Maheen Humayun's Blog, page 2

Pause

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I am always moving moving moving. Ready, set, go go go.

My legs, my heart, my mind — everything is always in motion. The thing about motion is sometimes you just want it to stop. But how do you stop when the world is always going round on its axis? How can you stop if everyone around you is in unison? When the trees are dancing with the wind; when your coffee is growing cold; when the spurs on the wheels of your car are always rotating — how can I stop?

I am always moving moving moving.

Sometimes moving just to do something; moving just to feel something, moving just to remind myself that I am real and here and breathing. That I am a part of nature. And nature, a part of me.

My hands are always moving.

Scrolling scrolling scrolling and my eyes rolling rolling rolling.

And I want to scream. And stop. And do nothing or something. But more like nothing at all. I want to freeze. To tell my mind, my heart, my legs, my hands, my eyes — all of it to just pause. Take it in. Look around. But I am always in fast forward and sometimes, I miss out. I wish I could tell myself to breathe and relax but I just don’t know how? How do people meditate? How do they remind themselves to take a moment to breathe and chill?

The notion of being chill— that girl everyone wants you to be — what does that even mean? We all know that the word chill is just a placeholder. It doesn’t mean anything but it does mean something. I am not chill or relaxed or even maybe experiencing.

I am everywhere and yet nowhere.

I am always thinking of what to do next, where to go next how to manoeuvre my mind into convincing my body that I am not tired. I am never tired or at least, never too tired.

Even as I write this, my arms hurt from lift lift lifting and my legs hurt from run run running and my mind hurts from think think thinking.

But I can’t stop. My fingertips keep go go going.

And I’m here, circling. Round and round down the drain.

But still even as I fall, I am spinning down out of control and into nothing.

Her beauty, my shame

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The wind was whistling in the distance.

I looked up at her and smiled. She had a beautiful face. And as she spoke, all that beauty construed into darkness. Her face contorted with anger. Rage. Hate.

This is how I would remember her, I knew it. Her mouth formed into ugly words as I fazed her out.

It was as if I were watching from a distance. Two girls, one staring out into the distance and another screaming.

I couldn’t even hear the words she was saying as I focused my mind on the wind. It giggled and whistled and I swayed my body to its rhythm.

Sometimes, nature was endlessly beautiful. The way she once was, when we were friends.

Verisimilitude

I can see the point where the sun meets the sea from here. It glistens in effervescent orange. Hues of orange pulp and pineapple slices take over the sky. I picture myself on a beach. Eating those fruits. I look back out and the sun has begun to sink. I feel relieved. Almost as if my breath was holding the sun there, hanging, steady in the middle of nothing. Maybe that’s because that is how I tend to feel more often than not. Suspended between my reality and my thoughts. Verisimilitude. That’s the closest thing I can think of.

I am in a permanent state of floating. For now, I am only a set of eyes. I watch the sun drowning and the relief I felt a moment ago becomes fear. I am afraid for the sun because it’s leaving and I’m not sure how it will come back again. Will I come back again? I hear a voice badger me in the distance. I’m not sure, I whisper to nothing at all. I am only a set of eyes. I see the encompassing blue of the sea. Longing to be a part of it. I trail the waves thinking of Dover Beach and Matthew Arnold and why he chose the sea to be his muse. Maybe I could do that as well. But for now, I have no muse. I have no strength so I drift back to the sun.

I let the fear encompass me and now, I am only a pair of hands. I shake and shake and shake them. They work on the page, moving from the top to the bottom but everything there seems unclear. There is nothing of any essence really. It’s just a loop and I keep going back and forth and back and forth. My hands point to the little bit of sun that remains. I sigh. Because it’s leaving me. And then I’ll be more alone than ever. It’ll just me and the sea and the darkness, The sea’s waves and rolling and rolling, reminding me how still I am. Reminding me how essential movement is. So I shake shake shake my hands and drift back to the sun.

