The start.

Oh, take me back to the start

**

I want to write you a love letter 

but midway it turns into a goodbye note. 

I guess that's how my brain makes my heart work. 

Even when all my heart wants to do is believe, 

my head won't have it - 

it doesn't allow me this basic illusion or relief 

that it's all going to be alright. 

People fantasise about their perfect life, 

(hell some believe they even manifest it) 

but here I just play tragedies on repeat instead - 

A hundred ways in which it can go wrong. 

Even my poetry is broken; 

I set out to write verses of love sonnets but inevitably 

end up with morose prose instead.

I don't know exactly when or what date it was

when my heart decided to break into two

and my mind disintegrated into a mess of cynicism 

irreparable, irreversible

stuck on the pain and the agony

making my life into the worst tragedy

when all my tiny heart wants 

is

to believe

to love

to hold

and to cherish

**

I want to scream i love you

from the rooftops and mountaintops 

until my throat is sore and dry

I guess that's how much I want to tell the world that you're mine

instead i become more quiet

I fade and dissolve

into the background 

Wanting to become the white noise that is -

barely noticeable 

insignificant, immaterial

as if i don't matter 

as if i am but a passenger in this journey

replaceable, forgettable 

because i can't shake this feeling 

of not being nearly enough 

I find myself reminisce the past

where did this all start?

where is the three year old that fell in love with 

the most romantic actor of all time?

the one who believed in fairytales and happily ever afters

hell, the one who even dreamed about them

where is the belief?

in myself 

in you?

in us?

**

Oh, take me back to the start

Kaise Hua?

It's so rare - and fleeting - this feeling - no, not happiness; contentment.

You know when you have the most basic day and it's still perfect?
I don't take up a lot of space on my writing forums to be grateful and yet, one of the things I've come to be most grateful for lately, is time spent with loved ones. I think the past two weekends have been testimony to this. During a pandemic instated lockdown, it's only natural to feel the stress and pressure of being separated from ones I wouldn't voluntarily go without for long or short spells, really. However, tonight, I feel immensely... Complete. I think the past two weeks have really enriched me with minimalism, which is rare. I'm usually someone who desires and aspires for the big, the extraordinary, the grand.

However, I found comfort in talking for hours with friends I hadn't caught up. I found laughter in revisiting stories with family that had drifted away. I found rejuvenation in playing silly games with parents and extended family (and of course in unleashing the competitive side). I found ecstasy in having one of my best friends make the time and space and effort to spend uninterrupted time with me and in spoiling her rotten over the course of that weekend with my hostess-ness. I found bliss... In holding your hand again, touching your skin, almost like electricity; in being close to you, and yet not close enough; in finally taking you in, all of you, lips, body, mind, soul, everything.

I don't know how I've gotten here honestly. This feeling of being fulfilled and complete is so... new? Engaging? Refreshing? Satis-fucking-fying. I do look for small signs and gestures, take pleasure in the mundane and routine - from asking you about your meals to making some for people I love. I'm still far from the version of productivity and efficiency that I envision for myself but somehow I find myself, telling myself, tiny, little positive things lately - about myself. I'm being kind, almost? And I'm feeling something so much more than love for him...

As cliche and cheesy as it is, I guess I'm honestly just another girl, looking at her boy from across a virtual screen, wondering...
Kaise hua? Tu itna zaruri kaise hua?

There's oceans.

There's this thing I do now, which I have never done before, ever. Because I wanted to save us from scars for as long as possible. It's something silly and insignificant really, but it's big for me and I like that it helps hold you in a place in my heart, the existence of which, even I was unaware of. But I'm losing my mind without your face, and your touch, and your voice on my skin. I'm spiralling and constantly running away from myself and any possible triggers. Because I don't want to test you in any way - I'm testing my self-restraint and willpower in ways I didn't think possible. Perhaps it doesn't look like much because I still keep whining to you, constant-fucking-ly. 

Imagine working for as long as you do, and then staying up late to talk to your person, and them always being miserable and demanding. I get it. Anyone would tire. Frankly a (large) part of me is waiting for you to tire - almost? But as I stay up, night after night, the oceans between us keep growing larger and keeping us further and further apart. I haven't felt your radiant smile, shine on me for so long that I think I've forgotten how to (genuinely) appreciate it across a screen, more so because I'm forgetting how to appreciate most things as time passes me by, and the reality of the virus dawns on me more and more. 

Nothing seems to have any meaning anymore darling. Because nothing ever leads to you. It's an unending torture. And with the whole world literally like a sinking ship, I don't know if I will ever get to you, before I go sinking too. I'm so close to breaking my personal vow, because my resilience and perseverance is cracking. The self-doubt looms over my head, darker than before; the negative thoughts keep building up; the questions with no answers; and the feeling that I'm alone - all the effing time. I'm all alone.

I know, I know what I'm doing to me, and you, and us, and I can't seem to be able to stop. I'm so mad at myself for not being half as logical or practical or just fucking real. I want to stab the idiotic romantic fool inside me till its dead and gone - it tires me so. I want to pull my guts out so my heart can stop sinking down to them, as soon as there's a slight mention of a longer delay in seeing you. 

I always knew I had my weak spots, but to have you become a weakness, so fast, and so much, is unnerving even for me. I want to just be able to face this evil monstrosity of a virus, bringing you some semblance of comfort and peace that I seem to be so adept at bring to the rest of the  world.

Yet, I fail repeatedly, currently in this battle and perpetually in the emotion called love. I've probably never grown enough to get it right. I just hope that I do, but hoping and praying is not enough. 

