Remember

You know nothing.

Everything is a lie.

Whatever you are holding on to for dear life, it can quite possibly collapse.

Remember.

On Desires.

I often check my desires. They are often indicative of things I do not want.

This desire to leave everything behind stems more from my need to run away from things, people, than from a need to actually be in a new place.

That can't be right, can it? It's like wanting to marry so you can leave your parents behind. It can only go wrong. Or wanting to flirt with somebody you don't dislike so the person you dislike can leave you alone. Where is the love? Where is the enamour? The twinkle in the eye, the high of something new that you actually desire for its own sake? All missing, replaced by escapism. Cowardly and short sighted.

I also think it comes from wanting to know if I can, actually, leave things behind. The little things I am used to , that I love. It's a bit like a test; can I do this? Will I fare well? Will I be able to detach from what I thought I could not live without? Will I be able to leave this faucet behind, which only I know how to stop from dripping? Will I be able to leave this friend behind whose voice is more familiar to me, now, than my own?

Will I be able to leave behind people who I thought meant everything to me even if, now, I mean nothing to them? How tough will it be? How much will I pine? Will I get homesick for a place that may or may not be mine?

It's a test too. Push push push. Bleed bleed bleed. Sew sew sew. Mend mend mend. See how you can go until you cannot.

I often check my desires. They are often indicative of things I will carry within me even after I escape.

New

Today,
I shed a tear,
For that child
Who shivered,
Cold in her shoes,
Lanky in her clothes,
Terrified in her errors.

Today,
I shed a tear,
For the parents,
Who, in their hurry,
To protect their child
From what the world could
Do to her, forgot what they could.

Today,
I told myself,
That tears can forge
Bonds, chains of reactions,
That we set in motion every day,
Or dissolve, dissolve, dilute and cut
What would otherwise bind you for life.

Today,
I left that child
Far behind in the past,
With unforgiven parents,
And decided it was finally time,
To embrace adulthood, however lonely,
And this here, now, this moment, I am new.

Watching Monday Go By.

Of course,

I have a favourite spot,

In that little bistro

It's right by the window,

In a corner,

Precisely one ray of sunshine,

And if I sit

With my back to the crowd,

I can pretend I am

Alone.

One cup of coffee,

Filtered,

Two sugars, demerara,

Milk, a touch of cream.

Hot.

Very hot.

A chocolate croissant,

And a phone

That will not interrupt,

As Monday hustles by

Dressed in raincoats, gumboots,

Flyaway umbrellas

Most unromantic puddles

Of brown.

I can spend an hour

With my croissant,

Maybe a book,

Or pointless social networking.

I can watch

Clouds go by

In said unromantic puddles,

Just fine.

Watch you seethe,

Grit your teeth,

Such luxuries are not to be allowed,

Unless you are born

With a silver spoon,

Only then,

You can envy me,

Not hate me.

But here I am,

With my croissant,

My book (electronic),

A drag of coffee to go

One leg tucked under my bum,

On a warm, velvety armchair,

My other leg on a pouffe.

Pouffe.

How does it sound to your ears?

Pouffe, pouffe.

Much like how you disregard,

That I am here,

No thanks to you.

(This poem is dedicated to that obnoxious ex-friend who had a problem with my saying that it's okay to sit and watch the clouds go by and the bills get figured out)

Parents Know Best

It was a dark and stormy night. Expectedly, there had been a power failure in the neighbourhood. A few houses were quiet while raucous singing erupted from others as each little family dealt with the situation in their individual ways. Transistors belted songs from old Hindi films and the sounds and smells of cooking became more prominent over the general quiet that falls when television sets collectively fall silent.

This house was among the silent ones. A child sat by the open door clutching her book. A solitary candle cast shadows on her face as she tried to finish her reading exercise. She was muttering under her breath, reading out lines from her textbook. She could hear her mother in the kitchen, the sharp sounds made by the ladle against the metal pot as she fried pieces of fish. It should have made her hungry, but it only terrified her. She knew that ladle too well. It had cooked more than fish - it had left bruises on her legs. The parents had always agreed that the children must only be hit on their limbs. The morning before, the ladle had made contact with her arm because she had spilled a glass of milk. Her mother had not spoken to her since, using silence as punishment, an art the child would perfect later.

