Transferring The Pain To Someone Else

“I want to end it,
The pain,”
I tell her.
“I imagine a blade across my wrist,
And only the imagination brings me immense relief.
What if I actually do it.
It will end the pain.”

“Will it?”
She asked.
“That blade will take the pain,
From you, surely.
But that pain will get transferred,
To all the people who thought,
You were better than that.
To all the people,
Who wanted you in their future.”

“Suicide…”, she said as she looked away,
“Is the most selfish way out,
By giving your pain to the few,
Who so deeply loved you.”

This Is Not a Poem

This is my heart,
And all the pain,
The memories,
I couldn’t tame.

It’s the hurt,
And the loss,
The date on the calendar,
I couldn’t cross.

This is not a poem,
Because words fail sometimes.

This is a reminder,
That grief has come to stay.

This is a punch in the gut,
The unshed tears, the unanswered wails,
And everything I have lost.

This is not a poem.

This is the song of a defeated soul,
Sung on a guitar with broken strings,
And every time the chorus comes,
I feel like this is the end.

Conversation With The Demented Self.

My decisions are making me question my sanity. Why did I do that? Why did I open a wound that had been closed for more than a year? It just needed this little stupidity from my side to open and start bleeding profusely. With every lost drop of blood, I feel weaker. But I’m not dying, I’m getting weaker and weaker, my heart keeps pumping blood and I keep losing it through this wound. It’s not killing me. It wants me to stay alive to feel all the pain.
“It was never really closed, you know.” I look up to see her, my demented self, standing there, staring at me with her blank eyes, she continues, “Your wound, it was never closed. You just thought it was. You weren’t moving and consequently you were losing less blood and not feeling the pain. It was when you started to live again that you felt the pain.” I don’t want to look at her. She has made me go through all this pain. She made me dig the graves of the matters I buried long ago and now I’m in a mess. Suddenly I hear her laughter, I look at her. She is looking at me and laughing hysterically. I raise my eyebrows at her questioningly. She stops laughing but still looks at me amusingly and says, “I know what you’re thinking. You are wondering if it’s easier for those who get hurt again and again but get healed quickly too or for people like you for whom one blow is enough.” I look away from her, but decides to stay quiet. Of course she knows what I’m thinking. She is me. She may enjoy the pain but she suffers through it too. “Some people do heal quickly. I’ve seen it.” I say without looking at her, hoping for her to respond with “you will too” but she doesn’t. I glance at her and see that her expression has changed. She almost looks sad, “I know,” she says, “but you are not like them. You will heal but not today or tomorrow. Maybe it will be too late by then, maybe it won’t. But I think if you won’t wait for it, it’ll happen. If the wound breaks you down, so what. Start walking, running through life. Run harder, faster. Focus on anything but your pain and one day you’ll get ahead of it.”A long silence follows, I look up to see she has disappeared. I know what I have to do now.

Expectations

Finally I have reached my favourite part of the mountain, the edge of it. From here one can see the moon shining with its bright light on the valley beneath. And tonight it’s a full moon. I smile at the beauty of nature around me. Since I started my walk from home to reach this place, only one thing has been on my mind; the discussion in office today on expectations.

It all started with my saying something like I expect a lot, it was not until later that I realized I don’t expect much compared to other people and their expectations from their loved ones. It was Ahsan’s response to my statement that brought everyone into the discussion, “If you do good to people and then expect them to do the same for you, then I’m sorry to say you’re not a nice person.” He left me speechless for a moment, “But what if we don’t expect the same in return, what if we expect just a little?” I had asked. “It doesn’t matter if you expect less or more. Whatever you do with expecting anything in return, it’s kind of the same thing.” He had further added, “We start loving people for what they are, then we expect them to become something totally different, isn’t it injustice to our own love for them? Can’t you see the pressure we put people under when we expect so much from them?”

It was Mariam’s turn now, “But we can’t survive without expecting anything from people, can we?” Ahsan responded, “No we can not. It’s not wrong to expect. But if you’re doing things for people just because you want them to do the same for you, that’s what makes you a bad person.”
By now, our discussion had attracted the attention of Sir. Ahmed (our department’s head), he decided to gave his opinion too, “the less you expect, the lesser pain you will have to go through.” I responded by saying, “But sir that will be a total selfish aspect of the whole thing. Not expecting anything just because you’re too afraid to get hurt means you are not giving your 100% either. When we don’t expect anything in return because our love is unconditional, that’s the real thing.”

“Unconditional love? Haha, does that even exist? In today’s world?” Faiza had asked sarcastically. “Unconditional love can exist, we are just not good enough for it maybe. It’s possible only if we don’t expect a return when we give all that we can.” Ahsan had answered.

I believe Ahsan was talking about a Utopia, a perfect world without expectations, where everyone would be happy. But life in such a world will be so colourless, for what is life without pain, hurt and heartbreak?

The discussion at office had ended without a conclusion. But at this moment when I am sitting so close to unadulterated nature, I think about expectations again. I have never expected people to change for me. I expect less from people, maybe that’s why I get more time to love them and less for finding reasons to hate them. Ahsan had said that expecting from people to acknowledge your love for them is also wrong. I think I agree because I believe in love that is always ready to give without any return. I believe it’s impossible not to expect anything from the people you love, but it’s possible to expect less, because you are willing to let them live their life in their own way and not because you are afraid to get hurt. Little expectations add sweetness in life. But too much of a good thing is bad.