Little Of Love

She knew very little of love.

It was a strange, ominous thing that loitered in the back of her mind and spoke in whispers.

If you asked her, she would not have been able to tell you why she was waiting there, curled up in bed with the blankets held close, her phone sitting quietly on the bedside table.

She would not have been able to explain the hope that kept her awake, or the tingling expectation that made her feel as if her heart was in her fingertips.

There was an adventure here, a journey, and for some reason a part of her knew the roads she had to take and the perils she would face.

It was a part of her that had always known, that was beyond her, somehow, outside of herself; an ancient knowledge that had seen the turn of ages.

It was a sensation she didn't quite know how to deal with.

After all, she knew very little of love.

Do, Return

I have to wonder why you keep returning.

Perhaps to see what I do with myself now.

For so long neither of us could look away

from each other. Our hands were always

near enough that if we flexed our fingers

we would be touching, or if we glanced away

the other was still in the periphery.

But all that changed when you left suddenly.

So I have to ask, why do you return?

Perhaps you regret the manner in which

you left me. What was it I had said.

That I felt like I was half dead or half alive.

Some much dramatic illusion to what was

frankly not a surprise at all. You see, I always

suspected that you would be the first to go.

I do not say that with disdain. That is just

the way it was with us. Our particular

dynamic. So I do not wonder why you left.

Only why you keep coming back.

Perhaps you want to undo the hurt.

Maybe you believe that this time around

I won't miss you as much. That I won't

call you as you walk out of my life.

A gentler letting go. A quieter farewell.

This time without histrionics, please.

I try. You talk about your various trips,

the places you visited, the people you met.

I talk about my inability to write with

your absence. I speak about my

health, in casual tone and ease. Not

forgetting how my parents think I'm

losing my mind, talking to Death every night.

I ask you how you are. And you tell me

that you miss me.

Now why would you go and

do a thing like that. For then I remember

how much I miss you. But I do not ask

why do you keep returning. Perhaps, like me,

you don't quite know how to let go.

Journey

I do not undertake this journey happily. It is a pilgrimage of sorts. There is no Mosque or God in sight. I am however the quintessential faithless traveller. There is little by way of redemption for a soul that is as yet filled with regret, rancor and rage. I will not forgive. Yet I am willing to forget. I am also willing to allow the place and the people to heal me. I fill myself with their laughter and familiar voices. I imagine this to have a better ending. I rely on their earnestness. I imagine he wants me here. The ground is coarse, leaves are still and the air is heavy. It is a bloody sauna, I curse. It is the desert, he informs. Like, I didn't know that. With deserters, I add. It's my private joke. But they all laugh. They are not earnest, but then neither am I. My mind like a camel swaggers in and out of a dusty haze. I see him, ahead, like a mirage. This time, he beckons to me. This time, I run into his waiting arms. This time, he doesn't let go.

New journeys

on dry, arid landscapes

with old luggage.

Forget

You do realize that I must forget you.

Just leaving you isn't quite enough.

I must erase you from all memory,

all association, all manner of remembering.

It is imperative in this mission

that I discard all things that remind me of you.

The letters, the conversation, that word

and for that matter even that particular

expression. I am told that it isn't easy.

I also have it on good authority, from

poets, writers and such types that it is

practically impossible. But what do they

know of me. I am rather determined to

forget you. In fact yesterday for all of two

minutes while the meal over cooked and I

fed the fish and the neighbor of mine

knocked on the door, I didn't think of you at all.

Tomorrow, I intend to make myself useful.

Plant a herb garden in a pot, for example, and the

day after I might trek up the Everest

and back. Forgetting you is going to be easy.

Writing about you and mourning your absence

I leave to a certain sham artist who is rather persistent.

Secret & Lost Memories

You are my secret, waiting to be told.

They ask me if I am in love and I speak of

blue skies and white clouds.

No, they don't believe me.

Not for one second, they say.

