Three Stages of You

Beginnings are exciting. They've always been to me. The anticipation of what might this mean for me makes me restless and as impatient as a kid on Christmas Eve, waiting for his presents. A break in conversation becomes a long silence, conversations that last all night long seem short, sleep is inconvenient, compliments make me glow a little bit more and your distant coolness flips and knots my stomach worse than the anticipation of what might I say to you next so that the conversation lasts a little longer. Beginnings are exciting, always are.
I hate the middle, I really do. That's when intentions turn to actions. Conversation is no more enough and each word without meaning is nothing but an empty promise. Your distant coolness now reeks of disinterest and try as I may conversation fails me. From feeling like an integral part of your universe, I start feeling like a mere observer to your life, a witness on the outside. We're no more talking about us, you throw her name around carelessly and I feel the centre of us shifting. I already know we've hit the middle now. From what it could be I can see what it won't be and I watch the slow decay of this thing we're doing. Conversations are laborious, your compliments are half hearted and our smiles no more reach our eyes. I hate the middle, I really do.
Endings always bring with it a sense of relief. It's like snapping shut a book. I think maybe because I hate the middle so much that I'm just happy it's over. There's no more feigning interest or pretending to enjoy each other’s company. The conversations are to the point, friendly sure, but succinct and the need to prolong the conversation or for me to be bright and funny no more haunts me. No deadpan expressions, no half said words, no trying, no questions and definitely no explanations. I'm finally comfortable in my skin and finally me around you. I don't squirm, I'm not flushed and my stomach is happy in its calmness. Only thing that remains is a quiet sigh and a question, what if?

Murmur

I hate it. I always have. It's a reminder of how we were, who we could be and worst of all what we aren't. It's always the same. It starts with a slow murmur, a quiet thought that gains obsession as the hours pass. Sometimes it's a song (our songs, the ones we lazily smiled and held hands to), a smell (your smell, your perfume mixed with the delicious smell I can only describe as you), a movie (the ones we watched together at single screen theatres just so that we could hold hands) and sometimes it's a half forgotten memory (pieces of which I cling on to desperately and recreate from some dark corner of my mind). I'm thrown back involuntarily to the memory of us. The way you felt, the way your heart beat felt against my body and the way your smile felt on my lips. It's a downward spiral I can't stop. It's that lingering feeling again. The dull heartache to remind me you left with a part of me. The breathlessness, the mild headache and the sweating to remind me that even today the memory of your touch leaves me shattered. Slowly and surely, the deep seated wretchedness surfaces its ugly head, reminding me that I was dispensable, that I was the appendage you cut loose, that I was the one who was left wondering why I wasn't good enough

Words

If words are what provide our story intent, a logical flow - the beginning, middle and the end, where do we slot the silences? That one inexplicable moment in which the words form in your mouth but your brain refuses to say them out loud. Like that text you meant to send. It was perfect. It was smart, funny, conveyed exactly how you felt. But you never sent it. You couldn't. You swallowed your half spoken words and your well meaning intentions but couldn't swallow your pride. You deleted the text, told yourself it was the way to go. In what folder do we save these texts - these rejects of our intellectual mind, the effort of our emotional self? The words that only have a meaning if said then, but lose character with time? The words that you will regret not saying but don't say because you tell yourself it isn't worth your vulnerability. Can we convey the burden of these words with our silence in the hope that the person, who is meant to understand, will do so anyway? That the redundancy of your words will only be more obvious in the face of the strength of your silence? Or are words our only way?

She

When the nights are dark

And I hear no one but myself

She steps out into the darkness

And spread her wings of joy

The girl in me

Hopes and expectations galore

Strength, that of a rock

A woman nonetheless

In the stillness of the night

She accepts the vivacity of her dreams

In the morning that she buries

It’s not for all to see

Like the wings she hides

No one will understand

They’ll clip her wings and crush her plans

Even before she flies

She sits next to me

Whispering in my ears

Her insecurities and fears

My eyes becoming the mirror

Reflecting her helplessness in mine

I hold her close by night

And feel her pain pour out

But in the morning she steps out

With sunshine on her face

Her happiness genuine

Her fears and hurt buried

Under the expectations of those around.

Magical

There are moments in your life that are worth experiencing, moments that take your breath away and change how you think. The ones that hit you with the most unexpected emotions and those that build the kind of nostalgia that it feels like having your heart ripped out. No moment however is as magical as the one in which you see two people in love looking at each other across the room. That moment of pure love in which only the two exist and everything else in life comes to a complete halt, a pause, meant only for the two. When the world disappears into the background and dims down in the glow of their lover's presence. They look at each other not to check on each other or communicate but to gloat silently about the fact that in a crowd of people, when they're lost amidst a host of irrelevant conversations and uninteresting details, there is someone who is looking only at them. They rise above the crowd to look into the eyes of someone who looks at them with the kind of love they didn't even know they were capable of receiving, let alone giving. A private moment shared in a room full of people, as they look away, they offer a quiet vote of thanks to the universe for bestowing upon them exactly what they need.
When you have witnessed the strength of such unspoken love, you know in that moment that nothing lesser would ever be enough. Rather, why should it be? To settle for anything less would only be a compromise, a half willed attempt by you to accept consolation for a love you didn’t feel.