Katyaini
Copyright © 2017 Katyaini Ranjan Choudhary
This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are either the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously, and any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, business establishments, events or locales is entirely coincidental.
Nameless among the known
Dipped in Scarlet
Why these words?
Ruination
They say I don’t talk
From the Depths of Darkness
As the Curtains Fall
Thank God for new beginnings,
A night newly begun
A moon newly drunk
A story newly told
Newly spun in shimmering gold…
Dipped in Scarlet
Sweet is the agony of love that pierces my heart, but love, is it the hurt we crave for?
Is it ever going to be too much for you? I can see you aren’t stone towards all this, and this makes me think cruel thoughts for those who inflict this pain on us. I can’t stop myself from asking if our combined hurt is worth it. Can’t stop myself from feeling the guilt that it’s you the scars are eating.
The moments of respite are so few, and so scattered between the uncountable chasms of separation. I can’t see you hurting, and my pain hurts you even more. It’s as if in front of my eyes, the big monster is eating you away as you shoulder the burden that we were to share. Oh, how I wish I could take all this away, take away all the bad parts we hadn’t bargained for: all the hurt, the agony. Who among the two of us could have foreseen this, under the comfort of our naïve dreams; that the beds of roses will turn into a pyre of thorns so soon?
I held you in my arms, letting you close to me. It’s frightening, what you’ve become for me in so short a span of time. What your bright laughter does to me. I smile to think of how it makes my toes curl whenever I think of all that light shining from your eyes, my own sun. No; my own star- to guide me through the darkest of nights.
In the few unguarded instants I’ve held you, I’ve seen you like the angel every girl dreams for, craves for. In those few carefree moments, I’ve seen the mischievous child in you jump with delight, seeing one tiny piece of ribbon of a gift wrapped box peeking out from under my jacket.
But all those moments, all that happiness is in the past. Today, our Dream love is almost a nightmare; surrounded by so much darkness of the descending November chill. You haven’t changed and neither have I, in essence at least, but the cruelty of time seems hell bent on changing our hearts. I know what we feel is eternal, but how we feel it is ever changing. The fire, ready to burn, the cold steel ready to slice through. We seem to be our last hope in this sea of turmoil.
But I fear that something cold and cruel brews ahead of us. I’m afraid of what it would do to you, and to us. I know well how hard you’re trying but your strength to bear is frightening me; when will you realize that it’s too much already? When will you understand what we’re facing will never end. I need you to see the hopelessness of it all. I hope you see it soon, so it would hurt us a bit less when the sky comes falling upon us.
Our love, it’s our shared bond. I can’t decide for you and neither can you for me. I just don’t want any more of my pain to slash at you. Nor do I want to lose what little respect, trust and care I’ve been fortunate enough to get from you. I don’t want to lose you, but I don’t want you to lose yourself either. Choose, for once, not for me but for yourself.
Until then,
You know who I am, better than I do myself.