I spent five hours thinking about you, that day,
flipping through your pictures,
smiling at the letters
you never wrote for me but hoping that one day,
you might just draw the first alphabet of my name in a different style,
trying to figure out if my name rhymes with yours.

I smelled through the pages of the book
that has hidden notes about your eyes
and your smile in spaces between the lines
and shabbily scribbled dates
under the dog ears of the turn down page
that reminds me of the day
when you looked into my eyes for a second;
when your hands brushed against mine
and you didn't apologise for it
like you mostly did and,
when you told me that the closest
you had ever gone to someone
was by harming yourself.

And then,
there were moments
even after those hours when
I sneaked extra memories of you
from my subconscious and
laid it under the table lamp
like we did- under the blanket of the night sky,
squinting our eyes to search for the stars
amidst the silhouetted leaves.

I wrote letters to you,
I couldn't ever find an address to deliver it to
because until the last time I met you,
I never realised I could be homesick for people too.

Some nights,
I call you to ask you if you have ever loved someone,
if you have laughed just enough,
how deep have you been hurt,
how long will you wait till you belong to someone
and then, I just hang up before the dial tone goes off
because I am afraid you won't ask me the same
and even if you do,
I will end up liking you enough
to not let you go.
I know you won't say word after that
so, we will just sit there,
listening to each other's whiskey stenching breaths
over the telephone.