social issues – My Spirals

The best men can be.

The best men can be.

So, Gillette came up with an advertisement with the intentions of making us better men. It was gender-oriented and asked us, men, to hold other men accountable for their actions. A great move and a beautiful video. But the comments section was flooded with hurt egos of toxic masculinity. Terribly Tiny Tales brought this to my attention, and I’m bringing it to yours. (I’ve never done this before, but I’ll embed the advertisement at the very end of this post. Do watch.)

Can I tell you some stories?

I had a friend named Akbar. We were best friends when I was in fifth grade and he told me about all kinds of things that happened in his life. He was five years older to me. One day, he told me about how his father beat his mother black and blue. Akbar cried as he told me about his mother’s bruised elbows but we didn’t talk for too long about it. I met his mother a week after that and she wore full sleeves all day. Akbar trusted me with his stories and I trusted him when he said he would become a real man. When he told me about his father, he made me promise that I won’t become a coward like his father.

A letter to you for a word/sentence.

A letter to you for a word/sentence.

Comment down below and let me know what you think. It’ll mean a lot.

To you,
For every time a woman said no.

I need you to listen.

When I was ten, my mom thought it was important for me to learn two things – one, that tomatoes weren’t vegetables and two, that ‘no’ is a sentence. The former because it was the only mistake I had made in my science exam sheet. The latter because every child should know the chaos not knowing what ‘no’ means has caused. My mother spoke to me about her experiences and told me about things that would make me human, or in her words – ‘ would make me happy’. This conversation became my bed-time story that night and I am really glad it did.

Last night, I read about what you, a thirty-year-old, had done to that eight-year-old girl. You will be punished for that and so, this letter is for you to read in one of these two situations – one, if you ever get a second chance to be better in this lifetime (which I know is unlikely) or two, if this letter finds its way to you in your next life when you’re ten. I really want you to become better – so much so, that I am willing to believe in re-births.

When you heard the word ‘no’ for the first time, what did it mean to you? For me, it was when I asked Baba if I could have two ice creams back to back. I was three. When he said no, I didn’t even think about questioning it. I just bought a chocolate instead. I like to think of myself as a writer when I am alone and so, I am going to give my memory a metaphorical reference for you to become a better human. When a woman says no, do not question it or try to persuade her. If that doesn’t make you happy, then get the chocolate – be genuine, ask her out on a date and see if you connect. If that doesn’t work out either, then just read a good book and fall asleep. This isn’t a metaphor.

Being human is really easy. Trust me.

With hope,
The man assigned to hang you to death.

Previous posts: I fell in love with my best friend.
Instagram: @myspirals

Give me prompts in the comment section. Oh, and share this a lot, please?

With my skin burned away, I’m still human.

With my skin burned away, I’m still human.

I cannot begin to imagine,
fathom,
what it feels like to face a change due to a disaster.
Be it burned or harassed or impaired,
anything.
I believe there are two important sides
to this ‘change’.

One, the before.
When I was ten and I lied for the very first time,
my father took five of my favorite books
and asked me to tear them to pieces.
I know I didn’t want to do it,
I didn’t want this to happen,
I wasn’t okay with it.
This
is just a mini-metaphor for the pain
that the warriors must’ve felt.
Their pain must be
a million times this?
Two, the after.
My brother was nineteen when he had a kid
and his girlfriend left him.
He decided to make the child happy
all alone.
He wasn’t ready
but he was ready to learn how to be.
Again, a micro-metaphor
for the lessons warriors have to learn.

I cannot begin to imagine,
fathom,
what it feels like to face a change due to a disaster.

I don’t want to
But I have to
Because every time I hear someone making fun
Of the man with burnt arms
I can feel my own skin peeling away
with sadness and anger
My flesh burning
Scars appearing in the same pattern
Inch by inch
Burned stories etching themselves onto my skin
Personal ones charring away
I become more him than myself
and I use that to make things right.

I cannot begin to imagine,
fathom,
what it feels like to face a change due to a disaster.
But I want you to be able
to imagine what human feels like
by showing you a mirror
when you need me to.

Previous posts: Not all dates are the same.
Instagram: @myspirals

Give me prompts in the comment section. Oh, and share this a lot, please?

