she rose from the dead.

crimson lips

forming a silent scream,

a pale face emerging

from dirt~

no memories.

only static.

black and white.

the people who had loved her

did not exist

forgotten~

forever can be cruel

sometimes.

two boxes

❏M

❏F

opposing sides,

forever at war

pink and blue

like black and white

yin and yang.

no one

can upset

the balance.

you must choose.

no one likes

when you mix the paints

in the watercolor tray.

suddenly

you're the bad guy

just because you feel like

purple.

male

or

female

?

i have to pick one.

i want to pick one.

but nothing feels right to me.

so all i can do

is suffer in the impossible inbetween,

full of dysphoria that

doesn't exist.

at least

that's what people tell me.

these thoughts in my head

are ramblings of a lunatic

and i just need to

get over it.

i have to close my eyes

swallow my vomit

stop looking in the mirror

ignore everyone

ignore even myself

and choose.

you said it's sad

stacks of poetry

unread

i'm losing track

tear me open and hold it back

bleeding onto sheets of paper

gives you stains and specks

you may like to listen now

but if i were a playlist

you hadn't heard most of it yet

and i doubt that you like

every song that i hold

or word that i wrote

more than the courage

i lack

There are times I wish I was a boy, only because of all the times that I have been grouped with the boys or the men due to my name. That wish only lasts a minute until I get a room by myself.

I am a female, and I don't personally wish to know what its like to be a male. There is alot of things that society does not teach males about females. I do not wish to know the secret horrors that males have to go through that no one teaches us.

I bet you are confused that my first statement I said boy/girl and the second I said male/female. The reason why is simple. I do not believe that gender and sex are the same things.

The reason why is a simple thing. Everything in this world has been catergorized by how it functions and how it functions with the others. We give them the label "sex" for the function. Reproduction, and how the lifeform grows to complete this function. Gender is connected to what we as people think of what a person is when we say boy/girl/man/woman. Do we think about the hormones in the body that is built? How the organs develop? What changes to make way for certain organs? What weakness happen because of that? These things make marked changes, permenate changes. These changes will make a person different on a biological sense.

How a person's hair is styled, what kind of color they can like, and what they are dressed like is not biological. It is how the culture shapes a person based on what they want a person to be, the roles they fulfill, and what they want the person to want. That is NOT biological. Like names, they change overtime with the ages. They flip when the cultures switches values and they are only attractive when the culture deems it to be. The prizes and the punishments are also assigned by what is and isn't acceptable by that person's role. That is also not based on sex. A person's sex will not determine if they are more or less guilty of a crime. But a culture can and will decide it.

Our culture that buys everything wants to put a price on everything, including things that are natural to a person. They want to package and resell you your own idenity, and the easiest thing will be to link two things that should not be linked.

I might sound crazy but this is my own thoughts. There are those that do not agree with me and that is fine. This is just me and me thought of gender

Alright. Let’s take this step by step.

The first question is when: When did Jo go missing?

It was somewhere between 11 and 12 in the night.

The second question is where: From where did Jo go missing?

It was from her bedroom.

The third question is how: How did Jo go missing?

I zoned out for a minute, and she was gone. Therefore, we shall draw the first conclusion that she must have sneaked out by herself. It’s an impossible window for an abduction. The odds are too vague.

The fourth question is why: Why did Jo sneak out in the middle of the night?

Unclear. Jo’s mind works in strange ways. I told you-- she is the dumbest there is!

The fifth question is who: To whom could she have gone?

That brings us to the suspects. I have two doubts.

One: Mr Derrick Watson. Eighty-year old (Neighbour). Short white hair. Black eyes. Dark brown complexion. A little plump.

Two: Ms Elizabeth Bennett. Ten-year-old (Friend). Shoulder-length brown hair. I don’t know, strange eyes? Beige complexion. Petite.

The final question is what: What can I do to find her?

Darling, you have no idea what I am capable of. Before the sun rises in the east, I will bring Jo back home. And no one will ever know a thing. Let’s set out, shan’t we?

I rise from the bed, aiming for the windows. I will need a view. A broad one. If Jo is somewhere out in the open, I need to know. If that’s the case, I am sorry, lads. The story might end quite sooner than you anticipate.

But no. Jo might be dumb, but my hovering presence around her could have brought around some change. But before we move on to the suspects, I need to collect some evidence. I cannot gather direct testimonies from the neighbour or the friend. They will never even be able to sense my presence. I need to ask someone pure of heart. And I think I have already found the perfect witness.

