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From The Afterglow

Verses, Tales, Thoughts

by Varsha Panikar


Here we are, teetering on the edge of a pointless argument, like two characters in a low budget rom-com who haven't quite figured out the script. Why, you ask? Because you've got this work trip on the horizon, and in my infinite wisdom, I've decided a good row will somehow make saying goodbye easier. Bit daft, isn't it?



Silly, really. But there's this weird comfort in it, like we're playing our parts in a strange play to brace ourselves for the upcoming separation. The more we argue, the less it'll hurt when you're away.


Funny, right? Love makes us do the oddest things. That suitcase by the door is like a prop in our little show, quietly witnessing our over-the-top performance. We'll probably look back on this and have a good laugh.


It's all a bit much, especially considering how glued at the hip we've been during the lockdown. We've navigated every day together, and now the idea of being apart feels like uncharted territory. Full-blown separation anxiety, right?


But hey, it's just a trip, right? We've conquered bigger dragons than this. When you're back, we'll shake our heads at this melodramatic prelude to a brief adieu. Isn't love hilarious?


Yesterday's memory is fading. Fading from bright to dull, in tides wading. In saying I was strong, you may laugh at me. But in saying I was brave: I can still stand tall with scars - unyielding, my spirit unbroken, my heart still yearning for the thrill of the chase. But it wasn't me, just the ghost of yesterday.


Today, I can try to smile at the little things. Today, I rise & see oppurtunity. Today, I shall live a ghost in my immunity.


Tomorrow, if it ever graces me, I will not regret. I will not turn back on today, nor yesterday. I will find my solice in letter and predictions. Tomorrow, if I am awake & alive, my indomitable spirit will blazes brightly, even in the face of death. Tomorrow, like any other day, I will live a spirit of liveliness. I will shock myself in words, action and politeness. Tomorrow, I am a ghost in silence.


I am a ghost, a paradox, dead yet living, a king in my own realm.

Yesterday, I was a trace of today. And tomorrow, a silhouette of now.


Constantly, I am a ghost. Always changing in smiles and shape, in hours and days. I haunt myself. Who I am, contradicts who I was and who I will be. And even though I know this, I will not cry, nor frown, and never ever change. For a ghost is a testament to the indomitable spirit that resides within us all. A foolish thing to be ashamed of.

A zine by Varsha Panikar from their ongoing mixed-media series, Origami Folds, that employs dreams, memories, archive and photography to explore the human body, and uses it as a medium and metaphor for hopeless fragility and hardened impenetrability, from which emerges the themes of identity, dysphoria, commodification of the body, and denial and loss of autonomy as conditions of globalized society and cultures, through the lens of south-Asian, queer and marginalized bodies.

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Trigger Warning : This piece deals with depression, anxiety, and body dysphoria.

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