Behind the Wall

It's dark in here. Dark and damp. In the distance, I can see a flickering light. I don't like it. It casts shadows. Ghoulish shadows which send a chill down my spine. I divert my mind from the shadows and go back to focusing on the task at hand. The splinters on the cold, wooden handle on the hammer dig deeper into the pale skin on my palms as I relentlessly hammer against the concrete wall. The cement begins to crack and chip, but barely gives away.

These walls were built with a lot of care, so meticulously, with the intention that they will be impossible to break. The difficulty of the task is best known only to me. I’m the one who built it painstakingly, brick by brick, layer of mortar by mortar. Like a mother who nurtures the child within her with her own blood and flesh. Strengthening him with her determination, extending the best of her capability towards his development. This wall was my baby. It was my creation. It was my key to survival.

And now, as I hammer away at it, my heart experiences for the first time what they call a sense of freedom. An emotion I have never felt before. With every speck of cement and brick that chips off the wall, I feel my wings break out. Those invisible chains around my wrists begin to unlock. The shackles on my ankles slowly start to dismantle.

Again that flickering light. Again those ghoulish shadows. This time they mock me. They throw stones at me. They point at me and laugh out aloud. “Stupid! Naïve! Immature! Foolish!”

My hands feel weak. I can’t hold on to the hammer anymore. The splinters on the handle have dug way too deep. I can feel the nauseating smell of sweat mixed with blood rising from my palms. I throw the hammer away and recline against the wall. I soak in the damp, cold sensation of the wall against my bare skin. It still reeks of my tears. The crevices between the bricks are alive with the moss of broken dreams and promises that were never kept.

I shut my eyes and let the voices of the shadows in. They grow louder and louder. They grow stronger and stronger. They thunder, they rumble, they fill up the room, they fill up my mind, they fill up my soul, they fill up my eyes and then they come to a crescendo.

Suddenly I feel a sharp pang of pain in my back, my wrists and my ankles. The wings are receding back under my skin. The chains around my wrists are beginning to lock again, tighter than before. The shackles around my ankles grow back, stronger than before.

I go back to lying down on the cold, hard floor in fetal position. My hands clenched, knees curled up and face curled down till they meet. One last tear flows down my cheek as the wall looks down at me and whispers into my ears “You're not ready yet. Go back into your deep slumber. I will watch over you” 

Some realizations...

With valentine’s day just around the corner and daily facebook updates on friends, colleagues and classmates getting engaged or married or having babies, I am tempted to go on another occasional visit to my old friend; my blog.

Here’s the deal. For the last 3 years of my life I have been single. During these 3 years, I came across several occasions where I could have got into a relationship, but every time, something or the other went wrong. There are a wide range of reasons why things didn’t go “as per plan”. Either the guy initially felt strongly attracted to me and over a period of time realized maybe he just wanted me in bits and pieces (why can’t you keep the good stuff and get rid of the bad) or I was branded “not marriage material” or my past wouldn’t go down too well with his “family” or the guy simply wasn’t “ready” for marriage. But those reasons or those “almost there” relationships is not what this blog is about.

This blog is about how each and every one of these “encounters” impacted my overall well-being and sense of self and my subsequent realizations. My first reaction to each of these “backfiring” situations was self-doubt. The second reaction was developing an extremely low sense of self-esteem. So much so, that I ended up dropping my standards and falling for men I would never have considered even for having a cup of coffee with, let alone spending my whole life. I can safely say my standards dropped even below what my ex would have thought befitting of a “woman like me”.

That’s when I took probably the most important decision of my life. The decision to move out of my parental home and live by myself in a house I could call my own and run by myself. A house that I would gradually transform into a home. I am somehow convinced that this decision is even bigger than my decision to divorce the man whose girlfriend, wife and subsequently “property” I was for almost 4 years of my life….that too at its prime.

I’ve been constantly been perceived as a tomboy since I was a child. However, I must admit, that for the last 2 years or so, I had been feeling this strong nesting instinct. So much so, that I told my parents to search a boy for me so that I could get married again. Not because I thought I was lonely and needed company or because I’m 28 and that’s the right age to settle down or because I genuinely wanted to fall in love again. But simply because there was this unmet need to create and nurture a space of my own. How extremely stupid of me! I should have done this moving out business long time back, but I guess in my head, there was this strong age old notion that the natural answer to one’s nesting instinct is to get married. So when I was finally able to get over that idiotic notion, I went ahead and created a nest of my own, minus the man and marriage aspect I previously attached with it.

