Of Dandelions and Lighthouses

Remember the good,
in all things past.
Love, and beauty and hope,
Of tableaus in time,
Holding hands,
baring souls,
sharing dreams,
Tracing names in the sky.

I love you still,
My lighthouse on the shore,
But when every flighty petal
Of the dandelion has flown,
The wind can do little
But carry it away,
Into the sun.

And my heart is broken too,
For I can see you,
In every waking moment,
And every breathless dream.
But I must know what I want,
Before I choose anymore.

Because then, when the rainclouds have cleared,
And the sunshine shimmers through,
I will see the lighthouse,
If it is really meant to be,
And the dandelion will grow again,
Around every inch of the lighthouse,
Strong and pure and true.

And if,
The sunshine should bring no lighthouse,
Among the silhouettes of dawn,
Know that my heart will always wonder,
If my path was right or wrong.

And every single lighthouse,
Along the cliffs of my life,
Will make my eyes wander,
Into the mistakes of the past.

Remember my sweet love,
We are part of one another,
For ever, ever more
And you will always be my lighthouse,
In the darkness,
And the light.


I miss you.

In a way that reminds me of where I was and where I am today. What I could have had and what I don't have and worst of all, what I may never have again. It's not regret. I knew I had to do what I did, I know I needed to do it. But there's clarity in hindsight, and it often makes for a good teacher.

I'm sorry I let a beautiful thing die. I'm sorry I didn't try harder to push through the fog. I know this is pointless, late and pointless. But it makes me feel better to write it out. To give structure and form to a feeling so intense, questions so difficult, to give different hues to shades of grey.

I sometimes feel I'm blessed to know what it was like to be loved like you loved me. Nobody has even come close. Nobody can, the bar is raised too high. I compare, contrast, lay down conditions in my own head, and nobody can even come close. I'm happy you found someone, I'm happy you could go more than a month without the thought that she isn't me. Because for me, there hasn't been a single soul who I could stand the sight of for more than a month. Because nobody was good enough.

I loved you in a way that overwhelmed me sometimes. I can close my eyes and I remember than rush, that feeling of being overpowered by an emotion so strong, there was nothing that came close to it. I'm happy because I know I am capable of loving someone unconditionally.

If there was one person who I would choose to hold me after the accident, it would be you. I think back and sometimes I wish I had just come to you. You would have held me like you did at A's cremation. Like we fit, like you knew where it hurt.

What makes me write this late and pointless and pathetic admission, you ask? The question of whether I will ever find it again. If I will ever feel that rush again, if I will ever lie nestled next to somebody and feel a sense of contentment so strong, if I will ever be able to love and be loved like that again. I know it's a silly question to ask at 22. But I see people all around me- adults, my parents, uncles, aunts, friends, who have gone through an entire lifetime without feeling that feeling. So I think it's a question that warrants asking.

So we've moved on. It's how the world works. Life goes on. We live and we love and we sail through. I only want to say thank you. For being my best friend. For being a lover, friend and a human being with a heart of gold. For showing me that that fairytale kind of love, where you give your heart and soul to another, really does exist.

I remember telling you I would always love you. In some capacity or the other. And I do. I hope you and I can always be part of each others' lives. When I think back, I feel I've given a large part of me away. When you love the way I loved you, you never really become whole again.

I know this will be awkward, and odd, to say the very least. But you must know all of this. I'm sorry if you feel it's not my place anymore to tell you what's in my head. And I hope you read this, and take it in good stead, and know why I needed to say all this.

Perhaps we'll never be lovers again. Maybe if it happened, we wouldn't be the same two
people who sat next to each other on a bus and found something that would become a beautiful, beautiful part of us. But for that one chance, I will always be grateful.

Of Greys And Shades In Between

It's been a rough week. One where I wished I just had one of my 'persons' with me.

I don't see the world in black and white. Very few things appear in those colours. I believe in the greys. But I found myself in the middle of one such area recently. Where the grey was missing. And I have never been more afraid in my life.

I was wrong. I judged harshly. And I was put in the same spot. And I learned my lesson. I am not completely to blame, but as long as I live, there are some shades of black and white that I will try and look for the grey in.

I would not be able to forgive myself, not in a hundred lifetimes if the answer was a yes. I wouldn't be able to live with myself. After all the heated discussions, the arguments, the debates, the stories and the painful reminders from the outside in, when you find yourself in a spot that you have never, ever, in your wildest dreams believed you would be in, your world not only comes crashing down, it stops spinning.

From now on, I will look closely before I judge what is black and what is white. And I will look more closely for the greys, even where I think they may not exist. Especially where I think they may not exist.

Holding Out

Too late for cold feet now. Hindsight teaches you a number of things.

I know, in my worst moments of self-doubt, for instance, that I have felt love. If I die tomorrow, I will die knowing that at least once in my entire lifetime, I knew what it felt like to have been loved. I knew what it was like to love. To feel that overwhelming rush of emotion when you feel like a part of somebody.

I am not who I was. There will be more faces to add to the montage, maybe. But not without them reaching a certain standard. I have wasted too much of me. I have spent so much of what I have to give. There is much more, I know. But now the bar's been raised so far and so high that only the best will do. You can't just be better than somebody who loved you. You have to be the best one for the job.

I'm holding out now. I'm building walls for the first time. I'm not accepting second best. I'm not settling. I will not compromise. I will not take what is offered and leave the rest to the wind. I am not going to throw caution to the wind. I am not going to just embrace a possibility. I won't lose hope but I can wait. I'm holding out now.

The Montage

It was as if my mind had spontaneously made a montage.

He sat and talked. And while he talked, I was so far away, watching the images flip by one by one. The seat opposite me was the same. So was the bar. Only the face of the person opposite changed.

So many faces, each one yapping away while I just watched the montage silently. Alphabets popped up next to each face. A and his cynical self. D drawling some rubbish about only he knew what. Another A, and a happy-sad face asking me why I said no. P and his annoyingly pompous tone. R and his cloying sympathy seeking stories. There were other faces, each one with a tone and an alphabet and a snippet of conversation.

I shook my head a bit and I was back. In a nice bar with S (charming and very boring). While he spoke to me of his musical taste and how he found hip-hop profound. I believe that devastating oxymoron in itself was what brought me my montage of epiphany.

There was only one person who didn't figure in that line of images. The alphabet K never did come up.

I could have been in a movie. I'm going to have to figure out a good song for that moment in my OST.