Heaven

Got feelings trapped inside like prisoners on a sinking ship. But even if I free them, we're still in the middle of the ocean and feelings can't swim. Wish I could write better and bleed all of it into ink, and then onto the page, and out of my heart. But I can't. So here I sit, past the witching hour, itching for a cold shower, and a smoke of that sticky sour, wondering why the world keeps forgetting to look my way. Or maybe it's me that's turned away, standing alone in a corner facing tomorrow when I should be talking about today.

Someone told me my writing is pretentious. She was right, but not in the way she thinks. This isn't how I really feel. How I really feel has nothing to do with blogging or writing or words or express-ability. I can't tell you how I feel. I can't tell myself how I feel. Because how I truly feel terrifies me, exhilarates me, leaves me numb and breathless and out of place and confused. It's never just one feeling at one time. How do I begin to write about that when I can't understand it? How do you write about something you've never seen, or describe somewhere you've never been? You don't - you pretend.

But the alternative would be to write nothing at all, ever. And I can't do that. This way I at least try to come closer to the truth. This way I at least try to face this stampede of emotion. This way I at least get to go to sleep at night with a lighter heart and a clearer mind. And I can wake up in the morning and smile when the sun hits my face. Did that sound as pretentious as it does when I read it back to myself? I hope so, because it's not true. I don't want to face that stampede, I really don't think I could handle the truth, and every morning I wake up happy and confused and aroused and disgusted and bladder-full and stinky. And I never smile, I stumble out of bed to wherever the gremlins hid my alarm clock at night and I practice my Muhammad Ali impersonation on the snooze button before crawling back under my blankets face first.

I don't know what happened to the world, to this city, to us human beings. Was it technology, was it Facebook, or mobile phones, or satellite television or designer clothes, or Westernization or antipathy or any of the wonderful things we've accomplished as a species? Or were we always like this? Lost and bewildered and full of false bravado. Or am I just in one of those complicated moods where I can't quite decide whether I love the life or just hate everyone in it? Or whether I should be doing something more exciting and productive than rambling online.

I'm just as lost and confused as anyone out there. Damn but I wanna go where the wind ever blows, cool and soft, ever autumn never snows, and the mountains and the sea are as close as lovers' elbows. A little house on a hill halfway between the surf and the sky, with a hearth big enough to sit in, and in which we'd light a fire every night. And sit close together, all of us who would be there, and drink from our cups, and laugh at our jokes, and smile at the stories, each face warm with the light from within and the light from the fire dancing with the shadows cast upon it. There would be dogs, gentle giants with friendly tongues, wet noses, and eager paws. They would lie at our feet as we sat around the fire, and stare at us and laugh in their own silent, tongue lolling tail wagging way.

I wanna go to a city full of cafes and bookshops and cinemas and promenades. Full of lovers holding hands and pretty girls holding on. Where life moves slow and languid, yet fills you with scents from forgotten gardens just around the corner. Where taxi drivers are full of stories and waitresses full of life. And the restaurants are full of the kind of people that you see in the good movies, and Rita Hayworth sitting in a corner waiting for you, wearing a gown and a smile. A city where cigarettes are full of nectar and fill your body with warmth and vigor, and drug companies are run by hippies who've learned how to cure everything except desire and ambition.

But who am I kidding? I'm sitting in my room, surrounded by the paintings I've made and the books I've reread a dozen times and loved every time. I can hear Laila and Mishti scratching at my veranda door waiting to be let in, so they can lie on my run and listen to my music and wag their tails lazily while I whisper to them about the future I dream about. I can hear my sister's always-too-fucking-loud music playing as she dances around her room and acts silly. I imagine my parents sitting in their room reading their papers and doing their crosswords wearing their love for each other like their favorite shawls on a winter day. And I am happy.

This is not paradise, this is not perfect. But this is where I am happy. Today, this night, this is Heaven.

I wish you could have been here with me.

Whoever you are.

Wherever you may be.

I'm coming.