Love Song

I do not wish for you
On those salty summer mornings
When the sun bestows on us
The harshest whips of its heat,
Unrelenting and merciless.
I do not wish for you
On smoky winter nights
When my fingers choose to hide
Beneath layers of refuge
And are too afraid to explore
The skin and pores of
The man who reflects my echoes.
And on evenings that are flooded
With rain and with sourness,
I do not wish for you.

I wish for you only when
The days are fresh
And smell of pinewood,
When the sun is kind
And the winds are friendly,
When the evenings are like
Old friends you'd like to meet
At forgotten coffee shops,
And when the winter
Is, in fact, a happy shade
Of autumnal orange-
Ushering snowy whiteness
That shall wash away
All despondence.
I wish well for you, my love.

Spot The Differences

The apple never falls too far from the tree.
We don't just inherit a similar body structure or hair color or diabetes from our parents; it's so much more than that. I find with an increasing frequency the things that are nature's way of shadowing my genetic past. The silences that have haunted my father and his brothers where conversations should have flown and filled the growing chasms seem to have casually trickled through into my life down those unassuming strands of DNA. I find myself reacting the way my mother would to an act of unkindness, except that perhaps evolution allowed for a chromosomal mutation and exaggerated my responses by a few degrees.
When confronted with a fake smile and small talk, my face attains the same sense of discomfort that my mother wears in similar circumstances. And moments of joy and small victories bring out happiness and contentment that is the direct product of my parents' marriage, albeit my own genetic matter seems to have added a horsy little laugh to such moments.
You don't need a mirror to be able to see similarities. It's all in the blood; even if we are destined to discover our tribe ourselves, even if we must raid the four corners of the world to find our match.

Show Of Strength

I had always held on to this wispy little belief of mine that no matter what, there is always going to be something in your life that you can hold on to. A prayer, a person, a choice, a profession, a pet, a place..

Either or all of these things (or several others) would, despite any inclement circumstance, provide you with a refuge and protect you with an impenetrable armor and keep you afloat even on the stormiest of seas.

Repeat the prayer in a relentless chant, bury yourself in the arms of your favorite person, stick to the road you have chosen to travel down, work with a soldier's dedication and forget the world around you, immerse yourself in the innocence of your dog's loving eyes, or walk down the streets of your city as it fills you with hope and warmth. These, I believed, were the secrets to surviving life's nasty days.

What happens though, when you find your shoulders slumping in a weak show of defeat as your brain throws in the towel in the face of this seemingly all-consuming turmoil that you are faced with? What happens when the adrenaline clouds your mind with fear and irrational thoughts stand tall with a pompously puffed up chest? You forget the little things that you have clung on to in the past when the going got tough; your little life-rafts seem to evaporate in the burning flames of trouble. So now what do you do?

No, you don't give up. 

You don't bow your head in a display of servitude to the situation. You gather the strongest little bits of you that sit inside your body, so what if they are scattered and seem like they'd be an ill-fit together. Gather them and galvanize them into a solid shield of strength that is mightier than the worst disease, than the harshest words thrown at you, than the sharpest stones hurled at you. You are a creation of the gods. If you look hard enough, you shall find a reflection of the best qualities of your parents, your grandparents, your great grandparents hidden beneath layers of skin and bones. Once you find them and form a cohesive and homogeneous defense mechanism for yourself, you transform yourself into a greater person. 

There is nothing in the world that the human mind cannot decipher or overcome. Absolutely nothing.

The difference lies only in the way you look at life. That's the only thing that separates the champions from the masses.

And I'd rather be a champion than look back at my life when I'm eighty and wonder what could have been. That would be a travesty I wouldn't wish upon anyone.