The Hopeless Optimist's Weblog

Everturning gyre…

Sowmya Bharadwaj — Thu, 02 Jun 2011 02:21:58 +0000

Anger and pain. What comes first… the violence or the hurt? Spinning me around, fast and furious, in a crazy circle, till I’m numb and dizzy with the thoughts. Turning and twisting. Out of control torturous torque hurtling to the edge-of-the-edge of my humanity.

Pandora’s box. Don’t go there, my soul thuds. The mind doesn’t care. “I have to, I got to, I need to.” The brain shouts my heart down.

I kick, curse, rant. I wish I could cause Pain. Like this Pain that I feel to the end of all eternity. Ah! The thought of hating something so much. It gives me a new-found power, the pleasure of Hate.

Infinite, bottomless pit of hate. Hate that makes me scream till my lungs turn blue, violence that swells in my heart as I heave and sigh with the dull aching of memories unlocking new delusions. New possibilities for my sinews to throb with violence.

I turn turn turn. Every breathless pause gasping for more. Anger and pain. anger and Pain. My throat cries out in protest, the brain wants more. I can’t stop for I might feel the pain. “No, not now,” interrupts that meddlesome brain. I need anger, for my pulsing, exhausted veins are hot and swollen. Anger, that feeds off my pain. My fix, my addiction, my will to survive.

I draw strength. From the cuts and the lashings. From scars embedded deep in my memory. Long-forgotten, waking up to the calls of my frenzied revolution. An unstoppable dynamo plugged to my pain.

I rise and swell, in the comforting thought. Enervating joy! I see the foe in the distance. A frail, diminutive figure in the mirage. I rush forward, a whirlwind of spite and bruised pride. Nearer and nearer. Unstoppable juggernaut.

The haze clears. The mind stops, a bullet shattering the raging thoughts. Anger flees. A million shattered shards lie fallen. Only pain remains. Sharp, mind-sapping, pain like I never felt before.

The mirage is gone. The air is still. The vortex crumples, the center does not hold. There! I see my love. Love that gave me hope beyond life. Love that kept me human all along. Love that I forgot for a moment in time. Love that now lay limp, wounded by my anger, crippled by the delusions of my mind.

My stunning red dragon :)

Sowmya Bharadwaj — Sat, 28 May 2011 19:28:44 +0000

Revelations in the Park

Sowmya Bharadwaj — Fri, 20 May 2011 08:38:56 +0000

I listen to SEAL as I run in the park. Loneliness is a killer, he says. And everyday, I gulp hard, shut my ears, eyes and mind to that thought and wish it away. But today, I just run, harder and harder. Not away from the thought, but with it, just as I feel the wind running along with me, the dark night shifting in the shadows on my path, the single drop of sweat trickling down my face, saltwater streaks that tally the strength of hope and will. Loneliness is a killer only if you let it be. Pain can only hurt you if you let it lash out at you in fury.

Let it wash over you. Run its course. Like an ever-rising-falling sweep of the tide.

I run today, without minding the sharp, shooting jabs in my stomach. The cramp that used to stop me even before I began to run…the benumbing wish to give up before the beginning has begun, is suddenly gone. I pause the thought. No, the cramp is still there, but it doesn’t have the capacity to give me pain anymore. I feel free, like Forrest Gump. My heart had leaped when I saw him run across America. I had joyfully chorused “Run, Forrest, Run”. But today I feel what he felt. I understand that those words mean freedom.

It means breaking free of the inanities of life. It means moving towards a higher order of things.

I run, to embrace the lonely night. The dog-walkers are all gone home. The last of the soccer players in the parking lot drive away. The lights are almost out in patches of the track. The night sky seems clearer here and the clouds are hanging low and still on the mountains beyond. The pale moon, the faint, faraway stars, the looming silhouette of the mountains…. And for a moment, I’m all alone. A moment when I own the park, this personal universe.

Tonight, the world is mine. And loneliness becomes liberating. A feeling of truth and power. Of strength and spirit. Of hope and life.