SO LONG

"Love is so short; forgetting is so long." — Pablo Neruda, Tonight I Can Write

Sometimes, living is only that short span of time. The rest of your lifetime forward is about forgetting and dying each day because death kissed you when love departed unceremoniously.

Somewhere in time, I found the love of my life. In his eyes, I saw how happy I was and felt that I was beautiful and enough. We had a world of our own and were never bothered when we were lost in time, talking and laughing off our idiosyncrasies. We were comfortable about being vulnerable around each other. We traveled through space as we lied on the ground, tracing and connecting the stars as if they held our future. I knew I loved him because the sparkles in my eyes were brighter than the stars in the night sky. He did not mind if I was thinking out loud, and he would interject randomly to tell me how he loved my eyes while talking. He gave me his undivided attention and was present in all my stories as if he was there when it happened. Then, from our highs, we were not shy at opening up to talk about our lows. He allowed me to see him cry. We let each other plunge into our depths even without the guarantee of resurfacing again. We made it so easy for us, like breathing.

When the nights came to an end every time, he always took me home, and our hearts were always loud amid the silence . The roads were deserted, and everyone was tucked into bed except us singing at the top of our lungs while we were in your car. We did not mind at all how slow we were running because we did not want the nights to end. It was pitch black, but we were bursting with colours. Then, one summer night happened, and we were enjoying our pizza even without the beer we wanted because it was light and the diners were not serving beer anymore. We sat in front of each other, and he was busy searching his phone in an eerie silence. He showed me story on Facebook that somewhat narrated his emotions toward me in a nutshell. I cannot anymore make up the exact words and the whole story of it as my world turned upside down thereafter.

“Sometimes, in the midst of your brokenness, you will meet someone who will pick you up and put all your shattered pieces back together. The other person keeps showing up each day to save you without you asking for it. You smile once again, and both of you love the feeling. Each day, the other keeps holding the broken pieces. Each day the other keeps on mending and saving. However, at the end of the day, . . . who saves the other?” I was dumbfounded as I retreated. I was just holding back my tears from welling up. He was trying to paint the picture, but it couldn’t be much clearer to me how he wanted to end up everything in that moment. Everything was in slow motion, and his words were just passing through me like bullets and shrapnels. He wanted me to let go of the rope that was not even there, so I wouldn’t continue to hurt. He did not want me to carry his emotional baggage because you it was unfair. Then, it all became clear to me that love was not enough. All the sounds were slurred until they were muted. The colours in my world escaped without the promise of return.

I am not anymore the person who I used to be before I met him; I forgot my way back. I was clueless where to go, because it was in that small infinity that we created and shared that I felt how love is easy. He was the love I wanted, but I was not the one for him. I will continue to love you, even if this love is not made for this lifetime. I am back to where I was now in a place where I am only loving you from afar