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Overflowing Ideas.

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Just because I’m awake doesn’t mean I can’t dream.

  • Hellos and Goodbyes

    Life is full of hellos and goodbyes. We say hello to new friends and goodbyes to old buddies. Cheers to open windows and hugs to closed doors. Our hearts are constantly beaten and mended with every moment in life- and how much ever we think we’ll get used to these rollercoasters, we never do. 

    We should enter scenes with a full heart but it’s even more important to leave with a fuller one. To bask in new experiences, to bottle emotions, to do everything it takes to be content with our journey. Even if our trips are finite, we need to make sure that our memories are infinite. 

    We know that our journeys are going to come to an end. But sometimes- we don’t need to say goodbye. We don’t need to close doors we want to keep open; whether or not we choose to enter the open window we see. We don’t need to make ourselves rain tears and flood grief when we can smile and say we had a good time. 

    When we can say that given the chance, we would do it all again. Without any regrets. And to know that being able to say that is a gift, a full journey in itself. A door left open, yet left filled with life and love. 

    Written by
    Milomi.

  • Labels- poem

    This is a poem about how we are made to be labelled and stacked into a category of boxes- all describing our personalities.

    LABELS

    After hours of strenuous questioning,
    Of doubting myself and second-guessing,
    Of staring at sentences for minutes-
    Pages of a report, haphazardly strewn, stare up at me.

    All I can think of is- those words on paper are not me.

    My personality cannot be divided into
    A Yes or a No,
    A True or a False, or maybe an
    ‘Almost Always True’ and an ‘Almost Always False’.

    My soul cannot belong to any one answer,
    To either black or white, when I am painted in
    Shades of grey.

    My mind is not a paragraph or a string of words:
    Thinker, Organiser, Enterpriser, Persuader-
    My personality does not give in to 26 letters
    With commas in between,
    My own self refuses to be put down,
    To be labelled,
    To be defined using eloquent words in a fluent fashion.

    My psyche means more than something that language can delve into and discover.
    Our psyches mean more.

    When it goes beyond ‘doing’, and comes to ‘being’
    Language bars us from expressing our true selves:
    It only goes so far.

    Written by
    Milomi.

    Inspired by a poem by E. E. Cummings – since feeling is first
    (And also me giving an aptitude test over the weekend.)



  • Living- poem

    We’re made of star-stuff.
    All of us
    Though different in thoughts, ideas, beliefs,
    Are made of the same stuff.

    We’re made of stuff the world can’t hold,
    Stuff that inevitably moulds itself into
    Living, breathing, breathtakingly beautiful human beings.
    We’re given the tag ‘Living’.
    We’re told we are ‘Alive’.

    We travel through life.
    Touching the suns, feeling the rains, bracing ourselves for the winds
    Yet we never seem to truly
    Touch life.

    We, who are deeply rooted within life,
    Tied and tangled among the knots of the universe
    Living the broken dreams of stars we can never reach,
    We- never seem to caress life with the same
    Love
    That she has caressed us.

    We travel through life,
    Eyes on our success and well-being
    Taught to steer clear of distractions that can hinder our path
    Taught to not admire life.

    Instead we hustle and bustle through life,
    Glad we still own the tag of ‘Living’
    But how can we said to be living- when we’re not able to be alive?

    Written by
    Milomi.

  • Relief- poem

    There is joy.

    After scouring the desert of life
    For years- in hopes to stumble upon the sea;
    After finding mirage upon mirage
    And coming close to losing hope-
    The sweet touch of salty water embraces you.

    For a second, you know- there is joy.

    One second is all it takes to offer
    Visions of life waiting for you.
    All it takes to restore your crumbling, beaten, not yet broken faith.
    All it takes to make you believe again.

    Eons of rage, anger, frustration, give way to
    An instant of relief.
    And yet, you are content for
    There is joy.

    Joy is always waiting, around the corner.
    Waiting to greet us, to take us by surprise.
    To grab us from the dusty roads we walk barefeet upon, lift us off of the ground, and spin us around till we crack a smile.
    Joy then puts us gently down, nudging us
    Towards the harsher moments of life.

    Saying, “I believe in you.
    You should too.”

    Written by
    Milomi.

    Image source: https://unsplash.com/photos/87BraKM0WyQ

  • To Overshoot

    Life gets hectic, almost every day. We have a million things to do and a million places to reach- a million things to check off of our to-do list before a million more fills its place. We run around and barely get a breather in between, constantly stressing about the next thing, without giving every thing its proper attention. Our main goal is to finish everything.

    In the midst of all this, we lose track of ourselves. We lose track of the things we like to do, of our loved ones, of everything that held our life together and gave it balance. In running around, we disrupt the beautiful balance we spend years building. We stress over things too much and we push our abilities way past their limits. We put in hours into the things that come up, thinking that they require all our attention, only to realise we exhaust ourselves in the process.

    We can’t be in a million places at once, and unless we’re Flash, we can’t run around so much either. Worrying too much about some things is not worth it. If something comes up that makes us doubt our priorities, then we need to reconsider. We’re all human. We’re resilient, we’re strong, we get things done. But we also get tired, fatigued, and burnt out. We all have our limits.

    Limiting ourselves doesn’t mean distancing ourselves from things that bring us joy and contentment, but learning which battles require our utmost attention and which ones don’t. We can’t be leaving our hobbies and relationships behind to pursue short-notice checklists and achieve Mission Impossible. We need to learn to put ourselves first. Because how much ever we don’t hear this phrase: we matter.

