ritika jyala

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

As I kid, I wanted to be a savior, trailblazer, the prophecy child. I wanted a big life, with ups and ups like the breasts of mountains and lows like the depths of valleys full of forgotten debris. I was convinced the great flood was knocking at my door, beckoning me to become someone bigger. A juvenile fantasy, a hazy dream.

I'm 19 now. It's not a grand big life, I'm no hero. I love my friends and sunday mornings. I like cats and strawberries. No flood, no rapture, no calamity- just quiet weekdays and sleepy weekends. But oh my days, I am full, finally.

-Ritika Jyala, excerpt from The Flesh I Burned

I know the sunset will not last longer than a few minutes, I know the leaves of summer fall but today I gather the fleeting moments and wear them like a choker around my neck, today I capture all the smiles, all the rays of the sun and swallow them whole. I know all things end but today I breathe in all of the beginnings and wait for another sunrise.

-Ritika Jyala, excerpt from The world is a sphere of ice and our hands are made of fire

-Ritika Jyala, An answer to love

(read full excerpt here)

In med school, we're taught that love is a complex concoction of hormones, synapses, memory. Think of a cliff, 150 feet of rock and air and water. Now think of a forest fire- raging and burning, smoking parts of your heart on its way. I think love is the burning, love is the forest and love is the water you pour over the flames. I can't say about hormones but when you love someone, they give you peace- it's like the first flowers of spring, it's like finding your religion and kissing your god. I don't know if I can define love but it is very close to seeing thunderstorms at night from the shelter of your room- full of sparks and tingling and also safety. I don't know if I can define love but it wakes you up in the morning, gives you fear and stops you from jumping off the cliff. A concoction of hormones, synapses and memory but also god and fear and peace.

-Ritika Jyala, An answer to love

It's been raining all day. I'm not old yet but I'm not young either- stranded in a limbo of young adult. All my friends are cities away, and I'm wondering who I am. My friends are photos and texts. My friends are video calls on Friday nights, most anyways. My friends are one call away but my bones remember the miles between us, hundreds- even thousands. I'm not old yet, but my shoulders bear the weight of countless goodbyes. I'm not young either. I can place a call but I stare at the rain. I can send a text but I write a stupid poem.

-Ritika Jyala, excerpt from The Flesh I Burned

It rained all night and I miss my childhood. It's a short poem, I've had a long long night and a short life. I've been trying to remember my grandpa's smile but memory is a treacherous thing. It rained all night and I miss everything I've forgotten.

-Ritika Jyala, excerpt from The Flesh I Burned

The weight of memory drags my shoulders down. I take a string and stack everyone I've ever known and loved like beads, pearl on pearl on pearl. And when they leave- because leaving is one certainty we're burdened with, and when they leave- I clutch the pearls and try to breathe. I remember it all, even things I've forgotten. Some nights, I dream of smiles and faces and laughs, my best friend at 7, the first boy I ever liked, my grandma on the patio- pearls on pearls on pearls, boxes full of necklaces stacked in every corner of my heart. The weight of the world on my shoulders- is that what is left of us in the end, memories stuffed in pearls, waiting to be worn?

-Ritika Jyala, excerpt from the The Flesh I Burned

Mama I don't want kids, I say. For the hundredth time. Mother has this look on her face, it sits still- something between disappointment and bewilderment. But who will take care of you, she says, when you're older? And that is a rotten feeling. To believe that a child is only as good as what it does for its parents. To believe you are only as good as you give. To believe you owe someone, only to feel love. Who deserves this? Who deserves this wretched snarling beast sitting in my chest, whispering, shrieking- give, give, give.

-Ritika Jyala, The Beast that makes me Give

When you repeat a lie enough times, it becomes part of the truth, expands and births itself anew.

-Ritika Jyala (source)

2+2=5. "When a lie has been told enough times, it becomes real." Two and two is five. Every morning I tell myself I like who I am. How many times do you repeat the lie?

I don't hate myself. I love myself too. I'm surrounded by myself, hounded by my own cries, caged inside my own ribs. I love myself. My body is my temple but some days it feels like the ruins of Petra. I love myself. I just don't like myself all the time.

On rainy days bleeding blue, I'm tired of this body, of this mind. 2+2=5. If you could sell all your bad memories, only on the condition you'd have to give away the good ones too, would you still do it? Are you your memories or are you the vessel that houses them? Are you the product of your thoughts or the manufacturer? When you repeat a lie enough times, it becomes part of the truth, expands and births itself anew.

Two plus two is five. Am I the voice in my head or the notes of my heart? Am I the lies I tell myself? Lies of consolation, lies of condolences. If I love myself, why do I keep seeing my corpse at the bottom of the ocean, on a road, slumped on my chair, buried in the dirt? If I like myself, why do I keep hearing four, four, four? Two plus two is four. Where do lies end and god's honest truth begin? Because lord I'm tired of not knowing.

-Ritika Jyala

Yes, that definitely was one of mine. I believe this is the post you are referring to. It's one of my favourite pieces that I ever wrote, not with the finest language but definitely with raw emotion. I'm glad you loved it too<33

came back on tumblr after a month... only to see it drenching in vanilla extract

There is a sadness inside me, something I can barely name, and I know it doesn't matter because teenage girls are all sad. Do people burn with age? Because I'm 18 and already a forest fire, what will I ruin next? And it's easy to hope for happiness, it's easy to dream in colour, maybe that's why I'm half fiction, half girl. Half here and half not quite- half human, half thoughts.

-Ritika Jyala, excerpt from Half and Half

M took a picture of me(i think I'm in love)

IT IS MY GREATEST HONOR TO DISTRACT YOU AHA. With that said, I hope you covered the missed work and slayed at it.

Thank you so much for supporting and motivating me<3