The child sensed her mother enter the room. Her body tautened involuntarily. She heard her mother place bowls on the dining table. At the same time, she heard her father’s bike pull into the courtyard, the dull hum of the engine dying. She knew his footsteps well. Her heart was beating a wild tattoo against her ribcage and she quickly got up and fled into the house to keep her Math books ready. She’d be quizzed on those after dinner and her father disliked her being unready.

Dinner was a quiet affair. The child’s parents mostly ignored her and the family sat at the table and finished their food by candlelight. The child had goosebumps on her limbs and fear rose like bile in her throat. She hoped desperately that there would be no silly mistakes in her quadratic equations. As soon as the dinner table was cleared, she brought her books and placed the candle close enough for her father to see her work. She sat quietly, trembling, while he examined and looked for errors.

The child relaxed. It had been ten whole minutes and the father had not found a mistake yet. She felt she would make it this time. Her heartbeat returned to normal and she looked away from him for a moment. Like a deafening clap of thunder, she heard the slap before she felt its sting. His palm had made violent contact with her skull and she fell off the chair. The mother rushed into the room and raised her voice. The child heard her say that there was no need to be so harsh. She then heard the father’s voice respond harshly, something about making silly, repetitive mistakes.

The mother retreated. The child scrambled back into her chair, wiping tears and clutching at a pencil to fix her mistake. Her father glared at her. She caught a glance at her mother, ladle in hand, also glaring at her. She erased the equation and started again.

Later that night, the child heard her parents talk about how disciplining is a necessary part of growing up. She heard her father confess to the mother that he felt bad about it but it must be done. She heard her mother consoling him. She silently wept herself to sleep.

Homeward

I have imagined, often, what it must feel like, to die. Do I gradually lose awareness of my body, one part at a time and slip away? Do I become excruciatingly aware of it as the mind recedes and the life force that I am makes it's presence known? Is it painful? Is it relieving?

I do hope I will remember death clearly, though. At least this time. Unlike my birth, of which I have no memory, a memory lapse so acute that I believe I never really was born. Is that why I am not palpably aware of how easily I could die this very minute? People do it all the time.

In this sea of questions I bring up about death, I have never had any doubt about one thing; how much I look forward to it.

Imagine you have three days left to live. You are acutely aware of your every action, word, the grandeur of what is about to happen to you. In face of that magnanimity, details stop mattering to you. That guy on the road who leered at you, that pathetic little raise at work that is so demeaning, your spouse who keeps forgetting to put the toilet seat down, and your constant guilt about skipping gym.

Imagine that you have two days to live. Your conversations change from talking about people to talking to each other, from waiting for your turn to talk to becoming one big, personified ear that just, truly, listens. A lot of it revolves around gratitude and forgiveness, perhaps resulting in peals of laughter and tears you never thought you would shed. What you look for with every glance shifts; getting a window seat on a train ride home is more important than glaring at the person who stubbed your toe on their way out.

Imagine you have one day left to live. A great wall of quiet descends on you. You are here. You are now. Every breath is so important and you know, for the very first time - not because somebody told you or because you read it somewhere - but because it's happening to you right now - that this breath is what's connecting this whole universe in one continuous thread. Your thoughts are not scuttling like roaches anymore. There is, for the first time, a silence inside you, a silence so thick, you could slice it with a knife, like butter.

Unrelated, disconnected and unnecessary details recede into non-existence. That may probably explain why they say that the devil is in the detail. Because the details are where we get caught and the details are what convince us that it's normal to waste whatever precious time we may have here.

My home is this promise of death. This promise of closure is why I live my story. My journey may be important, but my destination, I truly, deeply desire. It is my rest, my solace. I have my home in this promise of death.

