Janaaza

Trigger Warning: self-harm, suicide, death

I cried every day for months. I would wake up crying, go to sleep crying–and it wasn’t a sweet sobbing or tears streaming down my eyes–I really cried. I cried like a mother cries for her broken womb. I cried like a madwoman, swaying and falling. I cried like my world ended a little bit every moment of every day. I cried with all the voices in my head as I let out all their tears through my eyes. I cried everyday as if I wouldn’t get another day to cry. 

I cried for you, for me, for us; I cried for ruining something that had healed me; I cried as if I am Rumi and I lost my Shams. I cried as I fell to the floor unconscious. I cried as my hands flailed around as if I was drowning in my own tears, my own melancholy, my own fears. I cried and cried till I thought I had cried it all out, and then I continued to cry even louder, so that everything stopped in its tracks to hear the cries. 

I cried in the shower, at the top of my lungs. I cried in the garden as I ran and I ran while my lungs and my feet gave out under me; I cried as I ran as if maybe the running and the crying would kill the sadness, the guilt, the shame, the immense self-loathing I felt, the sense of doom on my head, the curse that I had brought upon me. 

I howled at the sun and at the moon and at the stars. I howled in the mirror and I howled as I picked on my body as if my hands would somehow find the spot where all this feeling was buried and then I could somehow cut it out. I cried as I put a knife to my heart. I cried as I tried to gouge my eyes out. I cried as I tied a noose around my neck. I cried when I couldn’t go through with it because I was a massive coward instead. 

I cried that day. I cried so much. I spun around in circles with my hands pointing above. I cried for the pain to be over, for me to be taken away. I cried for what I had lost, I cried for months and for days. I cried, because I knew it was the end. I cried because I knew, I knew, I knew, I just don’t know why or how or what, but I knew that it had. I cried that day as if I was standing at our funeral. I cried that day as my world flashed before me and the years slipped from my fingers to only tighten their grip around my body and my tears.

I cried to god and to the universe and to myself, I cried to whoever would listen and I screamed away all the voices in my head. I screamed till I couldn’t feel any air in my lungs—I thought that maybe that would kill me, atleast there wasn’t a question of bravery or cowardice in this. I survived and I cried till my cries turned to screams again. I cried in red (in bleeding anguish) and in blue (in grief, too immense to be left); I cried in yellow (the madness of swallowing poison for a moment’s happiness) and in pink (in divine feminity, in the loss of completeness); I cried in black (in anguish, in ashes, in broken soot-covered photo frames I held). 

I cried for days and weeks and months on end. I scratched the floors and my face and let the salty tears simmer in. I cried, just so that I wouldn’t ever cry again. I cried as if it was death, of everything I had felt, everything I had known. 

I cried as if 
tera hi janaaza ho, 
jaise mera janaaza ho, 
jaise humaara janaaza tha woh.