    Written by
    Milomi.

    Image source: https://unsplash.com/photos/CiUiXZZYQGI

  • Complements and Rivals

    When we look at the two extremes of this world, we see life and we see death. We hope that there is an incredible amount of space between them. That we can distance ourselves from death as much as possible. That we can cherish life forever before giving into death, the inevitable consequence of entropy.

    When someone we know crosses the bridge of extremes to meet death, we are enveloped by grief and sorrow beyond thought. We writhe and wonder why- why did death choose them and not us? Why didn’t we see it coming? Why couldn’t we say a last goodbye?

    It never strikes us that maybe life and death are intertwined in this delicate thread- that binds us all. Maybe all of us carry death as we walk the bridge of life. Life and death are not opposites, but rather two experiences that complement each other. As we live, we also die. We grieve as someone dies and maybe another part of us dies with them. As they turn to memories, we wonder if they still live in our hearts.

    Death still speaks to us, through life. And as we move forward, we spot more occurrences of the two, each one more haunting than the last. These events snatch us of words and leave us defenceless; we wonder how we will ever recover. Recovery comes, but it yearns for the courage to keep moving on. The toughest thing that life asks from us, with no guarantee that the bridge ahead is better than the one before us. Life asks a lot. Death does too. Perhaps knowing how to confront the two is how we can move forward.

    Written by
    Milomi

    Inspired by-
    “Death exists, not as the opposite but as a part of life.”
    Norwegian Wood- Haruki Murakami

  • In Search Of

    Quite often, I search for inspiration. I hunt for ideas and long for inception.

    I search in my room and rummage around in my cupboard. I squint my eyes and sift through magnifying glasses and telescopes, wondering how far inspiration is. Wondering why it hides from me and forever avoids me.

    I search in trees, in mountains, in butterflies. I search in windows, in winding roads, in bus stops. I search in books, in stories, in lives.

    Often, it slips out of my reach. I see glimpses of it between my trips, dancing and elegantly twirling farther from where I am. I try to understand it and study it, but I forget it before I can truly express it.

    I think after years of searching, I finally found it. Or at least, what I need to do to actually find it.

    Inspiration is not a destination, but rather a state you achieve during a journey. It is important to start doing something, and inspiration will usually follow. Once you gather motivation and put in effort, inspiration will follow.

    Sometimes, I still try searching for it but it hinders my journey. It’s a long search full of moments I feel like giving up. Moments I feel like I have it, but I realise I don’t. Moments I’m exhausted and confused and wondering why I even search. In those moments, I force myself to simply start.

    The rest will follow.

    Written by

    Milomi.

  • Swimming Pool- poem

    This is a poem about how we settle in with life. How we adjust to life’s rhythm and try to live to life’s beat. How we succeed, how we fail.

    SWIMMING POOL

    We’ve been swimming our whole lives
    Laden with floats and sponges
    And something shouting that
    If we drown, we have someone to hoist us up.
    But we won’t be drowning anyway.

    As we grow, we learn how to
    Catch our breath after every lap
    How to perfect our strokes and technique
    So we can win the race.

    And as we grow older,
    We realise that the race was simply
    An illusion to make us sure we challenge ourselves
    To swim faster, better, smoother
    To be our own opponents.

    Yet as we age
    We find it tough to come up for water
    Almost believing we have gills
    And so it is fine to overexert ourselves.
    We have seen enough (and a lot) of life
    To know how water works.
    We have lived enough in water
    To now be fish.

    Years later
    We realise that we are still human.
    And wonder why we didn’t ever catch our breath.

    Written by
    Milomi.

    Image source: https://unsplash.com/photos/4AQjVB2UrdU

  • The Last Sunrise- poem

    sun

    If I don’t wake up tomorrow
    I want to make sure I see the sunrise today
    I want to breathe in the air
    And feel the blades of grass
    Like a language beneath my fingers, telling me the secrets of the world.

    I want to open my eyes one last time
    And take in the world in awe
    Before my eyes close forever.

    I want to sing and shout and fit
    Twenty years into one night
    Full of lights and promises,
    As we stay up to see dawn
    For the first and last time
    Before falling asleep at night.

    Written by
    Milomi.

    Image source: https://unsplash.com/photos/xg8z_KhSorQ

  • Entangled

    We find ourselves entangled in life. Our stories are each more complicated than the last, threaded with thought and detail. We focus on untangling our own yarns of wool and painstakingly untying knots we find along the way.

    We drag our threads through life. Making sure that we encircle every object, every person, with carefully spun thread. Making sure that we’ll be able to find our way back- through photo, songs, scents, sights, if we ever do have to.

    Sometimes we lose track of thread. We don’t know where our story is heading. We’ve forgotten the past, are uncertain about the future, and barely remember what it’s like to live in the present. In those moments, we lift our heads to look at the yards of wool piled around us. It’s turtles all the way down.

    And sometimes we find ourselves tracing our story back to where it started. Only realising later on that we can only start once we’ve gone back. That we can only start our story once we know where ours came from. Once we know the amalgamation of stories, the weaving of the tapestry that lead to us.

    We still find ourselves bound by thread. But with the knowledge that we can always find our way back. It’s easier to navigate further. It’s easier to experience and express ourselves. We memorise our story and run it over a thousand times. And spout poetry when we attempt to tell this story and capture the true tangles in life.

    Written by
    Milomi.