We didn't hold close, but we didn't let go either!

Kept each other at bay, like we needed to or wanted to or thought it most appropriate to or found it most convenient to. But we didn’t let go.

The kind of rage that makes one want to pull the table cloth from below the set-up of assorted priceless glass curios on a dusty antique table. Disrupting an ultimate ‘still life’.

The rage that wants to scream and cry.

I had neatly packaged it and put it in the loft of my heart.  Sealed it shut. Told myself I had nothing more to say.  Happily, sunk myself in the not-half-as-painful nasha of the sweet smelling shit that is a corporate job. Divvied my life into cleanish sections. Made imaginary lists of ‘doing well’ and ticked them off every week, month and year. It allowed me to deftly arrange my life in stackable containers. The surface was clean, minimalist. ‘Good Homes’ worthy. It looked so satisfying. The green glass top. The glossy black marble. And a life aiming to be as tidy as those home organization videos I love to watch. 

No need to open the mess of jumbled wires and tangled Diwali string lights that were my heart.

The knots that grew by themselves and accumulated and the ones I made – some out of convenience; others out of necessity – could sit in deep freeze with the beautiful title of “It’s Fine” emblazoned on the box. I had built a double wall, so much the better for insulation.

WHAT THE FUCK is my writing’s business now, to stroll back in? How did this escape artist pull a fast one on me? Like some long-forgotten prince returning to his kingdom from the exile to which he was either sent or had chosen to go, no one can quite remember.

Calling its siren song. Through layers and layers of both, noise and noise cancellation. Sometimes when I looked to see if it was there, the music would stop. Like a game of bluff, my writing played me. When I turned away, it would start to hum. It would often play dead. Make me say things like I used to have a book inside me. Made me feel like it had evaporated leaving no trace.

I would still sometimes turn and look, like one would, for a lover from a quarter century ago. Almost sure of the implausibility, but still unwilling to completely give up. Not even sure of what finding them might do to one’s current jenga tower.

And then one fine day, there it was! This time it found me. And smiled, innocently enough. Promised to be ‘just friends’. ‘It was so long ago, we can now be civil, can’t we?’ And we started to flirt.  Without being sexy. Y’know, adults?  

Stick to the general stuff. Not go too close to the tender areas. We didn’t even remember what those used to be. 25 years is a long time. People change, people grow, and all that.

It lasted a month or two.  We were politically correct and oh-so-well-behaved. A discerning eye would have seen it coming from a mile away. I didn’t. Maybe since one of the parties in question was me. We are always a little too eager to lie to ourselves. Invisible lies are my favourite kind.

Then one of us made a move. And muscle memory kicked in. It was now savage. It was violent. I was ravaged. It asked questions. I had a hundred more in response. We were sometimes in quicksand. Sometimes we were floating.

When we made love, it felt like it would never end. It felt like the beginning of time. Eternity is such a cliché, but it felt like that too. It had been long. It had been also short.

For lovers alone, have the super power of bending time even while it purports to control them and everyone else. For in minutes, they live lifetimes with each other and vice versa.

They dive into each other’s viscera, and then leave parts of them selves in the other. Mainly in the form of words that seem to then echo for eons, creating a life and energy of their own.

Like any lover of decent caliber, it wants to speak the deepest part of me. It insists on peeling layer after layer, of all that the world has helped or let me accumulate. It nurtures, it holds. It makes my heart sing. It makes me feel alive, like I have not in a while. It feels like 50 kgs have been lifted off my chest. It feels like I am not a walking sheet of grey anymore.

It makes me voice my truth. It insists. It makes me feel like I am floating and swimming every now and then, when I am actually just walking or sitting.

It has taken the feeling of ‘low energy’ in my body and used it as a trampoline to magically create a life force with my words.

We kept each other at bay, like we needed to or wanted to or thought it most appropriate to or found it most convenient to. But we didn’t let go either.