Clearly, neither is love; for all the love in my heart for you, there's still insurmountable oceans between you and me tonight.

Happy 13th, you.

150 days.

I wrote you a song in my head. And it played out with your eyes looking into mine. That slow, casual, strut you took towards me, it made up the background score for that. For when you came close(r) to me and slid down the pillow, and I turned into you, so close that I could count every crease of your forehead and shirt, only there were none of the former and I added lots to the latter. The lyrics were perfect for when you eased into me and leaned in, for when you pulled me so close that there was no space for air between us and met my lips, purely because you couldn't wait any longer. You'd waited seven years after all.

The first verse played over our first pegs of vodka and the bridge covered the dressing up. But it was a never ending chorus as we walked out for a night together, and never looked back. Every step since then has been a song, a melody that we built together, the lyrics of which I wrote on my way to you but they never panned out until your touch met mine, your breath muffled mine.

I love you, not like they do in books or movies or plays. Because they seem to know what they're talking about. I don't. I love you like the unknown, the one still left to unfold. I love you like I love the first red rose I preserved in the pages of my favourite novel years ago, in the hope that some day I could take it out and hand it to someone who'd know what it meant for me to keep it all this while. I love you like I love the baby book that my parents made for me and I'd read and reread just because it made me see myself as someone who could be loved when I saw myself from their eyes. I love you like the first cassette I ever bought, and the lyrics of every song which it had that I memorised because suddenly I'd found something that completed me and made this universe make sense. I love you like like I love the last page of all my notebooks because that is where I scribble what I never have the courage to write out and then trace those words some lazy afternoon afterwards, knowing precisely what I felt back then and unknowing why I could never say it out.

I love you for I don't know any other way, I love you for I don't know what I'd do without it, I love you for I can't stop myself. I love you because I do.

Forgiveness.

Dear you,

I guess I know why I have been unable to write - something that my future legit depends on - because all the letters in my head are currently addressed to you. Until I can get those out, I won't be able to write about anything even slightly meaningful to me. I was trying to avoid this because I'm scared, I genuinely am, as to what this will do to me emotionally, writing this letter to you. For once, I don't have tears in my eyes though. Maybe they'll make their way as I struggle to find the right words for you, one more time. Here goes another futile attempt at closure. 

I don't want this letter to be anything bitter. I've been so angry at you lately, that it has consumed my entirety and honestly, I was never good at carrying some emotions - anger, guilt, anxiety. I'm more at the psychotic end of the spectrum - seeking thrill, adventure and even total annihilation if that's what life and love leads me to but this neurosis? Nope, not my style and is exhausting beyond measure. Anyway, I digress. 

I've framed so many hate mails to you and your family in my head, that this is somehow not coming naturally to me. I'm not entirely sure I'm ready for this because nobody in your world has done anything for any of you to deserve this, but I guess this is more for me than anyone else... 

                         I forgive you. 

I forgive you for never looking back or reaching out. I forgive you for moving on one day after our break up. I forgive you for never understanding my love for you and undermining it in front of everyone who mattered to you. I forgive you for discarding and deleting people from my life who loved you immensely and tried to reach out to you repeatedly, siding with you, despite everything. I forgive you for forgetting my mother. 

I forgive you.

I forgive you for not holding me at the end, as I lamented the loss of my happily ever after. I forgive you for not meeting me one last time and then blaming me for it. I forgive you for removing all reminders of me from your life and building a love on my remains. I forgive you for taking all of our dreams, my dreams, and gifting them to your new girl on a platter. I forgive you for picking 2020 as the year you'll marry her, (it was mine!). 

I forgive you.

I forgive you for the social media love outburst you display each day, with no changes in the manner that you used to write for me/us. I even forgive you for citing your names as research co-authors, forgetting when and for whom you did it first. I forgive you for forgetting all our firsts, dreams, promises, the names of our never-to-be-born son. I forgive you for sharing Rockstar and Tamasha with her. 

I forgive you.

I bring myself to forgive you for all the hate you sent my way once we were over - for shaking my faith in love and humanity and friendship. I forgive you for never believing in me or the best version of me that I tried so hard to be with you. I forgive you for breaking me beyond recognition. I forgive you for never listening to 'Unspoken' the story that I only told because you were a part of my life. 

I forgive you.

I forgive you for all the gynaecological problems loving you led me to. I forgive you for not supporting me when I needed it most, just because it was hard for you, despite you having someone to comfort you all along. I forgive you for denying me closure. I forgive you for always sowing that seed of doubt in my heart that I'm unworthy of love, I'm not a good person, I deserved all the horrible things that happened to me.

I forgive you.

As hard as it is, I forgive you Firdaus. I forgive you for being another Anshuman. I forgive you for stealing what your name meant to me (long before you happened even) forever. I forgive you for carrying me in your subconscious and making your entire relationship a replica of ours. I forgive you for not being as progressive and open-minded as you claimed to be. I forgive you for not having the strength to fight your parents for me. I forgive you for you lying to me about their apparent liking for me. I even forgive you for making me a cynic forever. 

I forgive you because it's time. I forgive you for the apology that you'll never send and for not knowing why you needed to. I will keep waiting for a day to meet and hug you goodbye, the right way this time, but that's not happening. You've forgotten what we meant to each other and I guess that's okay. It must be hard to accept we were good and then continue to be a douche to me. Attitudes and behaviour cannot remain in conflict forever, right? So I forgive you for being the worst nightmare of mine, for ruining my favourite year 2018 and now for your exquisite plan to ruin 2020 too. I forgive you for not caring about me. I forgive you for being so petty and shallow during the breakup and after that I no longer recognise who you are. I forgive you for getting us to a place where despite sharing a large part of our lives, dreams and goals, we can never reach out to the other. I forgive you for making me a psychotic villain (#Durga), for ruining my memory of us, for replacing me within 24 hours, for giving up. 

