CIGARETTES AND HURRICANES

I want to write. I’ve been thinking how to start for a while now. I don’t know how to, and it’s driving me crazy. I hate it.

There’s so much I want to say. But my mind is blank. Yet words are chocking me. Beating against my rib cage. Clawing my chest. Asking, demanding to be let out. I hate it.

It’s so funny, isn’t it. How laughter gives way to tears. To anguish. To so much misery and anger, and pain, and helplessness. So funny, how you wake up one morning and everything you knew is gone. You’re surrounded by gray walls, gray skies, gray faces. You are a stranger to yourself too. I hate it.

Isn’t it funny, how you could be obsessed with a goal today,a person, a topic, an event then wake up the next day with absolutely no inkling or hint of desire towards the same thing?
I find it partly scary and intriguing, how fast the flames of desire can turn cold. How fast burning passion abates. How a raging storm of obsession suddenly gives way to calm seas of indiferrence . How fast a radiant heart turns cold.

The world has a way of sucking the joy out of everything. It’s designed to try, to test. And more often than not we’re found wanting. Unworthy. Oh, how sad, how devastating, how heartbreaking, it is for a young generation to be so faded, so jaded. Utterly lost. Broken. It is better to die young. With dreams. Hopes. Aspirations. Than to be old and jaded praying for death every night.


We’re stuck on a vicious cycle of self destruction. Get high till you don’t remember your name. Surround yourself with people who you wouldn’t think of calling at 3am when you’re having a mental breakdown and call them friends. Try to fill the hollow inside with everything superficial, try to pretend that it’s not there. If we maybe pretend it doesn’t exist hard enough, it will go away.

Write us a romantic tragedy, my friend says. Write us the saddest story ever. There are no happily ever afters left in the world. Happiness is an illusion. Its a fool’s dream. Its a lie.


Pain. We crave pain like an addict craves his fix. Its what we know. It’s what we are used to. We’re hurting so we’re angry with the world. We’re hurting so we hurt everyone around us. I don’t know how to not be sad anymore. I can’t even remember how it was like not being sad. I feel like it is the only thing I ever was. Sad.


Time heals nothing. We just grow around our grief. Build bigger and stronger walls. To keep all the pain inside. And warmth outside. Walls so strong, yet so fragile, that the slightest show of concern is enough to bring them crashing down. So we wield our tongues like double edged swords. We lash out like wounded animals. Caged animals. Agitated. And we build a fortress of sarcasm and cynicism, and skeptism. To keep all the warmth and light outside. We found a home in the cold, in the dark.

What is the philosophy of our generation? Is it misery? Depression? Is it intolerance, judgment and discrimination? Is it so much pent up anger and madness that the day we burst we will raze down the whole world? Is it coldness, indifference, apathy that we’re always plunged in sub-zero temperatures? Is it running away from everyone, everything, our problems? Hiding from facts and the truth? Refusing to see things as they really are because we will never be ready? The 18s and 19s were the eras of enlightenment and romanticism. What is the philosophy of our generation?


We’re a restless people. Always feeling like we don’t belong. Always running. We never stick around too long. Because we’re afraid. Afraid our past is going to catch up with us. Afraid that our demons are going to catch up with us. We crave freedom like caged eagles. But caged eagles we are. Caged by our emotions, our past, our dreams, our future.

Smiles uglier than crying. Self loathing. So many what ifs and whys at 3am when the world slumbers and the moon shines light on our deepest wounds. When old scars itch, asking to be scratched, to be ripped open, again, to fester.

You apologize too much. I do, too. I am sorry. I am sorry. I am sorry for everything I was, is, and everything I wasn’t, isn’t. I am sorry that I was hurting and hurt you too. I am sorry for everything that I could have fixed and did not. We are a generation too proud to admit our mistakes and apologize. We’re willing to lose what we care about, than lower our pride and ego. Pathetic.


We have loved in vain. Trusted in vain. Laboured in vain. Waited in vain. Toiled in vain. Hoped in vain. Everything has been for naught. We have not only failed to gain the world, but we have lost ourselves too.

I don’t think this is what I want to write. I am not so sure I didn’t go off topic from the word go. I am not so sure I didn’t run away.

Oh love, you smell like heartbreak and a field of broken promises and shattered dreams. Come, let me give you a hug.

November is Men’s Health Awareness Month with International Men’s Day falling on November 19th. Men’s Health Awareness Month is dedicated to bringing awareness to a wide range of men’s health issues.