Darkness envelops; a shroud on a deathly figure with the midnight's dew, she embraces. Crystals of the sky's anguish ripple the surface of my skin, settle in my bones, carry me home. It descends to my knees, bolts and locks my joints. Is there anywhere else left for it to flow? It's through my blood vessels, the respite - now filling once hollow and empty chasms. The valves in my heart destroy cameral connections. Atriums and ventricles hold sombre symphonies to the pitter - patter against the window pane, heeding the warnings of an inevitable shatter. Chilled raindrops kiss warm tears, mixed into a sickly sweet venom, and a cascading trail induces haunting numbness. Tonight is a mournful knell echoing within the back of my head. She's exhausted and torn from her own bellowing, one in which reluctance plucks at strings as I force myself to neglect the pounding at the door.

I don’t think I notice my waterlogged lungs or the burns across the ends of my eyes which sting with the acid of unintelligible speeches. Monologues of people and lectures from strangers that, as of now, I’m oppressed with unwarranted words. It just so happens that I’m confined in life’s cycle and the rain seems to want to cleanse today’s transgression. I can resonate with the distaste in the back of my throat since emotions battle up, on top of one another. Reach for the smooth edges of my lips until it collapses into themselves, further down my stomach, whilst it conjures the salty, tart ache inside like the beautifully vast, briny sea. So this unrecognisable constitution of all my sentiment hides in the shadow, sheltered from droplets, beneath the bench I grieve on. And as of still, I’m dazed like a drunkard - high on the drug of death and despair because I’m thus confronted in a well of confusion. And I don’t know how I feel.

I don’t know how I feel.

The rain plummets irregularly and ricochets off the soft tips of my cheekbones, leaving fresh and clean, indelible wounds. They’ll always heal, only for their existence to reopen the scars. But in some small crevice, in the midst of my soul, you can’t fill up the spaces that spread like diseases; incurable torture and chronic sorrow- the indifferent small talk in hopes it’ll glue it. The hello’s and how are you’s only plunge into the void of those very same cracks. My hair is soaked. My glasses blurry. The hot air that escapes with my shaky breath condenses the frosty air colliding upon it, and the mist evaporates in front of me, taking away the last bit of indignance my conscious could muster. Left are the faint, aggravating murmurs of replayed conversations.

But the rain keeps pouring. It doesn’t hurt as much anymore. Perhaps because the rain was never meant to pain. A blessing from God, a relief, heaved down to my body of sin. Deliberated by the wings of angels in heaven to purify tattered corners of me. And the rain quenches the dry soil on earth, and the scorching droughts, and the evening heatwaves. A mercy of which many spin and dance in. And the rain dampens the shrivelled letters in my chests, unravelling the pages of self pitying apologies. It wants me to read, understand and let go. Still, habitually, I think I don’t know.

I think that the rain teaches me how, the night won’t wait for my misery to drown. Maybe it’s a form of atonement for all of the corrupting hallucinations that left my guts to decay. Yet a salvation from the otherwise, inflicted bruises on my hips. It’s calming in a way - oddly so. The refreshingly clean scent of the ground, relishing in the invigorating precipitation. A layer of renewal from the withering day. Without the rain, I don’t think I’d have known, of all the passion that I refused to know.

- Riya

It was raining the other day. Coupled with the fact I was so disoriented with stuff, this is where this came from. This is the third piece I’ve made since exams have started and I still can’t stop. But since there are 6 more exams left I need to start building up my page innit.

Dear mystery man,

I have no idea why you were in my dream last night - as if you’ve been plaguing my conscious since the beginning I met you. That fateful day when we wound up together in the same vicinity, one where we would end up seeing each other, being with each other everyday, even if we were at other ends of the room. You never noticed me right away. I was too small, too shy and timid to look you in the eye, let myself be known to you. You had your large group of friends, football, the joy; what difference would it have made if were at the background of it all. And yet, I was still drawn towards you. Just like everyone else who adored you, all those girls who swooned over you, even my friend who fawned over you. I was like everyone else who fell for your charm. I never knew you existed until then.

