We all have been there, we all have felt it for at-least someone in our life, and it’s that naive feeling we misjudge for something as pure as love most of the times. We don’t realise that it’s a cruel selfish world, that the one claiming to love us, is only there for themselves and that we would be left stranded as soon as either we are done serving the purpose or more ironically, somehow if we stop submitting ourselves like the freedmen the Romans used to feast upon. But once in our life, there could be those rarest of moments when perhaps it all makes sense. It all somehow falls in place, like the missing piece of the broken me I had no track of, comes swirling back into its dwelling. That’s when I saw her, the butterflies hit my stomach and the time lost its own track, when it felt that there’s no one else around and when I always had felt alone in the crowd, when my heart thumped like the drums of an ancient war band, and when the sweat broke my face like a glistening sheen till it rivulets making me realise it was tears.

It has been 18 years and it still feels like yesterday. I knew I wasn’t perfect, I thought of her as an adorable, comely, and suave girl who is only lost in her exploration of harmony. Her looks were so alluring, her smile so enthralling, and her presence so captivating. I could have never thought her to have anything for someone as imperfect as me but there she was, with her beauteous soul and her resplendent self, so innocent, so calm, a little nervous & shy, and yet so much vulnerable. I fell for her the day I saw her but I just couldn’t muster the courage to have her, to show her what she deserved and how I wanted to love her. I just couldn’t use her like the rest, I wanted her to have better, what she truly deserved, so she was set free to explore with her wings open, flying in the limitlessness of her blue, perhaps never to return, and that’s how I lost her. She was traumatised, for I let the birds of prey rapere her with their talons on the frozen lake, something I won’t ever forgive myself for. I wish I could only go back in time and change that, I wish I could only have made it all more purposeful; instead, it was all catastrophic for her.

Yes, I was careworn with my own battles but I couldn’t notice her tumbling either. It’s as if we were together but we were not. I always thought I would be the house she would call her safe heaven, but there was no one coming through the open door, until the tempest took it all away. The thought of her hating me and not wanting to see me no more was devastating, I couldn’t tell how much I missed her in those lonely nights, when I wanted her to be there, when I wanted her to say “everything will be alright”. But I kept lying flat on the beach, into the cold sand, in the middle of the night, counting the planes; I was too high to think anything else but to justify that I deserve to be ignored. It was no surprise her not recognising my voice, afterall I was only back in the hope that someday, this bitterness would fade away and I could find the path to her golden heart.

I had her close to me somehow, I could feel her radiant presence around me all day long, but she was again surrounded by the raptor, shattering herself piece-by-piece, giving her everything, but she seemed blissful and I was only content with that. “Isn’t this what you always wanted”, I asked myself. She meant the world to me and without her, my life would be empty so I never wanted to take her smile away even though she was sloping towards self-destruction. The demons had been able to enter her realm when the sky broke apart but her realm was a fairyland, mesmeric, ravishing and statuesquely symmetrical. It were the cold windy nights somewhere in the north, when she was close again, the shivering of my soul was ever so evident although I didn’t felt cold outside, I couldn’t hold back no more, I had to shield her, I was her knight. There was nothing more beautiful in this world than what I felt. Being close in such perfect harmony, and when I held her hand, I could feel my soul trembling; I never wanted to let go, I wanted to be her home again.

In that hour of need we both bonded but it was a plague of self-doubt that struck fiercely again. To love and to hold on made me feel alive again, but I was as good as dead carrying that lost soul back once again to the same world of disenchantment and neglect. I wish I could shriek my lungs out and tell her how much I loved her and how I always craved for her. She was taken again, by her own choice, unknown, unwanted, aloof, cool & distant, and I could feel my heart wrench like a twisted straw ready to be cast-off. I could feel myself wrecked a million times, it was nothing new but it was all my own doings. I believe that was not new either. What could I do, I was only trying to settle everything around. I kept running recklessly in the maze, all lost with no track of where I was going, trying to save my jenga tower. All I could do was to watch it collapse and with it my dreams, aspirations and hopes for a better tomorrow.

Now that it all has been done with, I want her to know, that she filled the void in my heart with her love, maybe I was selfish not being able to provide the same in return. You are the candle light of my darkness revealing me the true meaning of love. I have been dreaming about all of this, it’s just I couldn’t ever express it. Not a moment passes when I don’t think of you. You made me see the beauty in everything there is. You taught me the meaning of love. Finding you was like looking for a needle in a field of grass, the more I search the more I get lost in it. No one has a perfect past but we all have stories to tell; while you could never have me listen, you never got tired of hearing me out. Loving me with all my imperfections and crazy antics, even when I was under the weather, you never gave up on me my love. From being my best friend ever to the love of my life, you were, you have and will always be a part of me. We complete each other in ways we thought were not even possible, always together, through your golden heart, never to be separated, stitched unruffled, through the connecting thread of love.

Nothing makes sense, yet everything makes sense. All the love songs, all the quotes. I was not aware of the butterfly effect until now. I didn’t know why love stories were penned down that way and why is love described as so beautiful. I and my naivety never knew that it is a powerful emotion that was waiting to engulf me into its fold, to welcome me into this beautiful chaos where unwillingly and unconsciously you let all your guard down. The tangled web of insecurities, hurt, and the potential of an uneasy life is not what worries you anymore but you are actually trapped in the colored mess of one single human who happens to be your heartbreakingly-ravishing reality.

A connection that is both twisted intricately and yet so simple to decipher; it makes you go head over heels one minute and cascades warmth within you the other. Nothing happens yet everything happens. You feel like jumping, free falling into the fragments of your own madness, and yet you know you will be safe. Because your person will just break your fall, engulf you. And you will be gliding to the destination of their madness, the colors made for you. Nothing less than beautiful; nothing more breathtaking.

All I think about is him. From my mornings to my nights and everything in between. I know it’s something to say because you do not actually have them. And trust me, it is not entirely essential for your loved ones to be physically around you. They linger in your thoughts. Like he does in mine. I call him my heart because it’s like every beat in me is because of him. I do not want you to think that I am being corny or something. But you see for me life is of an entirely different meaning. For me, life is him. The peace he brings along, the love he offers to me, the care he provides. The happiness he is all about. I know I am trapped. And I promise I have no intention of escaping it whatsoever.

I have always tried to be a good person in everyone’s story. Why is that so? Maybe because I never wanted to be remembered as a person who caused them to hurt? But my love for him defies the principle. I no longer care who I am missing out on as long as I serve him with happiness. Because whatever he feels is reflected in me. And no, I am not a reflection of his soul. But in fact, he was that missing puzzle in my soul and I found him, and he just fit in. That is why whatever he feels is radiated within me. And I have reached a point where when I look at myself, all I see is him. I so wish you could know him the way I do.

Dreaming, living, craving a forever with you.

And that is when I look at him and I cannot help but think; here he is, my million in one.