Every passing moment blurs out the bond I share with my past. Nights spent fighting battles end up bringing me closer to this fragrance of the unknown. This newness is slowly painting my world with colours of a rainbow and I no longer know what I feel. I am trying hard not to drown in this ocean of strangeness but in that, I am finally finding my true colours. The image of my past self is slowly fading away. I am running out of the thread that held me together.
I build a home with her on pretence and fear, hiding it from the world. This love ignites the fire of my soul. But not all fires want you to run away. Some demand you to walk right into them while some fires walk themselves. The possibility of a tomorrow without her scares me. This love is hopeless, I tell my mind. And yet, I still come back home every night to kiss her fidelity and hear her silence. I love her in shameless and immoral ways, on sheets stained with shame and rage. But for her, a thousand times over and over and over. I let her fingers touch my body scared with stories of childhood while she kisses away my tears.
The tears of yesterday bring me closer to her, to a home.
Time pauses its saunter while I gaze at her. Every time I look at her eyes, the life we could have had, all the memories that could have been ours come before me. Behind those black iris lie my forbidden colours. The more I delve, the closer I get to discover something new each time. I try to remember the map of her face; the scar on her lower lip or the mole above her right eyebrow. She is as vulnerable as me, but the actor in her knows how to hide better. Behind every sharp-witted insight is a story from the past, an experience that she has lived before me. She has had a life before me and she will have one after. There is no tomorrow before us but knowing this doesn’t help. So, I hold her closer like a bad habit, finding my freedom in those arms. She is a dream I have to wake up from but knowing it doesn’t help.
So, I hold on tighter, tighter and tighter…
Written by Annesha Mistry
Artwork via Holly Warburton