There are a couple of strong realizations that emerged out of this situation:

• Every guy who thought I wasn't “marriage material” can seriously go to hell. I wake up in the morning, make breakfast and tea for myself, shower, offer morning prayers, go to work (which by the way I take very seriously, and I am proud of that fact), come back home and cook for myself, call my mother, do my laundry, clean my house, write a blog (occasionally), go for a walk (again, occasionally) play my guitar, chat with my friends and extended family, listen to music, watch television, read a book while I sip my bedtime cup of green tea and then go to bed. Your mediocre, biased mind which would never have looked beyond the beer mug in my hand may have never perceived this, but you losers, I am much more balanced than probably your own sisters or your future wife is going to be. Unfortunately, the loss is yours!
• Every guy who thought I’m some kind of a “party animal” can seriously go take a walk in the zoo and probably get eaten by the lions there. A girl who enjoys going to a pub or hanging out with her friends occasionally is not a party animal, but a normal human being like you who likes to socialize because that’s what human beings are. Social animals. But obviously, you're too obsessed with your “baba aazam” ke zamaane ke views of what a woman should do and shouldn't do. Which includes “women should only go to a party/pub when accompanied by her husband/boyfriend/father/brother. What the hell was I doing even contemplating life with a male chauvinist pig like you? FYI, I’m so busy doing all the things I mentioned in “point a”, that I anyway don’t have the time to do all the activities I have mentioned in this point. Again. The loss is yours! I hope you enjoy carrying your future wife’s hand bag and shopping bags!
•  The men who found my “past” to be something their “family” wouldn't be able to digest, I just have one thing to say to you. If your family thinks it would have been wiser for me to be married to a man who resorted to unmanly means of controlling his wife, I think it’s good that we never ended up together. I can understand a person being dominating because that is a gender neutral characteristic which could be applicable to anyone, but using emotional and physical abuse as a means of dominating another human being is simply barbaric. And if your family has contempt instead of respect for someone who opposes this barbarism, then it’s good that things between us didn't work out because they would never have been able to understand or respect me, no matter how much of “point a” behavior I would have demonstrated in your house. This time, I think more than your loss, it is my gain.
• Every guy who thought I was “demanding and stubborn”. I have nothing to say to you. Only time and a couple of relationships and probably a marriage will enlighten you on what “demanding” women look, feel and behave like. May the forces be with you!

The last and final thing I want to say to each of the guys with whom I had an “almost there” relationship in the last 3 years. I am glad things didn't work out between us because I now know for a fact that I’m capable of a lot more than I knew myself to be capable of and if it wasn't for each of you, I would have probably spent my whole life being ignorant of these capabilities. Thank you very much for saving me from making a mistake once more and good luck to each one of you in finding your “happily ever after”.

Before I end this blog, there’s one more thing I'd like to add here. It’s not that I came across only jerks in the last 3 years. There might have been someone who genuinely appealed to me, understood me and struck a chord somewhere. Someone who was so different from me, yet so much like me in so many ways. Someone whom I think I understood better than a lot of other people. Someone with whom I didn’t have to put up any pretense and who didn’t feel the need to put up any pretense around me. Someone who kept up with me even after having borne the brunt of my sometimes aggressive and sometimes passive mood swings. Someone who I think felt a great deal of comfort in my company simply because I never judged or condemned him for being whatever he is. These last words are for that person. 

It’s unfortunate that circumstances, time and a lot of other elements are not on our side, otherwise, life would have been very different. Yours, mine and ours. Having said that, I hope you find your "happily ever after" soon. You need it more than I do :)

Wage slave: Adj. – “Term used to describe someone who feels it is their moral, ethical and professional responsibility to sacrifice personal time, family time and overall living life itself as an attempt to justify the monthly remuneration an organization pays him/her for delivering twice the amount of services that same monthly remuneration truly justifies”

Welcome to the life of a wage slave. I’m one of those billions of faceless people who belong to the lower strata of economy. We don’t have the luxury of living life on our own terms because the way the world functions, if we want to live life our own terms, we first have to spend considerable amount of our life living it on terms which are dictated by other stakeholders in our lives like society, family, friends, relatives and trade! By the time this considerable period of time is over, we’re either diabetic or heart patients and have no energy/willingness/enthusiasm for life, let alone live it on our own terms. All we want to do is curl up in a rocking chair in a house for which we spent the prime years of youth and middle age paying mortgages/rent.

