Long to belong

It has been a long while since I heard from you. I let it be, maybe that’s what you want. May be not but then I’d be breaking the pact, and your peace. Maybe I am a bother to you, maybe you are with someone else. I shall believe these and convince myself and not let my thoughts reach you.

like everyday, I continue living here, not with you nor moving on. I look at things, suddenly realizing how every commonplace thing connects me to you. I hold them and hear your words ringing in my ears. “It’s my favorite pen; I don’t give this to anyone” “Not even me?” and with a slight kiss, you handed it to me “Can I ever say no to you?”. And like this, there were many precious little pieces that made their way from you to me; some now broken in anger, some lost in the hurt over the years, and a few that hung around and surround me now.

I woke up yesterday, unseeing eyes staring at the ceiling. And it struck me – your birthday in two weeks. The most precious and eventful celebration I looked forward to every year, even though I was never a part of it. Oh how I’d think and toil over the things to gift you, of giving you the joy and happiness that the day was for me, pouring my love into the all-consuming frenzy of making the day as special for you as it was for me. What shall I do today, tomorrow and every day from now till then?

Thought I’d call you “Let’s get married. If everything works out, I’m ready to go now- take me with you.” I didn’t; I couldn’t bear hearing you say what I already know.  I couldn’t let you ground me to this reality again; that I’ll have to learn to live the rest of this life without you; to live and work on everyday to fill the boundless emptiness in my existence. To not be able to hold your hands, and feel the warmth, like I am home. Now I know, I’ll never belong anywhere again.

Three

The overcast sky, cold and grey, mirrored the melancholy within me, barren of life or hope or emotion. Disoriented, I stepped outside to embrace and unite with the cold shroud, walking for miles with no sense of the past and the present, but fixated on exhausting the living body of my comatose soul. I drifted with the crowd unseeing and aimless, when a chilly wind blew across bringing with it a lost memory from the depths of time. My step faltered under the weight of the long-buried, now unshackled chain of memories that had extricated themselves from the formidable vault I had sealed in my grief; intensifying with each addition, they rose up to the surface until it had become a violent explosion of the past. Hot lava-like tears streamed down and warmed my stone-cold face, awakening me from the numbing coma that I had thrown myself into, to escape the torment of those shattered dreams. As I struggled to muster the strength to walk past the shadows of your precious memories, I heard my heart pounding in anticipation of your arrival – your thought had awakened the grieving, muted heart which was alive and beating but for a moment. I knew not if I should be glad for the ability to feel again, since the only feeling that engulfed me, was grief from all directions, unadulterated and unforgiving.

I turned around to walk home, weakened from the aftermath of the storm. The wishful dreams nurtured in my bosom free-reined and vivid, danced around me like glimpses of heaven, as they lured me astray from the worldly reality, into the blissful oblivion of our timeless existence.