I don’t know what it was. Maybe your smile. You laughter. Maybe it was the soft and still distinctly sharp features adorned on your face that caught me off guard. Maybe that’s why my chest burned every time you looked my way ever so briefly - like oxygen wrung out dry in my lungs if you stumbled upon my glances and I’d scramble my way to play it off and stare somewhere else. I was too eager to start something and equally as afraid to finish it. But that was always what I perceived you to be: the air you radiated, enticing but if one revelled in it too long it pressured them. Or rather it was me who was too scared to let you know of how I felt, which was why I pretended it was nothing.

That you were nothing.

However, I couldn’t do anything to suppress my obvious affection. Everyone knew it. My own circle of friends, possibly even your best friend, even those who weren’t my friends or yours. And especially that friend of mine who fawned over you. I think it only took me a year to realise that she did and that she felt the same way. About you of course. I’m not sure if it was you who was oblivious to my attempts to get close to you, or if it was me who was oblivious to the fact that you were aware, so I kept trying. Desperately. So much so that I look back and think it was sickening. Pathetic even. But at that time I believed that nothing mattered. That it was worth it. Would you have done the same if you were me? Would I be worth it?

Either way, the emotions remained in the next year when I would inevitably meet you again after 2 months of not having done so.

Who would have known that Coincidence would have graced me with her divine intervention. And Fate would watch in acceptance. Now, our proximity was so close that our breaths would mingle together in the tension only I regarded, thick as the wall I would eventually build up. But for now I basked in the warmth of being next to you, heat scorching my cheeks when your thigh accidentally brushed up against mine. Those seven hours of my day were spent by your side. In the morning you read your book and giggled. Oh how I wished I could be the cause. I asked what it was and you turned your book to me. For the first time we were smiling together. So trivial yet so meaningful was it, to me. You would steal a glimpse of my work and I would turn it towards you, willing to give up all that I worked for if it meant easing your labour. You always took it, grabbed it and scanned it so intently. It was the only thing that you loved from me, thus I gave it as much as I could until you didn’t need it anymore. And when you changed some of my work, made it right, whilst I was called out of the building, I came back and you told me what you had done. The thank you I let out then was the compressed fondness that welled up in my throat, bashful and giddy as I sat down and examined the lingering touch of the slightest effort you put in. For me.

But oh, how Fate plays on disappointment for I am always the toy, subjected to her. She manifests into those closest to me. The one who let you know of what brewed in my heart, overflowing in front of you, unable to reign back. I pushed her away, hid her so you wouldn’t pay attention to here. Too late. So the contents spill out into that betraying message.

I think she likes you.

The cackles and snickering surrounding me echoed in that room. I could feel the embarrassment prodding at the corners of my mouth.

You didn’t talk to me after that day. Between was solely the violent silence that settled. The awkwardness that followed for the next week. Hell even longer. A cold blanket enveloping me, freezing unknown hopes, my heart barren in a snowstorm of worry. Still within a random, forgotten word rekindled that ember of passion. And the old, cheerful conversations that spewed on our laps carelessly. Suddenly, the familiarity of the old blessed me once again.

It wasn’t long before our casualness, the comfortability in what we had, would be known to each and every person on that floor. One of them, our favourite, soon to leave. The room buzzed with questions and stories. Then came that sweet voice of yours when you asked him for advice. Then, for everyone’s ears to channel:

You and her need to stop talking so much.

Said he, with a grin plastered on his face. Had we talked so much? It was so mundane that consistency didn’t feel so abnormal to the normality of what was supposed to be the hushed atmosphere. Only to me it seems. That’s when I buried my face in the palms of my hand and turned to the window, wishing that the cool wind would calm the blush painting me. I feigned ignorance. As if it didn’t mean anything. It meant everything.

And ignorant was I. Fate always reminds, wishes are just illusions. When you gently relayed that horrifying news. How you were going to leave just like that person before, who gave me the happiness I didn’t need to beg for. You were to be sent off cities away; unreachable from my sight, leaving me with only your empty chair and the memories that sat there. I was the first one to know. That privilege didn’t make things better.