Our lives are spent helping a handful of millionaires world over become richer so they can re-invest that wealth into machines, cement, glass, weapons and acquire more of the wage slaves like us and finally evolve into billionaires. Our existence is conducive and significant to them to make this transition.

Our lives are also spent helping governments world over to become pathetically corrupt because we are so time strapped that we're willing to let go of small to medium portions of our hard earned wages to avoid the bureaucracy and red tapism that is involved in availing the pettiest of state facilities like getting a passport which allows us the right to go to places we anyway don’t have the time to go to or getting government telephone connections which we never intend to use except for the purpose of using the monthly bill while providing a proof of residence when we apply for that useless passport I mentioned before.

Our lives are also important to justify the existence of something as impractical as religion. Please note, I don’t say existence of God. I say existence of religion. Religion was devised for lesser mortals, in other words, commoners like you and me who don’t have the time to stop for a moment, ponder over mysteries like “why am I here?” or observe, analyze, evaluate and rationalize our beliefs. If we weren't so engrossed in delivering the humongous amount of output we wage slaves are made to deliver, don’t you think we would have more leisure to rationally distinguish right from wrong without someone having the need to serve us all these diktats on a platter.

We wage slaves are also the basis on which the whole structure of society was created. A bunch of workaholics whose only responsibility is to use their mind, body and soul to provide for his/her family, pay off debts, survive and defeat competition from other wage slaves etc. are bound to end up with several emotional and mental frustrations at some point of time. If it wasn’t for the clearly defined rules and regulations of society, wouldn’t we wage slaves be running loose and wild all over the place, creating chaos, organizing ourselves into sizeable groups capable of overthrowing the masters we all work for? Society and its long list of dos and don'ts is what keeps our world in order and keeps you and me in our places. Notice how these rules of society become insignificant the moment any one of us wage slaves manages to crawl out of the well in which wage slaves are stuffed and begins to wade through the pristine pools in which the rich and elite float through life.

And every time someone sees the futility of it all from amongst us, we call him/her terrible names like escapist, idealist, careless, foolish, impractical, and eccentric. We brand him as the black sheep who was too lazy to live up to the hard work that is a part of being a work slave. He’s an instant failure in our eyes. But the fact is such a person is called all these names and many more not because he’s a failure, but because he had the guts to do what we all want to do, but don’t have the courage to do. We live by the book. Even though before we go to sleep every night, we think of doing exactly the same thing this ‘loser’ dared to do.

But we never do it. Why? Because we have succumbed to our destiny of being a wage slave. Like Dobby from the Harry Potter series, we’re so used to being slaves, the very thought of being liberated individuals scares the shit out of us.

No one is born a wage slave. At least not since the end of bonded labor. It’s a choice each one of us has made for ourselves. And every day, we look for a million reasons to justify this choice. We’re too weak to be anything else but a wage slave. And the biggest irony is that most of the wage slaves aren’t choosing to be wage slaves because there are needs to be fulfilled. Most of us are choosing to be a wage slave because we can’t feed our insatiable appetite for fulfilment of wants and desires unless we become one. 

Me included. 

Pen(t)ing it Out

Long time no blog. Discipline is not exactly one of my core strengths has been established long time back. But then writing is not something that comes to me every day. Its triggered only when something happens and the weight of that something is so big, that I feel the need to pen(t) it out.

So, what is it that’s hit me so bad that I feel the urge to write today? It’s the subtle realization that there is no bigger crime in the world than theft. Every other crime is related to it. When you lie, you steal a person’s right to the truth. When you cheat on someone, you steal a person’s right to honesty. When you kill someone, you obviously steal a life. When you try to manipulate someone’s feelings, you steal their peace of mind. It all boils down to theft. Yes I know…this is no original thought. I picked it up from “The Kite Runner”. But I just realized, the guy is right. The thought is so deep and of late I've been feeling a very deep connection to it.

The problem is…..someone has been stealing from me since a very long time. And now, I’m not liking it one bit. As a matter of fact, what started as minor irritation has turned into a major strong dislike for this certain someone. Ignorance they say is the best way to hurt someone without doing anything violent/ harmful/ malicious; but here’s the deal….this certain someone is so self-obsessed, it views being ignored as a sign of me having laid my weapons down in some form of surrender. What an idiot!