I am still shaking as the smell of salt wafts into my room. I am there. I am one with the air. The salt guides me closer to the sea. I can almost sense the waves building, and crashing.

I am one with the sand. The waves are caressing my feet. They trickle onto me and leave, over and over again. It’s a jolt into reality and back every moment. I cease and fall, cease and fall. The grains of sand take over me. I feel how they build each other up. One by one. Numerous grains make up this one vast body. And I tell my cells to move, to build, to make me. But I am stuck in a state of verisimilitude. Back and forth between here and there, not knowing which one is real or not. Not knowing which one I belong in, or if, I even do belong at all.

 

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Pause, look around you

I am always moving moving moving. Ready, set, go go go.

My legs, my heart, my mind – everything is always in motion. The thing about motion is sometimes you just want it to stop. But how do you stop when the world is always going round on its axis? How can you stop if everyone around you is in unison? When the trees are dancing with the wind; when your coffee is growing cold; when the spurs on the wheels of your car are always rotating – how can I stop?

I am always moving moving moving. Sometimes moving just to do something; moving just to feel something, moving just to remind myself that I am real and here and breathing. That I am a part of nature. And nature, a part of me.

My hands are always moving. Scrolling scrolling scrolling and my eyes rolling rolling rolling. And I want to scream. And stop. And do nothing or something. But more like nothing at all. I want to freeze. To tell my mind, my heart, my legs, my hands, my eyes – all of it to just pause. Take it in. Look around. But I am always in fast forward and sometimes, I miss out. I wish I could tell myself to breathe and relax but I just don’t know how? How do people meditate? How do they remind themselves to take a moment to breathe and chill?

The notion of the chill girl – that girl everyone wants you to be – what does that even mean? We all know that chill is just a placeholder. It doesn’t mean anything but it does mean something. I am not chill or relaxed or even maybe experiencing.

I am everywhere and yet nowhere. I’m always thinking of what to do next, where to go next how to manoeuvre my mind into convincing my body that I am not tired. I am never tired or at least, never too tired. Even as I write this, my arms hurt from lift lift lifting and my legs hurt from run run running and my mind hurts from think think thinking. But I can’t stop. My fingertips keep go go going. And I’m here, circling. Round and round down the drain. But still even as I fall, I am spinning down out of control and into nothing.

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Random thoughts on the first day

The first day going back to the dreaded G-Y-M after a month…

Your alarm goes off. You click snooze, without looking at the time. Because honestly, who even wakes up on the first ring? No one…

It rings again. You roll over. Look at the time on your way-too-bright-for-8:30am-phone-screen. Agh. Time to move. Why did you decide to make this morning the day you went back? Can’t you just postpone it to next week? The lazy in you questions your past self. You love to do this. You love to believe that your current self is the best self that you have been (insert bullshit). No, you finally tell yourself. And then you roll over to sleep for just 5 more minutes, you swear to yourself.

The final ring. You know it’s now or never. So you drag your lazy ass to the bathroom. Fish out your activewear, which surprisingly, lies on the top on your pile of clothes because you were them often. Just often enough to remind yourself that the gym is a necessary part of life. Often enough to remind yourself that if you got the chance that day, you’d really go, because you’re already dressed for it (insert bullshit). The best person to lie to is ultimately yourself, because you always believe it.

You finally get to the gym after a few upbeat morning, dance-infront-of-the-mirror moments. TBH, the dancing was definitely more fun. You looked way more fit in front of the mirror at home. Why does the mirror at the gym lie to you? Why does it make you hate yourself???

You grab that 6 kg kettle bell even though your trainer tells you to grab the 8 kg one. I just came back from a one month long hiatus, you tell him (and yourself). Secretly, you both know you can lift the 8 kg but you’re just lazy. You start doing some random shit, and then you realise why you come here. It’s kind of fun, but you don’t pretend like you like it. You just sigh all over the room secretly wondering why you’ve been such a bum. After the workout, your arms feel like jelly as do your legs. But you push push push down the stairs to get home. You feel great. You feel unreal. You wish you felt like this all the time but we all know, next week may not be the same.

