Map Of The Heart

Blue Bird

Hide it. Hide it. Hide it.

Can바카라�t tell anybody, can바카라�t let the world see it.

She wears a white dress and has no face. She caresses my hair, humming Lavender바카라�s Blue and reminds me of all the battles I바카라�ve lost.

Hide it. Hide it. Hide it.

There바카라�s a little boy hiding behind each pillar,

His eyes sunken deep, his skin pale grey.

All he ever does is scream and cry바카라�the pain in his wails could shatter my glass castle.

Hide it. Hide it. Hide it.

There바카라�s a girl I carry on my back, she wears a red frock and has a red ribbon tied around her head.

She wants me to help her바카라�to free her from the grasp of the old man that바카라�s touching her hands and kissing her skin.

Hide it. Hide it. Hide it.

There바카라�s an old shadow that never leaves. He laughs at the sight of pain, my troubled soul gives him joy.

He tells me to jump바카라�to throw myself off this building. He바카라�s in love with death, and makes me flirt with it.

Hide it. Hide it. Hide it.

The old woman screamed. 바카라�You aren바카라�t supposed to let the world know바카라� 바카라�you will never fit in바카라�.

She tells me of all the fears that humans have바카라�

That there바카라�s no place for odd balls with twisted minds and scarred bones.

Hide it. Hide it. Hide it.

Can바카라�t let them go out. Can바카라�t let them run free.

Can바카라�t go far, but can바카라�t get any close.

바카라�Embrace the solitude that바카라�s been given to you바카라�.

But there are words ringing at the back of my head.

Stories begging to be told.

My heart바카라�s racing fast, my palms getting cold.

I need to bleed; bare my heart, my mind and soul.

This madness is overwhelming. This madness is deafening.

I바카라�ve let them down again, haven바카라�t I? But I haven바카라�t mentioned their names.

Maybe they don바카라�t trust me with their names바카라�they know too well of all the sleepless nights I바카라�ve spent bleeding within the pages of these old diaries.

I hide them from the world. But I can바카라�t hide myself from them.

There바카라�s a bluebird resting on my shoulder. 바카라�Let바카라�s run away바카라� he keeps telling me.

I smile through the sadness, 바카라�we will, someday바카라� I try to reassure him.

He sighs and leaves.

He doesn바카라�t believe me anymore, does he?

***

Dreamers and Lovers

Five years later she바카라�d hear the sound of the train engine and tell me she misses me; she would remind me of how I was fifteen and in love. Seven years would pass and we바카라�d grow apart; the people I once called my own were now strangers whose old stories I knew by heart. Two years after Joe바카라�s death, I finally booked that ticket back home, reliving old memories of us as the familiar roads greeted me with the sweet smell of cherry blossoms and pine trees. There바카라�s nostalgia in every corner of the street that we grew up on.

Summers in India seem to be getting unbearable. I make our favourite lemonade and sit by the window, sipping it all alone trying to read a book that talks about a pilgrimage, and I wonder if you ever got to write that book you told me about; of old people and abandoned homes, of barbed wires and broken families, of love and loss and a poet trying to sober up for the lady he loves who hides herself behind thick walls of books in an old library somewhere in Vienna.

A lot of things remind me of you more than I realise. The way someone sits in a corner lighting up a cigarette, the bitter taste of coffee that I바카라�m still trying to get used to because it was the first thing you바카라�d look for in the morning. Coffee stains on the pages of your books that still lie on my shelf. Your addiction, my pills. Your old aunt waiting for your homecoming, my dad who never made it back from the ICU. The train. The lovers. An open field that gets packed with young dreamers with broken hearts at midnight, inhaling adhesives as though trying to fix something that바카라�s damaged from the insides of their chest. Your arms that never healed, my prescriptions that never stopped coming.

Ten years and I바카라�m still fighting the urge to make that call. Maybe I바카라�m too afraid to find out that one of these days you would바카라�ve succumbed to your demons[n]. Was it love after all? How does one love and not tremble at the thought of losing the other person? It바카라�s calm but it바카라�s also madness, I suppose; to love another human being knowing that the loneliness will come in waves when they leave; that you can drown yourself in the very thing that once saved you from yourself.

***

Chances are, you will write that book, and maybe you바카라�ll end up hating it. Maybe you바카라�ll give up on writing altogether and pick a nine-to-five. Maybe the idea of being immortalised by art will finally cease to haunt you, and you바카라�ll be free from the burden.

We can go watch a movie then. Share two cones of butterscotch ice-creams at 1 am on the streets of a city we both don바카라�t belong to바카라�a land that바카라�ll soon forget about our existence along with the world.

Someday the street-lamps will cast its luminescent yellow lights on our wrinkled skin, only to reveal the fine lines of a life well-lived. We will share a good laugh at our old jokes that no one gets, and promise to remember each other even at the end of time. And perhaps that will be the only thing that matters; to be loved well, to be remembered fondly by the ones you shared your life with; to know that in a colossal world that moves on too fast, within your numbered days, in a finite existence, your light touched another soul, and their light illuminated yours; that even for a brief moment in time, you loved, and you were loved.

Kemya Yanlem is a writer from Mon, Nagaland