It keeps me safe. I can feel it surround me like a sheath at times. The memory of our last time together. So many things that needed to be said, yet refused to roll out on my tongue.
You had your suitcase packet. You were ready to leave. And I...
I can still see myself leaning against that light green wall, wondering how time could have been so cruel to fly away so easily. You were leaving for your city, that had ironically become my city now. That was the only link we would have between us in the years to come...that, and a painful sense of nostalgia we would associate each other with.
" I will miss you," I said. I had wanted to say something else.
"How do you know that? I'm not even gone yet," you smiled.
I smiled back trying to ignore the tears that were forming in my eyes. In my mind, you had left already. In my heart, we had parted. You knew that too, but perhaps wanted to make light of the moment. Or perhaps you thought it wouldn't be the last time we were meeting. But all I noticed then was that you hadn't said you would miss me as well. I waited...
Once again, you had nothing to say.
I had a million things to tell you. I thought I'd see you off. But as luck had it, I couldn't. I did not have any right to. That day a lot of things stayed pending.
I longed to hug you and say goodbye. But I did not. How could a hug matter when you know you are never going to see the person again? Ironically, I guess I kept wishing it wouldn't be the end.
In the years that followed, I went through this version of our last meeting several times over. Sometimes it made me laugh. The juvenile parting card, the silly gift, the way I behaved around you might have all seemed like unwanted drama. But there are very few precious moments I have of us...and no matter how immature they may seem in hindsight, it still hurts to let them go.
You set the bar high...so high that lowering it seems impossible now. Is it possible to make up a sacrosanct memory from bits and pieces of our imagination? Could it be that I have plastered the chips and deficits of your flawed image with fragments of an imagined perfection, thereby placing you on some sort of pedestal? Sometimes I wonder if I have imagined it all. Do you really exist or was it all a dream? Then I recall that moment buried in time.
That day, you had nothing to say.
Someday, I hope to find the right words.
Until then your love will continue to be this double edged sword, and my love will gladly bleed...
You had your suitcase packet. You were ready to leave. And I...
I can still see myself leaning against that light green wall, wondering how time could have been so cruel to fly away so easily. You were leaving for your city, that had ironically become my city now. That was the only link we would have between us in the years to come...that, and a painful sense of nostalgia we would associate each other with.
" I will miss you," I said. I had wanted to say something else.
"How do you know that? I'm not even gone yet," you smiled.
I smiled back trying to ignore the tears that were forming in my eyes. In my mind, you had left already. In my heart, we had parted. You knew that too, but perhaps wanted to make light of the moment. Or perhaps you thought it wouldn't be the last time we were meeting. But all I noticed then was that you hadn't said you would miss me as well. I waited...
Once again, you had nothing to say.
I had a million things to tell you. I thought I'd see you off. But as luck had it, I couldn't. I did not have any right to. That day a lot of things stayed pending.
I longed to hug you and say goodbye. But I did not. How could a hug matter when you know you are never going to see the person again? Ironically, I guess I kept wishing it wouldn't be the end.
In the years that followed, I went through this version of our last meeting several times over. Sometimes it made me laugh. The juvenile parting card, the silly gift, the way I behaved around you might have all seemed like unwanted drama. But there are very few precious moments I have of us...and no matter how immature they may seem in hindsight, it still hurts to let them go.
You set the bar high...so high that lowering it seems impossible now. Is it possible to make up a sacrosanct memory from bits and pieces of our imagination? Could it be that I have plastered the chips and deficits of your flawed image with fragments of an imagined perfection, thereby placing you on some sort of pedestal? Sometimes I wonder if I have imagined it all. Do you really exist or was it all a dream? Then I recall that moment buried in time.
Someday, I hope to find the right words.
Until then your love will continue to be this double edged sword, and my love will gladly bleed...
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