How can you be anything but...

I am usually optimistic about everything in life. I believe that no matter how wrong something might be at a particular moment, it is still the very same moment someone else is finding true love. Or realizing his or her dream. Or eating a sinful and tasty treat. Or stopping to smell a rose, and then sit on the curb to write a poem about it. So, it's just a matter of time that that person becomes you.

Some days, though, are very hard to get through. Like yesterday. I woke up unwell. Some fever, some body ache. But nothing I couldn't deal with. The day was ordinary. Things took a turn late at night. There was an argument I did not see coming. Listened to abuses I was too shocked to respond to. And hostility that seemed so bitter and rancid, that it seems to have festered for nearly a lifetime.

Outburst over, I sat in my room. I thought I was calm. I think I started folding clothes. I wonder why. Maybe smoothening wrinkles after being abused is akin to mopping blood stains after a massacre. You have to clean it away. For the longest time, I tried to focus on something else - something happier. It was getting on late into the night. I was scared of the bile swishing sleeplessness that awaited me. Have had more than enough of those in the last few years. The fever became worse.

Just before I drifted off into an uneasy sleep, my mind and heart slowly came to an agreement...that perhaps this is as dark as the nights come. No use looking or hoping for sunshine. No point craning to see that dazzling spot of light. My heart and my mind, after years of conflict, seemed to have reconciled over one thing - I will never be carefree and happy again.



Outside, the sky, silent and soft, listened to everything going on inside me and said, "We'll see."



And the next day, the sun shone...again.