An Anthology Of Love & Desire

Yearning

I have often heard the phrase, "have you ever loved someone so much that it starts hurting?" My answer to this question was always a soft smile. Fortunately, enough, my husband would always be there to look me in the eyes, his eyes sparkling with a rare kind of adoration for me. And that would do the job for the onlookers. Because who else had seen a love like this? Neither have I. His larger fingers will press softly on my shoulder, with a touch of assurance, and will be gone the next moment. Making me wish for the touch to last a little longer.

Another question I was always asked and always smiled at was, "How do you write such beautiful romantic tragedies with such an amazing husband by your side?" I often found myself way too overwhelmed to answer that question. If that was in gratitude for having him by my side, or some kind of phantom pain; I never allowed my brain to linger on the possibilities. Most of the time I heard an echo of my heart's answers. Never alert enough to understand what it said. I knew of a part in me that would hurt every day in the light, and bleed every night when there was no one around. But, like a coward I was, or maybe I still am, I could never acknowledge that pain. Because that pain had the power to tear down everything that I have today. Everything that I call my own. And, somewhere, I was not ready to let those parts of me go. So, I learned to live with this pain. It felt so familiar after these many years that it was just another part of myself now.

Was I wrong in thinking so? If you ask me, no. If I ask myself even in the darkness of my cold room, the answer will still be a no. However, if it was my mind asking my heart, the heart will mourn with a silent beat, my lips will leave a soft sigh and my mind will have its answer in its false no. My mind was stubborn to acknowledge my state of heart. But my heart was obstinate. So, it was I who suffered in silence and created chaos.

My love for tragedy is widely famous as mentioned earlier. I loved reading them, and somehow my pen loved them too.

Was it my love for tragedy or just the need for one? ─ I am too ashamed to answer. Somehow, they made me feel welcomed, and understood, even in my childhood. My heart always ached for something so strong yet too fragile. Something so close yet way too far from reach. For some reason, my heart did not find relief in tragedies in death. Like me, my heart supposedly believed in small mercies. It craved a love that made your body ache, your eyes burn, and your soul screams in agony. A love that you want to reach its destination, yet it can't. It's not a one-sided love, not a wrong person, never with the wrong person, wrong time? I guess you can say so. But I liked to blame their situation, the people around them, and the author. To me, the author was always the main villain and I took take pleasure in blaming them in my head. Only if the author thought a little differently... So, when all other teenagers blamed Green Goblin or Joker for their hero's doom; Shakespeare, Sharat Chandra Chattopadhyay, Jane Austen, and Emily Bronte were the antagonists of my world. Then one day, I became an associate of the same group.

Today, I saw that one face I tried to run from in the last 25 years. That one face I tried to lose in a crowd of thousand only to realize I can never truly lose its memory without losing myself. One face that took me back in time and made me walk the very same lane I walked almost 25 years ago. It ached the same, my eyes burned the same, and my heart felt the same yearning it had felt all those years ago. As those dark expressive orbs locked with mine, I saw something softening and hardening at the same time. And, I felt the same stab of pain I felt when I walked away from her that day. For a second my world crumbled at my feet and I followed her silhouette through the comparatively empty hallway.