I want to write.
I desperately, passionately and vehemently feel the burning desire to connect. Connect the thoughts in my head to the words that these thoughts should shape into. It should be natural I’d imagine. After all, isn’t that precisely what I’ve been doing all these days, months and years since you walked into my life? You walked, waltzed, hid, scuttled and ran, in and out of my life a few times now. Over time, I got used to that.
The absences, the hurt, the angst and the smiles that forgot the tears.
The laughter and the screams.
The declarations and the curtain of lies each of us hid under.
The truths that couldn’t be called truths anymore coz they morphed into lies that breathed honesty in every syllable uttered.
Confusing and confused, the web got darker, thicker and stickier.
Yet, through all of that maze, we reached clarity. Both of us had it. We did, didn’t we? Yes, we did. There was this spark of clarity that threw blinding light on us, drawing us into the other’s nakedness. I could see you, and I know I didn’t hide from you.
You, am sure found your peace, coz you wanted this. You wanted and I gave it to you. Sure, you’ve asked before and I have given you, and trust me, I want to give you whatever you want, but up until now, couldn’t give it you wholeheartedly. There was a selfish streak within, to be happy despite causing misery. See, am not so noble after all. I craved you for selfish reasons.
I was the happiest with you in my life. I am not sad now, but evenly happy. Yet, it isn’t the same kind of abandon and reckless happiness that makes me sparkle. The stars in my eyes as I look for you. The sheen in my skin, my face glows with the thought of you, the heart races just a bit quicker in anticipation, and the words.
By God, the words. My precious words. They flowed. Abundant, thick, luscious and juicy. Angst, love, lust and wisdom vying with each other. They danced to the tune my heart sang in. They scampered into little couplets, sonnets, arrangements that I never knew I could put them in, all by themselves.
Orchestrated by everything within me ignited by you.
You left.
The orchestra’s disbanded itself.
I drop a tear or two some days when I can afford the luxury to mourn.
For my babies, my words. My muse.
These months, I have nightmares. My letters mock me, full of scorn and anger and an occasional revenge. They threaten to leave me if I don’t do something quick. They lay in a pile, tired, bored and rusted. Lethargic, fat and unhealthy. Almost sick. Breathing their last few moments before they leave to find a better home.
I am going to have to let them go. Can’t have blood on my fingers. Not the blood of my words.
The trade off has been fair.
Your peace for my muse and words.
It’s bittersweet.
Like Belgian dark chocolate. The kind that I sent you last and ones that dried up and tasted like hard rocks in the cold? Yeah, they taste bittersweet. Like how my tears would taste, if you’d kiss me. Now.
standing packed
in anticipation
brimming a dreamy symphony
whispering the same
in repetition
silencing a misty cacophony
waiting
yearning
pining
to awake in the music
to dance in the echos
to shimmer in the ripples
to be alive
an orchestra in order
bows bent
backs straight
in attendance
in anticipation
in repetition
to wake up and dance and shimmer with life
for
his breath to surge
his eyes to rove
his finger to trace
to render her
tactile
She was a delight, he thought.
From her giggles to the hearty deep laugh, her coquettish eyes to that curve of her brown lips. The way her chin angled in every picture he’d seen. It seemed natural that she’d do that until it was pointed out one day.
Her rich brown coffee colored hair streaked with henna, catching a bit of the sunshine as she turned and tossed her now waist length mane.
Flirtatious and flippant, she moved with purpose. Unaware of the effect she had amongst the row of men that waved from across the lines. It didn’t seem to faze her. It didn’t seem to make her heady. Her dancing feet firmly rooted, she pranced in and out of his life a few times now.
A whirlwind with every entrance. Leaving him breathless and harried. A high that was at once sexy, heady, thrilling as much as it drove him up the wall.
She was a child-woman. Excitedly she’d waltz into his life, with a bit of a tear threatening to flow down her rounded brown cheeks. He’d succumb. As much as a strict front he put on, he let her have the power on him. Every single time.
Every time she revealed a little bit of herself.
Animatedly she’d pull herself aside and show a secret. One. Each time it was just one, or maybe two. Not more. Guarded secrets. Ones that she treasured with great pride and a sense of urgency to protect.
He’d peeled away at her childishness one day. She let him.
Next it was her enthusiasm.
The way she held her pen while she wrote volumes to him.
Then came her spunk.
The sensuous curve of her neck.
The eyes that spoke volumes with different shades.
Peel by peel by peel.
His fingers trembled with every reveal.
She in turn glowed under his touch.
The finer fluff done, he probed further and braced her jealousies and insecurities.
Fascinatingly repugnant, yet strangely goading him further, he delved deeper.
The layers got difficult to navigate, murky, there was no clarity in where he was headed. Common sense told him to retreat now, but he was curious. He wanted to know everything about her. He felt that when he first met her and now there was a hesitation. A voice floated down “Be careful for what you wish for, you may just get it” He wondered briefly if this complication was necessary at all.
Outside his mind, the game continued. He stopped asking in hope that she would stop revealing. He was no masochist.
He exclaimed one day,”You are crazy! One day you surprise me, the next you shock!”
She smiled shyly. “There’s more. Just one last one”, she said with a twinkle in her eye.
With a sense of finality and relief and a sadness that accompanies the revealing of the mystery, he stood waiting. With a deep breath and a smile, she opened her palms and it shone. Clear and radiant, it lay there dazzling against the pinkness of her palm. It was her final treasure. It was herself.
Shielding his eyes to the brightness, he says with disappointment “A shiny clear stone!”
Her eyes drop, and she closes her palms. Her pulse raced and before she fell to the floor in a heap, she held onto her diamond just a bit tighter.
