Dear Self

Dear Self,

Don’t put yourself between the ending of this year and the beginning of a new and judge yourself. Even if no one else sees it, you know how much you have grown as a person this year. You know about all your little achievements, and it doesn’t matter if they are insignificant to others. You lived through all the sadness that came into your life when you lost your loved ones. You broke down but you also got back on your feet. You realized that enduring any kind of toxicity from people or work is not worth anything. You traveled to find yourself and to realize the power you have in you to rebuild yourself. And remember how you are turning your loneliness into solitude with the little steps that you have started to take for yourself? You became more forgiving. You gave yourself the time you needed and didn’t force yourself to become someone you are not. You did fulfill the promise of being more honest about how you feel. You gave a lot of fucks for a while because you cared and later chose to care more about yourself and not give any.

The baggage you had carried for so long only made your shoulders strong. It has been so great to see you not giving in and going with the herd. This journey has been tough and so have you. You made some good friends along the way. Some left without a goodbye. But I’m glad that you never left your side. You have you, and that’s more than enough.

It’s all right if you couldn’t do all the things, you had planned this year. It’s all right that you took a break from a few of your goals. It’s all right that you missed some deadlines. Nothing could have been more important than giving yourself some time and space to breathe freely.

Even if no one says it, know that I’m proud of you. Don’t rewind to count the misses but the blessings. Don’t put any kind of pressure on yourself to party, or to take yourself to the hills to celebrate the new year. Lay down. Get lazy if you want. Soak in the sun or snuggle up in a blanket. Do nothing, maybe. You have done a lot this year.

Love and Prayers 🌻

Giving VOICE to my poetry

Hello to the one who’s reading this!

Hope you are doing well and keeping safe. While a lot changed during the pandemic, and things still remain uncertain, I am sure that all of us discovered something within ourselves. 

The thing I found, or if I could say, the thing that found me during this period is recitation. I had never really believed my voice to be good enough for spoken word. However, I let it get into me only to realize that I love doing it. I believe that it does add some value to the words I write. It’s indeed fulfilling.

So, here is me, sharing with you my YouTube Channel where I will uploading my Spoken Word Poems, both in English and Hindi. 

Here’s something sweet like candy for you to listen to – Two Kids at a Candy Store 

If you would like, you can subscribe to my YouTube Channel and you’ll be notified whenever I make my poetry LIVE on the platform. 

Please do listen and drop your comments! Let me know if you like it or how can I make it better. I would love to know your thoughts! 

Thank you!

Yours truly                                                            Kritika Vashist

​Okay Being Average

Right now a guy is all cuddled up in his blanket watching a movie on his laptop. Today was like any otherday for him. He got up in the morning, made himself a cup of coffee, had cereals in breakfast, took a shower in the afternoon, wrote “n” numbers of emails, attended calls, walked his dog, ate dinner.

When you would see him, you would call him average. The world would say he is just another guy. Well, indeed he is average. There isn’t anything amazing that he does, or in anything that he does. He wakes up and goes to bed just like every other person in this damn world. His coffee brand for once might get changed but the way he beats his coffee never changes.

Right now he is watching a show just like an average human. He doesn’t approach a film or tries to analyze it like an artist. He enjoys it just like he enjoys writing and singing songs in between the busy moments of his life. The world only knows about the 100 unread work emails, but it does not know about 30 drafts – stored with some beautiful poems, some unfinished piece of writing, idea starters for a song, random words waiting to turn into something.

He is one of your average folks who has his own average struggles, bathroom speeches, and dreams. He is okay being average. He is okay being called average. He knows that being average does not mean being ordinary. He knows it well when he sees his dog catching the same frisbee every day like he is doing it for the first time.

Kritika Vashist

​What do you want to do next?

I have been on this vacation with you for the last few months. It might seem like one of those long vacations one would dream of, but we know that this hasn’t been quite like that. When one falls in love with a place, they only wish to stay there and never want to leave. I guess, it happened with me after we saw that sunset behind the mountains together. It was the same sunset, but what the blue did to me, the orange glow of the dusk couldn’t do for you. Perhaps, it wasn’t  enough to make you stay even for one more sunset. 

Did we plan what our last destination would be? I do not remember us deciding where and when do we stop, or how do we go back from where we started. Maybe we are acting like kids, but it feels good to know that the happiness of being foolish is real.

There is a playlist of memories that I have unknowingly created with you on this journey, and whenever I close my eyes to listen even while I am living a few of them, my heart tells me that this vacation is going to be the longest one that it will carry. I do not know if I like to hear that, but I don’t mind believing that it’s true. I am not afraid of forgetting. I’m afraid of not remembering them enough.

I have been on this vacation with you for the last few months, and I believe you enough to know that we are only going to visit good places. I do not ask you where you want to go next, but I want to ask what you want to do next. It’s getting a bit chilly today, so before we begin would you help me light the fire? 

Kritika Vashist

​Getting Ghosted on Halloween

There were a lot of questions that I wanted to ask him before he left for a long vacation without telling me.

Did you take your favorite black sweater with you? Do you remember the recipe of the soup that instantly heals cold? Have you kept your playlist ready because you know that you hate travelling alone?