To The City That Loved Me Most

Some cities are motels. Others are luxury suites in a fancy five star hotel. Then there are those that are just waiting rooms, a place where you can sit down for a while but you know inside that you are going to leave any minute.

But every once in a while, you arrive in a city that feels, instantly, like home. For most of us, that city is the one we were born in or grew up in. It’s familiar, it’s clogged with memories and there is a lingering sense of nostalgia around it, however unpleasant. And often, like a victim who is afraid to stand up and say no to his victimiser, you remain in its familiar shelter. Or maybe like a lover, who has no space in his heart for a new love, you return.

But you...you were a strange, new, unfamiliar place that drew me in like a moth to a flame. Your streets became all too familiar within days, your little ways and alleys did not feel foreign. I told myself that it’s just the people – they are so warm and welcoming, you cannot help but fall in love with the slow, lazy unfurling of morning chores, of colours that brighten with every passing hour, of aromas that waft through unknown doorways but still tease your palate.

I thought you were my home. I found lost branches of my family tree in you. You grew, gradually, from a city that somehow, inexplicably, fascinated me to a city that I hoped I’d call home one day. To the world, you were the Venice of the east, the city of lakes. To me, you were the certainty of home on Shastri Marg. To the world, you were an oasis in a desert. To me, you were the sound of the dhaak, the face of a goddess, Doodh Ke Laddoo and scratching the tummy of the world’s best dog.

But he died, the man who turned you from a strange, magical city, into a home, comforting, and familiar. I lost sight of everything inside you that was turning you into my home. I raged at you, I wanted to abandon you, I blamed you and I told myself that I’d never fall in love again. Not with a city. I tried so much to keep away from you; I tried so hard to weave my life into a secure, safe cobweb of logic and practicality, away from you.

I tried. I may have partly succeeded too.

But I have seen you mourn with me. I have seen you, stripped away of your colour, glory and royalty. I have seen you break down, shatter into pieces, arrive in hordes at my doorstep because you had more tears to shed at my loss than I did. You attempted to recover. Your ability to take time out to mourn, to take a step back and look deeply into the level of trauma the death of one person can cause, threw me. Isn’t mourning the first step to acceptance and recovery? To my surprise, you also dragged me along that path to recovery too. And I found myself coming back to you, between every few breaths. All my promises to never see you again quietly dissolved.

To the world, you were and are an oasis in a desert. And now, you are that to me too.

Love Is Matter

Love is a need like no other.

Love is matter.

The terrible, unstable kind, yes?

The wild, sweeping kind that rips every notion apart until only nothing remains. And you weep, your tears are diamonds.

Or perhaps the luminescent, sublime kind.

The soothing, balmy kind, that caresses every scar, contains tides until only stillness remains and your smiles are rainbows.

Ah, of glorious hurts and shimmering pools of blood. Of nightskies dark with longing and days bright with impudent hope.

Of quiet acceptance that every drop of blood and sweat is mine, is thine, is ours.

Of every kiss that proclaims the tongue and every ache that screams for a union.

Of shivering limbs that crave steadiness from firm but gentle arms, but alas! Love must steady itself in its own whirlpool of collapse.

Of looking for answers in a beloved's eyes and the stoking of yellow embers that burn beneath the lids all night.

Of finding yourself staring back, a splash of white in every black; wind chimes tinkle in solitude and hearts splinter in gratitude.

Of blue cowherds and song and milkmaids and dance.

Of a day that won't see dawn on the banks of a swollen river, forever in spate.

Love is so many things, yet I know only your face.


I love so many things about you but all I can do is look at your face, helplessly, hopelessly.

(Co written with @URM1 - also on http://karma-and-some.blogspot.in/2013/09/love-is-matter.html)

Listen

When you are silent inside, you have very little to say outside too.

Have you wondered why the world is so noisy? Because behind the noise, there is silence that makes it possible for us to hear it all.

