rock bottom, from delhi

19th November, 2025.

welcome to a new city, the smoke is this way, the stars are that way, and if you look ahead, a perplexing nothingness blooms, a long, dark winter. i hope you brought a mask.

i heard your mother grew up here. and that you were born in moolchand hospital. do you come looking for something? or are you open arms, bare stomach, on your back, ready for anything that comes your way?

you fluttered around a bit, looking for your flowers, a soft landing, somewhere to fall, in love or otherwise, and your gradual descent brought you straight to rock bottom. what do you see from here? is this the view you wanted, in the thick of it all, the heart of capital suffering. do you believe in the nation state now, with its hands on your throat?

from here, pain sounds like another word for connection. and friction, another word for truth.

ruin is second nature to me. i know how nature reclaims a body. but i’m so scared of picking myself up. of losing you in the process. of not needing you. i’m tired of always doing this alone. i have mastered the arts, the expression, the performance, the proving of points, the running in circles, the preservation of squares. but it's not enough. it's not the reason i begin.

it's the world that forces me to lift again. the morning after, the work, the money, the tireless agony of having a body, and a world that needs change, a time that knows movement.

i have been thinking most of the playlists i make and beg my friends to listen to in order, are actually best listened to starting from a particular pivotal climactic song in the middle and then to the end and beginning to that song again. for all of my love of collecting stories, i’m tired of all the plots, the character arcs, the trying to be a better man. god fucking dammit aadi, you're not a man. deal with it.

what is a subject? a muse, perhaps. i’m only complex when i’m loved. lately, writing has been a desperate attempt to love myself. to tediously comb through my insides. and i’m a mess of hopeless shame. it's all i find, tears streaming down my face and neck and hands, in the tangled wires, in all the music, layer after layer of shame. shame in wanting to be held. shame in rejection. shame in being ashamed. shame in wanting to kill myself. in not being a better daughter to my mother. sin after sin after sin, the latin roots of my words burn against my tongue.

what is a subject? whoever is amused, perhaps. i only want to be a thought. someone's memory, desire, maybe. my own, maybe.

i don't want to hesitate. to perform my disbelief. i’m sorry for my uncertainty, my silence. i want to know love as second nature. and a better future as the third. i’m so sorry for all the lies. i thought i was doing my best.