Maybe (*)

12.30 pm on 7th September 2018.

I came home, around 40 minutes back, talking to the US friend. Made chai for myself, the new lemongrass with panda tea one; enjoyed it, had my mithai (jaw ka sattu) and looked at the time. I have tried calling Her twice now, but no answer. Will try in the morning. And then, with nothing else to do, I click open the social media app, the only one that I have at the moment. Typed the first two letters of the name, and instead the other’s wife’s name popped up. I ignored, not stopping, and rallied on through. Found the name and the face, and opened up the page. No new update. Some long lost update of a distant city. A random town whose name sounds incomplete. I feel connected to that name, like somehow I chose to know of it and imbibed it in me. A relief when i say it out loud, and I do.

I come out of the app, and into a messaging app. Looked at his picture on that app. The smiling face. The absolute delight there. And I get lost. Lost in the frame of the pic, the mood with which it must have been taken and the person to whom it must have been shown. And my smile fades. I am reminded of the person who must have taken the pic. And I get the urge to write this.

Here I am, at 12.40 in the night, an absolute-fucking-mills-and-boon-kind-of-romantic. My life is never going to be happy. Not in the manner I wanted it to be. Not in the manner that I thought I deserved. I will get some contentedness, maybe some laughs, maybe some or lots of love which I will not understand, and which may not be the kind that I had wanted to get.

I am reminded of the time I spent with him. It was awkward. It was somewhat like the time spent with the Former in time guy. Only with the Former in time one, I would be more aware of the spent time because I wanted to store all of that time in my head, in my heart, in my life, anything else had felt like such a waste then. But with Latter in time guy, I deliberately avoided being aware of the passing time; I forced myself to avoid the time that was being spent together. Because not doing so would have meant acknowledging that Latter in time one was just as special as the Former. Who am I kidding. I think the Latter in time one is as special, if not more so, and when in fact the Latter is as farther away from me than anyone else, maybe more now than ever. He is farther than truth and propriety and reality and morality and everything else that is considered right, by the conformists and the non-conformists, from whatever angle, detachment or attachment one.

Yet, I am a romantic. 
I can’t help but be in yearning 
of that smile for me. 
For his smile for me. 
Which will never be, 
for in my store lies 
his indifference, 
not that I would give it up, 
because there still exists 
acknowledgment in the indifference.

Maybe tomorrow,     
I won’t be a romantic. 

* Edited several times for the sake of artistic licence/vagueness.