The art of losing isn't hard to master
So many things seem filled with intent
To be lost
That their loss is no disaster

It's not my fault

Not dark yet

Shadows are falling and I've been here all day
It's too hot to sleep time is running away
Feel like my soul has turned into steel
I've still got the scars that the sun didn't heal
There's not even room enough to be anywhere
It's not dark yet, but it's getting there

I was born here and I'll die here against my will
I know it looks like I'm moving, but I'm standing still
Every nerve in my body is so vacant and numb
I can't even remember what it was
I came here to get away from
Don't even hear a murmur of a prayer
It's not dark yet, but it's getting there.

Vikings

Dear Sri Lanka,

Nissan cars are godawful ugly. What gives? Pesto sauce is awesome and doesn't require 'imported ingredients' and the world has moved on from nylon clothing. Standard alcohol measures are in multiples of 30 and not 25, and using alcohol bottles to drink water in places of work is weird. Tourists are people too, and though admittedly they might be wearing cotton or other natural fibers, please don't touch them to see how different they feel. Hotels across the world are hiring competent staff, a phenomenon you should really look into. Buddhism is admittedly awesome, especially the kind that allows you to eat chicken because the Buddha was quiet on the issue. I too assume silent assent on a myriad of issues in my life and agree that if people really cared about things like Buddhists eating chicken or having a problem with me playing Twister with a bunch of maybe hopped up on coke Algerians in their hotel room they'd explicitly say something about it.
I have infinite respect for the excellent care you take of your chilled out animals. Everywhere I see happy, well-fed animals, usually in the middle of naps with their bellies facing the sky. The sight of so many exposed stray canine and feline bellies is completely heart warming and the ultimate badge of trust. Your sterilisation programme is something a lot of countries could stand to learn from. Also, your ocean is very pretty if albeit a little disorienting. Your storms were never quite timed to my advantage but very satisfying and fun to watch from the safety of my humidity / air - grease free room. The fact that your money looks like Monopoly money will naturally prove to be my down-fall when I'm back in Delhi, accounting for where all the wads of 2000 rupee notes went, but shopping here was really good fun and cheered me up immensely in an otherwise gloomy and fuckall couple of weeks. Thank you for the non-designer shoes, which are really cute, and you should consider exporting to India.
I've decided to be completely magnanimous and not hold your jinxed soil entirely responsible for fucking up my two months here. And even though my best friend Bunny kept refusing to come visit me, saying there's no way in hell she'd visit 'Ravan Land,' I will think kindly of you once every five years or so.
Cheers.
Murphy

Internet. I give you photos of some awesome doggies I've had the privilege of knowing. And bits of me.

You're welcome.

Internet, I feel tired and miserable and I have absolutely no one I can talk to. Not even you, but thank you for offering to listen. I think it’s imperative I get home really quickly.

Touch and go

The mechanism that pumps the black sludge that flows through my veins feels heavy and full today. I, uncharacteristically, went out on a limb and ended up in an altogether alien place. Everything on this island moves slowly. The people, the animals on the streets. It seems like a place change doesn’t really visit. You can tell by the slow precise way even the weather moves, in the exact same way it did the day before and the day before that. I spent yesterday evening sitting cross legged on my bed, dropping matches repeatedly. It feels like I’ve been here too long, almost an entire lifetime. I’ve spent days and weeks being someone else, unraveling and being consumed. Struggling with my inertia, trapped within my own flesh. Everything seems better and sounds better with a nice voice. You don’t mind being a different person, doing things you know you’ll have a problem with when you look back objectively, as long as it’s done for a nice voice. Of late whenever a friend has had a birthday I’ve told them all that this is the year of happiness for you. I can feel it in my bones. This is the year where nothing will matter, where nothing will be able to touch you. You will be all the things you wanted and you will find happiness over and above the definitions of what you thought you wanted to be. And I’ve meant it every time.
Now, internet, now I’m just tired. I think I’m done going out on limbs and trying to be different. Today I woke up feeling more like myself than I have in a long time. Today I woke up with a familiar distance and constriction inside and it’s both a total bummer and a relief. Sri Lanka was very touch and go. Things came very close to coming to a head but now it’s pretty much time to go home. Pity I didn’t get a chance to wear my hari mirch green windcheater.
Today this very annoying man at work, had a fifteen minute conversation with his clients where he only said ‘Hello’ at the beginning and ‘right’ every thirty seconds. Was it very rude of me, internet, to break out into an uncontrollable fit of giggles?

I am liquid love and mistrust.

I was the person who held a piece of green jade tightly in my palm and focused till I felt it burn. I still carry it around with me everywhere and it’s something I haven’t thought about till today. I was under the impression I don’t really believe in symbols, I don’t set store by talismans. It’s who I am. It took one horrible, unforeseeable event for me to realize that I had a lot riding on an event that was never meant to be a big deal. A month, a blip on the radar of the bigger picture. One horrible event for me to realize that too much is simply happening around me and that at an unconscious level I have as much regard for my rules and policies as the people of Delhi do for the environment. Today I feel tremendously foolish. As of yesterday I was a confused person who didn’t really know what I wanted of life or what to do with it. Today, somehow, I don’t know myself even more, if that’s possible. It’s as if only on stumbling have I realized that I’ve been falling for a while.
I feel too old to chide myself. Too weary to set about making a firm resolution to remedy this situation. All I want to do is lift my hands in defeat and not have to bother about any of this. But today has buttfucked my happy inertia to a point where I feel like I can’t allow myself to ignore this. I am too old to go along for the ride and worry about consequences later when evidence of this nature presents itself. But mostly I just want to be happy and stop worrying and whinging so much. I don’t know what to do, internet. I don’t know who to be. I don’t set store by symbols but the minute my symbol begins to reveal its cracks all I do is buy a small mountain of chocolate and drink.