The Queen of Nothing

The word heartbreak reminds me of a laughter, the city lights from the window of a moving metro on late evenings, a face and the way we walked side by side on numerous pavements, while our shadows got longer as the sun sinked deeper.. those eyes, especially when they welled up with tears, those were the first eyes I saw tears in when I confessed myself, my crimes and how I punished myself for them.. those tears made me wonder, what if, I too, am worthy of sympathy, and who knows, maybe love too?

Heartbreak for me is painted in the most happy colours one can think of, bright yellows and subtle pinks, shining silver and a serene, deep sky blue, those are the colours of my heartbreak. It is almost a jolly feeling, my heartbreak is a sweet, sweet nostalgia, never fails to bring a smile to my face. It is like shards of glass between my lungs and ribs, I am reminded of it every time I breathe, but I enjoy this dull yet sharp pain in my chest, every time I speak I cough up blood, lately, it’s been the only evidence I am alive.

-on love and heartbreak, Nidhi Bhasin

I wrote about a war, years ago

I am still there, my very body is a battlefield

the only act I know is war

“kill or get killed”

what is peace?

what is love?

what does skin feel like?

I only know cold steel and warm blood

what does laughter sound like?

I only know the breaking of bones

what is comfort?

what is sleep?

every night, with a knife in my hand,

I crawl into my grave

every morning I’m banished to war again

I see a lot of hype about new years and just beginnings in general. We are so obsessed with new things, beginnings and other things that symbolise novelty or freshness.

But as far as the passage of time is concerned, and how they say time heals all wounds and it all always ends or passes and that’s the best thing about time. In my opinion it’s absolutely crap, nothing heals and nothing passes or ends.

It’s only days that change, dates are just weird combination of numbers, and I am still stuck in that one moment that pains me the most, the deep red grief hasn’t faded a single tone and the clock in my dreams and nightmares alike is still stuck at the same time for the past 3 years.

For me it’s still 2020.

-Nidhi Bhasin

I look at the people around me and wonder how are they so courageous, how is it that they have so much stamina to keep going out there and meeting people and making friends and falling in love as if they are changing clothes with the changing seasons? I am always in great awe, and wonder how brave and nonchalant people my age are when it comes to the matters of the heart.

Do they not get their hearts broken? Or is it they experience heartbreak differently than me? Does their heartbreak not feel like every bone breaking in their body at the same time? Or looking at those pictures and remembering those conversations.. do memories not feel like swallowing shards of glass?

That is what love, friendship and people have made me feel. A deep heartache, a grief that tastes like blood in my mouth.

Am I, somehow, not doing this right?

Maybe the trick is to not put too much of your heart into it?

But how do I love with half a heart? Is it even love if it’s only a half?

-Nidhi Bhasin

I usually stay up at night

stay up and dream

I still wonder if memories are a boon or a bane, maybe both, yet I wonder, my brain wants a more concise and direct answer and we both know, my brain and I, memories, at least for the two of us, are more curse than a blessing.

Back in those days, the songs, the photos, those smiles and conversations that made me feel so full and warm, I could smile and say “I am sure this is happiness”, make me feel so empty and hollow now.

As if I’m a discarded tin can, I tumble down the stairs of past onto the rocky ground of the present, memories don’t cushion me, they only put further dents into me, altering my shape in the most hideous ways possible.

I bend and crack, but the emptiness never seeps out of me. No matter how empty, I only get heavier and hollower and uglier with each passing step.

-Nidhi Bhasin

Lately I’ve been reading Osamu Dazai, can’t deny he’s growing on me.

I became an insomniac since my father died. I haven’t slept a single night for almost more than two years now.

i reached for the night jasmine

i hoped touching them would imbibe

their fragrance into my own fingers

.

this reminded me of a late night conversation

where I sang for him

i was the only thing he “looked forward to”

he said “you are my nightingale”

.

the songs are buried deep in my throat now

muffled by the weight of this boulder like lump

I don’t sing at all

like the old days when

i sang as my heart overflowed with joy

.

i don’t have a heart anymore

just a gaping wide hole

all the way from my neck down

i am only a void now

a walking, living ghost

The thing about me nowadays is that I am desperately looking for an escape, and not a difficult demanding escape such as studying like I used to when I was younger or working out or anything that requires me to move, mentally or physically, and most definitely not emotionally, but something that requires me to do absolutely nothing. I like stories, watching or reading them, I like sleeping and I like staring into the distance in dark rooms.

I thought I was disappointed in myself for being a failure, for rejections and incompetence of some sort or being lazy or maybe not trying hard enough. But right now, I don’t even know what exactly I am feeling, disappointed? Disheartened? Lazy? Uninterested? Depressed? Sad? Is this grief, did my father leave me like this? Is this what giving up feels like? Where do I rest my nightmares? No box fits my ashes anymore.

Earlier, I was disgusted, but I don’t know this woman in my mirror and she doesn’t even disgust me anymore, I don’t understand her, she only scares me now.

-23rd August 2022