The day after a long weekend

Waking up after a long weekend is typically difficult.

Your blanket feels just a bit heavier, your bed a little comfier, and your body – a little weaker.

It makes you think of what you achieved, if anything, over the weekend. Mornings came and went and yet, you did nothing you said you would do. You didn’t wake up early on Monday morning to have halwa puri with your family. You didn’t lie in bed binge watching Netflix. You just let the time pass you by. You sat here, watching the clock, thinking about everything you had to do come Tuesday. The days to come overtook your present. And as always, you let them.

Karachi was half under water for a while this weekend. It’s funny when your city reflects what you feel. The half sunken rickshaws and floating bicycles represent the chaos you feel swimming through the city. It’s as if you’re there half the time, front stroking and back stroking to get to where you need. But then, out of nowhere there’s this big vast wave that takes you under and then, out of nowhere, you’re stuck.

Not floating.

Not sinking.

But swirling.

Swirling into nothingness because you no longer remember which way you were swimming.

You cease to remember how to freestyle or breaststroke or even really float.

So you lay there in the midst of all that water – letting it pull you back and forth. Back and forth.

As you lay silent, numb, feigning existence.

If I were a sonnet, would I be a metaphor?

If I were a sonnet…

Would my As and Bs line up?

Would I be riddled with enjambment?

Or would I be stunted and end-stopped?

Would I carve my thoughts into a lyrical ballad?

Or what if…

What if I were a haiku?

With three whys, and hows, and dos?

What if I were free verse?

Although freedom does not exist.

Not here

Not now

Not ever.

I can’t do it

My thoughts are plaguing me

They’re intoxicating

My bones ache with fatigue because everything hurts

Are you happy? She asks me

I do not know how to respond

Do I tell her I lie in bed late at night avoiding the world?

Or do I tell her –

Yes, I’m good.

I love my job.

My friends.

My life here in this city that’s carving me into the girl I never wanted to be.

My vision is blurry

My hands are itching to write

But they are constantly scrolling.

Scrolling

And scrolling

Down Twitter to catch the news,

Down Instagram to stalk and stalk some more,

Down Facebook to tag my friends in memes to remind them that I exist

Or maybe

To remind myself that I do.

 

Because sometimes,

Lately,

Most of the time,

I don’t.

I’m here floating halfway

I see myself

Sinking

Into something that may be real

Something that may not exist

I want to be a story collector

I want to find all the stories

I want to keep them for myself

But then

I also want to release them

Change them

With my ideas

And thoughts

Make something more than just a poem with the same boring iamb

 

I am not dancing the rhythm of the iamb anymore.

Maybe I’m more of a trochaic meter,

Maybe not.

What if I were a sonnet?

Would I rhyme?

Would be last two couplets have a  happy ending?

Maybe I’m wrapped into a metaphor

Believing and breaking with every syllable

Breathing and bouncing with each letter – oh is it logophilia?

What if I were a sonnet?

The dancing girls

Deep breath in. Deep breath out. Relax your diaphragm. Repeat.

This was my mantra, at least, these days it was. I tried to tell myself that these three steps would make everything better, would make the way I feel better. But I don’t really think they do. I can see the city lighting up from my window. I know that outside, people are getting ready to leave their houses, and venture out into Karachi’s beauty. I’d be a part of it too, if I could, if I knew how. But the bars on my windows are too strong. They skew my vision as I lean forward trying to catch a glimpse of anyone, anything; a sign of life outside these four walls. The walls are painted a dark grey. The single bed I sleep on has a dull grey sheet on it. There’s a table in the corner, it’s a pale grey too. Seems fitting.

