To my love

It's like we were gravitationally bound, but I'd like to think we forged this pull ourselves.

I think about you a lot. More so when we’re apart.

I forgot who reached out to who first. But I recall that day when we met outside the train station, you standing there in a rainbow tie dye tee. The day I got my first tattoo.

We never spoke much about our inner worlds. Our bond forged through the battering of storms passing in our wake, over cigarettes scraped from the bare fruits of our labour. We sought solace in each’s others’ presence, silence away from the screams and the breakage.

There was a flavour of trust that needn’t be spoken. Wide eyed, startled, was always how we’d find the other. Eyes tinted red, breaking into a soft smile. “It happened again” we’d mutter under our breaths. Sighs exchanged, a cigarette each in hand.

I think it took a couple years before we acknowledged our bond. Before our first hug. Before we spoke about the shards with grief apparent on our face. Before the tears were allowed to flow. And when it did, we never looked back.

We spent a lot of time together in the dark, dreaming about the day we’d get to bask in the sun.

And then we did.
Feel the first rays of the sun on our cheek.

The tendrils of the night had finally loosened it’s grip. What was once a shared goal was now achieved. We wanted different things now, it seemed.

I still love you! I screamed. Knowing you couldn’t hear me. I see you mouthing something at me from across the room. I couldn’t hear you either.

She still loves me. I tell myself.

We perfected our waltz under the moonlit skies, each step was instinct, each turn — a story. But when light crept in, we stood there exposed, uncertain, fumbling with every beat. The rhythm we mastered in the night had dissolved beneath the weight of the sun.

“Who are you now?” was the question we meant to ask, between pleasantries, hugs, professions of love and the like. “The same” we’d respond, lying through our teeth.

We never meant to lie. The right words have just yet to arrive. Until then we could only pray the other saw glimpses through our eyes.

We’ve never been in sync again since that night. I felt an acute emptiness hollow me out from within, it felt like I lost you to the wind. When I tried to mould caricatures of you out of clay, no one sat right, they crumbled to the touch.

I longed for the softness of your gaze, to feel whole in your embrace. You were right there, but so far away. I clawed at the binds. I saw scratches you left too, on the other side.

We were like two melodies that were meant to harmonise, but our timing was always off by a single beat. Where your note landed on the downbeat, mine floated just behind, chasing the rhythm but never quite catching it. Together, we created a syncopated dance, close enough to feel the pull, but too misaligned to truly resolve into harmony.

Still we moved alongside one another, waiting in anticipation, painting a helix across our skies, for an opportune moment to collide in entirety against the other once again.

And here we stand, trying to tear through the forces of space and time. This time in the twilight, we’re learning the new shapes of our faces.

I see your silhouette on the horizon, it’s the break of dawn, and I think,

I hear your voice again.