be a feather.
drop gently.
fall softly.

be a father.
caress gently.
whisper softly.

be a scientist.
hypothesize gently.
theorize softly.

be a poet.
live gently.
die softly.

-

कुछ लोग मंदिर चाहते हैं राम के लिए ।
और कुछ मंदिर चाहते हैं आराम के लिए ।।

-

My therapist suggests that I write more often.
It's easier said than done.

True, there are words swirling willy-nilly,
but nothing moves me to give them shape.
Most of them sound silly, and there is no poem,
no anchor to hold them in place.

It seems I have to erect the structure,
compose the piece, but I'm stranded here.
I wait for the firecrackers to go off on the top floor,
only to find myself stuck with a grumpy gathering
of grey cells tasked with "finding inspiration".

The world once effortlessly held me in its clutch,
kept me fed on a diet of constant awe.
But now I must manufacture the crackers,
birth a worthless recreation. I must dig and claw.

I wish I had a therapist.

-

Nobody's figured it out.
Nobody's really figured it out---all the emotions.
It's no surprise then that most people suck at love.
Because to be good at love, you have to first love love. Unconditionally.
Once you love your own mental construct of love,
you'll find that you can love anybody*
for you're not really in love with that person,
you're just in love with love. That shit's easy.

If you're not in love right now,
that's because you never believed in it in the first place.

-

Honest love springs from hatred
of all that is not love.

-

Unfortunate World.

(piece in caption)

-

The most liberating aspect of adulthood is that
you get to define your vices and the degree
of your indulgence in them.

-

Why is it that our idea of a perfect life is always in reference to a date in the future? Why is it that we can never bring our finger to rest on a moment from our past and exclaim, "At this exact point of my existence, I was living a perfect life"?

Is there a fundamental flaw here? Maybe, "perfect life" is an oxymoron. Or, perhaps, perfection is a spectrum with a meter in which the levels are always middling, thanks to the average lives we lead.

Maybe, at the moment of death, our perfection meter shall peak.

-

One tells me to be the best.
Another tells me to be the first.
But I say be.
I say live.
Even make the loneliness live.
Even make the sorrow sing.
Even be the one to say,
I. Do. My. Thing.

-

The internet is a thing of beauty.
The internet is a bottomless well of filthy scum.
People have never been less afraid of getting downright ugly;
they have never wanted to seem more beautiful.

But ask them the right questions, I beg you. The ones for which they have ready answers, rehearsed in their heads a million times over.

"I feel this way because..."

All people need is a shot at honesty.
A story to tell themselves;
a story they'd like you to believe.
And pray, believe.
For if you can, you will find your own stories much easier to believe.

Someday, you might even make twelve angry men listen to you.

-