Her confused face was turning crimson as the muscles of her cheek tensed up with anxiety. Warm tears rolling down, covering the length of her face and gathering in the chiseled groove of her clavicle; she was a mess. Her clumpy eyelashes bespoke lack of knowledge on grooming but her eyes were so honest and so gullible, you can forgive them for anything and everything. The newly pierced nose was now covered with the salinity of sweat and tears and I was helpless. I was as helpless as a toddler whose parents had lost him in a Sunday bazaar, as the kitten who was trying to catch a laser beam spot, as a mellow middle school teacher stuck in a class full of raucous twelve year old boys. As helpless as I could have ever been. It is not my unwillingness or laziness that leads to this loss of faith in my ability do something for her, it is my emotional incapacity, it is my vulnerability that I have covered up with carefully crafted layers of nonchalance. It is the fact that I never have and I never could. I could fool her into believing how empirical I was but I couldn’t fool myself. I have always been too self-aware for that; curse or a blessing, I can never say with certainty.
I nervously took another puff of the joint she had rolled. The hash suddenly tasted different in my mouth, it tasted of shame and devotion. . I was ashamed of myself, of being who I am, of failing her along with so many others, but I was devoted to the idea of me, to this person I have put so much effort into building who was immune to heartaches. I still cannot explain why I felt what I felt in that moment but I knew this is something that will haunt my conscience for a very long time.
Her hair shown a shade of mahogany in the filtered sunlight falling on us and my gaze fixated on her portrait; dim sun light, heavy smoke and her perfectly shaped crossed legs. Our faces facing each other we were sitting comfortably disturbed, the space between the two walls was perfect for this setting. Sometimes it feels like it was specially crafted keeping in mind we will want to rest our backs while we smoke away the burdens of the world. I had never noticed how stuffy the bathroom was or how luscious her lips were until then. Thank Lord for the music which filled the silence until the gloom in her aura died down slowly.
“Kia hogaya yaar?”
“Nothing. Sometimes I just break down and I don’t…” I had stopped listening as her voice trailed off in my mind. I was just staring at her hand gestures as she kept pushing her hair back out of nervous tension, baring the clear skin on the junction of her collarbone and shoulder. We were talking again; she was calming down, telling me everything that made her upset. It was her, it was me, and it was the world. And I could only either laugh it off or kiss it away. Her impressionable mind is incapable of understanding the extent of my discomfort over discussions like these. I would rather argue the string theory than explain to her why I am the way I am. But you see the cycle follows. I will comfort her with words I know are never going to be good enough but somehow for her they are. And just like that everything is fixed. I am the Major Quick-fix Fun-boy and I like to keep it that way and I like to think that everyone else likes that I like to keep it that way.
***
The loud EDM music does not make me uncomfortable, nor does it lift my spirits up and get my feet dancing. My senses are at ease and my eyes feel heavy, not my eyelids, I am droopy but I am slowly moving my body to the beat, trying to mirror the movements in the curve of her silhouette. I am stoned but my high is holding onto her petite frame dancing. The splash of the kaleidoscopic lighting on the dance floor was flattering her skimpy dress and buffed up hair. I can’t say with absolute uncertainty whether it is because of the chemical reactions in my mind or the trickery of the atmosphere but I just cannot seem to take my eyes off her. Streaks of sweat are running down her neck as she flips her hair back and forth. I want to trace them with my tongue but I know I can’t and it honestly doesn’t bother me anymore. Nothing bothers me because nothing really matters, it is this state of mind that is costing me so much, but it is also this state of mind, to which I owe the eternal peace that I have made with situations in life.
She is drawing everyone’s attention as she forgets that everyone is watching her draw groovy eights with her body. I couldn’t have known that light-headedness would throw her so comfortably into her element, making her the most dazzling attraction for the night. My interior monologue just helped me stay in the moment and prevented my thoughts from drifting off to faraway places. I really appreciate that. I don’t think anyone else sees her this way, even I rarely do. She has the most average face and the most common body type and nothing special happening. But it is in moments like these that her irresistibility dawns upon me, a random breath she takes between two quick puffs, or when she loses her mind to the music and dances how she is dancing right now, or when she has fire blazing in her eyes because the world has failed to comply to her whim, or when she is calmly just sitting there looking at me with those larger than life eyelids wondering how boring a sunny day can be. My rationality tells me I do not have any romantic feelings for her but the fascination and the sexual tension between us is as uncanny as can be. The intricate understanding of how her mind works and how she feels things strikes a sharp contrast with my occasional indifference and shudders me to the bone because maybe somewhere deep down I really do not want to be this person who has reached the apex of detachment.
***
I think around six minutes had passed and I did not want to stare at her sleeping face anymore.
“Listen, you can’t pass out like that”
“Why can I not? Who will stop me? You?” the series of incredulous questions was followed by a dull and droopy laughter. It looked as if it hurt her face muscles to laugh at this point. I really wanted to let her sleep but I figured that maintaining this tradition of the redundant dialogue about her exhaustion post smoking was more important to me.
She just dropped her head on my shoulder and closed her eyes. I could feel her heavy breaths on the side of my neck. I threw my head back to the wall and closed my eyes. The world really makes you tired. The thought of how many arbitrary boundaries there are to every sort of relationship that you have and everything you ever want to do came back running to my mind. Why can I not have things the way I want them to if I really have all this free will everyone keeps talking about?
