Preface To My Dedications To A Girl With The Glasses, Or, An Open Letter To The Woman Who Made Me A Lunatic Poet Poem by Souren Mondal

I want to clarify a very simple thing here..
I had done so to you in my facebook message, which,
I am not sure whether you have read or not..
The poems I am writing or the way I am talking about you has more to do with my mental state than my attitude towards you..

I have never intended any harm to you willingly,
but do understand, if you could
that my mind is a mess..

I've been having nightmares since you used that word
In those nightmares I would hear your voice calling me for help..
Screaming my name,
begging me to save you..

Did I love you?
Or is it worth anything to either
one of us at this juncture in our lives?
Perhaps not. I have nothing left.. Neither do I have the same intellectual capacities which I once was very proud of,
nor do I have the same ability to trust people or love them in the same manner that I did..

All I do throughout the day is take antidepressants and sleeping pills and remain numb..

It is as if someone has lobotomised me..
I'm diagnosed with Obsessive Compulsive Disorder,
Boderline Personality Disorder, Major Depression,
and a light dose of Schizophrenia,
in which I do not even understand who I am.

Alongside that I have those nightmares, your greatest gift to me
and cannot even set my foot outside my home without having to fear that maybe I will die.

Now, the only way through which I might reclaim some sort of my sanity is considered or advised to be writing.

That is why I am writing whatever I am writing.

Believe me if I could have helped it I wouldn't have uttered a single

word about whatever you had told me let alone quoting them in my poems..

But, in short, if I need to survive, and that means, not kill myself,
which I have tried now already a few times,

I should better let things out..

The most important of which is your ' melodramatic over reaction',

mostly due to the fact that firstly, I had not enough emotional maturity to cope up with such a word when you said it to me.

Secondly, because it reminds me of my own childhood sexual abuse that signals a traumatic experience
with me.

I have had issues, and although, let's say for arguments sake that my
feelings for you were nothing but an 'obsession' perhaps,
or a 'crush' or whatever,

I had certainly related to the trauma that you talked about there..

Slowly but surely you became a person with whom I empathised to such a degree that I wanted to

make your pains mine, that I

wanted to make you smile and keep you happy to the best of my abilities.

Now once again, perhaps, from a sure shot rational, and purely psychological point of view

this might be considered as a kind of obsession

or perhaps a little too much of unhealthy show of empathy,

or perhaps even sheer lunacy..

Whatever you may prefer,

but from a different angle this

might have been love, for when would someone want to give all of

their time to someone but when they are in
love?

I may well say that perhaps it was an 'unhealthy' love,

one which would have benefitted neither you nor me..

But all I have now is a story of how I met a girl when I was eighteen,

fell in love with her,

got into some kind of 'relationshp' with her when she herself proposed me,
and then broke up with me, which was followed
by a week long spell of terrible emotions where I could neither sleep nor eat,

but vomitted and felt nausea and became a permanent insomniac..

Then after two years the girl came back,

or rather I allowed her to come back into my life..

And for one reason or another misunderstood her, and when she

said something that was so terrible that I became damaged..

Damaged for life..

Perhaps it was my fault that I
thought I could be friends with you, while,
at least in my own mind, I had 'feelings' for you..
But now, after almost two and a half years after these incidents
and that night of 'exaggerations',
I am no longer the same person I used to be..
Nor am I aware who I meant to be or what I am supposed to do..
Perhaps this is a phrase, one that shall pass with time..
But meanwhile, I have no options but to give vent to my emotions lest I lose everything else,
every little bit of sanity that has somehow preserved itself inside me
for reasons unknown or maybe, mostly, psychiatric help..
I am pretty sure you were unaware of the consequences of your words,

as much as I was unaware of my prowess as a confidant..
Either ways, we both messed up, and hurt each other,
which, in mathametical terms would mean we have 'equalled' the shares of our own faults..
Hence, let's not bother..
Neither should you bother about what I write,
and whether they refer to you since it is impossible for most people to even remote guess that they might
be written about you..

And neither should I bother about what you may or may not think about my actions,
which, might be labeled as bizarre, to heinous,
to plain self-preservation.

Have a good life and please do not bother about anything I write,

because somewhere down the line,

I, too have become like just another boy that you have met in your life..

Whoever was responsible for this, no one knows,
neither I'm completely innocent nor you are completely evil..
It's all hanging in between..

I now must find myself again, only through getting through you
and that means,
telling 'our' story, albeit in such a manner, that none shall understand..
But it must be done..
And as Baudelaire had once said 'Hypocrite lecteur! - mon sembable, - mon frère'...

Whenever you will read them,
my works,
you will be same hipocrite that I am..
Best of luck for your life and
wish me luck on my journey to
reclaim my sanity, my old identity, something that i badly want..
Take care...