Woke up for the first time the animals were gone
I can't remember the last time sleep put my senses in a coma. Almost every morning I wake up with a teary-eyed blur. It's nearly as if I spent the night moaning and whinning. But strangely that's the part I never remember in my disturbed slumber. I don't even toss and turn so much as does the turbulent fluid in my brain. The slightest whisper in the alley beneath my third floor windowsil or clang of the iron gate brings instant recognition. I even hear the 5am Aazan wafting in kilometres away or the cackle of the irritable pigeons. I smell the filthy blood from the butcher across the lane and the frying paranthas from the kitchen exhaust downstairs. I feel the warming wind by the morning sunrise, the pillow spooning my back, the thin cloth under me. I yearn to find some music in this periodic reverie of everyday waking up, but all I hear is nothingness. All is feel is arrested numbness.
I love winters. I am a complete snow baby. I was born during the coldest recorded winter in the subterranean Himalayas. There was rains, sleet, hail, fog and floods. At the crack of thunder, I cried. It sounds dramatically romantic, like a Hindi serial. But the cold sets in a sense of belonging to time. I feel warm within the more the mercury dips. It's a strange body reaction, but the bile within seems to rest merrily. I glow like a woman pregnant with life. It's almost like first love again. High school perkiness. It's been a while since I've seen winters. It's been a while since I've given birth to joy. I've been mothering loneliness for way too long.
You know that sense of completeness when you put the final full stop at the end of a never ending story. The sense of freedom. The slight sadness of letting go. I love romance. I truly think all historical romances were written about me. All Greek tragedies and Godly oracles and mystics were characters God made me play. I live in a constant dream sequence that will never end. I don't seem to want to wake up. I don't want to put that final full stop. I'd rather extend the dot in a coma.
I recently discovered a truth about myself. I don't know how to mourn. I am so generally consumed by the lightness of my own being that loss evades my senses. I am the original gypsy heart that'll flock away when love settles in. I'll wear your clothes and be yours to keep, but before you leave the tent, I'll sing you a song, give you a kiss run to the sea. I swim all to well that I'll soon forget you existed while making love to the waters that surround me. At that time I won't be able to seperate from the tears and the ocean around. The longing and the loss all at once.
Last night I slept. I really did. It just came. I just dropped and woke up with a slobered mouth. I still smelt of body shop, my nightcream. I didn't feel the morning warmth yet and I could hear music from the I-pod I forgot to turn off when I fell unconscious. I had slipped into coma. I could fell an inkling of the winter chill - more one running down my spine as I struggled to peel myself all too quickly away from the bed. Head Rush, it must have been. I missed the Azaan and I had a blank mind. I didn't remember my dream from last night. I had no reference point to begin my story of the day. For a while, I couldn't even remember my name. And then it hit. A wave of pure emotion. Those tears just came. The flood within rushed on a crack of thunder. I laughed and I cried. The sound mixed. I made music and I grieved. It's been a year and ironically it's been a little over 24 hours again since the last attack. I'm finally growing a lover's heart.
