I was standing on the porch, wrapped in fairy lights which festivities had adorned me with. They lit up your face, as you sat with your book, engrossed in the rivulets of meaning hidden behind the carefully arched words, the pattern of meaning emerging only as you continued to search with an earnest simplicity.
You were sipping the cold coffee with dollops of caramel-flavoured love spun over it's surface. I watched as your tender face became mellow, relaxed. You were beautiful as always, slightly drenched in artificial lights and slightly soaked in the evening sunset which turned your face into an adorable mass of colours.
You had once told me that you hated rainbows and unicorns, that they represented some alternative version of reality which didn't gel with your vision. I only laughed and kissed you until you melted with sorrow, and the tears in your eyes were as sweet as chocolate trifecta of goodies you had carefully wrapped for me on Christmas Eve. Your past with its complexity unfolded through your tears, drip-drop-dripping through your lashes and spraying my hands with their poignant splashes. I kissed you again, and your caramel smile worked its way across the contours of your face, lifting the corners of your mouth and turning them into some gold-spun vision of love.
It was then that I thought of caramel drizzzle.
One dollop of caramel for your radiant as a honey-beam of sunshine smile.
One dollop of caramel for your large as a reindeer eyes which could dance with merry abandonment to your favourite song.
One dollop of caramel for your budding talents and wisdom and ambition and strengths and undiluted 'niceness'.
You were the human embodiment of a bubble which would not burst even as one pricked again and again, and re-emerged with brighter and bolder colours like childhood bubble-flavoured kisses which one blew outside Appu Ghar.
And then , I knew. You were caramel drizzle's favourite friend, even as hazelnut and butterscotch jostled for your favoured smile.
The evening sun blinked across the tiny caramel drizzle which I licked off the corners of your tiny, trembling mouth.