a love as fast as a camera click
an open love letter/diary entry to the class of 2024
today my heart lingers in tassels and tossed heels and aching toes, in heaps and heaps and heaps of lilting laughter. when I was in the fifth grade, I counted with my fingers, three on my left hand and five on my right,
“eight years till I leave school, that’s a forever away!”
forever has its own away of reaching its hands towards you and holding your face carelessly; there are so many shadows of hands that I am still holding today, of old friends, old teachers and even older versions of myself. there are a million pages I have turned, a million plots have unfolded and yet. and yet, they’ve all morphed themselves into the same resounding laughter .
I didn’t believe that I would actually be graduating till I walked on the podium in heels that I don’t know HOW I managed to survive in, and gave my valedictory (I know right ;)) speech. what you love is your legacy, and how lovely it is for world to be held by more letters than love, for the world to be my destiny (the legacy of today, tomorrow and forever on forth). the hands of forever weigh heavily with all the letters I have to say and I bet you it will regret letting this day come. what do I love? origami cranes, heart shaped sunglasses, salmon dresses, all black dresses, kulfi birthday “cake” and a hand on a waist, another on a shoulder, three, two, one, SMILE! and click.
I’d like to argue that love has evolved today, evolved like ape did to man and evolved like laughter does to wrinkles. love evolved from the camera click to the camera roll, the momentum to the moment, if you will. to let an insurmountable amount of love be cemented into my legacy is a lightness I don’t know how to bear. bear I must, though. to think that a camera roll weighs lighter than a camera click is silly, in retrospect, but this is what I believe in.
2023 came with waves of unwarranted, unflattering growth, with my mind going through a hideous puberty all over again. from my cat almost dying, to a life changing career shift, to board exams to today, twenty days from now, board exams again. it hasn’t been pretty, but today was the first time, I, as in my mind, felt beautiful all over again, without having to think much at all. to smile, and smile again for a photo and another photo, to take “candids” and to take candids, to steal a friends digital camera in a bowling alley and to hog another friends window for the best shots. todays love has encapsulated itself, tucked itself in and is dozing away in my phone, and it feels far too small to hold something so incredibly massive.
I have noticed I have this strange habit of listing things, I loaded up my graduation speech with triads and quartets and quintuplets and fired them into the audience as if I led an army of words. I have noticed that the only way to make sense of the world is to list it down,
to love is to love, and to love is to love again. there’s really no other way of saying it, to love is not just an orange but to love is too less of a word for when you’re pinning your friends hair back for them. love is the median of infinity, the mean of all my friends, and the mode of my unforgiving heart
to reach forward first, is the best thing you can possibly do.
to rescind backward first, is also probably the best thing you can possibly do
to write so many poems, I have realised, is simply writing my name over and over again till I know how to spell it right.
the balance sheet always tallies, assets equal to equity minus liabilities and my love balances yours, and yours to your friends, and your friends to their friends till theirs to mine all over again.
the last thing I learnt at the school I graduated from today was how large love can really be, and how persistent I hope love is. when forever catches up to me again, next time I will make its ears bleed.
i hope today wasn’t a poem, it’s far too large to be a poem and I hope that today wasn’t a story, because it was far too large to be a story. I hope today finds the shoes it can fit into, and I hope today can take them right off when coming home, till then, it will roam my heart like a wanderlust traveller, with its head facing those skies we are bound to claw our way towards.
dear readers,
I was feeling dramatic. and filled with this very strange warm sense of love. I thought I’d give you a share.
talk to you soon :)
forever and always,
jia 🎓💐💫
thank you for putting into words the feeling that has been sitting in my throat as a bittersweet lump for the past few months <3
The personification of a poem forever is you :) Thank you for transporting me back to that day and thank you in advance for transporting me back to that day many years from now. Stunning as always.