So, how much can change in a year? Turns out a lot! Last year, on the eve of my birthday, I was with the boys. Hammered and hysterical…worried my mother would die. ‘What will I do, if she dies?’ asked this drunk woman as she sat on the staircase of a restraunt, weeping as the boys tried to pacify her.

She’s dead, I’m alive so the question becomes redundant, doesn’t it? The answer to which it seems is, I would be a little lost without her. Did I love her? Who knows? I do have a strange way of loving and of expressing it, if I ever do, stranger. Let’s just say, I hate coming home and my eyes it seems have forgotten to smile. What the men stated as ‘dard’ in my akhiyaan has turned into an emptiness.

Other than that? Well, I got to know today, what I dreaded the most, is about to happen. The fat lady is about to sing! The good thing about pain is, when you feel an excruciating amount in any case, a little more won’t kill you. Timing is perfect. But the men I know, are thrilled to bits. My main reason to avoid a commitment will soon cease to exist. Atleast, the promise I made to myself at 25, I stood by that. Feelings? Well, there’s a reason only two have had the privilege of getting tattooed on the body. Nothing will change those.

Some things remain as they were. Unfathomable. Slowly time passes by, a few more hair turn grey. A few wrinkles appear but no great wisdom dawns on one. Cynicism, yes! More than ever.

But an obsession keeps one afloat. A 34 year old boy, scares me in a way, only my mother and my own darkness could. His death shows me exactly what the ugly outcome of a suicide can be. It pricks my ego, the drama and the fakeness of this world. I watch on repeat, his interviews- the unknown, unknowns and know unknowns, I understand. His introversion, madness and his aloneness, are what are etched on my skin. For the first time, other than my mum, I hear someone speak my language and his tragic end, scares the living daylights out of me.

‘ I meet people, I try to be like them but after a while they can figure out I am not. I’m boring, I like my books.’ sounds familiar. One of my favourite quotes is so true for him, ‘ people who lead a lonely existence always have something on their minds they are eager to talk about!’ But are not comprehensible, is what the quote should have ended with. I promise to write down my fifty dreams. Imitation is the best form of flattery. One has plenty to learn from his life, what to do and what not to do, irrespective of how dark it gets , within.Alas, I have a man who can rescue me from myself. So what if he’s a dead one!