A Goodbye.....

A Goodbye.....

Maya and Rishabh held hands and stared at the sea for a long time. This was their last Sunday walk on the Juhu Beach, something they hadn’t missed in the last 3 years that they had been together.
Rishi was leaving India for an MBA degree and they both had decided that a long distance relationship was something they both didn’t desire. Maya had always had a strong sense of individuality and independence about her and that’s what attracted Rishi towards her in the first place. But today she didn’t feel as confident. She felt a lump rise in her throat as she dug her fingers and caught Rishabh’s arm more tightly. They had decided to not bring tears and gloom in their last meeting together and part on a happy note. Maya didn’t feel as assured of herself as she’d felt they day she had promised him she wouldn’t cry.
Soon it was time to leave, Rishi gave her a tight hug, a kiss on the forehead, and “Let’s keep in touch ,Ok?” and he was gone. He was also tense, Maya could feel it.
As Maya walked away, the next wave washed over their footprints where they had stood together for so long, their last testimony of togetherness. As Maya wiped a tear that had escaped from the right corner of her eye, she wondered if the footprints that Rishi had left in her heart would ever fade….
She felt a strong urge to look behind and look for traces of where they had stood hand in hand, and she did. She saw Rishi standing some feet behind looking confused. She hesitated, but not when Rishi opened his arms and beckoned her. Maya ran like she’d known only running all her life and Rishi engulfed her in his bear hug and said “Baby this is a stupid idea. Ofcourse long distance relationships can work! Lets make them work!”

“Sometimes I wonder, sometimes I care,
At times I fumble, sometimes I dare…
Isn’t love about taking chances??, I feel
And then I feel, if love itself is a chance….”

The Other Woman

I lay there in the bathtub staring in oblivion. The pain in my chest was too much tonight. I wanted it all to go away. I wished I could just tell him I knew and get it all over with. But I held back the urge for the millionth time. I wished I could scrub the skin off my body. I didn’t feel like myself in it anymore. I felt dirty and impure hiding all the filth inside me. And then the bathroom door opened and he peeped in.

“Honey, are you done yet?”

I didn’t know what to say. I looked at him and just smiled. That is all I had strength enough to do. Was I done yet? I guess I was done a long time ago, the day I had first found out. He came home late like he had done many times before. But this time it was different. I could sense it in the way he was acting and talking. I asked him as usual what made him so late and unlike before, his answers had a tone of uneasiness. I knew then that he was lying but my love was too blind to see it. It has been almost three years now and it still is. I know he is still seeing her, sleeping with her.

I came out of the bathroom wearing a robe. He was waiting for me on the bed. We were going to make love. Maybe he enjoyed having sex with her but we; we made love, and making love was not an easy thing to do especially when one of us was faking it. Knowing that what we did was exactly what he did with her made it that much harder on me. I felt intimidated. I still wasn’t able to understand what made him seek intimacy with someone else. Was it because of me or was it just him? Was I too flawed? Was I not exciting enough? Did I not satisfy him completely? These were questions I wanted to scream out to him every time we made love. Rather, I just moaned out his name. He thought it was in pleasure but he had no idea how much pain was hidden in it. He was in me but I never really felt it.

“Oh! I love you…” he groaned.

I wanted to say, “I know you do but not enough. You love me but you love her body.”

“I love you too…”

I’ll never let him know that I know. It’s a secret I’ll take with me to the grave. And maybe in the afterlife, when everything is revealed, he’ll know that all this while I knew and then the way he’ll feel will be my revenge. Till then, I’ll keep on loving, and moaning and pretending. I just wish I had the kind of power over him that she had that made him risk everything just to be in her.

I wanted to mean that much to him.

For once, even for just a moment, I wanted to be the other woman.

Tell Me

I don’t want you to hear me out
when I’m sad and upset
But tell me if you can just listen
to what’s not being said.

I don’t want to know about the great things
that you have overcome
But tell me about the little things
that have made you what you’ve become.