All my life I've had people give up on me. I forgive you for convincing me that you never would, for making me love again, only to pull the rug out from under me when I needed it most. I forgive you for coming into my life when I was in a happy relationship, show me how it wasn't all that I needed, make me doubt everything and believe in you - only for you to do it all over again with her; for you to abandon me in totality and instead devote your time and energy into 'saving her' from her relationship. I forgive you for not telling me when you moved on. I forgive you for using your parents as an excuse against me and then for convincing them for everything I ever wanted for us, only with her. I forgive you for leading me on, during the most important years of my life, only to leave me stranded eventually.

I forgive you for changing. 

I forgive you for the transition from my perfect dream to my perfect nightmare. I forgive you for being my Thunder only to watch you share this with her too. I genuinely forgive you. You didn't do any of this intentionally. This is just how things turned out. I don't know how much of this was conscious/subconscious/unconscious; what was motivated by your insecurities and family issues and what stemmed from my horrid past experiences and inability to reassure you of my love. How much of this was me testing you endlessly and how much was you constantly running away and me trying to hold on, I'll never know. 

So, I forgive you.

I forgive you because I cannot hold on to you any more. 

I just cannot.

I cannot wait for you to do the decent, human, kind thing anymore so I'm doing it for you. Forgiving you for all the things you never will ask forgiveness for. 

I forgive you. I forgive you for this deplorable end. 

We were good. I'm sorry you forgot four years worth of memories in less than 48 hours. I'm sorry I couldn't hold on for longer. I'm sorry I couldn't reach out to you again, only to be disrespected or worse still, ignored, one more time, in one more novel manner. Trust me I tried.

In the end, I forgive you most for being your father's son. Expecting you would stand up for me was a fantasy really when you never could stand up for yourself or your mother or for what you thought was right or even what you knew was right. I know it was your greatest fear that you'd end up being the martyr between the two of us, but guess what, you were more him than her all along. 

And here I am, the hopeless romantic, heartbroken, (still!) and finding the strength from somewhere within to write this apology to us. 

Your 

(True) Martyr 

We were happy?

Some people believe at their very core that they are not worthy of happiness which is why they will do everything to destroy it even when it's well within their reach. Most run, avoid, escape happiness from the very start but there are a few who will chase it, nail it down and then ensure they become the reason behind it's complete and total annihilation. It's seen a lot in patients seeking therapy. They report relationships breaking repeatedly, unaware of their pattern and if aware, unable to change it. 

Am I one of them? 

I know there have been things that have haunted me from the very start of life. Try as you may, not everything can be erased - not memories and definitely not nightmares. Just when you think you've outrun your demons, new ones are formed, much worse than the ones you had learnt to fight against. You're one of them now, and nothing pains me more. You, the one who would have me breaking into a smile on my worst day is now a reservoir of misery. You are the one whom I can't hate or love.

Were you ever you then or are you ever you now?

I can't, don't, won't reach out to you. There's a lot I want to say but that's a door I've had to close for myself. I thought we could talk, acknowledge, validate and maybe find some peace in the abrupt closure that was thrust on us. But then I recall, it wasn't thrust at all. You chose it. You continue to choose it everyday. Your rigidity over our sanity. Your demons over our truth. You over us, always. Maybe it was a long time coming.

Are you too tired of fighting? Is there absolutely no fight left in you?

The pain of the matter is I know you. Really know you. That is perhaps why I can't hate you. But I can remain angry and I am. An apology email doesn't cut it anymore. I'm sorry for a lot but not this. I ache on days like today when I see all the happy memories of us (and boy there are so many) and realize they weren't enough, that nothing was enough for you. Or me. Or us. And I realize that I'm fucked because if that wasn't - if that wasn't it - nothing ever can be.

Can it?

The saddest thing of all is that you will never believe what you meant to me. You were redemption - God's way of making up for all the shit in my life. My smile, my joy, my happiness. My faith in goodness. My reason to be better. The one who could inspire me and support me and drive me like none other. The one who knew me better than myself. The one who made me believe in "the one". My everything. My thunder.

Until you weren't. 

Gnaw.

Memories spring up from where you least expect them. So much of this town is tainted. I reach somewhere and suddenly the wind leaves my lungs, my airway is deficient and choked, and I have lost all sense of time and place. I am ready to break down, I do break down internally but how many times can I find a corner to silently weep in? I think I've learnt the art of weeping on the inside constantly instead. I don't think anybody thinks about people, places, songs, and cities the way I do. Many people have ruined many things for me but you took this to a whole new level. It's not even on you - it's on me and my inability to dissociate. It's not the end that has ruined it all - it's the complete and utter loss of meaning to every memory - was it all a lie, a pretence, did I "steal you from your parents" all along? Was there no free will? Are my favourite memories your worst nightmares? I think I can't be the villain in anybody's story and being the only one in yours is what hits me most. Nobody else knows what we went through but surely you do, right? Surely you don't hate me as much as you say, right? Right?