I think of the protagonist of ‘The Yellow Wallpaper’, I imagine that my walls have women trapped inside them too, dancing and luring me towards them. But I wasn’t that girl, no matter how many people in here tried to tell me I was. I knew that within these four walls, I had to be who they wanted. So I did. I ate the food they gave me, I stared at the walls and pretended I wasn’t thinking about anything even though my thoughts spanned faster than I could breathe. Thoughts they said I shouldn’t be having but at the same time, thoughts that I would always have. I couldn’t help being an over thinker, I guess it was what got me here in the first place. That and the fact that I was always too curious. My mom said I was too curious for a girl, always questioning things that have no need to be questioned. But I never believed her. I wanted to know why we ignore and placate over everything in this society.

But it didn’t matter anymore. Nothing mattered within these four walls. I think of . Would it be my saving grace to be like her? Maybe I didn’t want realism anymore. Would that make this place more bearable, more liveable? Everyone else in here is unstable. I don’t understand why I’m even here.

I don’t think I’ve seen my family in over three months. I miss the sound of my mother’s voice calling out that it was time for bed. I miss the hum of music coming from my brother’s door. I miss having food that was actually a substance, not just goo. But you don’t get to be picky in here.

I don’t know what it is about the onslaught of summer that makes me feel this way. My heart grows weak. My body is fatigued. I pretend I’m listening to ‘Modern Girl’ on repeat. Sleater Kinney is my serenity. It takes over my body making me nostalgic for a time I don’t even think I wish to relive. But that’s the thing, I am always wanting more. Out of people, things, my life, but mostly, myself. I can never be who I ultimately want to be. I can never do it because I am weak. I am tired and oh, I am so alone within these walls.

I wake up feeling like I don’t exist. Days pass and I have no conversations that mean anything. Maybe they do. But not to me, not anymore. I’m aching to be heard, to be felt, to be at least understood. But no one gets it. My pain. Is it real? Do I imagine it half the time? Maybe it’s this place, that’s what my mother used to say. Back when she visited me. But that time passed almost forever ago. I stopped thinking about time as something real. It is intangible, but in here, days do not fade into nights. People sleep at any and every time. They sleep to drown out the voices of the crazy ones; sleep so they don’t have to swallow their pills, sleep so they just don’t have to be any more. Because sleeping ceases everything, even time.

I pick up my journal from under my bed. It’s worn out, and the only thing I was able to bring with me. But it’s my solace. If they knew I had it, I’d be in trouble because thoughts that aren’t synonymous with their thoughts are not allowed to be documented or spoken of. And I was documenting it all.

I start writing. I write poems because my mind is too numb for prose. I write free verse, and haikus and sonnets. Not really about anything but just about something. So I try writing more. I know there’s a story somewhere within these walls. There always is. I just need to find it.

Maybe one about the girl who screams every night. Or the girl that pulls out her hair every time she sees me. Hmm, nothing is appealing enough. My pen is almost out of ink. I lie back and read and re-read my poems out loud.

There’s someone coming. She pushes my grey door open; she is also clothed in grey, like me. Her hair is tied in a tight bun and it looks like it really hurts, but her eyes, her eyes are what I really see. They’re angry. I don’t know why, It’s not like she’s trapped in here. I realised a long time ago that there are so few people out there that you meet that are genuine. And she sure as hell wasn’t one of them.

She’s holding my medicine in her hand, I can see the injection. Sharp and encompassing of all the evils this place offered. She doesn’t say a word but I know she sees my eyes. I know she sees life inside them. And she wants to destroy it. As I think this, I feel the shock of the injection going into my left arm. Just like that, I am lulled into oblivion.

I wake up with no feeling in my arms or legs. My body is numb. I try to get up but I can’t. My head feels heavy. I look at the walls.  I see the women. They are crying out to me, calling me. Somehow, I am able to move towards them with all the ease of the world. They stick their arms out towards me. I hear them whisper that this will be my haven, my escape. So I crawl further towards them and let them take me in.

She was strength, when I was weakness

2012

It’s May. You come into my life. I’ve never met anyone like you

before. You are dark and encompassing, wanting me all to yourself. I let you

take me, thinking our friendship will be short lived.

