Could that 11:11 wish ever prophesy us the entire dreamscape our lives ever yearned for?

Could that aesthetic shooting star ever be misconcepted as an ominous meteor hit?

Could the most blazing flame ever extinguish itself in the course of igniting millions of souls?

Musicians are perhaps the only desolated souls who could render resplendent music and vice versa. They could teach you an amalgam of absolutely contrary emotions but yet one could fall for them like never before. Most undoubtedly, Chester was one of those. We could find relevance even in his fainting music and monstrous lyrics, at times. He taught us that numb could be a feeling too.  He taught us that it requires only one more light to gather those broken constellations of our hearts back.

When I was little, my amigos could only boast about several English music bands, including the Linkin Park which made me listen to them for the sake of peer pressure. However, neither me nor any of my chums could ever comprehend his music and his vocals, we could only hear it and put it into trap all at once. But then, life happened when heartaches happened. I gratify you Chester, for all those day my eyes could do pillow-talks till 3 AM and all those songs listening to me like they were made for me- made to be my soul mates.

Here is a poetry that breathes Linkin Park but is the song of an isolated girl-

At the miniature age of 9,

When my hormones could hardly nurture and when my sentiments would hardly respire,

I asked myself, what if my ‘Castle Of Glass’ couldn’t fathom the shrieks of my innocence?

“Crawling” towards the flush of adolescence, when I turned 14 I was taught,

“A Light That Never Comes” is the trail we left unsung.

“Numb”, I told myself that the Misogyny my elders confined me to, could only subject me to the forlorn “Shadow of the Day”.

When I was tied to a thug at 19, my husband’s immortal palm-print on my cheek faded the thrilling skyscrapers which my dreams could ever celebrate.

Ironically, a heavy downpour and a heavy heart stood leaning towards the doorway, with “the Catalyst” to my death intact on my palm. I perceived about the patriarchy that resonated and the roads I left untraveled. For “In The End” , I was “Lost In The Echo” of my repent, as to why my “Iridescent” soul with its dreams so priceless, couldn’t find its “Final Masquerade” to the abode of magistrate!

It wasn’t delusionary songwriting that he did. His words along with his beastly music were alter egos of an isolated and shattered life he never longed for. The aftermath of his parents being divorced, beholding them at a tender age like 11 is extensively tormenting. Bennington went astray when he started abusing opium, alcohol and cocaine to get away with his depression. The sexual and substance abuse made him so brutish that he felt the urge to kill innocent people and abduct himself. Eventually, Bennington was able to overcome his addiction and the state of being an almost ragamuffin when he proved it right that it requires a heavy downpour for the flowers to rejuvenate and the roots to regenerate. Nobody can pick you up from the mud like you can, you proved it yet again!

Chris Cornell, who was the closest friend of Bennington, had also died of suicide by hanging two months prior. This news almost murdered Chester when he actually, again encountered afflicting depression.

Amidst the incandescence of music of emotions, the world found that Chester had a life of dreamscape and was a contended soul but it really never understood that the shooting star was nothing but a melancholic meteor hit. He was the flame that ignited our souls but unfortunately, the breeze was atrocious enough to shatter him.

Chester, you wouldn’t rest but you would bask in heaven! Peace would come to you, you wouldn’t have to find it! We love you and would smell you till this world fosters music.

Chester Bennington

(March 20, 1976- July 20, 2017)

 

By

Aparna Bhalla

BJMC