Rotations and Revolutions

We age not by years, but by stories.

~ Maza-Dohta

Here I am, yet again, awake at four in the morning and ready to bleed on paper.

I know it is your birthday today. That is why you are on my mind.

I am well aware of your general disregard and despair for birthdays. I am well aware that this month is not a favourite time of the year for you. I am well aware that you don’t welcome the unwarranted attention and love that finds its way to you on this day. I am, well aware.

But, I am completely unaware of what I'm supposed to or expected to do with all of that information. When you stop being a part of someone’s life and they yours, what are you supposed to do with the little things they leave behind? This knowing of you, this knowledge of you, where do I keep it inside me?

I wonder if you seep and pour out of me instead. Day after day and night after night, do I lose a portion of you with each salty tear that rolls down my cheek and clouds my eye? Each time when I am left reaching for air and my stomach’s caught in a tight knot and I can’t breathe anymore, do I slowly and steadily exhale you from deep inside of me each time I pull in a sharp breath? I wonder, intently, if there was a way for me to weigh how much of you was left inside of me, how much I could get rid of and how much of you I’d never be able to shed.

I am convinced that I hold on tighter to the idea of you than you in actuality. Because you and I were different then, and are different now, but with time more than our inner and outer selves have changed. I speak of you differently now. I remember you differently now. I crave you differently now. For all of the love and lessons I gained from my time with you, I wish I had also learnt how to let go of you. Our friendship was as complicated and tumultuous as any other relationship I shared with you. Maybe that is what I mourn the most—the loss of a friendship that could have been and done so much more for us both.

Each time I sit down to write to you, I am left with a heavy heart. Who says people don’t write letters anymore? I think some very heartfelt and important conversations between you and I have taken place over the years via letters exchanged in person, over emails or via anonymous messages like this one, discarded on the internet and left for you to mistakenly run into. This space, in some odd capacity, functions as my personal abyss. I jot down and leave here all of my heart’s trials and tribulations. Words left unsaid, words left unheard—they all have a place here, special or not.

Maybe this is my Caesar’s Box. These words and sentences, encrypted by deep emotions and tales of the past, could only be decoded by you and you alone. Maybe I will continue to encode until my heart’s at war with me against you. I wonder when this war will cease. I wonder who will concede first—my heart or me. I wonder who will win. I wonder if anyone could win here. Because right now, in these testing and uncertain times, when every other trouble seems insignificant, I am convinced I am caught in a lose-lose situation any which way.

PS: You probably weren’t looking forward to a birthday wish from me. I understand. This hardly counts as one. I wasn’t planning to reach out and wish you either. I know that is what we'd agreed upon and I know that it had been my idea to begin with. But like I said, because I am unaware of a best-course-of-action at the moment, I am going to leave this here for you to discover (or not).