Five years later, in this routinely present state, you don’t matter to me. I can’t recall the last time I reminisced you and I. Except those few unwanted moments. When my friends teased me with your name 2..3 years after your exit from our chatter, and my life. And the occasional delusion of my mind when it needs to be asleep because you still find yourself in my thoughts and fantasies of the night. You never liked me back. At least from what I could observe. I hate it. You. And the vision of you blocks my sanity. Right when I should be over you. You’re a cruel torment still to this day. You were always the popular one though, weren’t you? Taking up space, loud and enchanting.

I wonder if you dream of me the way I did of you last night.

- Riya

The best way I can sum this up is:

based on a true story…

To say the least, I had another stupid dream. Won’t say much but definitely will be a story time later if I unfortunately get pressured into doing so. But you guys wouldn’t do that to me, right?????? Maybe I’ll put a gist of this mystery man in my post getting to know me, we shall see. I think it is quite shocking that me of all people would have a mystery man if you know what I’m like and I am more so terrified of the fact he’s constantly in my dreams even though I should be over him. I KNOW I AM. But like I thought the only way for this to go away was if I write it out and it becomes an old file in the archive that I’ll never see in a few years time. He kept showing up and I got so fed up with thinking about him that I just HAD to write it. Nevertheless, I hope u enjoy this new post cuz it’ll be quite a while until I post something again.

I’ve used up all my time exhausting my body to contort to your preferences of my state of being. You established a playing field of which I must fight in, yet no matter how much I fought - nearing the title of the victor - you placed another person in, my legs ready to cave when I knew what you wanted from me. You believed me to be malleable as each strike would make me remember who I was to gain by committing to it; what was I to gain? And for a while you weren’t wrong. Because each time you pushed me into the pit, my sobs were no war cry. Pushed, shoved, wrung and dried, just to fit into your perfect ideal; only apparent to you perhaps.

I suppose I could love how you chose me - created a mould just for me. And perchance, I could glorify the times you looked at me, or gave me a smile that never quite reached your eyes. And you showered me with care; gave presents and letters, to distract the turmoil, flooding inside. But when you turned from me, your back taking up my vision, took off before I could let a sound escape- I couldn’t bring myself to tell you. Not with those papers scattered around me.

And still it is that person you chase around. They’re in your mouth and they’re consuming your dreams. You never let me take up that much space - I think my presence burdens you, never enough to partake. All I heard was the knock of their name at our conversations, and it seems to me you’ve forgotten mine. The laughter with them, always louder, that even with ours it would never be overshadowed. If I stood at one end with my love in my arms, and them, at the opposite with just their open hands, I need not think twice to twist my head around; descend down the steps with me and no other.

You had some gall to tick off the criteria on your checklist. You presented me with methods and experiments to exceed; risk my authenticity to become your plain creation. For a while, I scrambled and begged you to accept the small parts you couldn’t pry away. At your hands were the forceps, aimed at all of them. I told you no. I was met with a horrified visage that only you could dare to have. Such a foreign word that you had never heard before.

I do not require your acceptance of what I stand upon; your hypocrisies cannot find its way to twist what I need. You scowl at what I held tight. I scorn what you attempted. For I don’t see your input place any value on me.

So you’re back with them again, I’m at the edge of the table. I only embrace the tranquility of not dying with your mistakes. You both erupt in hysterics, send a subtle glance my way - I don’t feel the heat of your glare across my face. My pretence of familiarity is not daunting to you. At the end of the room your silhouette turns blurry. At the corner of my sight I see a mirage of you. I don’t run. No, I don’t think I’ll fight for you.

- Riya

I decided to base this piece off of the struggle of trying to reach expectations that only grow bigger the more you aim for them. I chose to keep this piece ambiguous with the relationship between the speaker and the person they address, because this feeling of inadequacy can come with anyone. I think we have all went through a time where we doubted whether we were enough, especially for those closest to us. I hope that whoever reads this knows that you are seen.

If you related to this piece, be sure for more to come!