The Soulful Atom

There is a pond, somewhere along the road.
You most definitely will see it, but you need to recognize it.
A pond for weary travelers to rest at in the course of their journey.
Come sit by me for a minute traveler. Take a sip of these cool waters, you look tired, splash some on your hot sweaty face and dry eyes. Rest a bit beneath the shade of this big old gnarled green friend of mine. Lay down on the grass besides me. Close your eyes and feel the light breeze caress your face as it does mine.
For you have come far and you have fought hard.. Your journey is long. Sit by the tree and contemplate a little lazily. Run your thoughts by me, the ones that no one else can hear or understand. Pluck out the frustration raging in your head and the tiredness of your heart. I'm here for you, i will take it all in. Take a sip of me, and when you feel well and refreshed, go on to your calling.
But, hey traveler, do turn back and bid me adieu.. Traveler, do remember me won't you? As a little pond who quenched your thirst when you needed it the most..
For the pond was once a traveler too.. She sat there one fine day on her journey towards her calling. She sat there an saw traveler after travel being relieved by her presence.. And as powerlessly as always, she fell in love. This was her calling. For the pond was meant to stay there, to help you fulfill your calling..
Even though sometimes her waters run muddy or low because someone was too harsh or took too much. But she reaches deep inside herself to fulfill her duties. She works hard.. For her heart is of a traveler too.. Do remember her, won't you? :)

The moment of awareness when you realise your conscious is making a decision that might drastically change the course your life is going to take. This mostly happens out of depression or sorrow. Most of the times we don't become aware of it as a third neutral person. For example the sad and the happy side are arguing, and the sad side is winning in taking a decision. But the neutral side suddenly awakens and realises what is happening and so now its the neutral side that needs to decide which side it wants to take! There is this turmoil this war that rages on inside. There are multiple triggers. And right now I'm all for letting the sad side win. Probably cause its easier. It is an easy way out. It will cause more pain, not just to me but to people who love me- family and some friends perhaps. Its like an existential crisis too. Wherein i feel like consciously starting to smoke again in hope that i will fall fatally ill, cause I cannot bring myself up to suicide and don't really want to end my life. But if something had to happen which was reversible and which would mean my life ending abnormally early then I'm all for it. Its just exhaustion from all the drama that happens in my head, all the thinking, overthinking, analysing.. its overwhelming at times. The state of just not getting what i want the way i want. The stubbornness of not accepting what I am getting. The feeling of "I'm so done", of giving up and yet not wanting to give up, of feeling drained and burnt out and yet wanting to just keep going on! Hope and helplessness and tiredness together are not a good combination i guess. It just wreaks havoc on a person's head, maybe just on my head but nonetheless. Yelling doesn't help, crying doesn't, neither does being angry or sad or laughing or nothing helps! Its like a deep hole somewhere deep inside that i just cannot reach to fill it up. Its the war in my head that is exhausting. But I'm a fighter, not a quitter, so i will go on. Though deep down i wish i could just let go of everything, everyone even myself and just float.. somehow.. devoid of any feeling, any burdens.. I wonder how it would feel..

He was an old soul..
Or so he thought.
The desire to live eluded him but so did the wish to end his life.
He was too comfortable in his own skin, all of 36.
He never did too much and never too less, always just enough.. Enough to carry on.
Work, food, clothes, relations, life..
He stood there watching life go past him on the street..
Bustling and bursting in a cacophony of sounds, colors, smells..
A vague smile playing on his lips..
All sorts of creatures crawled around..
But none piqued his interest
For he was an old soul.. He had seen it all.
He had had always seen it all since he was a kid in a broken wooden crib back in the day.
He barely cried then.
he had seen it all and yet he hadn't, as he stood rubbing tobacco in his cracked palms, on the corner of a busy street waiting for his next customer..
The man on the street.. Was it you or was it me?