Can you tune everything out and listen? Try it. Listen anagrams to silent, after all.

Stopped Clocks

(Author's note: This is not a work of fiction. But then, who can define reality anyway?)

I was eating a cheesecake and a banoffee pie with my husband when one of the most important people in my life was on the verge of suffering a massive stroke.

I was making one of my favourite sambars when he went into surgery. It's my husband's favourite sambar.

I was planning a pasta dish when he died. Fusilli in a nutmeg tomato cream sauce to be precise.

My husband and I had just finished our dinner when we got the call that changed our lives.

I was halfway through washing the dishes. He was working on his laptop. The TV was on.

We knew we had to pack up and leave. I spent the next half an hour packing. Finishing those utensils. I remember every detail, every bit of cloth and toiletry I packed. I remember everything I said. I remember every call I made. No, it did not pass in a daze.

I was acutely aware of the things we would need, toothbrush, toothpaste, oil, towels, slippers, cotton, shampoo.

You know, you have to take a head bath after you come back from the cremation ground.

So, shampoo.

My husband told me to not bother. But I did.

Because while this breath is passing in and out of the body you inhabit all the time, gloriously unaware of its fragility and transience, you are life and your grip is tenacious. Strong, immovable because right now, it's meant to be here.

But when you let go?

When you let go, you slip away so quickly, it probably shocks even you. You forget names, numbers, places, faces and every little detail you felt was a part of who you are.

Do you know why? Because they are not who you are. So it's easy to forget. It's easy to let go. It's easy to drop it, like a hot potato. You know it's over and you jolt it away like it was never yours. Your body perishes. You slip away. The rest of them are left coping with the screaming, silent vacuum that you left behind.

I know death is painful. I know you think you will never get over it. I know you think life is going to be an endless journey of coping, of remembering and hoping that one day, you will be able to smile at their memory. Not break down like you do now.

That's what my uncle also thought.

If you had exactly 24 hours left to live, what would you do? Because you know, one day, that will be the truest thing anybody has ever said to you. Even the clock that has stopped is right, twice a day.

Disowned Cakes

An unbaked cake
Eggless because you
Carry odd allergies.
Deprived of pastries,
Imagine that!

But perfected cakes
Now arrive
To a disowned platter,
Spoons and forks, knives
No tinkles and clinks.

This oven is rank
Stale and old and rusty,
From all these
Years of waiting
Mostly in vain.

Do they have cakes
In heaven or it's gates?
Is there a mailing service
To send these things
Your way?

Haunting The Dead

Death used to a simple matter some years ago. People died. We gave away their belongings to needy people, framed a photograph and hung it up the wall, sometimes with a garland dangling around it. That was it. Perhaps a shirt or a saree was kept, in remembrance. A watch, probably a ring they wore.

Which always brings me to the question, the person who removes the ring from the dead body, or a necklace, how do they bring themselves to do it? I'd bury or cremate everything on their person. It's mysterious, the tenacity life holds us with.

And then people moved on because life went on and surrounded us constantly.

Things are different now.

We are no longer constantly surrounded by life. We surround ourselves with gadgets and solitude by default. We live online. Suddenly, the dead have social profiles that they have left behind and you can still see what they said on October 18, the argument they had with you and another friend freezing over in time. You can always go back, you can always relive bits of it, there is no full and final closure.

You haunt the dead. You never get over them. You keep going back. Their face still comes up when a social site reminds you it's their birthday. Only, you have a void staring at you where a person once was, nobody left to wish. You cannot get yourself to unfollow them, you cannot get yourself to unfriend them either. Every now and then, they pop back, like an indecent tease that will never come to any fruition.

In our world today, death is still a norm. Only, more painful. But just like it used to be, you never quite get over it.

It's mysterious, the tenacity death holds us with.

What Is Rape?

Women can be very Zen about the fact that men don't ask before making plans. It is the spiritually upright way to go about it.

Or women can be deeply disturbed that men don't ask them before they plan the simplest course of action.

