If you are reading this, we have moved on.
Or type this link into your browser: https://shreyavikram.com
Why should I care for the hidden half of an eyeball, or the virgin arch of a foot? Never meets ground. What’s the point in that?
Leave it to the lesser beings. I study crisp veins on the back of my hand, skittish in the leaving. Leap, like hunger in your gut, deep and near all at once. I once met myself on the street.
I asked: do I know you? My voice shook with that hesitant lilt of the shame that comes with forgetting. It was that time of the day then.
When the sun was bright like it always is. Even when we have left and cannot see it. The wind breathed like it always does and everything was the same. Except the water. The water was moved.
I did not notice this. Though the same sun and the same wind was there, because I knew them. Maybe only because I knew them.
Isn’t it sweet, to think of someone being because you have chosen to realise? I guess I am trying to say there are fragments to this- even though the whole is still whole, even though there is no real division- where you can pull things apart, like broken corpses, or mannequins.
The body is only a sum of the limbs when you forget the torso. A tangle, a bird weave. Maybe even a basket, where you could put yourself either in or out. In or out, which one is it? Choose.
That simple, just don’t look to the thread. The thread serves no one, but the basket. The basket can hold. The thread serves no one, but the needle. The basket knew it would inherit the whole before anyone said so.
But we are here now, all of us, here, now, some mishap in the hand of the world, and we are not prepared to be seen. We’re not ready.
We have scuttled underneath beds and dining tables and behind doors and over ledges. We have even stood there, near walls, closed our eyes and whispered please please don’t please don’t look at me and we are not prepared to be seen now.
I am sorry, but we are not.
You cannot argue with that. However, if you would like to assume-
this responsibility- if you are the type of person who breaks before the gunshot- if you have run harder than ever when your body screams at you to stop- if you have hit the ground dying so you can fall to hell in pieces- then congratulations.
We will consider your proposition.
When you are ready.
The end is yours to keep.
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Looking forward to it
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As sharp and lyrical as always. I love your writing. Clear, in one sense, yet evocative and rife possibilities.
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Thank you so much, Philip. How are you doing?
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Beautiful writing, Shreya! 🙂
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Thank you, Tom! How have you been?
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Great, thanks! 😀 Still slowly releasing new chapters on here every Monday & the occasional short story on certain Fridays – well done on your personal domain! Hope it goes well ❤
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Brilliant! Thank you.
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Glad you enjoyed it!<3
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This is a post i could save and savour daily because of its poetic qualities. To me, you are a poet of great beauty
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Thank you, Leelah. This means so much to me.<3
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Wow, I’m baffled. Really admire your style.
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Thank you, Henna. Thrilled to hear you enjoyed the piece<3
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Oh, I’ve been waiting for your update for a while now, girl! I know I probably sound like a broken record but as always, beautifully written. Me favorite line was “…we are not prepared to be seen. We’re not ready.” There were others much better but this resonated with me the most because that’s the kind of day I had.
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I know I know, it’s been too long. I’m attempting a lunge into literary magazines, so most of what I write is going there, and when I do have a piece, I’m usually down because of a rejection and it feels like the world is ending and I can’t bring myself to put anything up. Sigh.
It seems like that’s the kind of year I’m having. That moment when you’ve finally gotten everything you’ve wanted and it looks perfect, it is perfect, it’s everything you thought it would be and more, only you simply aren’t what you thought you would be. Sometimes I can swear I hear the universe laughing at me.
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Looks like we’re kind of in the same boat there. Wierd, isn’t it, how things look up one minute and the next it’s like you’re sliding down a steep cliff? I myself am struggling with maintaining my glass-half-full attitude these days. Something seems to have flipped inside me as the year reached its 50% mark. I don’t know what it is. Maybe its the monsoon, maybe its my day job or something else entirely but it’s causing this nagging voice at the base of your skull to drum time and again. A constant humming that keeps murmuring that this dream isn’t meant to be. Curious, isn’t it? You’re supposed to become wiser, surer as you grow old. Yet all age seems to bring is wrinkles and doubt…
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Brilliant piece, Shreya! I look forward to your new site.
