On Earth, we are briefly gorgeous

I cannot imagine loving with my head. I cannot imagine weighing on a scale just how much you weigh and how much weight am I supposed to carry. I cannot imagine looking at people in economic terms—are you a bigger asset or a bigger liability, is your weight more than the scale that I carry, are you enough return to my enough investment, are you really worth it, can I make a list of pros and cons on either side of your head?

I hear of people being rational and taking rational decisions. I have never known that.

I did, maybe, I might have, at some point, but I think that was more of a defence mechanism, borne out of fear. I still function in fear, but this one is different—it rises out of my heart, and even if it consumes my every living dying second, I would rather logically, rationally make the choice to not be rational.

I would rather buy tickets again if it means you will breathe a little easier upon arrival. I would rather fall sick or have (a couple) panic attacks if it means you do not end up questioning if you are loved. I would reschedule my bad days so they do not coincide with yours too. I would walk around in the sun for hours if it means that your heart will be a little lighter when I keep the phone. I would lose—multiple times (uncountable times)—before I take any rational decisions. I would rather lose myself in my emotions than lose someone else to my lack of them.

I do not and cannot lie, but I have lied to so many people I love. Actually, I think the things I am thinking of are not lying if they are rationally true but are things my heart would never make a thought of.

Maybe that is why I sit in a room, closing both its doors tight, because I know I’m in a world where other people do not do the same, do not love with the same intensity, do not allow themselves to drown in every emotion that they feel. I am as if a mollusc without a harder outer shell, an easy predator, but an even easier prey with an easy enough tell.

I am now a giver who gives even when I have nothing left.

Because then what is love if you only give on the days that you are overflowing with it, when it comes easy to you, when my face inspires such love to flow just easily enough? I think the reason why it is so easy to love babies is only that it is so easy to sacrifice rationality in the face of someone where rationality doesn’t guide conduct, but then isn’t that too much of a reality check about humans? We only love when the love flows easier, when rational sense doesn’t prevail, because we have been taught to prioritise the lesser humanness in us.

Every time I hesitate to make decisions, I ask myself, “Would a computer programmed the same way as I am, also have the same hesitation?” and if the answer is “yes” then I choose exactly the opposite of what my programming would’ve dictated me of. I am human, very briefly on earth, and it is hell to be afraid and immersed, but also heaven can only exist as much as hell can prevail.

So, I make big heavens, which throw me into deeper hells, but every time I claw out, I know my firdaus is going to be even larger. “On Earth, we are briefly gorgeous”, but I think we have lost too much of ourselves in the trenches that declare that hell is only supposed to be knee deep, because now heaven doesn’t even go past my shoulder, and my life is supposed to be even smaller than my own brief existence.

My existence will be bigger than my brief existence

Ishq, junoon, ibaadat—there is a reason they make for good stories to tell. We aspire for it, but we forget that the stories come from ishq, junoon, ibaadat that humans before us have actually, truly felt. I am not okay with only feeling these feelings from a safe six feet distance because at least my body cremated should not be deeper than my hell or shorter than my heaven.

My love gives me so much loss, so much pain on most days. I have scars that I carry, little pouches of my skin that I have, over time, scratched away. But I’m alive and I’m human and I grow every single day, so what makes us think that the chunks we give in love are chunks that will not grow into us again? Why are we so scared to be human anyway?

I’m alive. I’m human. I can regrow myself every second, in hell and in heaven—so why would I be six feet under with the same body that I came into on my first day here? I will leave pieces of love, however much this world can ask for—because everything else can be replaceable, but no one love (loving, loved) is like another.

I am alive. I am human. My hell is a deep abyss and my heaven is the tallest mountain peak and the last cloud I see from there. My earth is bigger, because on earth, I am going to be briefly gorgeous.