Things We Gather

We are such carriers of burdens. We have nothing to lose, but we carry the weight of such unnecessities. In the end, irrespective of what the Pharaohs believed, we have to leave everything behind. Which then probably is the only time we truly travel light.

But here we are - seducing, desiring, acquiring - and if not for things, we are busy burdening ourselves with myriad feelings, emotions which we should have experienced and moved on from, felt and unfelt, tasted, remembered and then forgotten.

But such is our blind-sightedness for immortality, our instinct to persevere and our desire of acquiescence, that we give the halo of permanence to the things which are most ephemeral. And therein lies the deepest cut. Because much more dangerous than the quicksand of useless acquisitions is the accumulation of feelings. And how little do we know how to handle those.

It is never our passage through emotions that is deleterious, it is our staying in those emotions which creates havoc. Because that’s when we ponder and speculate and conjure - and invariably think of the worst.  Much more than the action which precipitates our feelings, it is our continual analysis which brings about fractures in relationships.

We have to learn to live through passing storms of ties, be swirled, tossed around, battered, but then to survive and move back into the warmth of our mutual sanctuaries.

If we realise that it is in the nature of things that they don’t last, we would be less hard on ourselves or others.

If we stop being conscious of the world and learn to revel in the quixotic quirkiness of our beings, and learn to laugh at and laugh about it, we would have found the core of life’s mysteries. Laugh and move on.

There would be no need to go to another realm to find ourselves.

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I am such a gatherer - 

magi of minutiae! 
trickster of trivia! 
antiquary of the ephemeral! 
fancier of fluff!

.

Through the day, in my dreams -

I love, I seek to possess;

I get upset, i carry a grudge;

I leave, I hold onto memories;

I break hearts, hold unshed tears inside;

I leave behind, know the weight of guilt.
.

Come evening, and I empty my pockets -

purse, car keys, hanky, ID.

I shed my clothes and stand naked,

the mirror apologetic to my truth,

shoulders as they droop,

a paunch which hangs defeated,

eyes unable to look back:

I wonder who do I fight back with for redemption,

I am the one I wrestle everyday with.
.

And I reminisce of the treasures I used to carry,

the ones which made me light-footed, 

when I could be an astronaut 

when I was a rockstar,

when what made me nervous,

made me run harder,

when all I had in my pocket was a spinning top,

coloured string left on a shelf, a heart-shaped leaf 

a caterpillar gasping for air,

when I felt light but rich,

an owner of nothing,

but a lord of everything I could see. 

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