There she stood, above the hill. The only one in the whole region. She glistened in the moonlight, and her tender leaves shone in the darkness. She must be old. Dozens of years must have passed since her birth. She must be wise. And standing above the hill, she could see every last thing that transpires on the island. The fairy tree.

I glide through the windows, taking the first step in the quest for Jo. To be honest with you, reader, I don’t think our journey together will last that long. The moment I reach her, our adventures might conclude before they even have the chance to begin. And to be furthermore honest, I can’t really see why I should care about that. I hover, close to the grass, steadfast on my way. Nothing can stop me, and nothing will.

“Ow! Watch where you are going, stupido!” The voice brings me to an immediate halt. What is that? A little squeaking creature. Is it a rat? But rats rarely keep their pureness of the heart for long. I need to know the answer. “Who is that?” I ask aloud.

And in all fairness, the owner of the feeble voice surprised me. A tiny blade of grass! How dare a piece of nothing raises its voice against a guardian angel? “What is your name, little thing?”

“Graham.” The reply nearly cracks me up. It must have been no more than a few days old. Such a feeble, childish voice with the name Graham? “Who named you, squeaky?”

I see how irritated and disturbed the arrogant little thing becomes. Speaking against a guardian angel with such temper, he must be taught a lesson. And his reply cracks me up again, “God did.” The determination and confidence in his voice are too silly! Considering that his answer is one born out of zero wisdom and knowledge, I feel pity for the thing.

“God,” I laugh, “God named you? How relevant do you think you are for the Great Lord? You are nothing but a tiny, trivial piece of grass. Your life is meaningless. It lasts as long as one day when the cattle bite you off your roots to satisfy their hunger. Or perhaps, a little storm. How dare you even say his name?”

The determination and confidence I saw early in his eyes are long lost. Is he crying? All it takes is a little monologue, and he realises his worth. How could these beings be so absurd? I can see him struggling to hide his tears. How melodramatic! Jo was the same. She couldn’t even handle the least of insults-- Breaking down in an instant. I wish the children were given more wisdom.

“You are not an angel. You will never be one.” How pathetic! As much as I want to laugh it off and stick to my goal, I feel this rising need to let it know its value, “I am one.” Without another word, I continue my path. My valuable time is not to be spent arguing with worthless things. I have to find Jo, and I have to do it soon. And so, for the time being, I am avoiding the whimpers of the little one behind in my path.

#fiction

Disclaimer: The following content is for entertainment purposes only. It is strictly not personal. And mostly, unreal.

P.S: Change dialect to Indian English for a better experience. Don’t know how? Just add more yaars and dudes at random places. And most importantly, make sure that no ‘R’ can ever be silenced. We, Indians, believe in equality when it comes to relevant things like these. When it’s irrelevant like gender, sexuality or something, it’s adjustable.

Your Radiance,

Some of you might not have understood the person I just addressed. Well, it’s a long story. If you would like to know, stick with me here. I will explain.

Far, far away, in the distant land of Odisha, where every day tends to be festive (without pretty much reason), a young girl was born. Her name was Smruti. No, yaar, I am just kidding. Her name was Smruti Swarupa Mahapatra, and as far as I know, her name could be longer! Like, Smruti Swarupa Mahapatra something, something, something.

But you might still be wondering why I would address her as ‘Your Radiance’. Unbeknownst to most, Smruti is not an ordinary young girl. She is a queen in a faraway land, where mighty dragons soared the sky and wicked sorcerers performed their rituals. Now, their realm is in total disarray, and according to the prophecy, only the runaway queen can save their kingdom from their menacing enemies.

And where is she? Well, you can see her roaming through the empty streets of Odisha at midnight because sleeping during nights is not fun enough. And then, she sleeps through the noons since it’s entertaining after a heavy lunch. Oh, sorry, dude. Not a heavy lunch!

If there is one person she loves most in the world, it’s herself. She takes the term ‘self-love’ to a whole another level! If you could quickly snatch her phone away and check her gallery, half of the pictures will be herself. Half? I doubt that too. It could all be herself, with one or two exceptions.

But it’s not as bad as it sounds. The queen also spends a long time giving good advice to people who require it the most. It’s so helpful for broken people like me. Her advice can be as philosophical as ‘Just be yourself, and everything will be alright!’ to ‘Why don’t you take photos of yourself?’. I mean, like, that’s an integral part of your life! You have to take pictures of yourself and frame them across your room. So that you can later be Charles Darwin 2.0 and prove that humans are going back to monkeys.