Listen carefully, I tell them, You can hear

the sound of the clouds as they journey across

the sky. And then I run to catch up with you.

There is as yet some relief in the fact that you are indeed everywhere.

It was in this room that we kissed, in this store that we held hands, this restaurant that we fought, this theater that we watched out first movie together, this scarf you bought me, this dress I might never wear, these earrings you helped me put on and this wall that we painted together, and those people, your friends.

They are not painful reminders. They are triggers of association. That they are linked to you is enough consolation. That even though we no longer are together that there is still this. A testimony that all happened was real. A reminder of what we once had. One must not remember, they warn us, unless there is something to be gained from it. But his remembering is all I have. Even if remembering is wasted energy. These things make them real.

Or who would imagine that any of this actually happened. Or that it is over.

Moon-Dance

She hardly looks up at the moon these days. That was their thing. Or rather his, and he transferred it to her. Or should she say he gave it to me. He could predict her moods based on the moon. Just like his mother, he would add.

Any other girl might have been insulted by that comparison. But she was always happier with that addendum. Just like his mother! She remembers her. Her hair cropped short and in an early morning tousle. She was leaning over him and kissing the top of his head. How could she not love a woman who loved him the way she did, she would think secretly.

And last week, it was a full moon. She heard someone mention it at the restaurant. So when she steps out of the restaurant, she looks up at the sky. There it is, over the waters, perfectly still. Like a silent spectator.

She notices the couple walking on the bridge arms casually draped over each other. He looks at the moon and pulls his lover in closer and kisses her quickly. He tells him something in her ear with a smile. He looks up at the moon and then retraces his steps back to where they had been. And then, he kisses her. Really kisses her. This time, he doesn't notice her.

Past And Future

Thirteen years is a long time to spend trying to come to terms with something. You indulge it. You deny it. You reject it. You accept it. You embrace it. You fool it. You will it away. But it lingers. Sometimes it's just a word, or a name or a phrase or a mannerism. Sometimes it's the emptiness, the lack of, the hollow feeling from having had something and then losing it. Or from knowing what could have been but now it never will be. Thirteen years is a long time. Get over it, your ever pragmatic side reprimands. But it was magic, your indulgent side, cajoles.

It was just another lover, another relationship.

Another life.

All you have to show for it is thirteen years of trying.

And a lifetime knowing you will never succeed.

6-teen Months

I haven't seen you in sixteen months,

and haven't heard your voice in two.

That should be okay

because we have gone by for longer

with no talking, touching or telling.

But the other day while picking milk

at the local store

I panicked.

What if I die, I thought.

What if you die.

What if I die and you never know,

or what if you die and no one tells me.

And fro somewhere was this

renewed urge to reach out to you,

to hear your voice,

to see you again,

to touch your hand,

to hold your face,

to smell you.

I run all the way back home,

dial your number.

(Of course I still kept it).

But you won't answer,

and I won't give up.

So I call again and again.

And every time the same voice says

"The number you are trying to reach does not exist".

But what if you die, I want to say.

What if I die.

What if we both die.

Just once, I want to plead, just once

please pick up.

Let me see you, let me touch you.

Let me hear you, let me feel you.

Just once.

And then I remember

(after the panic subsides of course).

I already died when I killed you.

Picture Imperfect

There are these snapshots of you. Like pictures hanging in a gallery. Leaning against the door-frame, with a bouquet in your hand, a sheepish grin plastered across your face. Posing by the window with the light of the Sun coruscating off the water and rippling on your torso. At the airport, with a gift behind your back, anxiously scanning the arrivals gate for me to appear.

So many airport scenes. Across so many places. Which is rather relevant because so much of this has been arriving and leaving. In a sense we are still standing at the airport, not quite sure who has left and who has arrived. But we stand here, like passengers who have been traveling for a long time. Across time zones, across mindscapes, across countries we have never visited.

And then there is the snapshot of you leaving. Walking into the elevators, your back turned to me not looking back even when the door shuts behind you.