I loved a boy once.
A painter,
A poet, a dreamer,
And a bit of a history scholar as well.
He would search for tales of lost years
In archives, dusty bookshelves and
Lonely alleyways.
History and poetry would coalesce in
Sunbeams suspended over dusty artefacts.
He would find a snapshot
In the tangled wires of a tungsten bulb
And a stray verse in a button fallen off
A greyish blue shirt.
He wrote verses for me too,
Bleeding words and ranting awe,
In trying to capture my soul
In a perfect litany of words.
I loved him, I thought
And he loved me right back.
With him, there were beautiful days,
Days of snaps and stanzas and tangled bodies
But there were also days of venting,
Of searing, caustic angst,
Of turmoils, turbulence and
Emotional breakdowns.
And so I failed.
I let the dark mark engraved by
His corrosive outbursts overpower
The soothing glow of the verses
Or the gentle warmth of his palm
When he messed up my hair.
And so I left.
He was calm when I told him,
Not like the eye of a storm,
But genuinely, truly calm, in entirety.
There were no more outbursts,
No more piercing litanies.
Just the dull thud of his final accusation
"You didn't really love ME, you know,
but only the romanticism inherent in
the sheer existence of a dreamer,a poet.
You loved me as an entity, not a reality.
You loved me for the present,
And didn't even envisage a future with me.
Today you give me yearning.
Today, you give me pain.
And hurt and a heartache.
Trust me, a poet,
Could ask for little more."
And so we parted ways.
Forever and ever and ever.
He was right, that day.
But today, as I flip through
His first collection of poetry,
Embodiment of the hurts and yearning
I had left him with,
My heart cracks a little at the edges.
Today, I turn a poet.