Because women always do. It is the emotionally right thing to do, as a woman. To check. To ask. To know. To ensure they have provided for, before they can go seek their own little dreams.

Because by saying that it is okay to let it be this way, women submit to the way their twisted society is wired. That a woman must ask, but a man can get away with informing.

Women of my world who burn other women to death for money, who kill girl children, or who are less obviously harmless because they give preferential treatment to the boy child over the girl, to the son-in-law over the daughter-in-law, will tell you that men are simple beings, they don't complicate things, they don't "overthink".

They are right. Men do not "overthink", or for that matter, don't think at all about how the smallest of things can demonstrate who the boss is.

If this blog is being read by a man at the moment, please ask. Ask if your decision concerns a woman in any way. A violation of this basic dignity in its cruelest form is called rape. Often, men do this without realising they are doing it. And women take it thinking it's normal.

But just because something has been done in a certain way for centuries, does not mean it is right.

Drown

Old, forgotten tales of love
Weaved by lowered eyes
Few of which you understand
Glances and gentle sighs.

Of eternal, afterlife promises,
Of bartering life with god,
Withering smiles awaken,
Pathways together trod.

Not destined to receive,
The love you hanker for,
That act demands largesse
And pain worth dying for.

Those lips may never touch
And fingers never weave,
Nights not turn to evenings
And breaths never heave.

But nothing less will matter
And nothing less will live
Drown you must to sail again
Drown and still believe.

Find you may in a person,
In a voice, a place, a song
Find you may in a mirror,
With you, walking along.

Waning

Very recently, I met one of my grandmothers.

You know, I don't have just two grandmothers. I have several. My grandpa's sis-in-law, for instance, qualifies to be my grandmom. My grand uncle's wife would also be my grand-aunt and by that logic, sort of, well, grandma again.

My new grand mom is really tiny. When I hug her, she disappears in the hug. She has dyed hair so while the rest of her looks so old, the hair bit does not. She has wrinkles and crows' feet and everything crinkles up when she smiles.

She shouts. She is witty. She has a clever comeback to everything and is very thrilled if you can pit your wits against hers'. She called my grand father and spoke to him after more than four decades. She yelled at him for a straight five minutes on the phone while he fumbled and apologised for not staying in touch.

You have no idea how satisfying it is to know that there is still somebody who is qualified to yell at my grand father. I have never seen anybody shouting at my grand father.

Bengali grand moms are supposed to know lots of ghost stories. This one does not. When we asked her to tell us some ghost stories, she quickly quipped that she knows no scary stories, just real life stories which are usually more entertaining and bizarre than fictional ones.

She likes Kachoris secretly. She is a big fan of bread and butter. Toasted. And she is even more thrilled if you cut it up in neat little pieces and give it to her. She makes some seriously awesome Chhena Kheer.

She keeps herself entertained. But she says "Well, life is going on. Like it always does" when you ask "How have you been?"

Like a moon that is waning but must show on those last few days before the new moon.

It makes me want to die young.

On Love

Love.

And the incredible challenges it throws your way.

No matter who it uses to get to you, it will always, eventually, bring your focus back to the one most important person in your life.

And you, you will still not get it.

You will still not get why your insides melt in quietude when you see a heron take flight against a thundercloud...

...when a child digs his soft fingers into your palms, trying to hold on...

...when you embrace a lover...

...when your mother plates food in front of you...

...when your dog comes leaping, bounding at you after days of your absence...

...when a tree showers leaves on you while you walk under it...

...when the first drop of rain lands on your palm...

It is not these people, these animals. It is not how they are related to you.

It is not even that sentimental song you have been listening to.

It is the most important person in your life.

You.

No, there is no unconditional love between two.

Prem gali ati sankari, ta me do na samai - Kabir

Goodbyes

No new words from you,

No photos to paint blue,

Your pictures will grow stale,

Your memories slowly pale.

No wonky smiles to throw

At me across the road,

No hints about your muse,

No teasing can amuse.

