My sweet girl, my loving girl, my innocent girl made of clay.

She is slight in build, her body curling and winding like a growing vine as it digs its roots and finds its strength. She is young, too young for such heavy emotions, too young for the tear tracks etched onto her amber cheeks. Her eyes are brown, dull, blunt, framed by short lashes. The sandy skin of her body is marked, scarred, evidence of all she’s endured. Talons dragged down her back. Pointed fingers. Imprints of hard hands holding her wrists. She is too soft, too soft for the world’s rough treatment.

I fear what lies in store for you with the break of coming day.

Yet when she loves, she loves with a ferocity deeper than love. Her emotion grows swiftly, strongly. She wants and she needs and she holds and she clings, and as she grows closer and closer, the impressions begin to form. This little clay girl molds herself to the ones she loves, like pillars, gritty, stone pillars. And as they scratch at the skin of her hands as she holds them, still she continues. She thinks the pain, the sharp twinges, the dull aches, is necessary for the joy, because she has never known it another way. 

I know not if you have always been this way.

If she clung to fire, she would stand and stay even as her eyes drooped and her hair melted and her skin dripped to the ground. And if she loved a statue of ice, she would let the frost creep over her skin in rivulets, till she too stood as still and silent as her companion. 

With your soft young heart that you so happily give away.

Finally, she succumbs and departs, limping away, nursing her scabbed skin, her charred fingers, her numb toes. In some quiet garden, she would sit and smell the scent of freshly upturned earth and be at peace, until a rose, lusty and heavy-handed, winks at her in his scarlet glory. He would kiss her bruised hand and touch her face gently with his soft petals. And as they embrace, once more, she would endure the prick of his thorns, and smile. 

My sweet girl, my loving girl, my innocent girl made of clay,

I fear what lies in store for you with the break of coming day.

I know not if you have always been this way,

With your soft young heart that you so happily give away.

Her first layer was the coat of armor. For days and days, I hammered away at the burnished steel, till at once, the metal gave way with a sharp crack and fell away off her still frame. Then the thick lambskin cloak, tough vellum, hardy even under the teeth of my blade. Underneath, black lace, with spiders and dragons and snakes woven into the fabric, hissing, spitting, clawing, biting. The fearsome images told a frightful story of nature and wrath, winding along her torso. Then her skin, cold and colorless in death. It melted away like the delicate paper of a moth’s wing, crushed and powdery.

Perhaps I expected to find scrolls, telling her story, carefully recording her words and deeds for generations to pore over. Or instead, gears and springs of shining gold and silver, proving once and for all that her determination and persistence was truly inhuman. Anything, I wanted to find anything. Jewels, winking at me from within the bones. Flowers, vines winding around her ribs and up towards the light of her eyes. Any sign of her singularity, her unique self, her shimmering spirit. I prayed to see the light of the heavens emanating from her soul, wound about her spine, blossoming into her skull. Maybe I even hoped to see hellfire, to see the heat that fueled her rage and strength, drove her screaming into battle, fighting in a shining whirl of blades, ending in bloody victory.

What did my trembling fingers touch instead?

Ash. Just black dust, shifting at the slightest breath of wind, fluttering away in spirals and disappearing into nothing. That’s all I found within this creature of such passion, such victory. The remains of a once-passionate, once-victorious human. Because after all, she was, in the end, just a human. A human who could perish, who could decay, who could be erased. Who could be thrown to the winds and be forgotten in a day, a month, a year.

The wind shifted, and as I watched, she left me on a breeze, headed east for the sea, leaving behind an empty shell and silence. No pounding of armies. No screech of steel against steel. No cries for mercy and death. Silence and an empty shell. And I was empty indeed. 

All you can see staring back at you are cold, dead eyes. The lights above you are bright, blinding. The floor rumbles and crumbles away, the small plot of ground upon which you stand becoming a pedestal. The pastel walls peel away to reveal the bare facade of an abandoned theater, unearthly in its former glory. You stand on a cracked stage, the yellowing papers in your hands telling a story much older than you, and much more important. 

