Starry Eyed Blues.

The bags beneath her hazel eyes sang of the dreams that kept her awake at night. Lingering inside her mind like the smell of cigarette in her grey fluffy sweater. She laid in her bed hugging her soft stuffed animals turning and twisting, changing her position in every fifteen seconds and checking her phone in every twenty. She remembered how easy it had been when she was a kid, there was no pretense. Whatever people were, they were on the face but now she had to figure out who was what on Instagram and who they were in real life. Eventually, people would show their colours. Her late night buddies, year long boyfriends and instant crushes. Her diary was filled with poems about mistrust and heartbreaks and her head with memories she would soon forget. Often she wondered how much useless information she had gathered over the years that were of no use now, all the favourite colours of all the ex boyfriends and their favourite food. She only wished to meet someone who liked Nachos as much as she did, the crunchy sound and slightly salty taste mixed with a hint of herbs and dipped in cheese. Lots and lots of cheese. Her broad hips were only a small amount to pay for her love for late night munchies. She knew that some people liked her hips a lot, for them it was a major turn on and then there were some who judged her for it perhaps some days she felt like she didn't own her body at all. It all comes out later when people start getting that sense of ownership on other person, little by little they start introducing new rules that nobody states up front. In the beginning, everybody lies and then later, they all break your heart.

She felt like a romantic relationship is the only deal where the Terms and Conditions aren't laid upfront, you only know as you go. What kind of business is that?
So she wrote in her diary,

To All The Boys,
You Have That Smile
That Makes Me Fall In Love
But You're Not Vulnerable
And I Only Seem To Attract Desperation
There Seem To Be So Many Conditions
In Loving Me

Her mind traveled so many places even though her body laid numb on her comfy cushiony bed. She knew that the isolation was getting the better of her but she couldn't do anything. Just when she had gotten her shit together an entire pandemic came between her life. After all the novels she had read, she had thought that the world would end with a zombie apocalypse and not a work from home. She had already eaten through her packs of Nachos, Cheese and Herbs, Peri Peri, Beetroot, Barbecue,all of them were gone. Whoever that had decided Nachos weren't a part of essential items was an absolute moron! All she had left were her tequila flavoured chocolate shots but of course they wouldn't give her the high she needed. So her mind spiraled into her failed relationships. She just wanted to wrap herself in the white bed sheet sink into her bed.
Whenever she felt too big or too conscious of herself, when all of her problems were zoomed in to a hundred she would travel in perhaps a futile attempt to escape. Now all her plans were put on hold and all she could do was scroll through the pictures of funky Passport Covers which would not be delivered to her house. She just wanted to escape but couldn't. Not being productive was bothering her too, not being able to write was infuriating but how could she when her brain wouldn't shut up about the arguments she lost a couple of years ago. The only thing she had been able to do was paint her nails in blue colour with shining shimmering stars on them for if she could not fly for now at least she could feel the sky in her hands.

The few calls that she had made during the lock down made her realize that not many people were worth talking to at this point since everybody was losing their shit, slow emotional outbursts mixed with shots of dalgona coffee was driving everybody nuts but for her, slow emotional outbursts had been a way of life even without a pandemic now it seemed that everybody had taken over her way of life too just the way they claimed her love, her food and her body. This was truly annoying but at least Ramayan was playing on Doordarshan. It was only a few days before things would be alright again and she would be out there again for people to love and judge. There were only a few that she could truly call home, people that knew her, people that weren't there just for chai-sutta breaks but unconditionally and she couldn't wait to share her lock-down blues with them.