The moon outside is a pale blue, silvered cornice, watered nothing. About the story of my own life, as it is happening right now. I somehow see it as a slow-motion tape, winding and unwinding itself at will. I do not think what I used to a while ago, I barely even feel like I used to. Or so I told myself. I told you that as well.
Déjà vu… I can count and recount the exact points in my life when I felt that way. I somehow always managed to bounce back with vigour though. That kept me alive. I look back now, and I doubt I can do it again. On some level, maybe that was what drew me to you—the fact that I could think and feel and smile without any overheads. I delved into the validity of the argument, and I convinced myself that all of the consequences of it were secondary. Only you and I, and what we felt was the basis of what would keep us together. As I felt arms and legs and lips the other day, I told myself the same thing. I still am.
But, tonight as I sit with myself, making polite conversation with my mind, a feeling of solitude suddenly hits me. I asked myself this question so many times in the past, and the answers have varied every time. Now I am not so sure. You will never be mine, I hear myself say. I do not want to control you; I cannot straddle you with emotional excesses, and yet, somewhere deep down inside, I have this intense desire to belong.
Ever watched the wind sweep across a sand dune… for one endless moment, as the sand and the invisible force mate, there is mayhem. The sand knows it has been hit; it does not know where or how or what. It has not even seen the force. Does not try to understand it. But, for that one moment, when the wind sweeps across the anonymous sand dune, every particle of sand screams out. Every tiny molecule hopes the invisible wind might acquire tangible form and possess it. Now I am the nameless, faceless shard of nothing, and you the all-encompassing wind.
Make my magic real.
Give it a name.
Watch me from the other side.
You can still walk away, and never look back again. I do not have the energy to come after you. My stars are distant, faint remnants of what they used to be. Burn me, scorch me, change me to a point where even I would shirk away from myself. Taunt me, tantalise me, make me whole again. Watch, whisper into my void, break down the impassable walls. Work anything you will. Even my mind. Just do not walk away and leave me standing here with the answers. I am old. I cannot search for the questions again.