ink bridge

It flip-opens in you. It bursts out. Gashes deep. Makes you bleed. You’d writhe or feel  stifled. You’d flinch or struggle. But you wouldn't complain. For if you do, you don’t have it in you. Long coffee sessions, caffeine rush. Fistful of rum. Or chalice-deep wine. Singular walks. Drifting monsoon. Dwindling hills. Gushing rivers. Smoke, fire, or snow. Forests or deserts. Longhand. Sharp wit. Vague humor. Extended talk. One humongous sigh. That eccentric silence. The abyss inside a thought. These are indispensable. A slight remark would set you off. A tiny inkling would fuse into spark. A background sound would tick your edge. It would demand or vanish. It would sink or float. You might have to chase it. You might have to erase it. You might have to do it over and over as long as you breathe. Cut it. Be it. The writer.

We often wonder how life and its things begin, how love is found, how joys are treasured. On this lookout we often forget how it all will end. How life would cease to be. That last day is the hardest thought to cope with, to let go of all that these moments hold for us. Even our incomplete fate, even our unfulfilled wishes. Even this imperfect story is too dear to let go. And in this retrospect our gratitude magnifies. This is where true happiness lies. This where the mind meets clarity, and the voice learns modesty.

A world racing against itself. Chaos. Cacophony. Far cry. And snap! A moment of great pause. An ever-long halt of the senses. An inevitable irony in the scheme of things. A spell-breaking crack in the routine. This is it. The moment of euphoria. The moment of trance. A resonance that extracts from inside each of us a victim. The world is slowing down. Emancipation is near.

Not a whisper, no wonder, no check on the heart. Blood would clot, flesh shall be wrought. Not a dime worth of task, not a shell worth the hiding. No autumn, no rains, no summer blaze. One day the mind would be quiet, the lips frozen, the eyes a meek shadow. Ink would dry, but the words would stay. Write on.

Picking up a pen over everything else is a difficult choice. The Jamaican dub poet Michael Smith writes in Before I Lay Me Down:                                       certain of nothing                                    but the certainty of doubt. These lines can be relevantly taken as an echo of rational paradox for all writers. Why does one write? For acclaim? Distinction? Pursuit? Urge? Ambition? Inspiration? Nay. These are mere commoners. So much so is true for any industry. Passion single-handedly cannot decide the mark of destiny. So, what is it that makes a writer, writer? Perhaps, the choice itself. When you know that everything that you deserve to be would never suffice what you already are. When you know anything else wouldn't justify what you already are. The hardest choice to make is to tell ourselves that we're already arrived. The choice itself makes the different. To remain what you are, to keep that, to know this is all where you ever had to be. Tha

Trees shrug off old and worn out leaves. It is not, however, any rejection of the now-so-insignificant, but rather an acceptance of the transition. It is a farewell to the departing. It is that sad beauty of letting go of the things without any grimace. Melancholy, after all, is a meditation of the soul. Those leaves that are destined to dry and wither aren't sorrowful either. They sun-dance in the winds. They celebrate their transformation into stardust. What is more beautiful than a yellow leaf, seemingly lifeless yet drunk with rejoice, sweeping across landscapes? What is more beautiful than going away with a belonging that nothing can take away? Await we all like deciduous trees in the winters of our lives. To be taken by the hope of unseen springs.