to zafar.

love,

i really do not mean to stay away for such long periods of time from
you. i love you, very dearly. but mostly, i feel empty. i feel lost,
like on a makeshift raft that's about to give way just floating on
quiet seas, moving through the fog, blind without an island in view or
another man in sight.

i have been reading Prozac Nation and i absolutely hate it. i
absolutely abhor it. i am only at page 120 and it's the 50th time i've
told myself i need to stop reading. but i keep reading and reading,
perhaps hopeful that maybe the depressed, self-indulgent
protagonist, Ellie, will get out of her spell. i hate it, because it
is like reading every line on your face, rediscovering every freckle
across your cheeks that you've long forgotten.

rv keeps me sane, or at least allows me to see a more acceptable
reflection of myself. that i am living some sort of normal life. that
if i keep toiling at a 9-6 job, that i can, one day, convince myself,
that i am, indeed, a normal person perfectly capable of happiness.

but i am only capable of sheer brokenness and ecstatic bursts of madness.

why do i not know moderation, zafar? why do i not?

some days, i even manage to convince myself that i am happy. but it
never lasts. it never lasts beyond a faked smile to rv or a shrill
laughter amplified to shroud the bleeding sadness?

and why? what the hell am i so bloody fucking depressed about? ever
since i can remember, ever since consciousness took over mischievous
innocence, i have been responsible. responsible for my father's rage,
responsible for my mother's happiness, responsible for my brother's
punishments, responsible for my grandparents' satiation, responsible,
responsible, responsible. since i was at least 4.

i'd lock myself up in my own bedroom (i had the privilege of privacy
as a child) and talk to myself endlessly. the possibilities of
wonderful fiction, the possibilities of life was so exquisite! till
mama came home, then we had dinner. till i watched TV up to nine, then
grudgingly walked into my room for bedtime. then in my sleep, papa
would come home and sometimes i can feel his lips on my face.

and then the next day would come. and once again, i would have
breakfast, tiptoe to look at the kids screaming at the playground
through the window then lock myself in my room again. i'd pick up one
of the Childcraft Encyclopaedia series and read it. again. for at
least the 20th time. till i could spell chlorophyll when i was only 7
and understood its existence.

it is not much different now.

i still lock myself away. but in a bigger room, in an entire house.
sometimes i'd call friends and we'd talk, but really, i'd rather just
disappear. i'd rather cocoon myself away at home, not even watching
TV. not even reading. not even cooking. not even surfing the Internet.
not even singing or dancing. i just vegetate. for some years now, i
try not to go out, not to venture further than 5km away from home. if
i could walk home in 10 minutes, even better. closer i am to home, the
better i feel. and the most cruel of friends would translate this only
into laziness.

but at the same time, i am terrified. i will lose all my friends. all
of them. then truly, i will have no one but rv. but we all have an
expiry date. and the way rv's eating habits are, i hope his
insurance payout is enough to isolate myself for years. and decades to
come.

i'd rather be at home, or far, far away. but i suppose one cannot keep
running. one could implode from running from one's self.

my obsessive dependency on rv keeps me alive. and at the same time,
dead. but oh, do i love him. i love him even more on days he keeps a
smile on his face when i throw my keys at him because he pushed my
button. he'd even offer his mobile phone to me to break (i've broken
my mobile phone after a fight with my mom over dowry) - although a
joke during a rage blackout is never good.

but i am OK, zafar. that's just it. i will always be OK. i will always
be floating. floating along like an undisturbed lotus. that really is,
rotting inside. it's chaotic, and thank god for rv, the one who sees it
in my eyes. even when i am smiling.

he sees, that i cannot even say it.

he sees, that there is so much on my mind, so much in my heart, that
if i would say anything, i'd go mad, i'd go quite mad.

i've always been the outsider on the inside. the first time i was
called weird, i was 11. then "weird" came repeatedly, but i know that
they felt threatened. there was nothing to be threatened about at all,
silly children. and now, i'm so used to it, it's an inside joke.
something you share with someone closest to you, and farthest from
you.

yourself.

i love you, tell me how you've been.

life has been kind, not too excruciating. it is only my fault.

c*devotchka