It’s September. I met Ameena today. I guess you could say we

became best friends quickly. We became inseparable, seemingly sisters to

everyone around us. This was why I loved Paris. You always found people like

you, you always found your safe space.

2015

It’s May. My fists are clenched. My heart is beating faster than I’ve ever felt it before. My insides want to explode. Everything hurts yet nothing helps. I take deep breaths. But

nothing works. I want to break. But then I realise I am already broken. And no

one knows. No one ever asks.

The Karachi heat has already begun to overtake my senses. The heat is claustrophobic, and sticky. Just like they are. No one is in town. But then again, May always passes by

like a quiet flu – you don’t really notice until you can breathe properly

again.

It’s June and she’s back again. I thought I had said bye to her all those years ago. But here she is, back in my life, taking me over like she never left. She doesn’t let me breathe, or feel, or even think straight. She doesn’t have an expiry date – at least, she doesn’t tell me. She comes and goes as she pleases.

It’s July.

“This is our world,” she whispers to me through her small mouth.

Her lips are worn out from the times she pulled her skin off them as she worried about things that were bigger than her.

I shift my gaze to her eyes. Eyes that I thought I had known all my life. They are dark, the way Karachi gets on a load shedding night after the rain. There is no glint of hope in them like there used to be.

A strand of hair falls onto them. It’s grey and frayed at the ends. I don’t remember it being like this before. She lifts her palm up to meet mine. I place it against hers and

they fit perfectly against each other. Our caramel skin tones match, as do the

lines on our palms. We were the same if you looked at us from a distance.

It has been years since I saw her. And I don’t know what to say to

her because her mouth is so small, her eyes are so dark, and her hair hints at

the pain she’s been through.

I gaze at her for long, as time no long renders my thoughts or

feelings. It’s become elastic like everything else around me. I smile at her,

but she doesn’t smile back. I leave the room slowly, staring at her through the

corner of my eye. She stands there frozen, solely existing within this elastic

world I had created.

It’s August. I left her behind in Karachi. Paris was different.

She couldn’t follow me here, I wouldn’t let her.

The cobblestones sparkle under the rain as I walk to my apartment,

smiling to myself. All I had to do was come back – Paris had always been my

safe space. Paris never changed and that was why I loved it. It was unpredictable.

2016

It’s April. She’s back again. Last time, she left without a

goodbye. I didn’t know how long she was planning on staying this time.

She wasn’t leaving this time. I knew it. I knew it with the way

she monitored my breathing, the way she was a constant weight bearing over me,

the way she wanted me all to herself. I didn’t mind this time. I welcomed her

with open arms. I made her my first priority. She came and took over my life.

brunches and croissant’s were a thing of the past. Maybe that

was why I loved Paris so much, because it reminded me of how unpredictable she

was.

It’s May and she still hasn’t left. I look at her and she asks me,

“Isn’t this what you wanted?”

It wasn’t. Not anymore.

Ameena had stopped talking to me. She didn’t want to compete with her,

even though, Ameena didn’t even know about her. I stopped caring. I stopped

trying.

It’s June. Ameena was strength, when I was weakness. Her dark

hair, almost mirroring my own, swayed as she walked away from me. The

cobblestones were glistening in the summer heat, my head was hurting and my

clothes stuck to my skin. I looked down at the cobblestones wondering how many lasts

people had had in this exact spot; they were marked with history – everything

in Paris was. I just didn’t know when it would be marked with mine. You never

really know the moments in your life that end up being goodbyes. At least, I

didn’t. I watched her shimmy down the street I had walked down so many times

myself. I wanted her to turn back, smile, tell me we’d meet again. But she

didn’t. Because nothing was the same anymore. It hadn’t been for a while now.

“Don’t cry,” she had said, right before leaving.

She knew I would. Because she was strength, when I was weakness.

