Tonight's Epilogue

"Tonight I can write the saddest lines.

Write, for example,

'The night is starry and the stars are blue and shiver in the distance.'

The night wind revolves in the sky and sings.

Tonight I can write the saddest lines..."

- Pablo Neruda -

Tonight I need you here with me more than any other night. Tonight as I walked by the shore I tried to reach out across these immeasurable miles to the mountains in the North. I called out from the depths of my soul hoping you’d feel my pain while I stood on the shore of the South.

Tonight my heartfelt plea is that you ask me to come to your cold mountains, where the sun does not shine, where the trees are bare and the wind blows a chill. Tonight my life is like the home you described. A sad epilogue of the designs of Fate that you were stuck with. You never asked to be born into it. You wanted the warmth of the breeze. You wanted the warmth of the people. I live in a warm place. Yet here I am, wanting the cold. I want the chills of your winters to make my senses numb. I will tell you that it is not the warm or the cold that makes people warm or cold. I live in a warm place. And yet people can be cold.

Tonight I wish I had done things differently a long time ago when we first met. Tonight I wish I had turned the taxi-cab, back to where you stood, instead of the jet plane that took me away. Tonight I wish I had asked you to come sail my seas with me a lifetime ago so that I would not be stranded alone, alone on the secluded beach of my own Epilogue.

Tonight I wish for a tryst again. However brief, I have to smother my face in your chest and let the tears run dry. I have to feel your hands on my back, on my face, on my hair, till I fall asleep.

Tonight I wish time would hasten to that moment when you would again tell me it is time; it is time again for us to fly. I would then, with hastened anticipation, pack my bag with stories of tears and joys, of struggles and victories, of ecstasy and pain and unpack it all in front of you.

Tonight I remember words that you said. That people can be cold. Even the strongest and kindest of hearts can be triggered into something hard, something cold, by a cold, cruel, deceitful human or action. I would tell you that yes, it's happened, not once or twice but one time too many. Uh-huh…I told you so, you would say, but come, let us take the first road we see, and walk till we catch the first bus we see, and drive around with no destination in mind. And then we would, like little children, in glee, hold hands and do just that, till we don’t know the point from where we began and where we ended.

Tonight, I wish we could queue up at the ticket counter and buy tickets for any movie; any stupid movie just for the sake of cuddling up and acting totally teen. Tonight I wish, I could walk with you to a restaurant where we don’t know which food is what and I would pretend that I like it. I would love to talk to you tonight, not just of kings and queens and culture and beliefs but of more important things, like having a child?

Tonight, I wish I could wake up to see you read the paper; a little angry that I sleep so late and get up so late and you are still without breakfast. Tonight I wish I could walk with you through the sleepy lanes to the café’ bistro for cappuccinos and creamy chocolate cake. Tonight I would not mind the seriousness of your tone when you tell me over coffee, that a child needs to have a father in 'every sense of the word', even when I keep on insisting that I can raise a child alone.

Tonight I wouldn’t mind the melancholy I feel each time our interludes draw to a near, even though I know the gloom in me disturbs you and you end up frustrated. Tonight I wouldn’t mind seeing the guilt on your face as you think of the secrets you keep from you and yours. Tonight I wouldn’t mind you and I, talking again of leaving things to Fate and how unsustainable you and I and this thing we have, really is.

Tonight I crave for that moment of departure, when you leave me at the gate, my small frame loaded with bittersweet memories too heavy for me to carry. Tonight I want the numbness of drowning out the voices, of closing out the noise of scurrying footsteps, while only one thought roars in my head: will I ever see you again?

Tonight I want to, in that embrace of departure, whisper in your ears, that I actually, actually, don’t want to leave the Cold Man from the Mountains who brought so much warmth into my life. Sporadic, yes, but I am thankful for those little minutes that make up the most honest, most real, most warm moments of my life. They are still the best moments of my monotonous existence.

Tonight, I want a little moment of truth with you because I am hurt and tired of lies and deceit and yes, of the fluctuating warmth and cold of humans.