There was a spasmodic outburst of knocks on the door which led to both of us being shaken out of the intoxicated slumber that had enfolded us, making us feel the comfort of being unborn. I stood up to open the door and she fixed her hair. And so again, it rekindled the world of arbitrary boundaries, unspoken cravings and selfish compromises. We cannot be what either of us wants, we cannot have what either of us desire and we definitely can never reach a settlement after having battled it out. So we will run to escape, rushing all around this madhouse, unlocking each door only to find ourselves standing at another labyrinth, and in the time that we try to find our respective paths our tracks will collide, and I don’t think we should do anything to prevent this collision despite the temporary discomfort. Maybe it is this collision that I find worth the trouble we have to go through to search out the path for. It is worth the drama, the constant bickering and the abrupt realizations in the middle of the day. I thinks it is all worth it in the end.
I nervously took another puff of the joint she had rolled. The hash suddenly tasted different in my mouth, it tasted of shame and devotion. . I was ashamed of myself, of being who I am, of failing her along with so many others, but I was devoted to the idea of me, to this person I have put so much effort into building who was immune to heartaches. I still cannot explain why I felt what I felt in that moment but I knew this is something that will haunt my conscience for a very long time.
Her hair shown a shade of mahogany in the filtered sunlight falling on us and my gaze fixated on her portrait; dim sun light, heavy smoke and her perfectly shaped crossed legs. Our faces facing each other we were sitting comfortably disturbed, the space between the two walls was perfect for this setting. Sometimes it feels like it was specially crafted keeping in mind we will want to rest our backs while we smoke away the burdens of the world. I had never noticed how stuffy the bathroom was or how luscious her lips were until then. Thank Lord for the music which filled the silence until the gloom in her aura died down slowly.
“Kia hogaya yaar?”
“Nothing. Sometimes I just break down and I don’t…” I had stopped listening as her voice trailed off in my mind. I was just staring at her hand gestures as she kept pushing her hair back out of nervous tension, baring the clear skin on the junction of her collarbone and shoulder. We were talking again; she was calming down, telling me everything that made her upset. It was her, it was me, and it was the world. And I could only either laugh it off or kiss it away. Her impressionable mind is incapable of understanding the extent of my discomfort over discussions like these. I would rather argue the string theory than explain to her why I am the way I am. But you see the cycle follows. I will comfort her with words I know are never going to be good enough but somehow for her they are. And just like that everything is fixed. I am the Major Quick-fix Fun-boy and I like to keep it that way and I like to think that everyone else likes that I like to keep it that way.
***
The loud EDM music does not make me uncomfortable, nor does it lift my spirits up and get my feet dancing. My senses are at ease and my eyes feel heavy, not my eyelids, I am droopy but I am slowly moving my body to the beat, trying to mirror the movements in the curve of her silhouette. I am stoned but my high is holding onto her petite frame dancing. The splash of the kaleidoscopic lighting on the dance floor was flattering her skimpy dress and buffed up hair. I can’t say with absolute uncertainty whether it is because of the chemical reactions in my mind or the trickery of the atmosphere but I just cannot seem to take my eyes off her. Streaks of sweat are running down her neck as she flips her hair back and forth. I want to trace them with my tongue but I know I can’t and it honestly doesn’t bother me anymore. Nothing bothers me because nothing really matters, it is this state of mind that is costing me so much, but it is also this state of mind, to which I owe the eternal peace that I have made with situations in life.
She is drawing everyone’s attention as she forgets that everyone is watching her draw groovy eights with her body. I couldn’t have known that light-headedness would throw her so comfortably into her element, making her the most dazzling attraction for the night. My interior monologue just helped me stay in the moment and prevented my thoughts from drifting off to faraway places. I really appreciate that. I don’t think anyone else sees her this way, even I rarely do. She has the most average face and the most common body type and nothing special happening. But it is in moments like these that her irresistibility dawns upon me, a random breath she takes between two quick puffs, or when she loses her mind to the music and dances how she is dancing right now, or when she has fire blazing in her eyes because the world has failed to comply to her whim, or when she is calmly just sitting there looking at me with those larger than life eyelids wondering how boring a sunny day can be. My rationality tells me I do not have any romantic feelings for her but the fascination and the sexual tension between us is as uncanny as can be. The intricate understanding of how her mind works and how she feels things strikes a sharp contrast with my occasional indifference and shudders me to the bone because maybe somewhere deep down I really do not want to be this person who has reached the apex of detachment.
***
I think around six minutes had passed and I did not want to stare at her sleeping face anymore.
“Listen, you can’t pass out like that”
“Why can I not? Who will stop me? You?” the series of incredulous questions was followed by a dull and droopy laughter. It looked as if it hurt her face muscles to laugh at this point. I really wanted to let her sleep but I figured that maintaining this tradition of the redundant dialogue about her exhaustion post smoking was more important to me.
She just dropped her head on my shoulder and closed her eyes. I could feel her heavy breaths on the side of my neck. I threw my head back to the wall and closed my eyes. The world really makes you tired. The thought of how many arbitrary boundaries there are to every sort of relationship that you have and everything you ever want to do came back running to my mind. Why can I not have things the way I want them to if I really have all this free will everyone keeps talking about?
There was a spasmodic outburst of knocks on the door which led to both of us being shaken out of the intoxicated slumber that had enfolded us, making us feel the comfort of being unborn. I stood up to open the door and she fixed her hair. And so again, it rekindled the world of arbitrary boundaries, unspoken cravings and selfish compromises. We cannot be what either of us wants, we cannot have what either of us desire and we definitely can never reach a settlement after having battled it out. So we will run to escape, rushing all around this madhouse, unlocking each door only to find ourselves standing at another labyrinth, and in the time that we try to find our respective paths our tracks will collide, and I don’t think we should do anything to prevent this collision despite the temporary discomfort. Maybe it is this collision that I find worth the trouble we have to go through to search out the path for. It is worth the drama, the constant bickering and the abrupt realizations in the middle of the day. I thinks it is all worth it in the end.
Woah!! lady you are too good...
ReplyDeleteThis comment has been removed by the author.
ReplyDeleteShook
ReplyDelete