I hate that I'm always left wondering! Why must I be forced to rethink everything? Why can't it just be something beautiful but not everlasting? No, it must be scarred and I must be blamed. I empathize and I understand the world and then when nothing is left of me, I empathize some more. But never am I granted the benefit of the doubt I so easily give to those I love. You know what this questioning does to me? Do you? I constantly second guess myself. I struggle with self love. I always doubted my physical beauty now I doubt my inner one too. It's not fair to my parents, who raised me so much better than this; it's not fair to my friends whom I constantly hold to extremely high standards; it's not fair to the person I'm with because I always alternate between being too enmeshed or too distant but most of all it's not fair to me! Why must I be the one left in doubt? Why can't I just be allowed to treasure my past as opposed to constantly run from it?

In the end, you're all the same, with all the same promises and the exact same heartbreak.
And yet here I am again, hoping that unlike you, he'll always remember us this way.
Hopeless romantic much?


PS: Thank you Ad-mad, if you're reading, for being the only exception. 

Doori.

He said to her: 

"Kehne ko hum paas hai par, kitni doori hai

Yeh bhi kaisi majboori hai?

Tumse hamdardi bhi nahi kar sakta main,

Meri bas ki baat nahi hai

Main ye behte aansu ponchu,

Itni meri aukat nahi hai.

Main bhi yahin hun

Tum bhi yahi ho

Par sach ye hai ki main hun kahin

Tum aur kahin ho

Kehne ko hum paas hai par, kitni doori hai
Yeh bhi kaisi majboori hai?"

She smiled. 
He finally understood what she had known all along but struggled to explain. 

She said:

साथ होके  भी  साथ  ना  थे,
अब दूर होके भी दूर नहीं
सबकी हमदर्दी के बिना ही जी हुन मैं हमेशा,
अपने आँसू पोछना बन गया हैं मेरा पेशा |
मजबूरी नही थी पर मजबूर हैं हम,
हमारी यादों से भी अब अनजान हैं हम |
दूरी तो सिर्फ एक बहाना हैं,
तुम्हें अपने आप से जो भागते जाना है...
पर मैं हूँ यहीं
तुम भी यहीं हो,
पर तुम हो नही
क्या तुम वही हो?

Sachchi Mohabbat Kachchi Reh Gayi

RIP.
Rain and Thunder.
2014-2018.

कोई नहीं भुल्दा यारा जींवें तू है भुल्लेया

Hey, you.

I haven't written to you lately, have I? 
Did you think I forgot about you?
Did I fool you for long enough, yet? 
Will this pain ever end?
Will the mention of your name ever stop bringing tears to my eyes?
Have we moved on?
Have you? 
Should I continue honouring our memories or delete all traces of us?
Should I hold on or let go?
How the fuck does one let go?
How will we ever find something, anything that compares? 
Do we want to?
Do you want to?
Or are we just masochists who found this love just to fuel an eternity of pain?
Are we really that broken? Or did we just break each other beyond repair?
Are we still breaking each other?
(Repeatedly and unapologetically.
over and over and over again
Rain and Thunder. 
Thunder and Rain.)

An apology.

It's over, it really is.

I guess I don't want to accept it but it is. It has been for a while and I don't know how but I need to wrap my head around it. Accept the finality of things. At least start entertaining the idea that there's a very real possibility that we never speak again and that you're not a part of my life. 

It's over, it really is.

I guess if it is then all I want to say one last time is that I'm sorry and I love you. I'm sorry I have pushed you to a point where you're all alone. I'm sorry that you have to doubt everything and believe the worst about possibly what was once the best thing in your life. I'm sorry that you are doing things that you hate yourself for, just to stay sane and put yourself first. I'm sorry darling that the misunderstandings have gotten the better of us and that all your worst fears and insecurities seem to be proven right. I'm sorry we have to bear the brunt of everything that went wrong in the past two years, career and family wise. I'm sorry that you have no more fight left in you.

I'm sorry that it's over. It really is. 

I love you and I want it to have meant something. Maybe it means that we spent beautiful moments together for as long as life let us. We could create magic because we were magic together. Dancing in theatres, on roads, watching Netflix and FRIENDS for days, being feminists, just being together. 

It's over. It really is. 

I have dreamt of you for a month straight and waking up has been torture. Waking up to a reality that is a complete contradiction of my dreams and my desires takes the life out of me. But I smiled today. I don't know if I will be able to smile always but today I felt that maybe the only way we meet now is in my dreams, and if so, then to hell with everything, I'll smile because I get to see you. Because I know with time this will fade too. 

It's over. It really is. 

I guess I will never run out of things I want to say to you or words that I want to write for you. You will be the first person I think of whenever something good or bad happens for a long time to come. But that doesn't change anything. 

It's over. 

I'm sorry. 

I love you. 

An Ode to Khilji.

I never wrote a review for Padmaavat, partly because it had already been spoken about so so much and partly because I could never entirely capture in words what that movie left me with - bitterness, anger, pride, sadness and a deep sense of regret. Almost as if the door wasn't shut on Khilji's dream of love, but mine.

Today I feel I want to write - not a review, no that is meaningless now but an ode to an insane lover - Khilji. The fact that this role was played by Ranvir Singh added so much power to this character and the second time around it was confirmed - I was in love - not with Khilji - but his insanity for this emotion.

I guess I am someone who has always had this one constant longing for love and a deep-rooted yearning that if at all someone does find it in him to love me, he also finds it within him somehow to fight for this love, to fight for me. 

