Story Scientist

After a long month of tests, trials and tribulations, I sat down with my laptop today to crank out three weeks worth of literary exercise. Guess what I felt after a month of putting away and procrastinating my ideas? Absolutely nothing but nothingness. No words in the tank. And I can’t get enough of quoting Lisa Cron, but it was she who said in her book, ‘Story Genius’, that lady luck writes our stories, or at least a part of them, for us a lot more often than we might think. So here I am, in front of the mirror, which is right where the idea came to me; like that first rain of the year which you knew would arrive but somehow still manages to surprise you. I saw the full-length mirror against the massive locker in the corner of the room. I saw my face, and it stared at me right back. ME. I’ve decided to write about me.

Self-centered, I know. But also fitting, seeing as it was my birthday two weeks ago, and it was one of the best I’ve ever had, even though it was smack in the middle of exam-season. I want to compose something which pieces me together like puzzle bits that do fit, but are all scrambled within the box for you to figure out and put together yoursef. I want to write the letter which I can give to myself when I lose all memory of who I am one day, when I’m looking for my identity in the trenches of social meia, school and work; the summation of the long answer to one of the most elusive questions in the world: Who am I? This is who I am, for now at least. Do this with me, I swear it will be fun.

I’ve surrounded myself with me. My rectanglular bare-wooden desk in the corner of my pink and white-walled bedroom, beside my floral calendar, under my orange desk lamp. I have all the right poems, the right quotes, and the right art on the softboard. There’s books, there’s markers. My favorite pens, even my textbooks with pages and pages of notes and my humongous globe sit beside me, waiting for their turn on the pen. The best part though, has to be the music emnating, pouring in through every inch of the room from my phone: Raag Bhairav from Panit Jasraj. My friend, being the amazing person she is, prepare this playlist for me. Claire de lune, Beethoven, Raagas, Tabla solos, Rashid Khan, the finest. It’s safe to say, almost every piece of me is in this room, this very moment, Even the blue and orange lights with the slightly open curtain and rainy weather mimic my internal lanscape. Oh look, the music is picking up, the taanas are starting. What does your internal lanscape look like? Bring it out onto your desk, that’s your writing nook for today.

So let’s see what we have to work with. I’ll start with random words:

Writing

Story

Skirts

Plad

Music

Shampoo and nail polish

the smell of detergent

EB Garmong font

the crinkle of paper, fitting into the grooves of my finger

the yellow glow, highlighting the round angles of my circle face, the feature I inhereted from my father.

The pink swirls of paint on my walls, chipping away only slightly at the corner.

My past, my present, my future, all around me.

End list

See how I move from words to phrases, then straight up lines? Thats a good start. I haven’t added in the punctuation, consider it as amateur enjambment which is omnipresent (See the joke I made there? No? Ok)

You want to know who I am?

splattered between the pages

of a black, floral notebook with

a manifesto documenting my mental stages

I’m like sandy hair tied in knots

that runs through my crunching fingers

and dripping polish running off the nail,

trampled by the masses of sprinters

And you’ll find me for certain in lyrics

that etch my rosey dream-future

and tear-ink goals scribbled in hope

marked on my 2040 calendar

My favorite words are wistful and love

so I know I was made to have my heart broken

my favorite sound is of the violin undertone

so I know I am a poem unspoken

You’ll find me in every sorry

you have, in your life, ever heard

for it seems like “sorry for being awful”

are starting to become my second favorite words

But if you grab a chart paper

and cut up words to make a letter-collage

you’ll find me hidden in the mess of syllables

playing semantic espionage.

Now, tell me where to find you.

Self-centered? Probably. But worth it? Totally. For 1 hour an 30 minutes, out of 14 hours in your day, if you think about only yourself like this, only to vomit out words and verses which seem to want to keep on going but are better off short…you are milking the greatest resource you have as a poet: You.

So go. Tell them where to find you.

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PS: Major thanks to ‘ArtistsPages'( https://www.youtube.com/@ArtistsPages ) for the incredible art suggestions. They really made the individuality thing I was going for, come to life 🙂