always the evening to get up and run, right? Always an easier path around my house. Always a person around to mock me. Always something to look forward to, only to have it taken away by someone's malice and pride. Always something to trigger another attack, another SOS dose, another setback. Always another day to dread.

Day 6

What do I want for this valentines day? No more horror after horror after horror. No more black and white and overwhelming feelings for everything and everyone. No more helplessness as someone pushes me down under the heel of his shoe, or punches me in the face when he feels slighted, or calls me mad and fucked up and deranged. Will there ever be a day when I'll be free?

Day 7

It feels nice to empower yourself. Strong. Self-sufficient. Until you remember the threats. Until you remember that you can't protect yourself from harm, from injury. You can't protect your dogs, your family, or your friends. Then empowerment tastes like ashes in your mouth and is just a hollow drum to beat.

Needless to say, it's getting worse. The trembling won't stop now. The meds are not helping today. I wish I had more work to do so I could forget everything, but I don't. I wish, I wish, I wish... I wish so many things were not as they are. I wish someone would see me, see beyond the smile and the small talk, and care to ask if I'm alright. But I'm not ok. How I wish I was!