I don’t want to know that thunders of applause
for you feels breathtaking
But tell me about how it feels
when you hear the sound of your dreams breaking.

I don’t want to know about the brilliance
of the sun at the peak of noon
But tell me about the darkest night
in the absence of the moon.

I don’t want to know about your many friends
and what they say and do
But tell me about that one friend
who lets you just be you.

I don’t want to know about all the questions
that you have found answers for
But tell me about that one question’s answer
of which you are still unsure.

I don’t want to know about the things
that you see in broad daylight
But tell me about what you see
after you close your eyes at night.

I don’t want to know about your wounds
that hurt and burn sometimes
But tell me about the ones
that have gone numb with time.

I don’t want to know about the things that you’ve written
in lonesome times on a lonely night
But tell me about the blank pages that are filled
with words you were too reluctant to write.

I don’t want to know about the things
that you would tell the world anyway
But tell me about all the things
that you will never say.

At the Crossroads

I am at the crossroads again. When I look to my left, I see a dull road fading away into a misty dusk. When I look to the right, I see a road with cracks so vast and deep, I’m afraid I might fall into one of them. When I look behind me, I see so much hurt and regret that I don’t want to go back. When I try to see ahead, I am unable to figure out what awaits me. I can see the presence of a light, but my heart believes it’s just an illusion, a fatal trap to capture me. And so I just stand there wondering which road to take.

Random thoughts keep springing up in my mind, thoughts that I can’t comprehend. My mind is in chaos and prevents me from thinking straight. Suddenly the world is upside down and everything seems to go wrong. Everything seems so different, unpredictable. Sometimes I wonder if I should even care anymore. I feel I am so complicated at times that even I fail to understand myself. And then I wonder how, when and why I changed so much. I wonder what or who was responsible for this thick wall of indifference that I have built all around me. Sometimes I want to run away, take some other road that I can twist and turn according to my purpose. Sometimes I feel like hurting myself, wondering how it would be to see myself bleed and die. From where I stand, I see myself as a pathetic broken person who is too confused, too weak to decide which road to take.

Life is strange, love is stranger. I’ve had enough of both.

Complications never cease and simplicity is so vague. I want neither.

I am at the crossroads again and I don’t know where to go.

Conversations

"I can't be in this relationship any longer. There is only so much i can take. I think it's time we moved on." he said.

"But..." she said, tears streaming down her face."But why? What did i do? I'm sorry."

“No.. It’s time we both move on. I really don’t want to be your boyfriend anymore. ”

“Sweetheart, I want to be with you. I love you. I love you a lot.”

"I love you too"

"Then why. . why this?"

"Will you marry me, love?"


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Raat ke andhere se haar kar chala tha main
socha tha raahon mein roshni to hogi
dhundla sa kahi savera to milega
Koi kiran badalon se nikli to hogi.

Sab raahon ka ant ho gaya
ab tak gum wo savera hai
socha tha raahon me roshni to hogi
aur yahaan manzil par bhi andhera hai.

Maze

Where do I go?In whom do I confide?

My world is falling apart,How do i face the coming tide?

The uncertain future, and the bygone past

The present is least beckoning....Did I make my decisions too fast?

I feel so stifled, I don't fit this mould

There is so much more to me, I wish I could just unfold.....

Any yet, I live on,

and try not to moan

Surrounded by people

and yet so alone......

Free...Atlast
The rain drenched her from head to toe,
Her spirit was free.....she was free to go.

Those memories were now past
She was free from their clutch, she was free atlast..

It all had begun, just like a dream.
He'd entered her life, and he would stay it seemed.

But fate had different plans in store,
Their relationship became a burden, both seemed to bore.

It was best to come out, best to let him go,
She felt so much pain, but wouldn't let him know..

Days had passed, time had healed her pain
The pouring waters cleansed her soul...
She was ready to love again.............

We waste time looking for the perfect lover,

instead of creating the perfect love

~ Tom Robbins