Your classmates, once fresh, full of sly smiles and sharp tongues, are colorless. As you watch with a growing sickness, their skin dessicates, shrinking over the bone, pulling their faces taut and pinched. With a horrible tearing sound, the leather peels away, revealing the rotting meat underneath. And the metamorphosis is not yet over. Muscles dissolve into ash and swirl away, fading into the dark background. Soon, all the dilapidated seats are occupied by skeletons, uncanny grins, glassy stares. 

The words on your paper have begun to move. They wriggle and twitch like maggots. The stagnant space of the room is slowly drowned with the sound of applause. The dead are clapping for your silent speech. The symphony of clicks, bone against bone, rings in your ears.The crescendo eventually reaches such a peak that your screams are lost in the incessant waves.

And when you open your eyes again, the spectacle is gone. The classroom has reformed, and the students resurrected. 

But the eyes remain. The cold, dead eyes. 

So, let’s talk. Let’s talk about someone the world just loves to talk about. He’s this kid from Canada who likes to sing a bit. And his name is Justin Bieber. 

What I’ve noticed is, there’s a hell of a lot of polarity in people’s opinions of him. There’s a section of humanity that seems to be salivating over him 24/7. And there’s the other section which hates him and wishes the earth would open up and eat him alive. Now where exactly is the problem in that?

Let’s go back to the year of 2008, when Bieber was first discovered. Or rather, let’s go back even further, to when he was a kid in the 90’s. He probably grew up listening to the same kind of bands I did, being a ‘94 baby. *NSYNC, Backstreet Boys, etc. Boy bands that catered to an audience of preteen to teenage girls. Being someone who loves singing and does it relatively well, he probably dreamed of doing the same thing one day. Fast-forward to 2008, when he is discovered, by luck, on Youtube, as a result of videos his mother had been posting of his singing, and young Justin (13 at the time) must have thought it was a dream come true. And wasn’t it? To sign a record deal with Usher? Start recording music with a big-name record company? 

Soon after his first few songs were released, people immediately began bashing him, calling him out on his music, his voice, his look. So let’s touch on all of these. His music doesn’t sound much different from the rest of the pop music that plays incessantly on the radio these days. My thought is, if you don’t like a single song of his, you probably don’t like any of the Top 40 songs that play alongside them. At the time of his first album release, Justin was, say, 14. Sure, his voice was pretty damn high. But I challenge you to find a 13-year-old male singer who doesn’t sound like a prepubescent. Still excusable. And in case it has gone unnoticed, his voice is definitely deeper in his latest songs. Sounds like a tried-and-true case of puberty, kiddos. And then there’s his look: the “Bieber hair”, the ear piercings, tight jeans, “kicks”, studded jackets, etc. It’s an interesting look overall. But rewinding to the 90’s, during the heyday of boy bands, let’s be honest, they wore some pretty ridiculous shit. You remember the ramen hair? Not cute, Justin Timberlake. But no one heaped that much hate on them for following the style of their particular generation. And no one called them out on their masculinity for it. 

So that brings me to my next point: it’s become a pretty popular insult to call Justin Bieber a girl, or point out his lack of penis. I’ve already covered the detail of his voice; repeat: it has gotten deeper. But it’s become pretty fashionable to insult men by calling them women. That’s a whole argument altogether, but let’s consider how Justin sees this: he’s a boy who grew up seeing other boys make music for young girls and be praised for it, so he grows up and does the same, and is absolutely thrown under the bus for it. So a lot of it may actually stem from jealousy (understandably so, apparently, Forbes named him the third most powerful celebrity in the world and earned about $55 million dollars in the past year). But he caters to an audience, just like any artist, and that audience pays up.

Essentially, what I’m trying to say is, if you’re going to hate a celebrity, have a valid reason other than jumping on the bandwagon. So you don’t like Justin Bieber’s music? A-OK with me, that’s a matter of personal taste. No one requires you to be a rabid fangirl. I personally don’t like the majority of his songs. But what exactly is your problem with Justin himself? Even if you don’t like his music, respect the artist. And if calling him an artist seems a bit superlative, at the very least, respect the kid. Keep in mind, most of this shit has been flung at a kid who has legally been a minor until about 9 months ago. I have no doubt he’s had to develop some pretty tough skin to get through this business. 

