Through my eyes

To Myra (I know calling your journal real human like names may sound a bit redundant but I just can't "Dear Diary"),

Today a bloody sky bled daintily. There is some sort of almost childlike joy prancing around in muck and dirt. It's carefree and reckless. I remember envisioning a viridescent sky, It was almost sunset I believe? The pitter patter against my skin had stopped. I felt like I could almost hear a clear sky sing. Cars honked, men laughed and children ran, and sometimes I ponder how many people are out there in the city that drown their feelings in the white noise of the daily hustle, letting their abstract thoughts float somewhere in the background of the fast moving life, only to hear them roaring back again in their mind. I know I have had my share of futile attempts in this endeavor; sitting alongside my window and listening to the life that breathes into my city, waiting for it to engulf all that troubles me, except that doesn't really ever happen, does it? Today a woman helped me across the street; I am sure I looked like a wreck with so much on my hand anyway. Her voice was delicate and warm, but it was laced with so much underlying sadness that she seemed to be hiding so hard. She had soft wrinkled hands, that handled me like I was a porcelain doll ready to shatter anytime, and I do not know how I felt about that, but I let it slide. A nearby vendor was screaming his lungs out so that he could sell some of his onions, but knowing by the defeated sighs that crept in his yelling, I feared he wasn't accomplishing much. The air was wet. I presume a blanket of blue and brown shades would have settled onto the buildings and booths; that heavy shower would definitely glisten proudly afterwards. Humidity overflowed and clung to my skin like tape, and all I could do was breathe it in and relish it's fragrance. You could practically smell it everywhere, prevailing in the alleyways and outside the baker's shop nearby. I don't believe that the cocktail of smells concising of fresh bread, stale perfume, and wet tiles is a great combination but then again I do believe that this is what the city is all about. The baker is a pleasant man, who sounds fashionably young to be associated with the word "baker" but I can almost always feel his grin through his talking. Cars screeched vociferously into the distance whilst I tried to make my way through sweaty, wet and stinking bodies brushing and rushing past me. By this time I smelled like a concoction of onion stench, burnt butter and soaked mud, and I'd almost never admit it to myself, but I revelled in it. It felt all too "homey" and comfortable albeit a little gross if anything, but nothing that I would mind. So many whispers echoed through an endless abyss and it reminds you of how a city is a haven for shattered dreams and budding hope. They crooned wildly into a windless infinity, their hymn easing into my heart, seeping through the cemented tiles onto a raw turf.

I finally realised I had walked my assigned 328 steps and reach for the wood encrusted banister. There is almost nothing that can camouflage the distressed symphony that is ringing through my ears at this point. My apartment screams in its silence, which was now shattered by an ongoing mashup of footsteps splashing about in water puddles and smoke bellowing through old cars. The smell of crisp tea wafted into my humble abode through my window and I welcomed it blithely. My neighbor has always been the nicest man (and an expert in making tea) I know, and although his voice comes from years of experience, it resonates youth strongly. His childish way of speaking has the power to shoo away most miseries, no matter how hard they are trying to clutch onto my entire being, and on some days when melancholy has set it's claws deep, penetrating into my being, he has been the savior who lends an ear, and often even a shoulder. He talks of his daughters like they're the moon and stars in his night sky, and every time he does so, I feel like he has given me a small piece of his heaven, his happiness, and it lights up my day. I can only sit there and listen, focusing on the sounds like I always do with everything, trying to express that hearing is the only way I can convey my gratefulness for his existence, because it is the only sensation I have control on. A sense of warmth fills into my veins at his melodious voice and it gives me strength to maybe go on for another day. Just one more.

Because you see, people like me don't have the privilege to disperse sadness whilst sitting in front of a calm river bank and let serenity swamp us. We are not allowed to stare at a family picture and reminisce good times to battle the bad times. So I remove my scarf and sit on the supposed location of where my chair is supposed to be, hoping I don't miss it again; and thankfully I don't. I search for the jagged pieces of a broken mirror, praying I don't cut myself again. And I look. I keep searching for something. Anything. Searching for me in those shards of glass; and I hear life laughing at me, playing such a cruel joke again and again. Because I don't see me, I don't see anything. All I see is the darkness. The darkness that never seems to end.