#NaPoWriMo Day 10: Changed, Unchanged.

Today’s activity by napowrimo.net is to write a ‘Junk Drawer Song’ (you can read all about it here).

Basically, we combine notes made after listening to a song that speaks to us and after rummaging through uncoordinated items in our drawers, and write a poem out of it. It’s a really fun activity to do because there is so much potential in this one, no matter what song you pick and what items you have hoarded in your drawer.

Personally, I picked the song titled ‘Wu Ji’ (translated from Mandarin pin-yin: Unrestrained) by Xiao Zhan and Wang Yibo (listen to it here), which happens to be the theme song in the OST of the Wuxia drama titled ‘The Untamed’ (watch here). It has been a favourite ever since I watched the show, because it holds a lot of emotions, so I decided to draw my poem from it. Here’s a translation of the lyrics so that you can see all the lines I drew from the song.

Lastly, don’t forget to read the poems written by my best friends on their blogs (Kittu’s Modern Mixtape and Amour Infini) because they’re amazing writers and we’re doing NaPowrimo together this year.

Now, I hope you enjoy reading the poem! Don’t miss the endnotes for more. Xx

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The moonlight breaks through my tinted window panes
Somewhere around half past three,
The moon is cold as it always is
And I am as listless as can be,
Alone and awake
Amidst the darkness and its melancholy—
Eyes wide open,
Mind present in the moment,
I know of nothing else but
How can I pretend it was all a dream?

The letters I hoped you’d keep safe in your chest
Remain unopened, unread and unsent with me.

All I am is a floor scattered
With empty bottles of paint,
Adorned with splashes of all the colours that I,
I once would have let you colour me in—
Torn and crumpled pages from a diary
I can no longer bring myself to write in,
Shrivelled petals from that one solitary rose
I saved from the bouquet you left me forever ago;
All I am is a mess,
Scattered and tattered with empty bits and pieces
Of a past that only stabs knives into me,
One inch at a time,

Well,
Dying is slow.
Dying is lonely.
This pain will fade, but the ache will last forever,
Everything has changed,
And yet, things remain unchanged.

At four, I’m humming in the moonlit dark,
Absent-minded songs and poetry I wrote for you,
For all the promises you made of crossing oceans for me,
The moon is as bright as it can,
So why do I remain listless, still?
Songs I once wrote, heady, intoxicated with love
Now taste bitter at the back of my tongue,
And now that I am awake,
I’ll think of nothing else,
I’ll let myself pretend it was all a dream.

Eyes rolled back in bliss, shut tight,
I’ll let the weight of the waves of sorrow crash into me.

All I am is a painting left incomplete,
And I stand at the end of the road,
At the edge of a cliff that stands amidst the clouds,
I look around,
Not knowing where to go from here,
Now that I’m left with the pieces of you
That only ever remained with me,
Much like the love I once I thought I had,
Like the last few drops of faint perfume in a vial:
There isn’t much left of me,
But there’s enough to float around you the entire day,
And then forever, unrestrained, in your memory.

The moon, tonight,
It’s unusually bright,
As bright as it will always be,
And I am still listless
As I mirthlessly laugh at the world’s volatility,
I’ve weathered storms with heart still wide open,
The ache is forever, but the pain is fading,
I can no longer fool myself into believing it was a dream,

Everything keeps changing around me,
But some will remain unchanged, still.

~© Shubhangi Srinivasan.

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This poem is about how we struggle to get over certain people, or even certain things. We tie our emotions to such minute details in life, we begin to associate every single thing with them. Frankly, this is normal and it takes a while to get over something that runs as deep as heartache and actually heal from it. This poem is just a reminder that maybe things have changed, and you have changed along with all of it, but there are parts of you that will always remain untouched and unchanged, and wholly yours. I hope you liked the poem.
Yours truly,
The Shubhster. Xx

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Featured Image by Kym MacKinnon on Unsplash