OK. Here are some questions I want you to think about before I spew the venom inside me.

1.       How do you feel about people who cite religious scriptures for the silliest of things and then do things which would perhaps bruise even the conscience of someone as stone-hearted as Hitler?

2.       How do you feel about people who think the whole world has nothing better to do but hatch conspiracies against them?

3.       How do you feel about people who condemn all things declared taboo by society, but secretly either wish they could do each one of them or actually go and do them?

4.       How do you feel about people who have a “chori…upar se seena jori” attitude. For the Hindi illiterate, literally translated it means someone who steals something and knows they've done something wrong and yet when someone questions him/ her, vindicates himself/herself with a lot of aggression.

5.       Lastly how do you feel about people who think that all the problems in the world, right from princess Diana's death to Manmohan Singh’s irritating silence is somehow related to them and is reason enough for them to crib about how miserable their lives are?

I don’t know about you, but there is only one emotion I feel about such a person. Very strong pity. This person needs to slow down. Probably get a shot of self-respect from the closest vaccination center and needs to undergo a major conscience transplant surgery as soon as possible. Her/his condition is way too critical. And though this is not a contagious disease, it is one which could suck out all the positive energy from anything or anyone who comes in contact with the patient. Of late, I've had the displeasure of being at a very disturbing and harmful proximity to one such patient, and the always cheerful, bubbly Arnimaal has been reduced to a venom spewing b***h from hell J

Someone told me, why do you let this person impact you to this extent that even the sight of him/ her makes your blood boil? Why do you expect from people? Well, here’s the answer. I generally don’t bother keeping expectations from people because I know how pathetic I myself am when it comes to living up to someone’s expectations if it doesn't suit me. However, I don’t create any illusions about my inability to live up to unreasonable expectations. I’m generally very clear in communicating my limitations and setting the right expectations. Being the naive idealist that I am, I expect the same from others, especially if they claim to be my “close and true” friends. When that doesn't happen, I snap! Simple.

But a person who says one thing and then goes and does something that’s completely contradictory to what they claim, I do get disappointed which leads to me getting angry and eventually distancing myself from the source of disappointment completely. I don’t think I’m too wrong in feeling disappointed. It’s healthy to have expectations from a person, especially the ones which are set by the person himself/herself.

If you can’t live up to the expectations that you yourself systematically set up in someone else’s mind, then as I said before, go get a self-respect vaccine and a conscience replacement surgery done as soon as possible. I know the certain someone I am writing about will never read this piece because he/she doesn't have the medium to access my blog, but I wish as hell that his/ her “well-wishers” share this with him/her. It would save me the displeasure of speaking to him/ her and would maybe even give him/ her the clarity that I ignore/ avoid him/her not because I've surrendered my weapons or something like that…..but that I think it is beneath me to even bother looking at such a person.

May “Allah” bestow some sense upon this one for the sake of all those who have to deal with him/ her on a daily and more permanent basis!

She's the Man

This one is another write up in the series of sexist stuff I like to write once in a while. The only thing being none of these write ups are actually sexist. Most of them are just an appeal to the audience to treat gender difference as nothing but a mere difference in a couple of organs and the resultant differences in hormonal structuring.

So this time, I want to talk about why someone is branded as feminine or not feminine. Mind you, it’s an important question and most of us have our own view of what the answer to this looks like, but this is just an attempt to put my perspective on the table for some of you who may have never thought about this in much detail; just like some of you might have never thought about what makes a certain retail outlet an A class or a B class outlet. Nevertheless, when asked in a boardroom or when asked to identify one in the market, you tend to automatically be able to differentiate one from another. That’s instinct and instinct is rarely a conscious and thought out decision; it’s mostly subconscious.

