The War of Love

I look into your eyes and see you go far away. You have a steely demeanor of a businessman now. Your eyes have hardened and mouth is set in a deadly resolve. I desperately search for that warmth of innocence, for vestiges of tender love - all that sent us into a rapture not very long back. My eyes moisten as I entreat you to stay, to live this dream with me just for a moment more.



I am aware of the tug of reality that pulls both of us towards life. I know this dawn is not ours to keep and this cozy enclosure that we have around us is a fragile bubble, ready to be burst at slightest of a breeze. Yet I plead, desperate to live in the illusion that you are mine and I am yours and yours only. I want hold on to you tight, to make you break away from all that pulls you away from me.



Why am I like this, I wonder. Why can't I love otherwise? The only way I know is to fall deeply, irrevocably, passionately, possessively, with all I have got. Do you know of another way to love? Then why this analysis, these calculations, these measurements? What did I do for you and what did you do in return? How much we owe and how much did we sacrifice? Do such questions need to be answered? Do we really have to burn on the stake of cross examination?



My dear, what we have is so precious. This fragile, forbidden feeling of being in love. Let us not trample it in the war of our egos. It can give us the strength to fight the vagaries of the world, but it cannot survive the strife between us. What is this my love? A war of love or a love of war? Why do we have to indulge in a matchless duel in which the only casualty will be that what we have between us?



Yes we can live without it. Just as we lived for a long long time. But, tell me, now that we have tasted it would it be possible to live without each other? Would you not turn to the sound of footsteps hoping they would be mine? Will my laughter ring in your ears even after I am long gone? Can you live without the dreams that we built together? If you can, then there is nothing more to say. But if you think otherwise, for just a little while, can you stay?

Oh I am feeling so stupid!!!

The color on my cheeks just faded

My eyes moisten a little

I look away to hide my face

Blurt out inanities and hope

What I just said will be washed away

And buried deep into time



I hope the earth opens

Or the sky falls to hide me now

No time is left for analysis

Or to mint a memory to share



A little of my honor I seek to redeem

A bit of that ego I want to sustain

I try to retain that fragile respect

And run for cover from a snicker or sneer



I search into the eyes of those

Who were witnesses of this jest

For any signs of impounding mirth

Or of derision delayed



I want to shake them and scrub them clean

I want to rewind them to that moment in time

When I still posessed my shining honor

And the stupidity wasn't possible



But alas, the arrow has left

And has struck its blighted target

And I am left with smarting cheeks

And an ashen face of the dumb



Ah! thats okay, no hard feelings

For even the worst is forgotten

Some day I will look back and smile

And love this girl foresaken

The Paradox

I am to seek you yet to spurn you

To love you yet despise you

To long for that tender touch

Yet cringe away from life



What a fate, oh what a fate

For I dare not plant a dream

In the desolate land I tread

I fear it will live and flourish

And beckon me to the shade

The right to which I have never had

It will then turn into a shadow

And melt in the heat's ardor

Leaving me pining forever

Full of a parched remorse



I look at the mirror and see

All that you cherished so much

Wither away with the wind

Replaced by a vacant longing

To which there was no beginning

And there never will be an end



My lips are closed and empty

For the song of the rapture has left them

My eyes don't moisten anymore

Since your dreams have abandoned them

That sweet anticipation of your touch

That would make my bosom swell

Now hides in the mire of questions

Littered along the way



What can I say my love

How can I apologize

I am such a pauper

For even the words of regret

Are lost from my heart forever

I am but a slave now

A mere playmate I am

Locked in a steely embrace

Of fate which has won the chase

The Other Side of Tears.

Everything has another side, even the walls that seem so high and endless...



Yesterday was a day when I had thought this is it; it is impossible to be happy after this point. I gave myself to the darkness that surrounded me. I thought I could mingle in it now that the past, present and future all seemed dark - as dark as the darkness itself. I broke down into a torrent which knew no bounds. I cried until I was the tears and tears were me. Heaving, sighing, breathing, choking and crying again, I let my pain engulf me into the abyss until my mind and body was an expression of its power.



But submission is not conquering and the pain is a flighty Prince. Before I could catch his hand, he rode away on his dark horse leaving me behind - alone and empty. I had thought that, at least, this pain was permanent, all permeable, all powerful and I had found something that could be my companion for life. At one point it even seemed heroic, romantic to face the sorrow in full. But as he went he swept away everything - all the bitterness, the helplessness, the frustration, the expectations, the anger, the supposed happiness and even hope - everything that I thought was me. I was left with a void - a numb, steely lack of emotion like the darkness that he left behind as a parting gift.



I thought this was the state I was now consigned to be in but that's when a glimmer of sunshine tore through the night and I was taken aback. I had expected no such thing in the dry and desolate land that I thought I was in. Some part of my mind had played truant. Throughout all this drama, it had stayed unscathed, serene, ardent, positive and full of faith. As the tumult died down an the dust settled, a little seed took to the ground with a fierce passion for life. It needed nothing to burst to life. Only an unshakeable ardent faith sustained it. No concoction of expectations, duties, obligations, traditions, ambitions - all that is supposed to make us grow - was needed to fertilize its soil.



Soon it caught the sunshine and pulled the warmth towards it. How this fragile thing had power to beckon the sun, I don't know. But now my mind witnesses the dance of a plant fed by the sunshine and the sunshine sustained by the plant.