Just a Buoy on the Waters

The rain beating down on these untiring waves, is both unmerciful and unrelenting
Call it a perpetual storm or just passing clouds unloading
But who can pass any judgment at all when the storm’s been brewing in another’s head?
For who after all can really resurrect the living dead?

Many a ship have come a-sailing, their masts aflutter like proud bastions of hope!
All sailing at first with an air of gallant purpose, all seemingly poised to mark a never-hence-and-never-before!
But who can reason when those very ships have made haste retreat in the face of invisible tempests?
Who can really make peace in the aftermath of empty conquests..?

Nay, point not a finger and look not my way,
I am just a buoy upon those turbulent waters, dancin’ to the waters' sway
Just a solitary buoy on the waters running wide and deep…
Mine is not to ponder why, mine is but to stay anchored while they their deep dark secrets keep.

Patience and Hope

We sit side by side, solemnly staring and pondering over what seems to be nothing and everything at the same time. Is it over the mysteries of life? I think not. More like wandering about the meandering streets of our own minds, lost in a manner of being all blanked out. There is a sense of knowing, there is certainty, a level of assurance, of being able to return right back into the moment. Yet we don’t stir, we just sit there in stark silence. Side-by-side. Glancing, both of us at disparate things. In different directions.

There are a half dozen people around us, but it’s still like it’s just the two of us in isolation. At least to me it is. Everything around is such a blur. Everyone is lost in a world and thoughts of their own and it just adds to the silence. Only makes it easier to fade out the surroundings. There’s soft music in the background, but who really knows what number’s playing or even if it’s playing still. There’s much more to concentrate on with the silence of the humans.

We’re companions of some sort on some level.  Can we be more? Who knows, really. But we just sit and soak in the silence. The kind of silence that hangs about so thick that one can almost cut it with a knife. A synchronized, weary and dense silence.

Idly, I pick up my phone and start random conversations with a few. There’s still that almost deafening silence that I can feel in every cell of my body, while my fingers type away furiously. The phone's battery is running out, but mindless of that fact, I pour over my conversation, as if lost in the very act. You just ruminate. I can sense your eyes over my shoulders. Perhaps you read me on more levels than one. Both figuratively and literally. I actually want that. Your presence thus far has added a silver lining to the dark cloud that has been looming around for days. Your being around has made me feel alive again, if only for a bit. It’s revived a feeling that I thought I had lost for good. And I want to share that sense of feeling alive again with whoever I can find to listen. And all this while, the very thought of you looking over my shoulder keeps me going, keeps me at the mundane act of passive communication with another. More of a charade. All playing out to the audience created by just you and me, in the midst of the silent lot.

Time ticks on. A poignant reminder of how very little in terms of minutes we have left together before we meet again. Yet, there is no attempt at conversation. Not even a weak attempt at one. Yet, I feel like we have been having an interaction, just you and me. The charade, remember? And as we get closer to parting ways, fully aware that it will be days before I see you again, I want time to freeze. Even if it’s all going to be just a stopgap arrangement, I want us to be frozen in time, together. I want our moments together to last. Even if it’s in all in silence, even if you in your own mind are not really with me. I want time to stand still. Cause you are with me. Just next to me.

It’s almost like we’re two strangers in the night. But true strangers for how long can we be? Will our future interactions and the times to come, however few and far between they may be, reveal me to you and you to me?

It’s strange that I even wonder about this connection of ours over and over again, trying to make sense. After all, it came to me most unexpectedly, descending gently and pleasantly like a butterfly onto the outstretched palm of my hand. The very realization of it all was both extremely moving and quite disturbing at the same time. As I battle hard with my own conscience to dispel the overwhelming guilt I feel at having overridden my own self-imposed principles and in my needing you, your smile, your soft voice, your very presence, all whilst being fully aware of our disposition. Deep within I know that this need for you in my world, this feeling of rejuvenation and of pure bliss that you bring about in me is not something to be ashamed of, as there's something so intrinsically human in it that I can't deny or wish away even if I wanted to. And despite it all, the magic of your very essence is now indelibly etched in my mind and being forever, that much I can tell. How this came to be, when all of this started and where it would all go eventually, I do not know. All I can do really is to patiently wait for it to be to someplace nice. All I can hope is for our journey together to last despite knowing how far apart we really are on many levels.

For Hope has a strange way of keeping a person looking forward to the seemingly impossible, believing and willing that impossibility to turn to reality at any given moment.

And Patience affords one a sense of calm reassurance in a way that makes one believe that hope is not in vain and that very thing one hopes for shall come to be someday. 

So I continue to live with patience and hope as I always have.

Lastly, strange as all of this may seem or even be, I believe that it’s certainly not a strange coincidence that you did, at such a difficult time, revive a part of me that I had come to accept as long gone, numb and dead. And for that and much more, I am yours in gratitude.

Mellow Love: A different shade but just as vibrant!

Time has this weird way of smoothening out rough edges of someone’s personality, ironing out the creases of another’s character and in some others like yours truly, making wild emotional expression tame. This is not saying wild as in irreverant, uncontrolled or harmful, but rather wild as in just completely throwing oneself in in almost reckless abandon. Wild as in something that may seem short of madness, even amusing at times to a clueless bystander.

The more one gives it thought, one comes to realize that it’s not just in the expression but also in the perceived, experienced intensity of feeling. The rush, the flights of fantasy, the impulsive outbursts of expression, the euphoric, heady feeling that rises and ebbs in seemingly continuous, unending cycles of incomprehension… where is all that now? How far gone is it to even be able to bring a part of it back if only just to cherish or reminisce and not to relive all of the same euphoria?

 Would have gladly grabbed the bull by its horns and declared that love matures over time. But if that were true then it would totally contradict the remnants of open, trusting naivety so raw and so vulnerable that seems anything but matured with age and experience. 

I bring this up with a sense of acute nostalgia. One that surfaces from time to time and makes me wonder and look for answers when it peaks and yet savour the mystery and evolution of sentiment at all other times in between.  

What was once much more than a blazing fire, almost like a bush fire threatening to spread and consume all that’s in its way, is more like a quietly glowing candle-flame. Still bright enough to dispel any darkness and comfortingly warm in its purpose, this transformation and transition has crept up on me over time, leaving me with an equal sense of awe and wistfulness and often wondering if ever the candle will light a roaring fire someday; one that seems so distant and almost impossible to recall in all its glory.  

Now there’s nothing wrong or amiss about quiet, controlled, almost restrained feelings of love. It’s just a different shade, another hue but as vibrant a feeling as ever! But among the questions that go unanswered is one that stands out and can’t be put to rest just as quietly.

Humour me, if you will… But is it really that time has mellowed this eternally-burning emotion down to a glowing ember or does it just take a spark more fierce and true than the ones of late to set the same roaring, blazing fire of aeons ago, ablaze again? Can love ever be mellow or is it just in patient hibernation waiting to be woken up from its deep and prolonged slumber by one as yet unknown and elusive? Guess this is something that only time will tell.