You know.
You’ve known all this while, haven’t you?
Liar.
You think I won’t realize when you touch my hand and smile at me in a way you can’t verbalize. But I do.
I hate that you know. This was mine. All mine.
All mine to cry about. Laugh about. Write about. Sing about. Why do you suddenly get to share it with me?
Stop.
Don’t snatch it away from me. Don’t order me to get over it. This is mine. And so it will remain.
So you can walk around as you do, nonchalantly, and pretend you don’t know about it but I know that you know.
And apart from knowing what makes each other bang our own heads against the wall and shiver in the summer, what makes each other’s days and years and hearts flutter, the darkest of scars and the most recent scratches, the first memory we have of joy,
This will be the only thing of which we don’t speak.
Why?
If you know then why won’t you speak of it?
Is it because you also know that if you do, it will break me into two pieces? Tied together by fragile threads of your mercy which you could choose to undo whenever you wanted.
And I would be powerless?
Is it bad that I would never stop you?
Undo me. I’m all yours.
Destroy me piece by piece till my eyes are burning with love that cannot be burned down. Hold my bare heart in your hands and squeeze till it is dry. Maybe then you’ll stop giving me pitiful eyes that look exactly like the ocean. I could happily drown in them. I have done it many times.
Because when I hit their deepest trenches I am still able to breathe.
Better than I otherwise know how.
And don’t gloat already but you’re right. No, you cannot help me.
I am helpless. The moment you laugh and it is contagious only to me. When you bring me food after I forgot to eat. When you tug at my dress as we wait in line. When your hug smells like coming home after a long, long time away. When we speak like we’ve known each other forever and the tea I split with you tastes closest to heaven. I would sin for you. I am helpless every moment you breathe the same air as me. And it’s okay. Because it is you.
So let you be you, and me be me?
You will come over and we will laugh. Make jokes that make sense to nobody else and laugh till we’re crying. We will feel magic in every possible way, in every possible moment. But it will fade quicker for you. And I will want to save you. Keep you with me for a little while longer. It’s so magical, I swear. I wish you could see it too.
But I will fail.
Because lately I don’t understand your world. And I used to be your favorite part of it. And now it evades me as much as I try to pin it down.
So I’ve grown used to your shadows on my ceiling. I am still trying to understand if they haunt me. I’ve never felt safer in the presence of anything else.
I love you.
I wont say this again but
I love you, you know?
So hard that it physically hurts, sometimes.
So hard that I feel decidedly stupid on most days.
I love your clothes and your smile and your crooked nose and your taste in music. I love how passionate you are about tiny little things and your edgy, rustic cologne. I love how your eyes light you with ideas before you speak of them like you were born a moment ago and I adore your voice and the references you make and your dumb, dumb, hilarious wit which makes most mornings worth waking up for. I love that you’re real. raw.
I just love you.
But don’t get too flattered yet.
I should be allowed to hate you too. At least a little bit? After all I am just a confused, flowery girl. Who never believed in hopeless love, hopelessly in love with you. I dream of castles in the middle of France and cherry lollipops and roses and the sun and you.
So with just as much force, I will learn to hate you too.
At least I will try.
I have heard, you know? You could never hate something passionately enough if you don’t also love it dearly.
Toh roothne dena mujhe jab main rooth jau. Agar sach mein kadar karte toh pyaar se manaane chale aana. Haq banta hai mera.
Because you don’t even have to say it, silly.
Stop trying to articulate your thoughts to me, since when did words become our language?
I see it in your eyes.
It’s very hard to miss.
I feel it in the way you hold me. I hear it in how you call out my name and I wince for it in moments we cry for each other.
I know.
It wasn’t so hard to guess. You didn’t have to say it. You never do.
You love me too.
Just not enough.