Reading between the lines

"If you love somebody, let them go, for if they return, they were always yours. And if they don't, they never were."                                                                   -Khalil Gibran

You think that I write. I think that you're wrong.

But it's all in my head, and either of us could be wrong. 

In my head are things, I'd like to say, but never do. I've looked for the courage to, and the reasons not to, both of which I never found.

So instead, I pen it down. My thoughts all find permanence in a .doc file when the truth is that the blinking light of the cursor actually holds its fate by its neck. I have always liked saying things. I want to tell you to understand this universe. I wanted you to feel what I felt when I touched you when I saw you smile. I wanted you to know why I was actually telling you all of this. I wanted to show you how I looked at you and why I looked at you.

I wanted to say it all to you. I wanted to look at your face when the words actually touched you. I wanted to capture the exact moment when your eyes would give away the dream I had for the two of us. The dream I was seeing every day. I wanted to hear your laughter again, see your awe, taste your surprise and look at you. Just look at you. I really wish my words had the courage to pack their bags and leave my tongue for good. But, they tend to overstay, and then dissolve into oblivion, I've observed. 

I'm left with this mundane choice. I type. At the mercy of this cursor. And, at your mercy too.`

They say good things happen at the same time as bad things do, so you're left to deal with both at the very same time. A see-saw of emotions, a raring pendulum. and yet, you wonder why I'm so exhausted most of the time.

I try to creep out of the  blinding darkness into the brightest light, and try but my eyes won't open, not at first. But I squint a little, and then I see you,and suddenly, joy comes and gives me a hug and hope tells me that I'll be fine. I still keep thinking why I didn't meet you when everything was right but then if everything were right, would this have meant as much?

I still remember the day I told you I was broken in ways I could not explain, that my heart was fragile as an eggshell and then you looked at me with your beautiful eyes, wrapped my heart in an aluminium foil, and kept it safe and warm, for then. But it was never a forever, was it?

I used to think that people have a tendency to look forward to things that they often know would never happen. But they do so, because they need some context to their lives, a reason to keep breathing and doing mundane things that they have to. I knew it, and yet, I dream. I tried, silently, waiting for you to see that my eyes were calling out to you, hoping that you would see something that would make you stay just a little longer.

I used to play a little game when I was little. It would start with a word. Any would do, it didn't have to be important. Take, for instance, "who". I'd then repeat it over and over again inside my head until it lost its meaning. Who, who, who, who, who, who, who until it was just a strand of letters. Nothing. Somehow, I loved doing that. I'd take random words from my textbooks and render them incomprehensible with just a thought and a couple seconds at hand. It was a moment of silence in my chaotic head. 

But as I grew older, it became less of a game and more of a coping mechanism. Some part of me hoped that, by making the word trivial, I would somehow reduce the impact of it. Love, love, love, love, love - until the very definition was void. That worked for a while, making the agony and grief just a little bit bearable. It's been a while since I've actually played it again. But now, I almost wish that it actually worked. 

Hope, hope, hope, hope, hope, hope, hope - nothing.

Heartbreak, heartbreak, heartbreak, heartbreak, heartbreak, heartbreak, - nothing.

Your name, over and over again, over and over, until it's nothing. But it doesn't feel like nothing.