Give Me Summer

These are the days when you look at someone and it doesn’t matter how close you get physically; you don’t care about intimacy, the grasping hands, the sharp breaths. These are the days when you feel like a real person – thick flesh, sturdy bones. Someone who on other days is a passing cloud, only a temporary state – coming and going at the commands of people who did not love you. Someone who, now, is starting to dance under the moonlight near the dark ocean water. You are dancing with someone, not caring for the world.
Until the music ends. When you look up at the stars and within the blink of an eye, the moment passes and all it left you with was its memory. And yet you will not memorise every freckle on his cheek in your chest; your mouth will not taste of regret; you will not send letters with no return address. Even though his memory lingers in your burnt tongue, it will not ruin the taste of whatever you choose to consume next.
Summer makes you realise that one can love someone for a period of time that isn’t forever.
Now is sufficient. Forever is contingent.
Give me now.
Give me summer.
~Ritika

The Colour Series – GREY

His eyes were the colour of twilight mist. Like the stormy seas upon which ships creaked. They were misty cauldrons with no attachment to any veil of reality. Ashen, with the look of love lost. Leaden, with revenge. They spoke of maturity, never twinkling with the naivety of inexperienced youth. His were the kind of eyes, that had you lost in translation. They were steely, rivalling the most polished armour.

~Ritika

Endings Are Our Beginnings

Endings are so finite, so cold and so absolute. Each fleeting moment that brings me closer to the end takes more out of my lungs; it marks a point of no return. Each transition is a shut door, each word a step closer to the Rubicon. I am not ready to cross it, never will be.

And yet, all we are taught is to wrap it up in silk ribbons, to leave our audience with something to ponder on. How do I end a story with more to tell, a narrative with frayed edges. How do I end a friendship with spilling memories, a relationship with loose ends. How do I end a childhood, dripping with nostalgia, and a war with massive casualties. Casualties that ensue in cutting parts of me right to the bandage.

I have turned people into metaphors, calling them everything – from hurricanes to drugs. All of this, only to deceive myself into believing that we weren’t done yet. I have been hurt, and I have hurt, hoping to save myself from another abrupt ending – another cliffhanger, another push down the hill.

But I am done. I am not going to have people rummaging between my broken ribs, searching for hand-me-down hearts. My ribs are made of leftover chalk and my heart is already ashes. It is time that I save whatever is left of me. I am not a work of art. I am too complicated to be confined in some frame or a shoddy piece of paper. I am chaotic and too far gone to be contained. Let me go.

I hope you aren’t waiting here, to hear me say that I will be waiting for you. Because I won’t. I’d rather go somewhere else, smelling of everything safe and happy, telling myself not to get attached to people. I’d rather have a new beginning.

~Ritika

Diary of Bruises

I had finally gotten myself to believe that ‘new beginnings’ were for real. Walking over to my new room, with a suitcase of dreams and just over fifty dollars in my pocket, I was ready to begin with a clean slate in the place that I would call ‘home’ for the next three years. The fact that I had a chance at making real friends and experiencing all that college had to offer was reassurance enough.

Until, I saw you. I saw you sitting among the others, chugging at what seemed to be like your fifth bottle. The cheering crowd could not see how you had to empty yourself to take it all in.

To Forever – Summer Days And Westcoast Dreams (part 3)

Him  

I want to see her face, look into her eyes and touch her, caressing her pretty pink lips with my fingers. I want to kiss her softly, gingerly feeling the warmth of her mouth, stealing her breath away, stirring the butterflies deep inside her.

Under the Boardwalk Lights – Summer Days And Westcoast Dreams (part 2)

If a June night could talk, it would probably boast it invented romance.