Why this need for him to fight you might wonder. I certainly have struggled with this very question. Because I'm a fighter and I have always fought for the ideas, thoughts and people I believe in. I am willing to fight any man, woman or child who stands in the way or threatens any of these. I guess that's why I want someone who loves me to be willing to take on this fight as well. But that's still not all of it. But i'll get to that in a moment. The fact that Khilji was willing to quite literally break walls and move mountains for someone he had never even seen makes me want to believe that maybe just maybe someone will have that kind of strength. I know it's an impossible ask which is why I am in awe of the man who had it. He may have been a barbaric brute but his extent of love for her, his will and determination and in the end, his anguish at her loss... isn't something I can still capture in words. And I guess it's only fitting that if I can't capture it in words, what I'm looking for is also an impossibility to find.

I guess I'm yearning for this magnitude of love and fight because I wanted someone to fight for me since I was really young. Why? Because I didn't. And I didn't let anyone find out I needed to be fought for either. I hid the pain and the darkness for so long that it became a part of me. So oftentimes the person who tries to love me will have to fight not just the world, the circumstances but also me - because I will always need to be saved from my darkest demons. This will be the toughest fight of them all - these demons have defeated anyone in their path till date and I keep a tight lid on them because their wrath and fury spares no one - least of all the ones I love.

But why would someone do this you might wonder as well. I'm no timeless beauty, I'm just me. Why the wage these wars and fight these battles when there are easier paths to love? Because yes I'm no Padmaavati, I won't die for your love. I will kill for it. I don't believe in surrendering; there was always a warrior within me, it just took me really long to learn the need to fight; but now that I have, I never give up. If I love you, I will never give up on you. I have most experience fighting my demons and true, they do win some posts, but I will never let them conquer this battlefield. I'll fight my wars and yours, all you need to do is find it in your heart to be my warrior prince too. Be my Khilji - my insane, crazy, ziddi lover - who fights and never surrenders.

Then I promise you my love, you too will know a boundless love, like no other.
Because I might be a fighter but my superpower is love.
I can love like none other.
But deep in your heart you know that, don't you?

Live on, Thunder.

This is harder than I thought. Closing the door on you, on us. I may be an expert at goodbyes by now but that doesn't make me any better at them. To watch all my plans come to an end and shatter in front of my eyes takes the life out of me for sure. I have trained myself well so now the tears don't flow as easy and the urge to see you and weep in your arms so it will all fix itself is withering. I think once you survive by yourself long enough, you realize you don't need anybody else's help in doing it. I have been broken so many times before that now putting myself together takes relatively less time.

Inevitably, the people I trust with all my heart, misuse this faith that I placed in them. I gave you the power to hurt me and guess what? You did. I let myself be vulnerable thinking that there was no way in hell that you would let anything harm me, little knowing that you would transform into someone who did it all by himself.

Jee ve sohaneya jee, chahe kisi ka hoke jee

Like all my past lovers, I wish you well. I end up wishing everyone well. When you love someone like I loved you, there's no bitterness at the end of it all. there's just a void - a you shaped hole in my heart, where you used to be.

There's a place in my life, that I carved out just for you that I don't know what to do with. I imagined a future only with you in it so I think that is something that will take time. The worst bit is that we really tried, didn't we? I can't even blame you because I know this relationship was difficult for you. I was difficult for you. You should have run for the hills when I asked you for Annabelle you know? I mean what good could come off a girl like me? I introduced you to the horrible side of this world and broke all your belief systems. I broke you.

But for once I know I didn't break us. Maybe you didn't either. I guess it probably was always going to break but I fooled myself into thinking that it won't. That you were my Aditya. That you were God's answer for all the times I had asked, "Why me?" I thought you were going to stick, I thought we were going to be what legends are made of. I forgot that the last time I felt this way, the legend became the legendary storm that destroyed me. But he did leave a lesson in its wake. So no, I won't be destroyed this time.

I'm done with love. I don't want to experience it anymore. Love is pain and pain, as you said, demands to be felt. Well, I don't want to feel it. I've had a tough life and I demand happiness. I can't make you incharge of it - I've got to be the bearer of my own happiness. Any time that I rely on someone else for it, it bites me in the ass.

Maana ke tu ab nahi mera, kabhi tha mera bhi

Just a day earlier I had said to a room full of marriage counsellors how despite my experiences at the family court, I was rooting for love. You killed the love within me baby. Many people have walked over and abused the little girl inside me, but you pulled the final trigger. You killed the idea of a happily ever after from my story.

But she fell in love with an English man.

Hello there.
I'm in a nice mood today so I thought I would write to you. Music is the only thing that sometimes puts me in a mood to write to you. I don't know why but it seems like a song you would have smiled to even though the singer isn't your type. You might have dedicated it to me and I have this feeling in my gut that for some time to come I would have been your Galway Girl.

Just the way Sheeran says "Pretty little Galway Girl" has a ring to it that reminds me of you. I thought my brain and the music industry had finally run out of such things. Nuances I tell will be the end of me :)

I have such a nostalgic smile as I type this. Today I'm not angry. Today I'm not sad. Today I'm me and I'm glad we met. I get so much flak for this that I don't allow myself to feel this way often. Your hatred/ambivalence/indifference makes that really easy too. But as I said, today I'm giving myself a no-guilt pass. Maybe it's my latest defense against you or the part of me that will forever believe that she and she alone knew the real you. Actually I'm more scared of the latter - this twisted part of me - has the capacity to derail all that I've worked for. Such is the power of my darker side but then I guess we all feel that way about our wild alteregos.

