#the flesh i burned
There’s a sort of goodbye that comes with 17.
All questions of ‘who do you want to be when you grow up’ turn to 'who are you becoming now?’ 17 is young, 17 is old. It’s everything you wanted. It’s everything you despised. It’s messy and ruthless and full of grief at times. And 17 is scary as hell because now you know that you finally have to say goodbye to childhood.
-Ritika Jyala, excerpt from The Flesh I Burned (source)
Mother, tell me what to do. How do I breathe without also choking on the air? How do I grow up without also losing my innocence?
-Ritika Jyala, excerpt from The Flesh I Burned
As a child, I was always searching for the meaning of it all, the big Why; and my father always said that there is no one big purpose but I had the most ripe orange today and kissed my cat goodnight, I think that’s enough purpose for a day.
-Ritika Jyala, excerpt from The Flesh I Burned
It’s just how different suffering can look and feel. You see movies and shows where you see a character in pain but the lens makes it pretty, the suffering is beautiful and then you look at yourself and nothing about your pain is pretty, nothing is worth looking at. So you tell yourself this is not real- that your pain and your agony don’t really exist and you’re just being dramatic but if you could see what you feel, would you still be so harsh on yourself?
-Ritika Jyala, excerpt from The Flesh I Burned
she has never said she loves me but I see her smile when she makes me coffee or tells me about her day- she bounces with excitement and blinks real fast. I never thought I’d believe in love, but I could drown in it now.
-Ritika Jyala, excerpt from The Flesh I Burned
I know that some days you barely exist- scrolling mindlessly for hours, trying to find some peace. I know that sometimes you wish you could be someone else because your 10 year old self had big plans to save the world and some part of you wants to make her proud still. I know that sometimes you feel like a side character in your own story, written with someone else’s words. I want you to please unclench your jaw and let go of the tension in your shoulders and save yourself first. The sun is still out there and it’ll be there tomorrow, ocean waves exist and oranges taste like peace.
I hope you say goodbye to the ghost of your 10 year old self because unlike her, you still exist.
-Ritika Jyala, excerpt from The Flesh I Burned
There’s a quiet love hidden in the question, ‘Did you eat today?’. It’s like a whisper in the dark. A whisper going..
'I hope you ate today, I hope you know I love you. I love you. I love you…’
-Ritika Jyala, excerpt from The Flesh I Burned
There’ll be a moment when you realise you’re 27 when yesterday you were just 17; and you wouldn’t be able to tell how a decade passed away and your life got divided into before and afters. The fury of youth will subdue and nothing will really change but everything will feel different when you look at old photographs and blurry videos taken on cheap mobile phones. Scents will remind you of childhood and certain friends you don’t talk to anymore, hangouts will become reunions and mom’s burnt pie will become the best food you ever had. And I know on some days you won’t be able to show anything of those 10 years but I hope you remember to breathe, and let go of the knot in your chest. I hope you go out in the sun and live a little, because tomorrow is 37.
Edit- I added the visualizer for this piece on my YT, check it out here
-Ritika Jyala, excerpt from The Flesh I Burned
because tomorrow is 37
