Written during the exams, posted now:

You know you should be studying, but you go in search for stories, delicate stories that leave you smiling either in mirth or the sadness of understanding what they mean. And it irks you, really irks you, that those who write the most delicate stories, the most breath-taking stories, also waste their energy on slash. (Refer irritating rec page: http://www.mirrordance.net/recs/harrypotter.html)

It's not the first time such annoying patterns appear. You find out your favourite poet is gay. You suddenly discover almost every single book you own is written by a British writer (even those you could have sworn were written by Americans). You wonder what your literary tastes say about you.

You also wonder about your taste in favourite characters, dark people with twisted pasts, always the subtle ones, and whether these preferences carries over to real life. And if so, what does that mean? What does anything mean?

You're preparing your poems for another competition, the same one you were rejected by 2 years ago, and questioning the state of your mind. Why this craving for recognition? It's never been present your whole life, and yet you find yourself chasing ambitions, demanding attention, flaunting your knowledge in all its flamboyance. And you're on the other side again, much like the time when you returned and much to your horror found you had changed.

And you find that your delicate way of writing, the one you had worked so hard to attain, has turned you into even more of an outcast.