She needed to be taken. Taken into someone’s arms. Taken by a storm, so hard that she reels from the impact, she doesn’t stop reeling for quite a while. She needs to be taken deep into a forest, deep into her own self where she will meet him, for by now she has realized it would be a man not a woman. She needed to be filled by him, by his wildest dreams and desires. She wanted the full package. She didn’t want scraps from some one’s table. She wanted a full four, eight, ten heck a twelve course meal! With a start a middle and never an end. Changing, yes, but like color mixing in water and water in color, inseparable even in the change. Different and yet reflections of one another, entangled. She needed to be at peace, of not having to worry of loss every waking moment. She needed reassurance of yes she did. She wanted the crazy out of the world and yet she wanted the simple. She wanted to know what routine felt like. She wanted to know what sharing felt like and what making memories and reliving them together felt like. She needed someone to take charge. For once, to lead her to take the first step. To blow her mind to ensure she remained insane and yet at peace. She needed to be seen and wanted and touched at places no one had so far. Who would understand exactly what it meant to be touched beyond the body. In ways no one could.. She didn’t need someone to mend her wounds just someone who would want to sit by her quietly in the afternoons, to fill her weekends with routine.. To get bored with, to fight with, to yell at like the crazy woman she was. Someone who would understand her strength and yet not be intimidated by it. Someone who was just as strong or willing to be. Someone who maybe wasn't the exact checklist she prepared, she doesn't have a type. Just an open heart, open to all kind of feelings, fear too but courage above all. She needs someone who would stay. For once. Just stay.

You will have to tell me.
Plain and simple..
Tell me that you are him.
The one i waited for all these years..
The one looking for whom i got my heart broken a multitude of times..
If you are him then, you are gonna have to tell me, cause i won't be able to recognise you now..
My eyes are blurred you see.. From the shards stuck in them..
I'm trying to clean up.. But it takes time..
Would you be a darling and just tell me if its you?
Hold my hand and guide me to your heart?
For if I'm not able to recognise you, most probably i'll turn my back thinking you are another heartbreak in the path..
So just grab me by the shoulders and knock some sense into me.. Wake me up and tell me its you.

She gave him the temptation of working in the UK and he fell for it. He was a child in some ways, just like her, and maybe that helped him. Maybe he wasn't quite the way he portrayed himself to be, but she was exactly as she showed herself to be. She thought he would eventually fall in love with her but it wasn't to be. She thought maybe they will separate but still have some intimate relationship. She was mistaken. they both got married. It was beautiful for her. It was her second marriage and yet was more beautiful. Maybe because she felt more in tune with him. But somewhere she harbored the fear that she was mistaken again. Mistakes didn't seem to let go of her, and so her judgement was quite muddled. Now she just went with the flow, didn't even stop to evaluate. Maybe he only married her for UK? Maybe he didn't. Yes he was too attached to his career and himself than any other person or thing. And his career did flourish. Only, with it his love did too.
Somehow he never caught anyone's fancy the way all the girls caught her other lovers' fancies. And so she was back here, flying back every chance, rather, every craving she got!
She had learnt it all and yet she had to go there for it. She didn't need to. She could make it at home or summon the best of the lot to whip it up for her at the click of her fingers. Yet there was something about the taste there, it wasn't even the same person making it, to say that it could be the person. She knew it was the place. It has been years since the first time she went there.
It was the first time she was away from home, back then. Not a trip/vacation but for a long duration. She had moved to the city. She was supposed to meet a friend at some lounge and ended up going into another one right next to it. She waited at the bar and was about to order a drink, and that's when she saw him and he spoke to her. He even mixed that drink for her if she remembered correctly, even when it wasn't his job..
Its been years, she has wrinkles now. But her love for cocktails stays, like it was since before she met him.. Meeting him accelerated her cravings and desires to study them and enjoy them profusely. And no matter what an acclaimed mixologist she became after her short stint in IT, in her own eyes, she just couldn't match up to that one cocktail rather two to the first time she had them, or even some consecutive times. She had the proportions right, from the inventor of the mix himself and also the person who had first mixed them for her. She figured it was something about the place itself. And so she flew there each time she had a craving for those delicious stunning mixes. No matter where on the face of earth she was. All the staff was new but they knew she was to be treated like royalty not just for her fame but for her history with the place.
She wondered where people who were there at that time were now. Some of them are in touch still, some just disappeared somewhere in the deep web of the hospitality industry. As she took a sip of the Medusa, the fatigue of the UK flight slowly started settling in.. The ghosts had just started peering from below the bar.. It was going to be a long night..

The mellow evening light creeps into the empty house..
Memories and nostalgia come rushing in with it..
As if they were waiting for just this moment.
Yet another journey awaits me.. Its not an end nor a beginning just somewhere in the middle..
There are faces.. Places.. Heartaches and kisses..
It's a blur of feelings and color..
There is rain and scorching summer heat.. Going up in waves from the dry bustling streets..
There is an urgency to reach someplace to see that face in person..
There is fear.. And very rarely a flimsy reassurance..
Above all there is me and there is you.. Or there are you.. 😊
As the sun slowly creeps out leaving a darkness behind..
Beckons a light to go on..
As the dark black coffee grows cold..