A tale of the five senses – 2

Humans don’t use one of their senses to feel something. What makes you think stories can? A tale of the five senses started with the story of rape and is now discussing another important topic. Let me know if you eventually want me to cover more serious topics in this format. I hope you like this.

Sight:
His school hallway was always a slow build-up to that first moment of the day when he would lock eyes with the cutest guy he had ever seen. But that doesn’t matter. What matters is where he lived, why he lived there and what it was like. He often peeped out of the door of his small room. He could see his friends making jokes about this one guy in school who had openly accepted he was gay. His straight friends always flirted with the opposite gender, and he could see they wanted him to, too. He tried to fit in. He saw that in his room, the sky was a dark brown, and so were all the walls of the room. Everything was so dark, quiet and lonely that one could easily confuse it with the inside of a closet.

Sound:
“Such a waste of a fine man” he could hear his friends say whenever he imagined walking up to the cute guy in the hallway. Which one of the two was the fine man, he could not tell. When he was fourteen, he had overheard a guy talking about him. The words ‘cute’ and ‘approach’ were the ones that stuck with him for a long time. A few weeks after overhearing this conversation, he himself decided to approach another guy he liked. He heard a lot of whispers and gasps whenever he told his friends about this decision. They would laugh it out more often than not and say he had a great sense of humor.

Taste:
His mouth was dry the day he was going to approach his crush. There was a faint taste of mint that he had chewed on all morning while thinking and overthinking about the things he wanted to say. “I like you” would make his mouth dry and the thought of kissing his crush would do the opposite. He applied a lip balm that morning. The lip balm tasted like summer and a lot of anxiety. His palms were sweaty and so he carried a handkerchief for the first time in his life that day.

Smell:
His breakfast that day was healthy, very unlike anything he had before that day and anything that he would have after that day. It smelled like avocados, apples and a lot of hope. The buildup to the moment he confessed was long and tiring, but the confession lasted about twenty seconds. When he stood in front of his crush, he could smell the love and fresh cologne. “I like you” took about ten seconds to form into a phrase that made any sense. The next ten seconds changed him for the worse. His crush very kindly told him he was straight, patted him on the right shoulder and left. The summer lip balm smelled purely like fear and disappointment.

Touch:
That was four years ago. He could still feel the pat on his shoulder. He was definitely living inside of a closet. One day, something weird happened that touched him in both a physical and emotional way. The cute guy in the hallway approached him, said “I like you” and kept his hand on his right shoulder. What can I say? The sky wasn’t brown anymore. It was blue and had a rainbow.

Instagram handle: @myspirals
Previous post: The last sunset.
Related post: Earth.

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Often, not always.

What problems of your life are you willing to tackle? Tell me in the comments section below. Also, I added a donate button in the footer of my page, so any one who’d like to use it, is appreciated. Love to all of you, fam ∞

The existence of one,
Often justifies another.

I sometimes face a writer’s block,
But it validates my existence as a writer.

An eighteen year old woman,
Carries sanitary napkins in transparent bags,
Because things are changing.
The twenty-four year old however,
Covers every inch of her thighs and cleavage,
Because things aren’t changing,
As fast as they should.

A boy aged fourteen is in the gym,
And every one is shocked and downhearted.
A seventeen year old boy has love handles,
He is fat-shamed.

You are facing a financial crisis,
Your money is now around your neck,
Instead of growing on a metaphorical tree,
But it validates your financial existence.

The existence of one,
Often, not always, justifies another.

A fifteen year old is cutting her wrists,
But not her veins,
So that she dies only a little.
Because this pain will help her forget,
A part of her life.
Bullshit.

A thirty year old is watching a television show,
And is late for work,
Because he doesn’t like his job,
And it isn’t working out anyway.
Bullshit.

I don’t tell her I love her,
She’ll see my chapped lips and hear my slurred speech,
Laugh like a devil disguised as an angel,
And say no.
She definitely won’t say yes, will she?
I am scared and so, reluctant.
Bullshit.

Often, not always.

Instagram handle: @myspirals
Previous post : You believe me.
Related post : Hearts

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