longing | 03-03-23

There’s no greater misfortune than unrequited longing. To have your heart stammer in your chest with directionless words and immensurable want. To feel so limited in sourcing your illimitable love. To have so much to give and no takers. There is no greater sorrow than feeling lonely in crowds. Hearing words spoken to you but never quite for you. Laughing and not recognising your own laughter. Touching and not feeling touched. At times there’s a glass wall between me and the world. I am here but not really. I am alive but not really. I am chasing the infinite. I am looking to hear a language I don’t yet recognise. I am constantly searching the horizon for someone who touches me. Something that moves me . Someplace that smells as summer afternoons did when I was five.

Nostalgia is a weird pill. Whoever says time travel isn’t possibly obviously hasn’t visited two decades worth of stories in twenty mintues, sitting on a shady bench in a crowded metro station. He has obviously never felt the touch of old lovers, never felt the tang of tangerines from his village, never heard words that were never spoken through sounds, never felt the dejection of old dreams. all while sitting on the edge of a rusty bench in a late afternoon as Michal Buble plays on.

In these moments, I’d much rather not think at all. It’s one thing to feel lonely and a completely another to accept there’s no solution. It’s one thing to crave a touch and a completely another to know no one can touch you even if they do. It’s one thing to be discomforted and another to give in to discomfort.

It’s powerful too, to be so detached from everything that surrounds you. But would one rather be powerful or understood?

I haven’t cried in a long time, yet sobs sit on the corner of my lids. Like beggars outside the thresholds of giant iron gates. I haven’t made a sound, so no one has bothered to actually listen. I don’t bother pulling my curtains open lest a foreign wind enters. Weirdly enough, I don’t want to cry, I don’t want to be heard and I don’t want visiters. But sometimes, I sit on wet grass, between wildflowers, in mellow sunshine and I can’t stand the silence within. It’s these times when I realise I do infact want to be heard, known, seen, I am just constantly on the lookout for the right pair of eyes, not knowing if they exist.

I do love. I love with a criminal impatience. I love with a brutal sincerity. I love by betraying myself. I love at the brink of self destruction. I love rarely but surely. But love doesn’t love me back as is. I memorise details of love. The way love smiles, the way love sounds, the way love feels like sunshine on my cheeks. But is it really love if I dwell on the underside of unrequited. If I am never loved in return.

There’s a thousand thoughts I want to jot down through the day, come midnight I forget all. What remains is longing and be-longing. I don’t understand either. Maybe I think too much. But every room I enter feels smaller than it is. Every curve I take feels overused. There’s an absence in everything. Of what I know not. There’s an abject sadness that cannot be described as anything but.

I am convinced half longing is just as bad as no longing at all. Half love is a crime. If I am to be loved, love me such that you remove the slippers of caution outside the entrance of love. Love me such that there’s never a moment of doubt. Love into surprising yourself in love. Love me purposefully.

But I am tired of writing instruction manuals on love, I am tired of asking for love. I am tired of looking for love. I am tired of having to ask. I am tired of knowing I won’t be loved. I am tired of everything. everyone. myself. most of all.

funny how nothing has disappointed me like love. nothing has hurt me as much. nothing has made me more vulnerable. but nothing makes me long as much either.

Love changes shapes, love looks different based on the day and time. Love looked like holding hands and secrets, love looks like trouble and rough hands now. Love acts like summer and talks like hail. Love is full moon on some days and half crescent on others. Love looks like batman undies sometimes and soft hair at others. Love lives on in countries I have stepped in yet. Love is in Africe, doing god knows what. Love is in Canada, thriving hopefully, Love is in Sweden, sweet innocent familial love. Love is in Delhi, probably up to some mischief. Love lives on in my heart. Love is nowhere but inside me. Love doesn’t love me back. Love leaves me longing. Love never belongs to me. Love probably loves other shapes of love. Love is confusing. Love makes me hate love.