I am a Fool

Creative Writing by: Riya Batta

I hate the English language, but I more intensely hate how it's always been my sole sanctuary. When everyone else's eyes filled with pure disgust and disappointment at the complexities that clawed away at my throat, all 171,141 words and their infinite possible combinations served as the lozenge to soothe the burns. But this is not something I find comfort in. I don't find pride in the layers of scars that plague my soul: am rather ashamed at the fraudulence of my own being that my naturally masquerading nature gilds over them. But you aren't. You kiss those scars as though my skin's infused with gold. You find divinity in the Devil and call her God. For that, I call you a fool, but God what I fool I am for you. The graceful graze of your fingers against my skin calms my chaosinfested mind the way only perfectly-rhymed poetry did. The passionate energy in a quick but pure kiss permeates my maliced blood and balances it with bliss the way only the Letters to Milena did. Your being confounds me. I often question your actuality and ritually pray to a God I don't even believe in, for if your existence proves to be just as fraudulent as mine, choose to remain in this perpetual state of psychosis so I can indefinitely love each and every crevice of your soul through this bitter-sweet hallucination. Oh, what a jubilant fool I would be. Your ornamenting traits have made a home within me previously where the fire furiously burned. Consequently, I can finally declare I'm content with my sanctuary-- not the random arrangement of letters and sentences and novels, but the emerald-infused pools of glistening golden honey warmly accompanied by that shining smile of endearment. You are greater than all 171,146 words and their infinite possible combinations. You are my sanctuary.