The
air was chilly. It was late in the night and I was coming back after being
dropped by someone midway. Midway. I could feel the chill. But not the one that
was around me, the one that was inside me. I don’t know when I started crying.
I don’t know how long I cried. The only words that echoed inside me were these,
‘I do not belong’. ‘I do not belong’. I chanted it until all the salt inside me
flowed out.
I
do not belong to anyone, anywhere. I do not belong to people I call my own, to
home I go everyday, to people I serve. I do not belong to the bunch of people I
meet every now and then while sharing poor jokes and good alcohol. I do not
belong to that one close friend I deeply care about and get intermittently
cared in return. I do not belong to that last relationship, the ashes of which I
still carry within me. I do not belong to those casual dates which, if nurtured
could have meant something. I neither belong to that fling where lust
overpowers sanity and self-respect, nor to that one night stand when I went with
somebody I didn’t want to.
I
do not belong to those chirpy coffee conversations about wedding planning with
girlfriends or to morbid conversations about office politics. I do not belong
to those lectures where I am moral policed and also to those freewheeling baseless
talks when I am told I can achieve anything I want.
I
am almost, always out of place. Almost, always I am somewhere I shouldn’t be,
with people I don’t want to be around, doing things I don’t care about getting
done, talking about things that don’t matter to me, living a façade. And yet,
yet I do not know why do I go along. When every fibre inside me wants me to
stop trying to ‘belong’ somewhere, someplace.
Because.
I. Do not belong.