I was always one to believe that crazy is my normal state so it only makes sense that every once in a while I seek it out. And if I didn't know any better I would still be seeking you, my go-to link for crazy. You're a symbol of losing control, of not caring, of being a badass bitch. So it's not you so much that I miss but this reckless, carefree version of me that didn't need to adult all the time. She didn't need to be patient or empathetic to the needs of others. She lived in the moment for hedonistic pleasures. She wasn't expected to be mature or caring. She only did what suited and pleased her.

She's the Galway Girl.

So as I listen to the song on loop today at 5 am in the morning, it's an ode not to you but to my youth that allowed me one year of reckless happiness. The stories from that era are just that - unbelievable stories that leave me hungry for me. But that's the thing about addictive adrenaline high experiences like the ones we had together - they eventually drain you out. However for today, I focus not on the downer but the high.

She played the fiddle in an Irish band,
But she fell in love with an English man, 
Kissed her on the neck and then I took her by the hand,
Said 'Baby I just wanna dance...
My pretty little Galway Girl.'

So thank you my Englishman. I'll be in your city soon and thanking you for that dance and for letting me be the Galway Girl. It was always going to end, but you made the ride so bloody addictive and imprudent that I can't help but smile. The time we spent together was really time that I stole from the world for myself. It was like one big, bad score before quitting the game altogether. There's just so much that I need to continuously care about now that I just want to thank you for giving me a world in which I didn't need to care about anything except being your Galway Girl. 

The Scientist.

We take breathing for granted and yet it is the one thing that sustains life.
I think when I met you, I forgot to breathe.

You blocked my lungs with your smell, my head with your eccentricity and my heart with well, you. You were all encompassing and omnipresent. I couldn't run away, I couldn't hide - I had no choice in the matter. It was the opposite of coming to life - it was like losing all my senses, one sensory neuron at a time.

I think when I met you, I forgot to breathe.

You clogged my arteries with uncontrolled blood flow in and out the aorta, damaged my liver with unknown levels of intoxication and broke my indestructible walls. My bubble was penetrated and suddenly, I was bare - exposed - vulnerable, in a matter of minutes.

I think when I met you, I forgot to breathe.

You drowned me in music, waltzed me into a dream and ensured that I spend this lifetime reliving that one night, over and over in my head just because of its indescribable serendipity. I couldn't ever forget what I felt through every second of the night that changed my life forever.

I think when I met you, I forgot to breathe.

For once, I fell in love almost instantly. There was no pre-contemplation, no afterthought, nothing at all. I just fell in all the way before realization could hit me or reality could pull me back from your strong hold. Your grip on my present never did loosen.

I think when I met you, I forgot to breathe.

But then again what good is breathing in a prison? And that's what you were building for me isn't it? A prison of every moment spent with you because you knew that night that this feeling that I was committing to, was temporary - you knew that soulmates aren't meant to be.

I think when I met you, I forgot to breathe.

But now that I've met him, breathing, like living, comes easy.
However I wouldn't know its importance if it weren't for you.

Thank you for being the love that got away, because it wasn't the love I needed.
Thank you for suffocating me to the point that there was no option but to let the air inside my lungs.

And boy, is it good to breathe... 

Caged, by love.

Dear Lover,

I've moved away and lately I feel I shouldn't have. Though this is a dream come true, this is breaking us and I suddenly don't know what matters more... My dreams, or us. It shouldn't have to be a battle between the two but the circumstances will it and here we are. Stronger than ever, we say. Then why does it feel nothing like it?

Why do I feel like I know lesser and lesser about what happened in your life, with every passing day? Why am I certain that you hold off certain words and cut off you sentences midway because you know I'll be hurt? Why do I not voice my irritation anymore because I'm too afraid and tired for a fight?

Everyone is priming me for it - the schedule, the seniors, the teachers. They are all much wiser and they have all been here much longer. But they have never seen us, have they? I want to tell them that! That they need to see Rain & Thunder to understand how we function differently; how we're destined to make it.

Except we're not.

We're just pretending these days, aren't we? Pretending to be happy? Pretending to hold on? Pretending that this works? And who am I to say anything really when I am too afraid to even try, when I'm so eager to let go. The ambiguity of us doesn't sit well with me and you know I am all for plans and lists and execution. However you live day-to-day. Planning ahead, laying down a map for our future (while exciting for me) is too much of a task for you. And hence the wild spirit becomes the eternal chain.

She stops you from pursuing your life's dreams. She puts restrictions on your time line. She demands and demands and demands. Never fully accepting that this will never be the life that you really want. She's made you so afraid to want even. You're afraid to want because the eventuality in which you don't get it is catastrophic. So you keep wanting the easy... You keep wanting her.

Relationships are addictive for this very reason. They make life easy. It's easy to want her, need her, love her even. It's the unpredictable that's more difficult. It's the possibility of a future with everything you ever dreamed of that's bloody terrifying. 

So, you've stopped dreaming. But she's still a dreamer. She still wants. She still aches at the absence of your want. Her desires are insatiable, and yours so very minimalist that they make her feel like a phony in her own eyes. She grapples and struggles with the myriad possibilities, building them up for you, hoping against hope that something catches your fancy - she doesn't even mind if it's across the universe, just as long as it's your want. Because frankly she is burdened by being your only desire.

Tu koi aur hai... Jaanta hai tu...
Saamne iss jahan ke... Ik nakaab hai...
Tu aur hai... Koi aur hai...
Kyun nahi woh, jo hai...

She dreams of breaking free, not because she has grown accustomed to a life without you, she never could. But because she's horrified about what comes after... What happens when the music stops playing and we're left out in the cold? 

