Do you love reading poetry? Or maybe it was an activity during your early school days or something? For me, poetry was my life, the very crux of my existence. But that changed with my life's journey. I have stopped reading poetry.
Meanwhile, a Malayali friend on WhatsApp sent me her poem and I told her why I loved reading it. She was so surprised that she said that she was very apprehensive to send it to me in the first place as most people don't like poetry. I can understand her concern. A majority of people laugh at poets more than poetry. There is neither any sensitivity nor any sensibility when we put ourselves on a pedestal and believe that everyone else is inferior to us and what they do is of no consequence.
I messaged her back that I used to write poems and used to love reading poems. But I stopped writing poems when I came to Delhi.
Immediately she asked, "Why did you stop writing? Continue."
It struck me that no one in my life has said something so profound before.
Not those whom I considered 'closest' to me.
The truth, I realized with a sense of discomfort, is that the only person who cared that I write poetry is me.
My loss and my grief, as my life's journey has repeatedly proved, has always been mine alone.
When I lost truly what I loved the most, the world moved on without a second look or even a sincere question, "Are you okay?"
What is worse is that I accepted the fact that I meant nothing to anyone and that I deserved to feel alone and helpless and unwanted at that phase in my life.
That time in my life, I learned what it meant to be truly alone.
That wound in my life has never healed. It proved to me that I am on my own.
Now when this acquaintance asked me why I stopped writing, it struck me like a blow.
The grief, the sorrow and the feeling of being totally without anyone to call upon in sorrow as 'my own' - it paralysed the poetry within me, somewhere, sometime.
The question - profound and out-of-the-blue- reminded me of Lena Horne's words, "It's not the load that breaks you down, it's the way you carry it."
If I ever find a way with words again, I shall let you know. Take care!
And if anything like this has ever happened to you - a question that shook you up and made you think about your life's journey - let me know okay? I'd love to help.
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