You’re Simply the Best
First comes the drowning. Then the silence.
Tina Turner sings I call you when I need you, my heart’s on fire in a car wading through other cars at 20 kmph. Sedate. Slow. All I can think of is a burning house with every lock jammed, every window shut. In another city, in another car, in another time, you turn to me and say my poems are trash. But we can’t stop living, can we?
In the here, in the now, Tina is still singing, her voice smoky and slow. She says speak a language of love like you know what it means. All I can think of is how words scar, and then how doubts scar, and how I hacked at my skin anyway to bury them deep in what I foolishly thought was a place that I can’t see. Futile. Useless. Through one road, through several lanes, past landmarks that once bookended my life and yours, they still follow me; on foot, in autos, in cabs, drawing maps – a geography of my regret.
You casually say I’m someone unimportant, after taking and taking. I crack right down the middle.
But we can’t stop living, can we?
First comes the silence. Then the stillness.
Tina sings come to me, come to me, wild and wild. All I can think of is how the edge is a lonely place. Familiar. Cold. Someone says bending is better than breaking, but have they been shamed for wanting? You say and I quote “you are a wimp and a wuss and the dumbest person I know.” I didn’t jump because I am a wimp and a wuss and the dumbest person you know.
We can’t stop living, can we?
First comes the stillness. Then the shock.
Is it human? This instinct, this desire to stay despite wanting to leave? It took me several trips to the edge through fog and fugue to realise that I was hurt. Tina Turner sings you’re better than all the rest. I wonder if she knows what it feels like to find and lose yourself, all in one stroke.
The edge looms now. Unthreatening. Quiet.
We can’t stop living, can we?
First comes the shock. Then the doubt.
I could see it in the people around us – the why. The pity, the gentleness, the caution, the silence and the support. No one saw me break. Except for strangers drinking tea by the roadside, the supermarket workers in the innermost aisle, the auto drivers who turned around in concern in the middle of traffic.
I was loudest when I said nothing at all.
We can’t stop living, can we?
First comes doubt. Then anger.
In a car still going at 20 kmph, sedate and slow, Tina sings you’re simply the best. Enough. Of am I and will I be. Enough of me and enough of you.
Outside, the jacaranda blooms and I sink into its violet fire.
Tina sings. Tina still sings her litany of lies.
We can’t stop living, can we?
Instructions on Waking Up:
Think about death, berate yourself for not having hope; meanwhile the world blooms and rain falls in merciless waves, and the poems
demand you wake up with wonder intact.
Think of the edge, think of three reasons why waking up is necessary.
Despair.
Think of all your versions – hated and loved, and all the things
that make you smile. Count them out in an orderly line.
Put your feet on the ground, firm against the uneven cold.
Find a clean suit of skin to be comfortable in – man, woman, other, neither.
Call all the people you love, listen to them speak.
Think of the space you hold, and
about those who come and go like ghosts, like weary travellers,
trampling over the maps you draw in your head.
Think of the beach at the end of the world where
the water washes out the sand minute by minute.
Maybe if you wake up, you will reach it someday.
Maya Nandhini is a writer and journalist based in Bengaluru, India. They like exploring themes on gender, identity, life and death. Their work has previously appeared in The Bombay Review, Unseen Fiction, The Bangalore Review and RIC Journal.