Her petite figure was skewed by the oversized hoodie she was wearing, even

though it wasn’t cold. She was always cold. Her grey bag was weighing her down,

like it always did, and her small quick steps made it seem as though she was

running. Maybe she was, in a way. Running away from everything she claimed she

hadn’t done, but had put me through.

She was further away now, but I could still make out the smoke

coming out from her vogue cigarette. I had introduced her to them, four years

ago when we met. She didn’t even smoke back then. The smoke drifted higher and

higher, until I could see was the blue of the sky. When I looked back down, she

had already turned a corner.

It has now been 86 days since we spoke. I don’t mean a hi or a how

are you that doesn’t really mean how are you at all. I mean a conversation, a

give and take, one you were actually invested in. I had never been one to fight.

I never held a grudge. But you did. That was the thing. You had always been

stronger than me. You were the one calling people out for offending you, and

sometimes, even me. I told you I was diagnosed with depression and you left.

You left me alone, in the dark, in the midst of a change. I guess

I shouldn’t have blamed you. I expected you to be the strong one but I realised

that I was the one who was strong.

I think of the first day we met and it’s funny now? Because the one person

I had ever confided in, my first friend across the ocean, didn’t get it.

You told me to take some pills and everything would be alright.

You told me that depression is a disorder that can easily be cured and that my

thoughts weren’t real. Maybe not. But I don’t think that’s how you handle it.

Not when you had already been in my shoes, along for the ride, from the very

first day.

I can’t blame you. You never liked being around people. I forced you

to surround yourself with them. I made us meet new people, until we finally

found ones we could call our own.

I look at you from a distance on the days I have the ability to

drag myself out of bed. You’re laughing with our friends. Friends that are mine

but now I don’t want to be around anyone. You told me I was distant, too caught

up in my own head. But I didn’t want to tell you what was happening. I didn’t

want to tell you that the darkness was intoxicating me, it was suffocating me

and I was not brave enough to let it go. You began telling me you were too busy

with school and then I’d see that you weren’t busy at all. You started seeing

me and looking away. And eventually, I did as well.

40 days is a long time to be alone. But I was. I was so alone, I

had learned to hear the whispers of my neighbours coming through my thin walls.

I learnt to talk to myself out loud so I could hear a voice, any voice. I also

learnt that I can be alone.

Even when my family arrived those 40 days later and told me I

looked sick, and weak, and thin I shrugged them off. Not even realising I had

gone an entire month without eating a single meal. Not realising that my

depression and anxiety had turned me into a shell that only spoke when spoken

to.

When you’re the happy girl, the funny one, the loud one, people

expect you to be that girl all the time. The minute I stopped being that girl,

I was abandoned. Today, I don’t feel any less alone than I did all of those 40

days because every single moment of that time replays in my head and I’m

sitting here, in the dark, trying to remember what I did wrong. Blaming myself

when maybe you’re the one I should be blaming. I’m not any better but I’m not

any worse.

 

 

Thoughts about random places in Rome

Ponte Sisto

The girl stared at the piazza from her spot on the bridge. She was mesmerised at the idea that things could still amaze her ten times over. She wondered about long days and 3000 word essays, knowing that there was more to the world and here and now, she was experiencing it. Maybe it was the way the sun reflected on the cobblestones making them seem like they were out of an old Audrey Hepburn movie, or maybe it was the way everything seemed to pause as she took in the city. All that mattered was the picturesque, all that mattered was the sublime in that moment. Once, twice, ten times over.

Ponte Garibaldi

“A thing of beauty is a joy forever: its loveliness increases; it will never pass into nothingness. ‘Beauty is truth, truth beauty,’ — that is all Ye know on earth, and all ye need to know”. – John Keats

The girl looked out of the window from Keats’ room. She stood on the same floor, gazed at the same ceiling he did during the age of romanticism. She thought about how uncanny it all was that Keats was here, then thousands of tourists, and now she. Keats spent his last three months in Italy soaking up the sunny south, his poems unappreciated and his life in shackles. What was about great poetry that gave notice to it only posthumously, she thought. What was it about Keats and the ephemeral being that could so easily be lost in time, she wondered. The girl thought about the day she went to the Protestant cemetery.

