Quiet and Crooked

They moved the chair from the balcony last week. I didn’t ask them to. But it’s gone now. A plastic one, slightly cracked, always tilted just enough to make you aware of your spine. I used to sit there. Not to enjoy the view. Just to avoid everything else. The balcony still gets the same light. Same breeze. Same rusted railing. But the chair’s absence is louder than it ever was when present.

Funny how objects can be loyal. People—less so.

I’ve started drinking tea I don’t like. Just to prove to myself that comfort isn’t the goal anymore. I never understood people who chase peace. What do they even do once they find it?

I suppose they post about it. With hashtags.

I once sat with someone who said peace tastes like lavender. To me, it tastes like forgetting your umbrella in the rain and not going back for it.

Everyone talks about closure like it’s a drawer you can shut. They don’t tell you that some drawers don’t close because they were never designed to.

There’s an entire shelf in my kitchen for things I’ll never use but can’t throw away. I don’t know what that says about me, but I know it says something.

I recently met an old acquaintance. He asked how life’s been. I said, “Like a well-written TV show that got cancelled mid-season.” He laughed. I didn’t. It’s amazing how much you can say while pretending to joke.

Sometimes I rearrange the furniture just to see if the room feels different. It never does. The walls remember. The air remembers. You can move the couch, but not what happened while it faced the window.

There’s a plant in my house that refuses to grow. I water it. I rotate it. I even talk to it sometimes. It listens. And stays exactly the same. They say plants absorb your energy. This one clearly knows me too well. People love talking about growth. Evolution. Letting go. I smile through it all. Because some of us grow sideways. Quietly. Crooked. We don’t bloom—we endure.

I once kept a cracked mug for years. Not because I liked it. But because it never pretended to be whole.

These days, I sleep with the lights on—not because I’m afraid of the dark, but because darkness is more convincing when it’s dressed as silence.

I’m often asked why I don’t host people at my place. I say I’m not much of a host. The truth is, I don’t like explaining empty spaces to people who think everything has a function.

There are rooms I walk into and forget why I entered. Maybe I’m just checking if the loneliness is still there. It usually is. Sitting comfortably. Reading something I've never written. Time doesn’t heal. It just makes you forget what it felt like to be urgent about healing. Someone asked me what I’m working on these days. I said, “Maintenance.” They thought I meant my car.

When I think about my younger self, I don’t feel nostalgic. I feel protective. That boy had no idea how loud silence could get.

I’ve become very good at answering calls after they stop ringing. It’s less messy that way. Voicemails never ask how you are.

They say you shouldn’t live in the past. Which is true. But sometimes, the past lives in you like an unpaid tenant—quiet, entitled, always staying longer than agreed.

I used to believe in signs. Patterns. The poetry of coincidence. Now I believe in unplugging appliances before leaving the house. That’s all. Just safety. Not meaning. It’s strange how often we confuse the two. I once read that whales can hold their breath for over an hour. I’m not impressed. I’ve held mine for months and weeks—socially, emotionally, atmospherically.

But I’m still here. Still rearranging furniture. Still drinking bad tea. Still checking on a plant that refuses to grow.

Still walking past where the balcony chair used to be.

It never says hello.

But I pretend it does.