Waiting

A Monday.

Driving to office after a long weekend.

A junction under the flyover, bus stop on the side, auto rickshaws lined up for their morning fares.

Familiar blue shirt, a mischievously radiant smile, glassy eyes from the memory of our last fight.

A car honked at me from behind and I blinked.

With a quivering exhale, I pretended I didn't just imagine a blue in the sea of grey and drove on.

A cafe.

I was standing in line for my coffee.

Someone opened the door.

A breeze tickled inside in a

whisper, 'I'm here',

A familiar voice, restless from eons of longing to be heard.

I attempted to inhale it away,

Only to find the air was already infused in the scent I was trying to forget.

There was no escape this time.

With a huge lump in my throat, I turned around.

There was no one.

The scent remained, the presence felt, but there was no one.

It's been 2 years.

He left.

I am still picking bones from buried skeletons.

Every time I forget about that gaping hole,

A memory is waiting to haunt me

right around the next corner.

A shirt, a voice, a scent, a skipped song, and sometimes there's absolutely nothing.

It is my consciousness grasping at straws,

Tricking me into believing there is no void,

Filling it with recycled memories.

For misery is still familiar,

But the emptiness of that void is worse.

I'm learning.

Learning that this is a Sisyphean quest.

Scared,

of loving again,

Scared that next time,

I won't be able to tell the reality from

The imaginations.

Waiting,

For a reason to love again,

in spite of the fear.