Story of dormant desires

Today is one of those days when I want to write about birds and bees. Of chocolates and vanilla. Of ecstasy and desires. Of forbidden and unhinged. And why not of desires? Of all things frugal and feather light, desires shaped into longings over distances. Distances that melt into droplets frozen despite warmth of skin. The semi amorphous curtain of melancholic evenings fused into bustling cacophony of cocained, hungover carrefours. Why is it that desires remain unspoken of, uncared for, caged and dormant. Desires that graze, desires that nuzzle, brittle and pale. Today is one such day of uneventful outcomes, of uncharted whispers and unfinished mulling overs. A day when thoughts ran amok among the branches and leaves lost color in the burning sun. When dizzy junctions halted into hapless silences, distances expanded into delirious recklessness and contracted into expired ecstasies. Unhinged, unspoken, non repented, intoxicated and yet present. Story of dormant desires.

Uncertainties knocking at my door

There came a day when abject uncertainty knocked at my door. And what did I do? I closed it on his face. Before you jump to myriad imaginings of what came to pass, answer an irrelevant query. What is uncertainty for you? For me, uncertainties are when icy cold fingers clasp my hands and shake me out of my stupor, push me to see realities I would rather not see. Uncertainties are following my beaten down, weather withered instinct. Uncertainties are loosing track of should haves in could haves. When the screens turn a refined and opaque grey, what would you anticipate to retrieve from the debris of bygones? Uncertainties. Or maybe not. So I did close the door on his face. But just before walking away, there came this brief spell of what ifs. I did tiptoe back to where he was, still standing at the ramparts. Was it mystery or flamboyant lack of it that made me want to. I honestly couldn't say. Could I ever be certain of uncertainties that he would bring along? Moreover, would I wish to test the possibilities? Mayhaps, only time would tell. You know when the mountain breeze grazes the surface and spread the chill, it is then that the uncertainties are bound to spill.

Connecting the dots

Today in a roomful of strangers, with lights dimmed out, I connected the dots. The missing link of a question that has been gnawing at me ever since. The proposition that not everyone you meet in life is going to be the one relevant. It is perhaps simplistic, to say that there would be some who would rather spend their lives with irrelevance. What if today I question as to how many would really know me? If I had to write a phrase for my eulogy, what would it say? Would my tombstone just rather read, "In search of the elusive concept of happiness" or would it be in celebration of an existence well lived, paths well trodden, touches well felt. How many would know of your, "one that got away". Impact and stories are often intertwined like tireless attempts at shaping an outcome. For a lover of wordplay and allegory, meaning often bursts forth in the most unexpected corners. In the midst of a work session, in the arms of an abject stranger or intoxicated among the group of lost friends who swore by each other, once upon a time. And if you're fortunate meaning dwells in dropped phrases, stories reside in echo chambers.

Broken jar of salt peppers

A broken jar of salt peppers. An oversized suitcase of baggage. Melancholic and morbid. When I open my eyes, I would often want to shut them off. I transit from places or people, leaving behind shards. Incapable of drawing a straight line. I would blabber, incoherently or talk in circles when nervous. Those are my walls of glass that I build about my psyche of an adolescent mind. On occasions I would not make sense and on moments of clarity, everything would spring to a stark pattern of objectivity. Time often stops when one stands at a juncture of indecision. Seconds would morph into hours, and I would slow down into an unintelligible silence or would patter on to appear sound. As derelict as transit sounds, what does it entail really? Transit would be the idea of holding back and letting go. Of losing oneself in another. Of patterns and crayons. Transit would be perception and doubts. When I fade from one picture and fuse into another, my losing would be transit for another.

Simple joys in life

Today I thought I would think about the simple joys in life. Those once upon a time I had it in the palm of my hand moments. The simple pleasures of making paper boats and watching them float away in glory. Or the saturated afternoons, locked in a room reading the newly minted books, my father would buy for me. The oversized raincoats and strappy boots I would don to hopscotch around in muddy puddles. Or the tadpoles I would chase with the blunt end of a twig. I would think of how my humpty dumpty, happy child of a cousin, would blow the whistle every time I dozed off with my homework untouched, in a garden chair. Of how I loved wearing mismatched long socks in winters, put my feet up and cozy into the crumpled pages of my latest story. Sometimes I would read, sometimes I would write, sometimes I would sketch. The sky was still infinite, the horizons unscathed. I would listen to recitals of the impending storm or play dumb charades with my mother. Today I thought I would deviate from the mathematics of it all. Today I felt, I wouldn't calculate in anticipation.

Happy ecstasy

As the days go by, I tend to think about indecision and pause more and more. Not that I hadn't the day I met him. But even now as I contemplate to give him a fixture in my pages, I wait and trotter around the edges. Not that he warrants oblivion or deserves obscurity. He is too bold an image for my mind to erase. Yet still his mystery intrigues me. Unknown entities are not a part of my world, yet on odd days  of tempestuous vigor, I am known to take matter into my hands and plunge into the icy cold waters. Today as I pause to scrawl my scattered ramblings on the pages of my journal, I am uncertain, if I will ever see him again. And oddly enough I want to. I want to touch that skin again, run my fingers through his hair. Whisper my dormant desires into his ears and feel him move unconsciously in his  sleep. I want to see his droopy eyelids close in forgetfulness and then open in lazy ignorance to break into a relaxed yawn. He is wickedly conscious of the effect he has on me and the desires he arouses. If only wanting could end in happy ecstasy, each time my mind wanders, I would be in heaven by now.

All these years...

If I confess today that all these years and there is a tiny part of me that still misses him, I wouldn't be lying. I do. I don't know where he is, he is somewhere around but even after all this time, his yearning knocks against my chest. Like the first day I saw him, a zillion years ago. Like water flowing under the bridge, time has happened to flow away. So much of it, in such a broad gauge. But every time someone turns around and asks me, if he still exists. I say he does. In a heartbeat, in a blink of an eye. At that moment, in that space, he does. In my reality he always does. Life is moving at an unsteady trotter. Each time I see him now, he seems a little more faded. As if quantum of time is eating away at his particles. As if a bell is tolling at an impending ending. Maybe it is time to drift apart. Further still, more distant, into the emptiness of carefully crafted oblivion. I sometimes wonder, how would it be living in a cocoon of unknown. Living like polite acquaintances amidst cases of feather light voluminous history. To get up one day and remember him as an ache that fails to subside. To admit to him to be a bygone.