To somebody

~ Kavya Manonmani

Did you wake to the 5 am “to study” alarm? Did you run to the hostel bathroom to keep your bucket reserve at 6:30? Did you realize again that the iron was underheated because you forgot to swap it with the mobile charger at the socket? I know you blasted your ears with rock music all that while. Did you tell your roommates bye before leaving? Or did you leave the room last? Oh wait, you didn’t check the mirror. Did you reach the mess before 8:30? You didn’t eat again? You sleepwalked even though you were 10 minutes late for attendance, no? Do you know the topic of the anatomy lecture? Did the professor call you up again to answer because you were depicting the different stages of sleep? Did you bunk the 11 am class? Oh, you finally ate lunch! You are just going to scroll Instagram after 4 pm again, no?

Damn.

Calm.

I woke up at 5:15. I did keep my bucket at the bathroom, but only at 7. And now I have been waiting for half an hour. I did begin to iron without realizing it was my phone charger that was still connected to the extension box. Yes, I do like old English songs no one knows about just because they have good guitar solos. I left the room last but at least I attended the morning class. I left the fan on again. Never mind the mirror, that’s a terror anyway. I walked to class instead of the 10 rupees share auto even though I was 15 minutes late and had to beg the teacher for attendance. Oh! I tried listening to the anatomy class for 10 minutes! Heaven knows I tried! I sat through the 11 am class! I fed my literally creaking empty stomach at the mess hall with a bunch of girls singing along with the sun music song on the mess TV.

Calm.

That voice of the inside never shuts up, does it?

So let it go, brother! It’s okay you are not the perfect kid your neighbour will tell their children about. It’s okay if you can’t sing and dance and play the flute and be the fastest on the race track and be the topper. It’s okay if you would rather sit in a library than club around when people your age only post raves on their stories. It’s okay if you want to eat everything even when you want to be the fit hottie. It’s okay to laugh at some jokes others called cringe. It’s okay if you did something so impulsive that even your cool brother doesn’t want to hear about it.

It’s okay if you were a coward here. It’s okay if you weren’t sorry there. It’s okay if you didn’t smile. It’s okay you cried. It’s really okay that you lived, brother!

Give that to yourself! It’s your first time living life too! 




P.S: I was on a train watching a pretty scenery and life just flashed like that 😊


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