What is anything- AAKASH KHANNA

I asked what this existence is,

And my green towel that hung on the hook

became a stranger

it was not my towel anymore

what is a towel existentially, what are these other things? I looked around

All things around me had become not familiar now

Very new, more than new

as if I had seen them for the first time

as if I had just come into existence

as if I had never known about existence before

I stepped out of my bathroom in the towel

as water droplets continued to slide down from the hair

Clothes, which I had put out to wear, had now become only fabric

What is fabric anyways I thought

Instead of the usual wearing of the clothes,

I stepped outside in the balcony

everything had become an existential question:

the green plants that had been growing well

the grey weather that had been drizzling for a while now

the yellow fire beneath the shelter that a man at a distance took warmth in

the invisible breeze that touched my bare chest

the etheric sky above the clouds

What are these? I cried.

I came back inside my room

dropped the towel down to wear the fabric when

I noticed my hands. What are these? How do they exist?

Branching out into ten that are called fingers and thumbs

very similar to the part that is called the feet

At a very slow pace, I curiously scanned my entire body

the knees, the thighs, the buttocks,

the penis, the testicles, the belly, the arms, then

I became aware of the eyes, the nose, the ears, and the mouth

then came the muscles and the bone structure part

further, all the organs one by one

What is this all, I thought.

I came in the hall where my family was

four people, my father, mother, sister, and her husband

Who are they? Who created our shared relationships?

Slowly, the feeling of attachment towards them dissolved within my mind

we had sat down for breakfast and I questioned again

What is food existentially? And as I took four pieces of sliced bread,

I asked the same question for numbers, then for words and alphabets

the same alphabets that had created words for the philosophies I used to have for my life

but now they had become philosophies of the so far

Love which has no reason is the purest

I would say

but now I ask

what is love existentially?

why is there something like love in the first place? And,

where did it come from?

Dream which has no reason is our true calling

I would say

but now I ask

what is calling existentially?

why is there a calling in the first place? And,

where did it come from?

What is life but the present moment in motion

I would say

but not anymore

There was no philosophy left to live my life by, absolutely none

what is philosophy but an approach carved out of thoughts, I thought

and then one thought led to another and a question which felt destined

to arrive, finally arrived. It felt as if each thought only led me

to this question: what is a thought?

Further, what is mind where a thought arrives

I wondered for quite a while and,

at a steady pace, all thoughts had begun to calm down

and the mind journeyed towards thoughtless beingness

I had become desireless

And with no desire, I had become purely content within myself

it was good

But well, then again, just like any other thing in existence,

what is being content anyways