“Here Lies One Whose Name Was Writ In Water,” said Keats’ grave.

The hopelessness that bound him till his very death was chilling, the fact that he was left unacknowledged was chilling. Maybe it’s the belief that nature has a power over man that can’t be paralleled. That all of our names are somehow writ in water unless we do something so great that it supersedes the ebb and flow of the seas.

Terraza Musei Capitolini Campidoglio

“Morality and freedom are as certainly the only bases of the happiness and dignity of the human race as the system of Galileo is the true theory of the celestial motions”. – Anne-Louise-Germain de Staël.

The girl looked over the edge of the terrace. It was the day of the Pakistan Literature Festival in the Capitoline Museums. Walking through the museum, she saw art through the ages. Hints of Madame de Staël’s Corinne withered in the walls, Renaissance and Medieval art flowered the galleries, and the mighty Marcus Aurelius stood large as ever. It was hard to believe how so many things remain unchanged in this city. The girl dreamt of the age of romanticism, of Staël walking through the museum writing Corinne all those years ago—and the girl stood in the same spot: bringing that time back to life all over again. History, literature and art were all intrinsically connected through the tether of time, and the girl stood there holding the tether together through her thoughts.

Piazza di Spagna

“The poetry of the earth is never dead”. -John Keats 

The girl thought about the Romantics, the way they changed the face of literature. She thought about how they changed the way words were used and interpreted, the way the world wasn’t divided into shades of black and white. The romantics uncovered the grey areas meshed within. She wondered what it was about these steps that brought together people from so many different backgrounds: artists and painters, poets and revolutionaries, Keats and Shelley. There was something bright at the top of the steps, something more than just an ending. In this city, there were never endings—only prolonged verses and romantic memorabilia.

Castel Sant’Angelo

There is a sense of wonder that surrounds the aura of every writer. The power to create a story out of absolute nothingness is not an easy task, it comes with the power to make others believe in your stories. The girl could have been a character in any story, she could paint herself a world anywhere with anything. Looking out at this view, the girl saw the way the world always contrasted into two, black or white, in or out, yes or no. She could choose any of the two but she didn’t want to have to choose. She could write herself an imagined path that connected Castel St Angelo to Piazza Venezia with a bridge, she could tap her two feet together like Dorothy and appear in Piazza del Popolo. The sun was reflecting back at her, mirroring the city in her eyes and her eyes in the city. The sun was about to set, the day would be over soon.

Ponte Sant’Angelo

“There are more things in heaven and earth, Horatio, than are dreamt of in your philosophy”. – Hamlet.

The girl looked up at the Angel. Her childhood consisted of a belief in the unknown, a belief in angels and heavens beyond that of the ordinary world. But as she grew older she realised that maybe an angel was just an angel, a statue on the edge of a bridge, or someone with a particular angelic facade. But reading Hamlet made her pause and think, there were things that couldn’t be explained by logic. There were things that couldn’t even be dreamt of in her philosophy, and maybe that was okay. Maybe dreams were just figments of the mind created to make life seem flawless and fleeting. Maybe life was about looking up at an angel on the edge of a bridge and realising that there was beauty in this world that didn’t need to be defined, it could just be seen and admired.

St. Pietro

The girl looked up at St.Peters. Is it possible to dream of things greater than reality? She wondered. She was always wondering, thinking, and pausing in this city. This city was filled with so many opportunities for creation, yet she was stuck—stationed in her thoughts and chained to her mind. Bestial oblivion or some craven scruple, that’s what Hamlet had said. She wished more than anything for the will to succumb to bestial oblivion, but as time passed by, she realised that some craven scruple was better. Some craven scruple was greater than one thoughtless moment of action. So she went back to St. Peter’s, and stood there: stationary, stagnant, static, and all was okay in the world.