Day 6 – a stranger

To: Oh how I would pay to know your name

Subject: if i’m smart then i’ll run away but i’m not so i guess i’ll stay

Dear Tallulah (the pretty name I bestow upon you),

I wrote this for you years back.

I think of you more often than I should

 Even in the hospital I lay down

And my thoughts drift to you

It’s lights out and the patient next to me

Is mumbling her soft consistent prayers

Filling the area

With an incoherent rhythm

Making the outside world seem less evil

Making my heart palpitate

Afraid and trapped, bound to the white sheets

The white plastic bracelet cuffed round my wrist

My life journey’s twist

Has ended up in here.

Here where old women hallucinate

Teenagers procrastinate

About whether they are sane or whether

The places they knew were insane

Nurses drift in and out like ghosts

Doctor’s like hosts

Taking blood and urine samples

Never really setting good examples

About how happiness should be shown

Every cry is a drone

Every visitor has flown

And still I think of you

We both ask the same thing but

The answer is, never.

You’re not clever.

But you use your head

About such things like love and life

It’s easier to pretend to like it

To take things in your stride

So you look

You give the place a once-over

You won’t find me.

You’re not surprised,

However you’re shocked that it stings

It bites to know that she couldn’t care enough

To come back. But that is not the truth.

Do you sigh as the hour is getting darker?

 I think of you

More often than I should

I hate to see you stuck where you are

Vice versa –

Because

If you only knew

You’d hate to see me

The way I am now.

Weak and bed-ridden

Forbidden.

You’re still on my mind.

Someday when we die

I’ll look you in the eye

Wherever we may be

And I’ll tell you

I’ve thought of you more often than I should

Been hurt more times than I could take

Now I really just want to rest

On the place I know best

Any place where you are at,

Because I’ve felt for you more

Than I’ve felt for anyone else.

And I know you won’t deny me,

In fact,

You’ll probably ask me first.

Whether it’s alright.

I’ll look forward to that day then

The day when I get to see you more often

Than I should.

Oh how tortured and immature I was back then. So full of this inexpressible vulnerability, so full of romanticized thoughts. And it was the sight of you that enabled me to properly compose myself, take out a few sheets of paper, and use you as my beacon of expression so I may find myself again. Today I am 20 (a day old no more no less) and I look at the things I have today. A pen for my sword, strong shoulders I can lean on (not mine), a smile to spare for anyone. An easy smile, a cheeky smile, the same one you gave to me multiple times when you asked to buy a can of Red Bull, multiple times.

Thank you kind stranger for helping me realize that the darkest depths of me are not dark at all, where random thoughts of you exist and make me reproduce legit pieces of creation, where people come and people go but I, I will never forget. Our minds are the most powerful things we can possess, and I value what’s on mine – you. Even after 4 long, weary years, I would like more to come.

Everyone we meet has at least had the honour of a momentary two-way gaze, even if they miss out each others’s names.

p.s. If I should cross your mind on rare occasion, here’s a hug and a kiss for those instances. I may not feel as strongly for you now as compared to the feelings in my poem, but please wave at me should we chance upon one another some time again, in our unforeseen futures.

Yours,

Me