Reverie

  I marvel at how you romanticise broken cups and use them to plant rosemaries in your kitchen garden Smile at unwelcome rainclouds and put on retro hindi songs How every fight with you turns into a heart-to-heart and a bone-crushing hug How even at your lowest you never disrespect your perpetrators Anger doesn't end in fistfights and a power struggle How it's us against the problem and not you versus me How I don't have to explain myself in fear of being thought of as 'too much' I can cling to you and not be 'clingy' Stand my ground and not be a 'feminazi' It's been a long day of balance sheets and bar charts And coming home doesn't feel like purgatory Laughing or not laughing at your jokes  is not a task anymore I pick daisies from mountain sides to put in your hair and don't think of clicking a picture for the world to see I don't write sonnets for you but you find yourself in every verse anyway Winter hasn't felt this warm bef

 With the advent of the Winter and the year end festivities, I am often visited by an old friend of mine. Unlike Santa, this friend of mine doesn't shimmy himself down my chimney on Christmas eve. She knocks on my door unannounced, during New year's on some years but often she drops in with the early north winds as Autumn sheds her leaves and preps for the cold months. She brings in her wake a chilly nothingness and a draft of hopelessness. She curls up beside me on my unmade bed, pulls up the covers and rests her head on the pile of laundry yet to be put away.  She was supposed to be a comforting friend, a companion on those cold, lonely days yet the closer I hold onto her, the emptier and more drained out I feel. I started to dread the Christmas festivities as it meant the slow but sure nosedive of my mood and energy levels into the arms of my friend and my nemesis, Seasonal Affective Disorder or SAD (what an incredibly fitting acronym). This year as I slowly start sinking in