I cannot say that I know him well, but I do know that winter is his favorite season. He likes to feel sunlight falling on his face. He likes to build small tents under the starry sky and stare at it like a child. I cannot see myself guessing where he must have gone, but I do know that he does not miss being here, with me.

I am sure he could have found me fixing a broken flower pot on the terrace, but I guess, his impromptu holiday plan did not leave him enough time to say goodbye. I try to anticipate his return while carefully keeping the flower pot back in its place.

The habit I formed with him of looking at the sunsets every evening poked me in the ribs but there was no way I could go outside. The sunset from the window looked pale like my skin. The keys to the house were nowhere to be found. I think he forgot to keep it under the doormat, or maybe, he mistakenly took it with him. So, I plop myself on the couch in my dingy room because I’m too afraid to leave the house unlocked, and wonder if living life alone is the scariest thing in the world, or is it the love that you give to someone who would never reciprocate?

I stare at the wall and hear the loud and slow ticking of the clock. I try to miss things that were never really here. There is nothing here. There is nothing except a few photo frames hanging on the wall, unfinished paintings and sketches on the study table, a silent guitar placed right next to the list of the song he once shared with me, and a speaker playing a song on loop since he left. I do not know if I hate or love that I have kind of become indifferent to the song’s presence in the room. However, I wish it was louder than the emptiness that fills the room. 

There were a lot of questions that I wanted to ask myself. How long will I have to stay inside? Should I leave this place unsafe for my own selfish reason to go out to watch a damn sunset?Are there enough memories to play on rewind until I get this fixed? Should I wait for him to come back and find the keys with me?

I do not know if I will find someone who will willingly take care of my place while I go and get a new key made. I do not know if the house is capable of keeping itself safe. 

It’s Halloween and I am scared of losing myself in finding a stupid key that you could have safely handed to me before leaving. 

I do not know why you thought that ghosting me on Halloween would be the scariest thing to do. The scariest thing that can happen right now is leaving this house unlocked even if there’s nothing to be stolen.

Kritika Vashist

Unknown Writer

It was time to lock the house up

And set it free.

He said he could no longer 

Bear the way the writer would make a drink

Emotions being spilled from the top of the glass

Love, hatred

Attachment, detachment 

Leaving, letting go

An unbalanced taste.

He said he could no longer 

Look at the pole across the road

Trying to add their own chorus 

To a song that would sing itself.

He told the writer that

They could stay together, but

Without the overflowing drinks 

Without a song.

A poem without a picture,

A glass without the drink 

Were packed by the writer.

It was time to bottle up 

It was time to lock the house up

The house that never had a door.

Kritika Vashist

The Events

You saw it from a distance
I smelled it around

You took a step
I saw it coming towards
Towards,
A bit of you
A lot of me

The sky wore an unusual cloth that day
You saw it dying
I saw a shadow on it

You threw it away
I took it with me.

– Kritika Vashist

Raindrops

The light in the room was dim before he entered and drew the curtains. The weather outside seemed pleasant. 

He sat adjacent to me, picked up his diary lying on the table, and pulled out the pen tucked in my hair bun. The curtains were blowing by the wind outside. Clouds were moving, some near to each other, some far away. 

I closed the book I was holding, and looked at his thoughts wandering around the corners of a page. A few raindrops fell on the window pane, to gently meander.

The rain had started to pour down few seconds later. Raindrops fell on the muddy ground, on leaves of the plant kept near the window, and a few tiny drops fell on the page of his diary. 

My eyes could no longer trace raindrops falling on the window pane. They fell on the surface and got merged. While a few on the leaves got pinned, the rest glided themselves down. 

The sound of quiet was broken by his “damn.” The raindrops that fell on the page were slowly merging into the warmth of his words. 

He closed his diary and I closed the window. 

– Kritika Vashist 

Unwritten

I’vee left all important details

at the footnote of my half breath  

while all the little details cover my pen, 

that rests somewhere inside my diary,

like flowers of gratitude on a gravestone. 

But it’s in creases on the bedsheet 

that can take you to the story

some of which I lived,

and some I couldn’t.

– Kritika Vashist 

In The Woods

In the woods,
I could see green trees,
and feel the embracing wind,
while hearing the music of our footsteps
as we walked together, at the same pace,
holding our hands firmly,
like the leaf holding its branch.

I remember you telling me about spring
under those filtered bright sun-rays
in the sound of silence.
I remember feeling like a butterfly
on the most beautiful flower.

In the woods,
a season passed and autumn came.
I stood under the almost bare tree
when the unfiltered sunlight fringed me.
I remember you loosing the grip, walking fast,
crumbling the fallen leaves, abstractedly.
I remember feeling lost in that noise
on the trail leading me nowhere.

In the woods,
I waited for the spring you told me about,
but it never came.

-Kritika Vashist

 

After being away for so long, I realized that it requires a lot of dedication and efforts to maintain your blog and write something regularly. Also, during this time I lost track of a few friends here, but I hope the rest (I still see them here) are doing well. So, in case you remember me, here is a hello from my side. 🙂