But you could still be thinking, why ‘Your Radiance’? Why wasn’t it ‘Your Majesty’ or Your Highness’ or something? To be honest, I don’t know, yaar! She can be compulsive about things without any reason. I mean, she is still a teen, and it’s totally understandable, right? No, it’s not. Why? I will tell you.

She is certainly not a teen.

She is manipulating her identity. I can be very sure of this. Why? She is too mature for a sixteen-year-old, dude! I have seen her contemplating things that regular people don’t even think about in their sixties!

I think she might have had an existential crisis the day she was born! She might have been thinking, “Oh, I have a life now. But it’s so worthless, yaar. What am I supposed to do down here on Earth? What is the purpose of my life?” And everyone must have thought she was crying as usual babies do, but no! She was going through an identity crisis right there, right then! That’s how complicated she is!

Ah, I am sorry, Smruti. I didn’t mean any of this, okay? It is purely for entertainment purposes and fulfilling your challenge, okay? Oh wait, I didn’t tell you about that one, did I? She created a challenge asking others to roast her! See, crisis! I mean, like, what sort of misogynistic person would do that on a random morning? It will be like, “Oh, I am feeling so bored! What will I do? Oh wait, I got an idea! I should ask everyone to say negative things about me! That would brighten up my day like it’s summer!”

I mean, seriously? If she asked everyone to say ten positive things about her, I could have understood that. I mean, I would have struggled to do that, but that’s understandable. But “Come on, everybody! Make me feel worthless!” is not something everybody says on a fine morning! Not everybody, but Smruti Swarupa Sakthi Ranjan Mahapatra! I don’t know if that’s a part of her title, but I think she will be alright with that. If I could do the same, I would have named myself ‘Chacko Is A Horrible Name, Mr Stephen’.

I mean, who doesn’t like long names? As a matter of fact, everyone in Odisha has long ones. It will be fun if their teachers want to punish them. They would hand their students a sheet of paper and tell them, “Go write your name a 100 times.” It would literally keep them occupied for hours, and their hands would be all sore by the end! Dolores Umbridge would be proud!

And when I say this, never think that I am any better, okay? We also have quite the alphabet system! It literally feels like that game where you help Mickey find the way out of the maze. If Ariadne in Inception knew Malayalam, she would have surprised Cobb solely with every last one of our letters. That’s how mesmerising it is!

And do you know that game where you have to draw something without taking the pen off the paper? We invented that! We have letters like “eru” that looks like the rough plan of a theme park joyride! You can’t even find where it begins! It’s basically a loop! And the best part is that it gets worse!

Anyway, back to Smruti! As I said, she is too complicated for me to explain. I might be able to go on for days and describe other things like her family reunions that can be announced as district festivals and her love of writing. But I have already crossed a thousand words, and I am unsure of the word limit here. To be honest, I am more afraid of whether the queen will decapitate me and then stitch my head back, give me life, and kill me again. This could be the last time you might read one of my posts. Pray for me, won’t you?

Lots of love,

Chacko Stephen.

I am just going to say #fiction so that she doesn’t go far too ruthless in coming up with methods of execution (:

you nodded through breakfast

scattered gritty smiles

but i won’t forget how you cried

when i stopped to catch my breath

like those long-dreaded words from my lips

had been pooling behind your eyes

until it became too much, too full

It begins with an earthquake

A re~appearance of somethin’ precious

It begins with an ancient tree

One that seems to have been around for many eons

It begins with a sneeze

A newborn who has two beating hearts.

It begins with a beam of light coming from the touchstone of the ages

#TOUCHSTONE (c)

23rd Aug., 2021

i still have conversations with you in my head.

i reinvent everything you ever said.

i walk down clear memory lanes,

covering them in smashed window panes.

you made me hate this city.

it doesn't matter how pretty

the views i’ve admired since i was a child

still are. they don't make me smile.

i still get nervous passing cars that you don’t drive anymore.

i have to pull over on my way to the store; bent over the wheel to scream and keel,

i heave until i turn on a song to feel

anything other than the blind rage

that comes with turning back a page

in the book of healing.

just when i think i’m done dealing

with the all-consuming emotions

that came with a summertime conversation that happened years ago now,

i still don’t know how

to get over it all.

even as i approach the 6th fall,

since it all starting falling apart,

i’m still looking for a brand new start.