Rebirth

I always thought that I couldn’t force you to love me, that I couldn’t make you feel for me. But somewhere, I was certain that I’d never have to. Somehow, I felt that you loved me. Every time I speak of, think about or write that word now, each of those four letters pierce me. But the feeling remains. And has grown more intense perhaps. Because you love me now. Earlier, I assumed. Now, I know. I can see it in your eyes everytime I look at you.

I can see that you are sorry. I can see that you are repenting, that you have realised what you want in your life. Perhaps my love for you and your love for me had to go through this litmus test. And it has emerged stronger. What has happened, cannot be wiped clean. That’s certain. But it can be chosen to be forgotten.

I have tried to fall in love with the memory of you. But I am shaken out of my reverie every time I hear your voice, every time I see your face. Because now I no longer need to think of how you loved me earlier.. Because that time, that 'earlier', is back in my life. And I'm not letting it slip by this time.

I know you’ve made a mistake, you’ve wronged me gravely. In another situation, perhaps I could’ve forgiven you. But how do I forgive myself? I could never think that my mistake would get magnified and would catch me unawares in another avatar altogether. When I did it, I prayed to God for forgiveness. I didn’t have the strength to face you for a long time. I couldn’t look you in the eye for a long time. Gradually, I tried to reduce my guilt by being nicer to you. And you never knew about it. You still don’t know. Whatever you did, was perhaps my punishment. God has forgiven me, perhaps. And you have, unknowingly. I too, am forgiving you. I want to forget our mistakes and go ahead with life.

I want to begin my life afresh.. and I want you to be there by me. Because somehow, our wrongs are nullified now.. our love has been through fire, and has risen from the ashes .. stronger.

Why?

Some day, you'll realise
what you did to me.
When the night screams to you
The tale of your infidelity.
You'll understand what I became
when you poisoned me
with all your lies, and I,
in my love, trusted you blindly.

Within the contours of my arms,
I had a body that was yours.
I shirk from my own touch now
I'm brimming with hatred, my every pore.

Your love, is a way of life that's passed by
Leaving me with only an unuttered - why?

Writing!

Perhaps feelings could be expressed in writing. Perhaps a written word could convey an emotion. Say, for example, love. Love, is what I had felt. What still remains. Even after I’ve been through fire, even after I am reduced to ashes.

There’s still a wistful smile playing on my lips when the word is mentioned. Yes, I’ve known love. I’ve loved, and I’ve been loved. Perhaps that’s what still keeps me going. Because love goes on. It transforms. Perhaps into hate, but it does go on.

This is not a story. I don’t have one. I’ve never had fairy-tale endings in my life. They’ve always been scarred, rugged edges which still hurt every bit of my existence. Sharp knives which have helped sculpt me into the statue that I’ve become. An unfeeling, cold, hard piece of rock. With an organ called heart still beating away somewhere, keeping time till it is able to erase your existence. Death would be easier, perhaps. Yet, somehow, that one step is hard to take.

I dreamt of a future with you. My present is but, the fact that I am unwanted, that I am abandoned, that I am like an old page out of last year’s calendar, to you. Tucked safely out of your view, somewhere behind the new leaves of your life. Perhaps someday, when you shuffle the old pages of your life, I’ll emerge in your memories again. Not as resplendent as I used to be when you loved me, may be, but emerge I will. However battered, however faint, you’ll see me for at least one moment more.

Will you then, for once, one last time, think of me like you used to? Will you then say that you will “be with me, by me forever”? But forever’s come and gone. Will you have the same look in your eyes when you first looked at me? How many things can I come to terms with? How many things can I accept? Everything slipped out of my hands. The moment’s passed. The moment when you were mine, when you wanted no one but me.

You changed my life. You gave me a new life. Your elixir is slowly metamorphosing into poison. But where’s the end? Your poison too has left me for some other territory. I don’t have anything of you that I can cling on to. But I had you once. Complete, every bit of you, every single part of you.

You loved me then. I wish I could still feel that feeling. It’s just an empty word for me now. A cold, unfeeling, hollow word which doesn’t stir anything in me any longer. I am that piece of rock you’ve turned me into, remember? You have consumed howmuchever of that feeling, ‘love’, that I was endowed with. You have wrung me dry. Love, has ended for me. Sometimes I wonder, is hating you enough? Will it be able to bring back the life we shared? Can hating you make me forget how I loved you once? Do I still feel love, or is it just the word I’m talking about? I am confused when it is time to choose. Between one four-lettered word and another.

I know love, perhaps. I know hate better. I don’t feel anything any longer. Perhaps writing is for times like these. When you can’t feel any longer. Perhaps writing did express something. My indifference.