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Thank you, Eugenia!<3
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My pleasure!
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Who is ‘we’ at the end?
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To me, ‘we’ referred to the body and some part of the self that was presumably separate from the body. Dissociated, because of a discrepancy in time, in space, in perspective. The basket and the thread. Both objectively the same, yet indisputably different.
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Looking forward to your the new site! 🙂
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That was remarkable! Thanks for sharing.
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Thank you.
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Cool. adam.messer@gmail.com
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Thank you for trusting me with your time and space, Adam. You should be getting a welcome email soon, so watch for that. If you’re not seeing it, I might be caught in spam.
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Thank you, thank you for finding me. I love your writing.
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Thank you, Jeni. That means so much.<3
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AMAZING! ❤ Gosh, that all-powerful basket, I swear I will lie flat on it, half of my body in and out, ridiculous or not. Haha. The scuttling part sounds like we're cockroaches! Yikes!
My favourite part from this: "if you have hit the ground dying so you can fall to hell in pieces."
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So glad to hear you enjoyed it! Thank you for taking the time to read and comment. How have you been?
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Hey Shreya, I am trying to set more guidelines in my life and be more discipline! XD How are you?
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That’s great! I’m doing well. I went into a bit of a slump recently, so I’m trying to lay back for a while instead of forcing myself through it. I feel like I burn out all too often; it might be good to let myself recover at my own pace.
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I loved the last line – “The end is yours to keep.” – This one stuck in my mind in a good way! 🙂
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Thank you, Chris! How have you been?
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I’m well thanks – been busy and stretching myself too far, but I won’t bore you with the details 😉
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How is the build of the new website going?
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It’s all coming together. We’re very close to done, but I just can’t seem to let it go. You know that feeling when you’ve worked so hard on something, and you can’t bear the idea of actually exposing something so delicate to everyone with no cover whatsoever?
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I do know what you mean. In a sense when we do things creative we are exposing our inner soul to the world. But that’s no reason to hold us back. – Also websites can be updated and will evolve, so will likely change over time 🙂 Best just to get things out there and then there’s nearly always things to learn or improve.
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Mm objectively, this makes sense. But I guess it’s just that fear of not being able to control what you’ve created anymore. And leaving yourself vulnerable like that. Everything is safest inside your head. Did you ever feel like that, when you were releasing your books?
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I’ve found, the more I write, the better I get at writing, although there is a point where feedback and reviews are just subjective.
The first writing I ever put online was a set of 6 short stories. The majority of the feedback was really positive and this did push me forward. But I had a few pretty bad reviews and a tiny amount were just rude.
At first this did bother me, but having experienced such feedback I’ve a much tougher skin, and now if I get a bad review it really doesn’t bother me that much. – Also from those stories, I could see areas I needed to improve on and I studied creating writing and developed my writing style. Along with now a having a process before I put any of my writing out there. – Such as I always get my work proof read (my grammar isn’t always great 🙂 and getting feedback on the storyline. – This I feel is kind of a shield for me and my work. This may sound obvious, but some of this was a learning process for me.
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I understand what you’re getting at. In a field where so much is vague and undefined, it definitely helps to have something to lean back on, a sort of pattern, a habit, a ritual. I think so much of overcoming that fear is just finding your creative process, and learning to submit to it with every single word. Building a bridge of sorts between the intangible and the tangible. And then again, so much of it is simply writing, as you’ve said.
It’s a strange, beautiful pursuit.
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p.s. Also great to here the site is almost done 🙂
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brilliant write up, good luck for the new site and new venture.
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Thank you, ESP! Delighted to hear you enjoyed it.
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Poetic and yet, profound prose. Thank you!
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Thank you, Claire. This means so much to me.
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Woah!!
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For some reason I feel a sense of anxiety in the beginning, but then it feels like things unwind a bit. Definitely a well-written piece.
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I’m so glad to hear you enjoyed it. Thank you for taking the time to read and comment.<3
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eivish.zee@gmail.com
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Beautiful writing
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Thank you, Divyen
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