To begin with, I want to admit, that all my life I was branded an utter and complete tomboy. The most commonly cited reasons are the following: 

1. I like beer more than I like vodka, wine, bourbon or gin (this is purposely on top of the list) 
2. I can buy a pair of jeans in less than 10 minutes and this includes trial time (provided I find my size) 
3. I’ve driven a truck, car and a bike and I loved every experience and wouldn’t mind doing it again 
4. I don’t care whether guys wear a half sleeves shirt or a full sleeves shirt or a no sleeves shirt as long as the guy knows the difference between ‘berry’ and ‘bury’ is only the spelling and the meaning and also realizes that Jammu is not the same as Kashmir and Kashmir is not the same as Ladakh even if they’re in the same state 
5. I don’t mind wearing keds or flats on a date where I know I am going to be standing all evening 
6. I don’t know how to cross my legs and sit, and frankly speaking, I HATE doing it
7. I cannot say how pretty someone looks if I think she looks like a log of wood
8. I cannot survive conversations around clothes, shoes and bags and which kind complement each other beyond 10 minutes….OK…20 minutes TOPS
9. I work because I love my job and not because it is important for a woman to be independent and make money   
10. I like camping, trekking, swimming, parasailing, snorkeling and have played marbles, gully cricket and hockey as a kid. I was also a goal-keeper at one point of time and I don’t think its social suicide to wear the goalie’s gear!!! 
11. The thinnest my waist has ever been is 30-32 inches and it has never given me sleepless nights nor made me feel like Goliath 
12. I can swear in 5 different languages and it doesn’t matter whether the recipient is a man or a woman (this is at the bottom of the list on purpose) 

This list of course is not exhaustive. It goes much beyond this, but these are the most commonly cited reasons for being branded a Tomboy for life. However, I object. I object to being stereotyped. I’ve spent a quarter of my life accepting and believing that I am a tomboy. I am not. I am just Arnimaal. A girl who does all those things mentioned in the list above and much more, but is still a female as per the scientific definition of what a female is. I don’t care what attitudes and behaviors are commonly found in women because those are nothing but generalizations and I don’t think it is wise or scientific to generalize or stereotype anyone.

Attitudes and behaviors are an accumulation of experience, environmental factors and exposure. How can they be the same for all? These things vary depending on permutations and combinations of genetics, cultural background, parental influences, peer-group influences, social awareness, self-awareness and so many other factors. Even two siblings living in the same house are never the same, then how can one expect two humans of the same gender to be the same just on the premise of having the same hormonal structure? I said, I object. Not that my objection matters or is of any consequence when it comes to your perception, attitude or opinion of me. But I just want to say it out loud that I object!

And I know there are quite a few women out there who would also object to this generalization that we’re subjected to all the time. Just like there are quite a few men who would like to object to what is generally assumed to be “manly”. It’s not fair. I have a good friend who is not what you would call your typical man, and the next thing you hear is everyone doubting his sexuality. That is so wrong. I know him pretty well and I know for a fact that he’s not homosexual, but sometimes it really pisses me off when people look at him with that expression “Oh I know….you’re gay”. Hello people. He’s not. He’s just himself; just like I am Arnimaal.

It’s ridiculous how sometimes we make life too easy for ourselves and just shut our brains up because it is so much easier to be stupid and happy than to be a thinker and frustrated. Ignorance is bliss they say, but for some of us, ignorance is simply not a choice. 

I would like to believe for most of us ignorance is not a choice, but going by the number of people who continue to use ‘tomboy’ for women like me and ‘gay’ for men who like pink, I guess it’s mostly a choice. 

Frustrations of an Arrogant Ass***e

It starts with the immaculate fakes you can pick up for a good bargain in the crowded 'gullies' of the infamous Meena Bazar, picks up momentum at the never-ending rows of concrete and glass buildings along the Sheikh Zayed Road and ends with the poor rendition of the 'Gol Gappas' in the crowded streets of Karama. This city screams ‘FAKE’ the minute you get off at the airport, and what makes it fake is not the artificial greenery or the out of place flowers you see along the road. It’s the people. I have been to several cities in the world, some famous and some not so famous, but nothing matches this one. 

If you've been around long enough, your day would start with freshly baked croissants, a glass of preserved juice and unhealthy cupcakes from the most elite baker in town. Having had your full of empty calories first thing in the morning, you move on to better things, read crazy Dubai roads. You have beautiful freeways decked with tall and garish concrete and glass buildings on both sides of the road. Speed is the name of the game once you’re on these marvels made of asphalt, cement and gravel. Full of people who made it big overnight and hence assume life is a game, driving on these roads is as good as playing a round of NFS Most Wanted, and jokes apart, I’d rather do that sitting on my couch at home than do it out there.