Your voice on the phone

And how it always shone,

No promises now to keep,

No tears left to weep.

No place I can call,

To hear your laughter fall,

No bridges left to break

No quarrels left to fake.

No sounds remain to quiet,

No secrets now to hide,

No paper boats to sail

No words left to fail.

To Kushal and Rehab. Friends I lost in less than a week to death. As usual.

What You Left Behind

You went in what they call 'an unnatural way'. They usually mean a murder, suicide or an accident. They mean you died young. Suddenly, even forty is young when you are dead. If you're alive, though, it is the opposite.


You went without a goodbye. You went leaving a trail of devastation behind you. You went without ever looking back, burning memories and traces, forever corrupting flashbacks that were once pure, happy and loved.


Your name is now uttered with trepidation, with a hint of deep agony in the voice, a quaver. Your name is forbidden. A swear word, not uttered.


You are mentioned specifically only when you appear in dreams, as a silent witness, like you truly are. Your possessions are now sold, they populate other lives, except two or three mementos that have been held on to, passed on as heirlooms. The watch you wore on your right wrist never worked after you left.


We are told it works on the heartbeat. Apparently, just yours.

The Burden

The air is still. Almost as if it has decided to see just how quietly it can creep, undetected, through her home. Not a leaf has moved. Not a sigh has escaped her lips.

Not a word of this article she has read has stayed back except one: raped.

The images swirl in her head. She remembers how just a day ago, she was walking back home. Not a great distance, just two kilometres. She knows how she walks. She dodges, she clutches her bag close to her, so nobody can snatch it away and run for it. So nobody can grope her. So nobody can snatch her chain. She keeps tossing her head, not just checking for traffic but also for people; for men who might try to touch her while her head is tilted the other way. Her eyes glance this way and that, she keeps crossing the road, zigzagging her way home so she can avoid threatening or shady looking people, innocent as they may be.

She wonders when was the last time she walked without worrying about the process.

She knows she cannot take those share cabs alone - women hardly ever get into those alone.

She thinks then, about this little girl who had been murdered after being raped. Kidnapped while she played. Raped and then murdered, her body chopped to bits. She tries to think about incident after incident, news story after story that she has avoided reading just so she can restore some normalcy to her own life as a woman, trying to accept the caution and defences as normal, everyday. She looks at the surge of anger rising inside her, almost as if it is not hers.

She hopes, hopelessly, that there is some justification behind what is happening to women. She hopes that she never finds out. It almost justifies another article in the same paper that reports a mother who killed her own daughter. And for the first time, she can completely accept that.

Leftovers

(Another writing collaboration with the beloved Urmi.)


He undresses me. He turns off the lights. In bed, he takes me in his arms and I close my eyes. But I have not been able to close my eyes, and shut it all out. You travel the years, the darkness, and are there. Always there. I see you so clearly, it’s frightening. I don’t think I saw you then like I do you now. At the end of every day, when I lie in bed - alone sometimes, sometimes not - you are there. Hijacking my present, hijacking my all. You left long ago, but you never left, did you?

Because the other morning, when I turned away from the mirror, I saw a flash of red in my reflection. How did that happen, when I removed every shade of that colour from my life after you left? Because a few moons ago, I remember hearing footsteps climbing outside, in the corridor, your characteristic drag, that little tap against the wall with your fingers. Rat-a-tat-tat. Because just yesterday, I opened my cupboard and caught a strong whiff of your cologne. You never left, did you?

I catch myself snapping at my lover because he is not you. Then I bite my lip, and fake affection. He has no clue. He does not know of the strings attached. Strings so long, they have years for yards. Hooked to the nape of my neck, the small of my back, heck, my heart even, these strings traverse distances unknown and place their ends into your hands. You perhaps do not know. But you play me still, like you did in those days and nights of dirty love. I laugh thinking how you left, but never really did. My lover stops. He senses something odd - like a sheet of glass between our bodies. But he cannot see it. He never will.

