Old Posts: Murmurations

The heart wants to write – the murmurations within it are disturbing. The mind is a relentless interrogator – questions, questions, so many questions and answers there are none. Is it possible to respond to one as you would a loved one and not feel even a semblance of love? Is it possible that love once scorned, leaves embittered, for eternity? Is rationality a lasting solace? Will my life too, like those of millions of others, be a series of compromises?
When I was younger, my head full of dreams and ideology and conflicts, I was courageous. I would stand up for what I felt was right. The dreams dispersed, the razor edge of ideology has dulled in the face of loathsome practicality in the real world and the conflicts continue. I watch the injustice silently and though mesmerized by it still, I've taught myself to turn my head away. I've learnt not to reveal all that I feel, I've learnt not to give my all to any one person, I've learnt not to love completely, unashamedly and unconditionally. I've learnt to appreciate the music of solitude.
I've learnt that books are my best friends, my saviours, my salvation. I've learnt that sleep is an elixir, that flowers can be without meaning, that the only one you have in the world is you. I've learnt that no matter what, children will be abused, their river of tears will continually be in spate, that lightning will strike down unassuming individuals without warning and without remorse for removing some goodness in the world. I've learnt that genuine caring is only an exception, that the sun will scorch the increasingly barren earth every year and the seas will rise and subside twice a day. I've learnt that the spotless, glowing moon is not flawless, that friends can turn foe with a word or even without, that men will outrage women for as long as the earth continues its giddy inexorable spinning. I've learnt that irrationality is not supposed to exist, difference is taboo and that dreams come and dreams go, but reality lasts forever.And yet the murmurations of the heart continue and the questions turn into shrieks, requesting at first, then begging and then demanding answers. The heart doesn't know that life itself is incomplete.