Edited by: Mohan Rajagopal
“Remember, loneliness is still time spent with the world.” — Ocean Vuong
There is nothing lonelier than a book full of words that aren’t privy to the world. A book that didn’t share the kaleidoscope of experiences that it’s bursting with. A book that was born with blank pages but grew to be filled with thousands of words screaming for attention.
Words are written to be read. It’s the equivalent of wearing your heart on your sleeve. It’s the equivalent of pointing out the sharpest sword so that one can avoid it in battle. It’s the equivalent of screaming your words aloud but only to the people they are meant for. It’s equivalent to a sudden burst of rage and a slow growth of comfort. But, sometimes you feel words isolating you from the world that spins around you. Loving to write is equivalent to never being lonely, but it also means you’re stuck in a snowglobe dancing round and round till you find anything or anyone worth letting the snow escape from your hidden corner of the world. It’s a love too precious that turns your insides into coded words that are inked repeatedly, writing that people save you, reinvent you but still leave your ink to fade away and stain you forever.
I firmly believe that what doesn’t break you makes you stronger. I process my pain, my anger, my fear, and my joy through writing. I write the unvarnished truth but hide it behind a facade. I write exactly how I feel. Maybe that was why when I shared my poems, everyone saw its beautiful phrasing and the simplistic marvel of words strung together to echo my voice, but no one knew how terrifying it was to let go of your words to the world. To share what’s personal to me and pray that no one judges; no, to pray that I can withstand judgment.
Poems are written to be relished. It’s the equivalent of cursing the sky for being blue and not midnight black like his eyes always are. It’s the equivalent of the wild wind messing up your carefully-done hair, but you know the wind’s secrets now. It’s the equivalent of the illicit music that somehow reaches you here from rooms down the block. It’s equivalent to every ship that got lost in the sea but turned itself into a home in the ocean bed. But, sometimes you feel poems deprive you of sanity and spin letters to legacies. Loving poems is memorizing every detail that you’ve ever come across, it’s sculpting those little throwaway ideas in your mind and trying to make sense of it but it also means that you fumble for words when someone asks to explain to you how that moment in time was or why that exact moment decided to inspire admiration. It is being stuck between words that are too accurate but also a shady reprieve in front of scrutinizing eyes. It’s a love too fond that turns your insides into scrolls of poetry that people read and think of but still leave on the bookshelves with poetry for company.
My poem book was the loneliest object, but it’s what saved me from solitude. When I began writing, I would share a select few poems with a select few people. But, as my writing grew, so did I. Every time I shared my words from the book with the world, it became easier to smile, easier to say I’m fine, easier to say that it gets better. When a reader finds my words relatable, finds my words worth committing to heart, finds my words worth reciting to cure their loneliness and pain, that’s when I know my poem is being heard.
There is nothing lonelier than a book full of words that is privy to the world. A book that shares each kaleidoscope of experiences it is bursting with. A book that has grown to be filled with words, basking in the attention. My book belongs to each and every person who reads it, and perhaps that is lonelier than its words not being shared because, till the end, my company is the only one it craves, the only one it’s used to, and the only one who can fill the pages with what I consider my utmost form of love. Bequeathing and trusting it with my truth, my voice and all shades of me.
Writing poetry is a love so pure and reliant, but dark and bright enough that even in its cage or a cradle, you’re always home.
If I am allowed to share my solitude with the loneliest object in the world, is the object lonely anymore? Am I lonely anymore?