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?