The magic of painting!

The bristles of the brush

They feel like a magic wand.

The palette and tubes

Colorfully set to capture the hues.

Red, green, black, blue, white

And various shades from mixing them right.

A flower.  A tree. A man. A house.

The sky. The sea. The waves. The clouds.

I always used to paint in my mind.

But now I see them coming alive.

With therapeutic strokes,

One canvas at a time,

It's becoming an addiction,

And I want to forever feel this high -

The joy of bonding to what art is;

The happy smile from being called an artist.

-Shwetha

The Loud Voices of Silence

There is complete silence in the exterior.
But the voices in my mind are so loud!
I can't focus on what I need to do.
I try hard to pull away, 
But it is a tug of war too strong for me to fray
I loathe my contradicting gray thoughts
That frame of mind filled with incessant thinking
That takes me nowhere.
I want to stop the wandering,
As much as I don't want to.
'Compartmentalize thoughts' many preach. 
I cannot even comprehend it sometimes.
So I turn to some calming music 
And force myself to begin work with the basic.
Maybe, I will succeed ..
Now that I am done writing this piece.

-Shwetha

Which Part?

There is a difference when someone wants you to be a part of their life and when they want only a part of you in their life. 

Mirror Mirror make me Tall

Tall Mirrors - I loved. 

The way it made you feel when you look into it.
A complete reflection of who you are.

I was someone with confidence and displayed it without trying to.
I was made aware by others that I possessed it and I embraced it at ease.

As I now stare at my mirror not looking straight into it, I think back on why I got this custom made 5 foot mirror.
There was a reason that I loved it - a reason I had forgotten.

I was never afraid to see myself the way I was.
But lately I have shied myself from the mirror.

I lost my confidence by merely believing that I don't have it.
I was harsh on myself emotionally, believing I am far from perfect.
I had distanced myself from the beautiful mirror that once made me smile
I had forgotten that I had to see through my soul too and not just others'
After all, I did believe that if you didn't love yourself you couldn't love the world.

So I stood up and looked at the mirror.
All I had to do was to dust it along with my mind.

- Shwetha

Practise being Positive

Everyone feels low at some point or the other but it is no reason to let them dominate. Negative thoughts are cultivated, it grows if you let it grow.  Same goes for being positive and happy. Practise smiling, practise bouncing back when you feel low. Start practising this for the very smallest of falls. This will help strengthen your power to be resilient. It won't be too long before it becomes a matter of habit. Soon you will want to laugh when you feel low for too long, because its just not you to be so. Such is the power of the mind.

Rumbles of a Searching Soul

"I've been lying like this for days. Oh, I just want to sit up now. Not just be awake - I want to feel. I want to feel the fresh air from the morning. I want to feel the chaos of the street, the unpleasant traffic. I want to have a plan for the day. I want to get going. I want to be charming.

But I'm here.. Still lying,  drowning. I can hardly open my eyes, I see some light flashing through my lashes, is it the afternoon sun? or twilight? It seems like lightning on a dark sky. It is … I can hear the thunders and my heart beat along … I was never scared of the thunders, even as a kid. Why am I scared now?  I want to break the shackles I feel, I want to fly … like the time I felt cold air beat my cheeks when I jumped off the plane. I was happy, I was falling free and I hadn't felt anything like it. I was high, I wasn't afraid, there was nothing pulling me down other than gravity. But now I cannot get myself to walk - something I've known more than to fly.

I still want to go out there you know – my heart wants to do things of the unknown. I have always liked the normal milestones of life – enjoying high school, being a good student; a good daughter; a great friend, wanting to fall in love; to marry; to have two kids. But a big part of me also wants to break free - more often than usual. I want to be out somewhere, to feel challenged to my guts, to experience anxiety I've never known, to have a smile amidst all the uncertainties because I know it’s going to be good. I want to feel that. Live that. Once!

I want to step out from the mundane. I want to quit from all the known. I want to jump off to a path that I can’t explain to myself why I took. I want to find out at the end that it was just the best thing I ever did. I want to be the ‘me’ that I've still not become. I want to set myself free."

-Shwetha

The cobwebs of life

Stuck in the cobwebs
I can't get myself out

I flounce and escape one thread

But another many i spawn

I can break it all if i must

But i can't gather the force to thrust.

The strings pull me down, the clinging hurts in pain.

The web that i very hopefully spun is now stifling me, all in vain