If you don’t get crushed to death by some rich fucker who thinks driving a car with one foot on the accelerator and the other curled up on the seat is cool, the glare bouncing off the glass buildings will definitely make the blood flowing in those expatriate veins evaporate out of irritation. As if that isn't enough, you might even get threatened off the left lane by some reckless pseudo Schumacher tailgating you who is obviously in a hurry to race you to hell and beyond. 

If you do survive the roads and get to your workplace, you might see the day through wondering whether you really deserve to make the money you make. In all probability, you don’t. And if you think you do, step out of the swanky, air-conditioned building you work in, take a walk down the hot-as-hell street and just check with that small time laborer smoking under the shade of the joke of a tree dotted along the road. You’ll probably never want to think yourself deserving enough after that, unless of course you’re as cold hearted as the marble floors of your 21st floor apartment in Jumeirah. 

As the day comes towards an end, you will experience a chaotic racing of the mind as you browse through the notifications of your latest Blackberry Bold, S3 or iPhone 5. It’s evening. There has to be a plan! How else will you qualify to be the happening, chic and suave Dubai citizen. It’s got to be the new club that’s opened on the Marina Walk or the fabulous Japanese restaurant on the ‘30somethingth’ floor of some ridiculously tall skyscraper in the middle of the sea. It has to be interesting enough because you've got to tell your friends how much fun it was and how good the place was too, right? It can be nothing short of the best; otherwise it would be like committing social suicide, right? 

Now if there is a plan, apart from a posh place, you've also got to be wearing posh clothes. Even if you can’t talk two sentences without proving what an ignorant, pompous ass you are, your clothes have to give the impression that your finesse and sophistication is beyond the ‘desi’ hooligans who live in your own ‘desi’ Bur Dubai, Deira or Karama neighborhood. So what if you can’t contribute a rat’s ass worth to a conversation about world issues which impact not just your own future wealth and affluence but also that of zillion others you share the world with, you can always talk about your non-existent interest in art, architecture and literature, right? The Stonehenge in some place in England, the Sagrada Família Basilica in some place in Europe and the Sistine Chapel somewhere near Italy can always see you through a conversation without looking like a fool because you saw it on National Geographic or History Channel or in all probability in some crappy Rom-Com on Star Movies!!! Bah! 

Doesn't it make you sick of yourself? If it does, then please stop being like that, because it surely makes me want to throw up. I know if you’re one of those people, you’re going to be thinking, “Pompous Bitch”. But you know what, if that’s what I come across as, I don’t mind. I’m happier being known as the arrogant bitch than being perceived as the FAKE Pea-brain next door! 

Ridiculous!! If that’s what you’re thinking while reading this, you probably can guess how sick I am of some of the things I hate about this city. But this city isn't that bad either. It has beautiful weather in the winters. That’s the only saving grace. The beaches around Dubai are breathtaking. A walk through the old city walls still reverberates with the remnants of the simple lives people lived here not so far ago. The smell of Oud and Spices in the Souq takes you back into that history which remains unknown to many of the residents of this plastic town. A peek into the village life here gives you a glimpse of all those values and virtues which were once the spirit of this country, but today are found only in travel books and your imagination. The Arabian Nights have unfortunately lost their mystery, magic and grandeur and have been reduced to garish lights, over-the-top decor and redundant materialism. 

Till the folks here realize how they have a ‘Life’ but aren't really living, I’ll continue living in the hope of rediscovering the oasis in the middle of this scorching desert, and in the process, proceed further on the journey to rediscovering the Essence of Arnimaal; the Arabian Adventure has just begun ;)

The Sanctum of Our Love

Far ahead of the horizons visible to the naked eye

Beyond the unknown depths of the unfathomable seas

And high above the heights of the infinite skies

Away from the malice and cruelties of this cold-blooded world

There is a place where I live with you.

The place which is beyond the ego that makes “you” and “me”

The place where all that really matters is “we”

The place where I dont need to see you to “see” you

The place where I dont need to hear you to “hear” you

The place where our silence speaks greater volumes than all our spoken words ever could

The place where we do the things we “want” to than the things that we “should”

The place where I fear nothing, not even losing you

The place where you believe with all your heart that I only belong to you

The place where your pain flows like dewdrops from my eyes

The place where my joys sparkle like diamonds in your smile

The place where we may stand apart, but still are one

The place where this journey finally ends and the place where it all begun

And inside the tranquility of that place is where I want to be

That walled sanctum of our love which exists inside you and inside me.