If only

Going through my stuff a few months ago, I found this little notebook that I used to carry around with me almost a decade ago. Stashed within and on the pages were hundreds of observations, newspaper clippings, little to-do notes and lists, numbers and email ids (when I din't have one and the rest of the world was catching up with Mr Internet), drawings and doodles, a few notes from my PR orientation class in XIC and a whole lot of assorted rubbish. I was marvelling on the contents and about what fascinated me then, when I spotted something. A little piece of paper with a poem (at least an attempt) written by me at what was possibly one of my most nightmarish periods of doubt, conflict and self loathing.

The poem titled 'If only' drew from a line that I read somewhere: "If, a two-letter word for futility". I'm posting it here for the very first time, for public (gulp) consumption.

The need to leave is overwhelming 

To fade away and never been seen

To mingle away with crowds and drown in their numbers

To waste away and die slowly

My heart wants a million things

To be loved, liked and accepted

But most of all it wants to be free

Free, from needing to prove myself at every step

Free from explaining my every move

And agonizing at every wrong turn taken

“If, a two letter word for futility”

How much of my life has wished to be

On the other better side of ‘if’

If only …