The love wasn’t pleasant. If anything, it was bleak and upsetting. Seasoned with bitterness, it was nothing how they show it in the tales. It could be that I was never the lead but still insisted upon it. I always looked up to ‘the’ happy ending which was never to come.
I used to spell out to her each single day how much she meant to me. Every shrine I went to, I only had one wish – her.
I hadn’t much to offer but I promised myself to give her my all. I wholeheartedly believed that if I put in my everything, there would be a day it would be reciprocated. I, in my entire life, could never have asked for more and there was nothing any less I would settle for. She was my absolute wish. Commitment is a light word; I had devotion.
Unrequited love has to have limits; for I fought it all the way but lost.
Disheartened on several occasions, there came a day, I decided to end it all. Maybe I shouldn’t stoop any lower for a love only I was holding tight. Said I couldn’t take it no longer. I composed the words, but my heart never agreed. How could it? She was at the top; anything and everything came after.
Days went by.
I was there making a handful of drafts that were never sent. Each day, it gets tougher and much tougher, but I resist. Have to be a man of words.
I hear her voice in the hallway. I feel a glee; I turn around just to realize…
I see her in every empty face; anyone with enchanting eyes or blushing cheeks.
I smell her aroma in the air; but she is who is missing.
I feel her in my lofty dreams but wake up to this same dull dismal reality.
Days were dense.
For all I knew, some magical wand was yet to be waved; I never lost my hope.
And, one lovely day, I receive her text.
‘How do you do?’
I was overwhelmed with bliss. I tried my best to contain the joy but failed; my heart was pounding. She was my beloved, and me, I was the slave of my affection.
A vivid ray of hope shined upon me; it was enough to sprout that mousy itch I had inside.
The entire night, I scribbled how much she meant to me and how everything came by. The possibility of her being around once again was above the paradise. I could take any pain and any misery for that affection; may it mean taking pieces off me; I would do it. I felt contented.
I couldn’t sleep that night. I was eagerly waiting for her reply; just too anxious.
The next day, however,
‘I fell in love’, she said
‘… It’s been few months.’
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No words can ever phrase the blow I was struck with. I was crushed to my very core.
‘I didn’t want to upset you.’
I felt dead inside.
‘You always held on to one thing I didn’t say right. I couldn’t take it.’
Little did she know her words meant the world to me. I had to hold on to everything she remarked for there were limited instances of when she would do it. For the most part, it was only me and my worthless efforts.
‘With him, it’s never like that. I love what we have between us, the conversation…’
I was suffocating. Those words were sharper than any knife; it went through my ribs and pierced my heart.
You left me because I couldn’t frame myself well? For a guy who came in yesterday and expressed the correct words? My insecurities knew no bounds.
‘But you said it was over. I was hurt too.’
What of the 365 days I told her I would never leave; I couldn’t…
I hated myself. This all came upon because I let my vile self-regard drive me. I couldn’t take little pain; I had to act stiff. For what? I could never release the guilt.
There was nothing to look up to with what just happened. I was at the midst of sheer void with nothing nowhere.
‘I am certain she would fall back the same one day’ – would’ve always been my answer. I never confronted no other possibility because I knew I could never adore anyone else as much, never. For that love, I could burn cities to dust. I feared it.
I begged for relief, but it was already too late. The agony that came by was enough to shatter me to bits. I wanted to end myself; I could never imagine a future where she didn’t belong.
No sin was worth this damnation. Every other minute was getting tougher to standby. I was overwhelmed with an umbrella of foul emotions. Distress, anger, self-doubt – I had them all to the fullest. Her falling so easily in love was not acceptable at all. I had longed for years; what did it matter to her?
I got a taste of how unjust life can get. It was the greatest betrayal; I had my beliefs and faiths disturbed to every single ounce. There was nothing that could ever revive me, no set of circumstances that can ever take back what had happened.
“Men always want to be a woman’s first Love. That is their clumsy vanity. Women have a more subtle instinct about things: What they like is to be a man’s last romance.”
- Oscar Wilde, ‘A Woman of No Importance.’
My greatest fear, which I had kept buried inside of me, had come true. She was in her first love, and it wasn’t me. It was cruel, longing for an affection I could never receive.
No day was pleasant; some were worse than the others. Every single night, I prayed to the beyond – May tomorrow bring her back to me, but no god ever heard it. Fuck the heavens for it can’t fulfill one single prayer I pleaded every single day. I am never forgiving no one.
One sunset after the other but none takes me with it. I was left with no purpose. I had my dear ones, but the dearest I couldn’t keep. What would I do of everything for she won’t be present in any of it.
They say a day would come and I would love again but would I unlove her? The fear that I would still want her till the end always ragged me.
Time heals, they said, 3 years ago.
Didn’t want it.
All I ever wanted ‘is’ her.
