From The Quill

Remember that girl who boards the same bus at the same stop at the same time daily? You know her face but not what she does. So you weave a story around her. That book she likes, the jacket she wears, the bag she carries in the commute or how she lip-syncs to music on her earphones. You read about girls like her. Remember that woman who begs on the street? What is her story? Is she poor or abandoned? Betrayed by her own? In your head, she has a family who refuses to look after her. She becomes that random character namelessly existing in the corner of your story. Remember how every missing piece of an unsolved puzzle in the world has conspiracy theories? How someone is not dead because we found no body. How someone spotted an unknown creature in a desert. Theories become our closure stories to things we can't answer with science yet. Remember that book where you pictured a rebellion? The author had penned a slogan or purpose. Made up stories to highlight atrocities. Little did he k...

 Sometimes life feels like  Someone who can't swim  Being thrown into a vast ocean  Gasping for breath  Hoping to stay afloat  While the salty water accumulates  In the lung. And then come people.  Who are the one boat you see while drowning  And you wave frantically at it  In a last bid to survive  Hoping to be seen and heard.  The one boat that throws a life jacket at you  And pulls you up and safe  On to the shore. You saved me. I whisper. But you cannot hear it. Gratitude turns into a slow-burning sensation.  Of unravelling the mystery that surrounds you.. The saviour, the Messiah, the Beloved. It was time for the boat to sail again  And I find myself being scared of the ocean; The storm that engulfs and eats ships Disturbs me to the core. But you seem to have your eyes set On the horizon, far beyond me  Your dreams to stay afloat  Surpasses my phobia of drowning. So you leave with a promise...