Tu jahaan ke vaste, khud ko bhul kar...
Apne hi saath na, aise zulm kar...
Khol de woh  girah, jo lagaye tujhpe tu...
Bolde tu koi aur hai...

She dreams of a happily ever after and tragically now that she has seen a glimpse of it, with you, she will never settle for lesser. This compromise of a dream that life seems to be offering her, was never and will never be enough. 'Nice' has never cut it, she likes to be maddened by desire, taken over by passion and drowned by love. And this alter-ego of yours may fool the world but it will never fool her. Your pretense will always be washed away by rain. It's heartbreaking really since you are quite the actor.

Chehre jo, odhe tune woh,
Tere kahan hai?

So let's give up? We're playing a losing hand here. Fate, circumstances, little lion man and now even parts of us are working against us. I would fight to keep the dream alive except I don't think we're dreaming the same dream anymore. We're under the same sky you and I, just miles away from the horizon we planned on conquering when we first set out to write our legend in blood and tears. I guess the tears will still pave way for many a stories though. After all, unfulfilled loves can make great love stories only as long as they are unfulfilled. 

Saamne aa khol de sab...
Jo hai dil mein, bol de ab.

You wrecked me.

It's funny, whenever I come here I write about the love that was. It's become a museum of unsolicited love. My personal museum of pain. I guess I am not eloquent with happiness. It doesn't become me, or my words. Or maybe I am a masochist deep down.

Hey, you.
I have let you in my thoughts, tonight. Maybe for the night, maybe my brain will be the harbour for our sailed ship a little longer, I don't know. It's funny how all things broken always have you in them. Broken glass frames, broken souls, even heart-broken songs. And this brokenness is my sanctuary. I choose this sanctuary, tonight.

Now that we have a premise, how the fuck are you? It's been a while and I don't think I will ever really know how you are doing. Doesn't mean I don't wonder. Doesn't mean I don't still talk to you in my head or imagine what you would say. I have good imagination but all I imagine from my end is... Silence. All the music and lyrics in this world are already doing a pretty neat job of expressing what I would say. I guess me talking is hence moot. Besides I have run out of words. Since well, my words did drive you away.

I was taught to persevere, not give up. "You're not a quitter" Dad would say. So I thought it applied to love as well. But, not quitting on you? I taught myself. I taught myself to keep dialing those digits in my head when I could no longer pick up an actual phone to do it. I taught myself to chase faint memories when we stopped making new ones. I even taught myself to hold on to your fading voice. But I couldn't teach myself to not want you.

Don't get me wrong darling, I don't want want you. I just... want to know that holding on was not a mistake. I want to tell the daughter that I don't intend to have, to never give up on someone she once loved. No matter how un-redeemable the lover's actions, not even if the whole wide world gives up on them.. I want to tell her to hold on tight because that's when they need you most.

But you... You don't need me at all. You're well and prospering and even though I wish you well I think there's no way to come back from the poison that has seeped in. However, I don't forget. We were almost good for a while; almost had ourselves convinced we were infallible legends. But legends have a way of existing only in fables and tales. We exist only in my thoughts. And words.

 My words will always keep you alive, darling. It may kill my writing but I will continue this library of all things broken, for you... for us. A writer owes her muse that much atleast. You, darling are my pen's favourite muse. Always have been. Hemingway once said, "There's nothing to writing. All you do is sit at a typewriter and bleed." You provide an endless supply of that blood I need to shed. No matter how many days pass, it is still as fresh a wound. I guess wounds on the heart never do heal. Maybe it's just me. Annoying cardiac tissue, mine.

Annoying playlist too that I keep making for myself, of all the songs that I would have sent to you.

"Mujhe lagta hai ki baatein dil ki
Hoti lafzon ki dhokebaazi..."

I will always find you here, you know. This is increasingly becoming a shrine to you. Despite not wanting your love, your thoughts will return I know. I have accepted that, just like I always accepted you, all of your rage and madness. But you know the one thing that has changed?

I will never say those words to my non-existent daughter anymore. You, darling lover, wrecked me. 

Oh, love.

"But my words become stained with your love.
You occupy everything, you occupy everything."
-Pablo Neruda

Today I'm going to write a story. A story about such powerful love that couldn't be broken. A story about the moon giving up his life for the sun to shine. A story about the sun loving another, and setting each day only to return with more heat and vigour. A story about the tangents of a perfect love.

Today I'm going to write about a love so happy it doesn't give you time to stop and reflect. A love so consuming that you give it your all - your breaths, your sighs and your life, one slow second at a time. A love so enduring that it doesn't hold you captive but liberates you and your soul.

Today I'm going to write.

I'm going to write because it needs to be written. The world could use a happy story - even if it is just a story. I need to write about a boy and a girl and a love that lasts, a love that conquers all, a love that is just plain-fucking-old love for a change. I need it, and I need you.

I need your love to begin my mornings, it's like the sunshine in my life. I need your love to get out of bed and face another day, it's like the propeller to my motions. I need your love to make it through college, it's my incentive for hardwork. I need your love as I get under covers, it's my only staircase to lalaland. 

I need this love and I need you.
Goddammit, I need you. 

Love is not equivalent to need though. It's quite inferior. I love a lot of things and people and situations and movies and artists and songs and books, you get the gist. However I do not need them. This need is obviously and undoubtedly based on love, but don't mistake it for anything ordinary for it runs so much deeper, it runs hot through my arteries and pumps blood in my body. This love, my love, our love, is beyond okay, beyond ordinary, beyond desire - it is need at it's most innate and natural form - a primary motivator. 

