Life's a mere assimilation of what if's.

Our story couldn't have been much different than how it turned out.
We were young,
And in love.

When you proposed to me,
I said "yes" in a heartbeat.
Why wouldn't i?
You were practically the most eligible bachelor in school,
With your good looks,
And a seemingly prosperous future.

It took me about an year to come to terms with my feelings for you.
Before that,
We had a namesake friendship.

My friends used to talk about you all the time.
About how charming you were,
How polite in approach.
They were all secretly envious of how you only had eyes for me.
How smitten you were with me.
I didn't realise it back then,
But it was more with the image of you my friends had created that I fell in love with.

When we were together,
I felt invincible.
In your company,
There was a joy unlike anything I had known.

We had our romantic escapades.
We went for strolls,
Walked hand in hand,
Were often lost in the other's eyes.
It was like any love story,
We took each other's breaths in,
Longing for any accidental touch.

You loved me,
You couldn't stress it enough,
And I believed it.
I believed it with every bone in my body.

Until one day you left me.

You didn't inform me of this new arrangement.
You'd rather I be left in dark.

After the seemingly endless anguish I went through,
I received a letter.

In the letter was a painting,
A painting of the years we had spent together.
But the colours you had painted them in were...unfamiliar.

It read how I took your focus off important things.
How I was the source of your incompetence.
How I made you less happy by the day.
How I had lost all that you had once loved about me.
How I had changed.
Changed irrevocably.
How you knew I'd never be enough.
How I was just an infatuation,
Nothing, Nothing more.

People are fragile,
Afraid of change.
They process a new development in their lives,
In a hurried and careless manner.

As if they can't tolerate the ripple,
It would cause in their stagnant lives.
It's as if, every now and then,
The incompotents are forced to display their brutality and animalistic urge through an inhuman act,
Which, after much difficulty,
They take into account,
And again seek solace in their mundane lives.

Swearing and cussing and all the while believing,
This won't ever happen to them.
In the wake of such mishaps,
There's only one thing they're really concerned about,
Why the newspapers and channels won't showcase their usual fundbazaar news,
Or whether or not a celebrity baked a cake in quarantine,
Or when will Ramayan telecast again,
As if the act of being oblivious,
Can cure their miserable existence.

I wonder what has become of us,
What will become of us.

I wonder how many sacrifices are necessary in order to change their perspectives,
Which lens would provide them with a clearer view of the world,
I wonder if i should bear a daughter.


I wonder.
And given the pace of this new world,
I guess, I'll always wonder.