So why leave at all if you had to continue haunting me? If you had to flash through my mind seconds before he loses himself in me? If you linger on, like yesterday’s perfume, in the crinkle of my eye, the lines on my palm? Why do you linger, half here, half wherever it is that you have gone to, your life at a standstill and my life...? Hanging on by threads that look like they are about to snap but they will not, they will not. They have frozen over, delicate, fragile beyond any bond ever formed, but frayed over time in the glare of your going.

He kisses my mouth, seeking my tongue, but the taste of your being interferes. I respond, but haltingly, reminding myself this is him, this is not you. He runs his fingers through my hair, down my back and my legs, but my pleasure is marred by the memory of your fingers. I respond, but haltingly, reminding myself this is him, this is not you. Not you. My love notes are not entirely his either. Words meant for you keep slipping in, and I crumple sheet after sheet. How you still punctuate the story of my life.

He can sense so much amiss. I feel terrible for him on days when I am alone. I feel terrible when I see his naivete, when I hear him tell his friends I am not easy to ‘get’. When I slip in and slip out, to him it is mystery. Mysterious. It fascinates him. He tells his friends I am not ‘that into him’. He is drawn to this, this lack of the real me, this lack of a total presence of me. Like a moth to fire, he does not see it is going to suck the life marrow out of him one day. But he can sense so much amiss. I see it flit across his face when I smother your name on my tongue before it escapes my lips. I see it reflect on his brow when I jerk his fingers away when he tries to find mine, almost as if a stranger touched me.

He turns away, sulking, his pride hurt. But his manhood won’t comply. I see his body has gotten used to mine, his heart to my love (or pity or sympathy). I take his hand to apologise without words, and can’t help but see how his fingers are nothing like yours. I’ve never quite gotten used to his stubby, awkward fingers. Fingers that don’t know what they are doing, where they are headed. I remember your hands, those beautiful, confident hands, even as I hold his, and juggle three lives. He is fast appeased, his eagerness most apparent. He begins to make love to me again, hungrily. I recognise this hunger. This isn’t much unlike what I felt for you. Not at all unlike what I still feel for you.

And so I wonder, sometimes, if that is why you left me. Was I too eager? Too hungry for you? Did I yearn too much? Did I hold on too much? Did I show you how vulnerable I was with you, how much I needed you, not just to love me, not just to make love to me, not just to tell me that you found me breathtakingly beautiful, but to be that tower of light to a ship lost on sea? Did I cling too much? Did I smother you and scare you away? And this, now, this odd, frighteningly clear presence of you that I have around me night and day, is it just me? Is it the idea of you that I am projecting on to every present moment I have? Am I killing my now because I want to hold on so badly to our yesterday?

Questions there are no answers to. It is like having to lay in bed with a million demons. Where are you now, I know not. Why you left without a word, I know not. What we could have been, I know not. Yet I must live in the shadow of your presence, wear it like my skin, breathe your memories like my life depended on it. I must love another (for who can live without love?), knowing it will never be the same, no man will be you, no passion so perfect. I let him nibble my ear, gush love-laden streams into them, and I find myself laughing. I am not pretending either. Pleased, he leaves. But I hear your laughter too, calling me a sentimental idiot like you did. I resign myself to him, and to you. Strange, aching threesomes. Perhaps I will learn to live this way...

But perhaps, I will not survive this breach. This rip in loyalty, this splitting of my spirit into two. Perhaps, I will not survive this choice, while I stand here now, on this ledge, looking down into this dark, grey abyss. Perhaps, in the mangled remains of my physical form, he will see that crack too and he will understand why I never seemed to possess my own body. Minutes away from now, I will not have to make this choice anymore. Minutes away from now, I will have forgotten my name, your name, his name. I will have forgotten these lines as I teeter on this edge, between life and death. This rush of wind and the quiet it brings is liberating. The numbness on my skin will be a relief from the memory of your fingers on my flesh. Finally. Finally, my eyes shall be able to shut it all out.