Today I'm going to write about a love that needs no drive or incentive, a love that knows no boundaries of age or religion, a love that surpasses eras and ages. A love that is mine. A love that is ours.

Today I'm going to create this love and share it, all of it, with just one person, you. 
Desirable, magnetic, addictive, you. 
Oh, you. 

I'm going to create it and you won't know because I'm stupendous at hiding my heart away. I'm going to build us a house and then probably live in it alone because well, I've driven you away. I'm going to write this story with one half of a broken quill and still dream of only one person reading it, you. 

I'm going to believe in it, 'til kingdom come. I'm going to give us a real shot and then let fate be the master of our destiny. I'm going to work toward the meant-to-be and then have a talk with whoever is up there, one-on-one, because this is something I really want. Really. With all my heart. And I know I don't say it often but it's the one thing that I'm sure about wanting and needing and aching for inside.

So I'm going to write about a love. A love between people who weren't soulmates. A love for people who didn't need to die to be historic. A love of legends.

And I'm going to pray to the heavens and skies that we are these legends.

Somehow.

Somehow, I wish I could find the words to tell you just how much you mean to me. Somehow I wish there was a way to erase my past so that it has no bearing on my future. Somehow I wish that you believe that you are all that I ever wish for, every night before I close my eyes and every morning that I wake up. Somehow I wish that there never is any distance between us because these miles stretch on like human forms between us, blocking and obstructing our path so much so that I can't see even your darkest shadows.

Somehow I want for life to be uncomplicated and painfree without me doubting my every move and weighing my every word as I make or utter it. Somehow I wish for my words to not even matter at all for my eyes should speak volumes as to what my heart feels for you. Somehow I want that molten-gooey-feeling inside of me everytime I hear your voice to become something tangible so that I have something to show for when you're in doubt about my intentions.

Somehow I wish that you're the only boy I ever met in my life so that it's the perfect lovestory - the disney kind - and I'm the princess who didn't have to kiss any frogs to find her prince for he rescued her from the drudgery of life when she was just a little girl. Somehow I wish for you to be my first hug, my first kiss, my first everything so that I can give you all of me with a passion that an oft broken heart isn't capable of.

Somehow I wish I could read minds so I knew what you were thinking every minute of every day and just how many times the thought of me crossed your preoccupied mind. Somehow I wish I could sit with you, days at an end, not needing to talk but having to - compulsively for I want you to know everything I'm capable of saying - all at once; so you know everything there is to know, all our cards are on the table and we can take it from there.

Somehow I need for you to need me like I need you. Constantly and forever. So that neither of us can every grow weary or tired of the other and we can live in our exclusive bubble for life not caring about the mortals on the outside for we have each other. Somehow I want for my wardrobe to be made of only your shirts so I can wear them to work as a constant symbol of being yours.

Somehow I want for you to talk Economics to me all day (for some one day) so that I can look at you all dopey-eyed and feel awed and unequal and unsmart as compared to you. Somehow I want to make up for that in ways only I can.

Somehow I want you to crave me like you crave ghar-ka-dal-chawal-and-bhindi after a fortnight abroad. (And devour me with the same fervour that would follow.) Somehow I want all my somehows to stop swimming in my head and just turn to reality like, now.

Somehow I want it all now.
And I want it all with you.
Though you, without anything else, would do too.

"We may not always be the best of lovers..."

Two years. That's how long it's taken. I don't know when last I felt this nostalgic and happy. Nostalgia has come to become synonymous with depression as we grew up. Reminiscence led to some deep regret echoing and reverberating repeatedly inside of our guts. Well atleast, mine.

It's been a long journey and at it's advent I somehow for once found myself wishing I reach the destination as soon as possible for I knew all along, this was excruciatingly painful to say the least. But now that I can look back at it like an ancient era, I am somewhat glad it happened like it did. Makes it that much more worthwhile.

Being someone's lover is a twisted concept to begin with. Because it's not a finite entity. It doesn't necessarily end. There's too little love in the universe for us to give it up as and when it's convenient. You don't get to decide the end on your emotions, no matter how hard you try. And you definitely don't define the end for love. Someone once told me, true love doesn't exist and if it does, it doesn't survive this cruel, cold world. But true love does survive.. Perhaps it's the only thing that does.

Love is a consuming affair but its only once you stop it from doing that, will you ever realize the beauty of this emotion. It's not always rainbows and unicorns. And yes, relationships do end. But love ? You never did love if you think it's ended with the change of seasons.

I don't think I ever stopped loving you. Even though I lost you, my love for you was never lost. The tangents changed, our paths stopped intersecting and we built new worlds for ourselves. That's the right thing to do anyway. I alienated myself from anything even remotely linked to you for really long. It used to hurt too much so I made myself believe that my world had no room for even your silhouette little knowing that our worlds became entwined forever the day you held my face and whispered those Knopfler lyrics ever so softly in my ears. Now that I understand this, I finally have some peace.

Our worlds are one. They always were. Till we have the same sun shining upon us, forcing us to step out of the darkness - they always will be.

My epiphany might be a little upside down but I know now what I should've known from the start. And in the possession of this revelation, I can smile and hum music which I had run from, for so bloody long.
I can embrace life again. I no longer need to outrun my reflection. I am you and you are me. Two poles of the same soul - never meant to be united; the indestructibles waiting to be destroyed at the hands of fate.
Would I still save "us" despite this insight ?
In a heartbeat.
Always.