They’ve turned the oven on in Delhi again. The heat just adds a layer of frustration to the usual anxiety of the coming work week. In this way, I think of how people don’t change, of how often we let the cruelest of us get what they want, simply because they were persistent enough. Or to put it differently, there’s something about the consistency of familiar neglect and abandonment, of our accepting our fates, like a Delhite embraces the heat and pollution, that we keep returning to these sultry Sundays/crappy lovers.
This Sunday, I feel treacherous towards myself.
As if I were a distant lover to my own self,
who occasionally spoils her partner on her own terms,
without listening, I remain pre-occupied with my own ballads,
to ever bother with my lover’s lament.
I don’t need the self-care I give myself.
I suppose this is a jilt at their finest.
One who deserts themselves.
No matter how neglectful I may be towards others,
no matter how many plans I flake on,
texts I forget to reply to,
be rest assured – I treat myself worse.
I disrespect, dishonour and humiliate myself
but the most crushing of all, I deny myself.
I sweeten the blow with the occasional treat.
I am my employer personified.
I can’t fight them while being them,
can never beat them at their perfected game.
Hollow reassurances of taking care of myself won’t cut it.
So won’t insincere declarations that I do love myself.
It is time, once again, to return to spring.
To begin, where all love begins.
It is time to bear witness to the life in me.
dysphoria diaries 