Don’t worry, you know I’ll hug you tighter when we meet, and maybe, just maybe, tolerate your slobbery kisses. We’ll make up for the time that was lost in the tumultuous months that skewed our lives and priorities. It’s been a while, maybe too long, since we aimlessly chattered the hours away and laughed the little things we took for granted. Maybe we were wrong to think we have an entire lifetime ahead of us, and we learned our lesson the bitter way. I promise not to take a second for granted, even if it means having to watch horror movies next to you, don’t blame me for all the scratches your arm will bear okay? We’ll dance to our trashy playlist and eat half-cooked Maggi, just like before. So the next time I’m scarfing down ice cream at 2 AM and going through my gallery, I have more of you, more of our tomfoolery, and more of us to laugh at.
-X-
You wander around the crowd, from person to person. The tap of conversation is gushing as a steady stream of voices pour into the room. In every group, you see handfuls of conversationalists, rapturing others with tales of their lives or views on the current political climate.
Then there are those like you, the listeners. Conversation for you is a series of nods and reactions, with scattered words now and then. You know about his breakup, her new job, and all the details of their endless family drama. You know who is going on a trip during the upcoming holiday and have heard just about enough of your acquaintance’s Bolivia trip.
There are times when you think, what if I spoke too? For you have much to say. But when put under the spotlight, you fumble and stutter, this is unfamiliar territory. Despite having a plethora of thoughts, aching to emerge into the conversation, there’s barely a trickle that comes out of you.
What holds you back are the dreaded “what ifs?” What if you bore them? What if you don’t stimulate the conversation? What if they zone out? What if you’re just not interesting enough? And in the string of “what ifs” you sink deeper into the quicksand of comfortable silence.
But that one time, when prodded slightly, you dare to speak. Suddenly it all comes back; the stories you may have long forgotten, your thoughts, pieces of your identity which were otherwise fading away. If only you dared more, sometimes, every time, without the flood of self-doubt, you wouldn’t remain just a spectator on the sidelines.
-X-
The air feels different tonight; we know all too well. In your room, two thousand kilometres away, your thoughts eerily echo mine. I wait for a sound, a laugh, a cough, a funny story, to fill up the gap that may swell into a chasm. We were simply deceiving ourselves, weren’t we? Silence barely brought about comfort each time it swallowed us bit by bit. It lingers persistently and grows larger, feeding off the small talk and stillness that was previously alien to us.
I want to ask if it scares you too and if it’s normal, that sinking feeling one gets in their gut each passing moment. For all we know, tomorrow will bring back the flow that carried us to far-off places in our laugh and jabbers. Maybe it’s just me; can I even help it? From better or worse, I’ve always experienced the latter, now finding an unsettling familiarity with it. Conversations discarded like letters from a past lover, remnants of a bond whose growth was stunted before it bloomed, hours dwindling to minutes, which soon ceased to be. A thought bores through me from the thousands that drill onto my mind, will we also be victims of such an ending?
So we wait for tomorrow and whatever it brings for us. Clinging onto the blind optimism that limply hangs onto our shoulders; I pray for conversations that led us to shady places hand-in-hand, you wish for the intimacy to go a long way, never forcing us to treat it like work. In the end, when it’s time, and we say our goodbyes, you ask me how I’m feeling. I parrot the white lie which I’ve used too many times; I’m okay, it’s all okay, we’re okay.
-X-
So come, share a cup of coffee with me in the dead of the night. You share your darkest secrets and I’ll share mine. We’ll jump into the dark abyss hand-in-hand, fully aware of the spikes and stones that lay at the bottom. Let’s pick on the scabs of old wounds, and feel the pain flowing out with the blood on our bodies. We can sit for as long as we want, and bask in the air that is perfumed with sadness. If the tears begin streaming down our scarred faces, nobody will wipe them away. And throughout the night, we’ll share our sorrows, perhaps a warm hug or two. Let them stare and judge; it’s okay. They want us to remain in the world of sunny skies and green pastures, where babbling brooks of laughter flow perennially and our thoughts are virginal white. They’ll only push us into darker corners, mistaking the solace for suffering. Let our morbid cries pierce their ears as we narrate the story behind each blemish on our arms, of the nights we cried alone and the days we lost our strength. Of our tightrope act where we struggle to balance between solitude and loneliness, and the emotions we burned along with the bodies of our loved ones. And a faint smile will appear on our lips when we are finally consumed by the melancholy we sought out. I’ll make you my muse and weave a shawl out of the tangled threads within your mind. It’ll be a gift you can carry along, the next time we share a cup of coffee and some sadness.
-X-
The snort gave me away as I clutched my stomach in laughter while you looked at me in surprise… Where was the woman who gave calculated chuckles at the absurdest of jokes and thought twice before speaking in diplomacy? I grinned awkwardly, trying to gauge the meaning behind your reaction, for it was time.
The slow parting of curtains, gradual withdrawal of the tide, the wall left exposed as you peep in from the other side. But the statutory warning remains right where it was since the beginning, the last barrier between you and me. A pandora’s box is what I had said when you wanted to break down my walls. Would you dare open that box I hold? Or would you be like them, I accused, scuttling off at the first peep?
The bad days and ugly ones, sweatpants and a grumpy morning face, bucketloads of tears and insecurities by the minute, inconveniences that may never have crossed your mind lay waiting for you a step away. Tell me, sweetheart, would you embrace my demons, ones that I run from till date?
You dusted the box and took it under your arm, the other encircling my waist, letting your silence speak volumes. You knew it all along, hadn’t you? The first time I broke down in front of you, that time you hyped me up for no reason, and when you recognised that angry glint in my eyes. The box was a mere gesture, a formality, you had taken me in with all my imperfections.
The final guard retired to its chambers as the lone bottle of whiskey stood witness on your bedroom floor, where we slow-danced to “All Of Me” in our pyjamas.
-X-
There are pages and pages I’ve written about you; poetry, prose, little notes in bullet points.
And each time the nib reaches the last full-stop I sit back and wonder, is this enough? Is this new, for someone like you?
I can go on endlessly about how your eyes light up when you’re talking about your favourite footballer & how every conversation of ours is incomplete without an obnoxiously loud belch.
But is there anything I can say that hasn’t been penned in the greatest works of literature?
Maybe not, because there is so much out there about love we know. And yet you’ve always proved, how much is yet undiscovered by us. Never ask me how much I love you, your answer would simply be fumbles and stutters.
For how do you expect me to wholly describe a feeling that consumes me whenever you come across my mind?
You’re in the songs I listen to, the ones you made gradually love. I draw parallels between the characters I watch online with you; the unmistakable ones who can be recognised in a crowd because there’s just something about them that draws one in.
And if I could I’d thank you every single day for all that you give me – knowingly & unknowingly.
Is this where the beauty of it lies? Those little gestures, which warmed the most unbelieving of hearts? Maybe so.
For it’s in you, I find the courage to take that leap of faith, to love unwaveringly. In you, I see the hope for better days and the will to believe in all that felt like a pipe dream.
Through all my incoherencies and cacophonies, there is nobody else I’d rather have by my side.
The Writer on the Sidelines 