Shuddering. Shivering. Cold and broken on the side of the road. Strangers walk past me, their silent feet passing before my face. I dare not look up and see someone that I know and see the shame in their eyes at my crime. My crime. I awoke this morning, unknowing that I would be a criminal today. For stepping onto the wrong bus. For catching the eye of the wrong man. But I struggle understand now, my body aching, how it was my fault. 

Flashes of light scream into my eyes. Harsh smells burn my skin like acid. Rough touch is like fire on my face. Days and months and years, I have laid here on this hospital bed, feeling the pain of generations. It unites me with the past. To know that thousands of my sisters have felt the same burns. We are one in our suffering. 

Bruises stripe my skin and beads of blood pattern the stark white linen underneath my unmoving body. My eyes are swollen shut, but I can see. I can see the memories and they will never leave me. In all the time I have left, that is what I will see. Locked inside my mind, trapped inside this body bitter with bruises. 

But I do not feel just pain. I feel anger. It courses through me, renting my mind apart with the injustice. I will see them hang, whether it is in front of millions or on the feverish stage of my own mind. Because I deserve justice. I will die to be the example to start a revolution, for all the crimes that go unnoticed. I will die for the silent sisters. 

RIP - 23-year-old student from Delhi

ink-drops:

I am not a blade, but my power can slice through men so easily. I am not a gun, but I can explode with all the force of a bullet. I am not a mallet, but I have built nations. I am not a bomb, but I have felled empires. I am not gold, but I have unnameable value. I am not a fist, but my strength has no limits. 

I have no voice, but I whisper tales from centuries ago. I am no tomb, but I am the memory of a million souls long dead. 

I am the foundation, the building blocks of civilization. I can form pedestals and I can topple giants. I can murder and steal and feed and save. Wars stop and start at my call. I am authority at its basest form. I hold the power of mankind. 

I am your history. Your knowledge. Your technology. Your laws. Your legacies. 

I am a sheet of paper. On me, you will entrust your deepest secrets, your hidden desires, your roaming thoughts, your bottled ambition, your budding ideas. I will be your champion, your ticket into the everlasting. Touch your pen on my surface, bleed your ink into me, and you shall be immortal. Even after you crumble away into dust, your name shall live on through me. I will exist long after the world has turned gray and withered. And then your words will be etched into the stars. 

What a tantalizing way to leave the world. In a shower of broken glass, like pearls. A still, youthful, sharply beautiful face. A free pass to join the choir of singing angels in heaven. 

If I could tell you, from across a desk, that you would be buried in less than three years, what would you say? You seem as though you would continue on, shaken, perhaps, but determined to enjoy the time you were given. Gifted, as you would think. 

And perhaps you felt no fear, in the final moment. A woman of faith, you clung tightly to that belief as your body broke. Unless there were doubts. Did you have doubts? Did you see your flaws as everyone does? When you looked in the mirror, did the blackness of your sin peel the pale skin from your face? 

I knew very little of you. I knew a facade. But it seems I will never learn your faults. It is strange that when a person dies, the tears that their kin shed act as a glue, sealing their lips together, so that they may never utter any of the flaws of the deceased. I never knew you as anything less than perfect, and that is how you will be remembered. 

Wherever you are, I hope you don’t have to walk alone. 

It is dusk. The sky is that strange color of indecision. Trees are reduced to black, twisted creatures against a maroon backdrop. Birds are dark streaks, landing on these animals, fusing with them, becoming one with the entangled branches. Does the absence of sun mutate once-familiar objects into monsters? Or does its rays simply disguise the true nature of the world around us?

The sky is gradiented. Everywhere it comes into contact with the rough earth, it is an angry red. As if the touch itself is unnatural, wrong, painful. Perhaps the sky belongs far above us, untouched, untainted by our rough skin and uncouth habits. Wherever it deigns to reach out, it is infected, inflamed. The heat in our souls, the anger, dissatisfaction, violence, it seeps into the delicate membrane of the sky and poisons it. Is our hate so contagious?