I stood defaced, unable to stand, ugly and unwanted.
My body a flat terrain of scars and grotesque wounds. Wounds so deep I couldn’t bear to look at myself. I was broken, breaking still in places; crushed into dust, overcome with defeat and resigned to my ebbing state. I starved my pride until my pathetic form could bruise my soul no more. I bore a crippled heart and learnt to live with it, only it wasn’t living. I was collapsing inside. Slowly decaying and now I welcomed a complete disintegration of my existence.
I knew I’d lie broken languishing forgotten in some corner-slowly torn apart piece by piece. I knew but what could I do? I felt dead, dead until ‘she’ came.
She saw in me what none could.
I saw the softening in her eyes when she noticed my disfigured face. Her fingers so gentle when they caressed my scars, when she slowly probed my wounds, when she cried in agony to see me.
She loved me, I knew she loved me. Why else would she wish to stay with something as uselessly pathetic as me.
I was healing, slowly. It took some time, it took a long time, but she was there to take care of me. Always looking in to check on me. Sometimes spending hours together. Touching me, feeling my scattered veins, soothing my frayed nerved. She stayed.
My torn heart was beginning to slowly collect its lost pieces.
But me, I’m full of cracks and holes, no matter how I try to hide. Imperfect incomplete, whereas she was an exhaustive study in faultless. Her skin, a fresh coat of paint always glistening. Lips that stayed forever wet and hair a dark cloud that rained lustrous black water.
Yet, it was her voice that I loved.
“what are you staring at Shree?”
‘the mirror’
“the mirror’s no good. it has cracked a little.”
‘all the better. I see eight of you’
Oh she laughed, her voice a sonorous lilt. Holding out her hand to my chest seeking support when she wore her shoes. I loved it when she gently laid her head on my smooth healed shoulder while talking on phone.
I was happy. Her existence alone was enough for me to live. I stood upright, strong proud and confident; yet there were dark time- times when she’d be gone. When she’d disappear for days together. My life during those days was plunged into a miserable obscurity. It scared me. My happiness felt eclipsed.
There’d be a dimness that I couldn’t fathom. I felt alone, stranded in murky shadows.
Those few days of tenebrosity would cast a foul gloom and an unspoken anger bubbled.
‘You didn’t say you’d be gone this long’
“I told you, I’d be away for a week. I was on a different continent, Shree”
‘I don’t like that you stay away so long. I don’t care if it’s work. This has to stop. Your trips are getting more frequent by the month. Surely it’s not mandatory to be gone for every training’
“I don’t say anything to you when you’re gone for work or trainings, because I know it’s important to you and your job. I’d expect you extend the same respect to me and my work”
‘my visits are few and far in between. Sweetness, I’m not trying to undermine your work. Just that I feel terribly lonely without you. It’s a difficult life in your absence’
“oh yes, who’d cook for you?”
‘more like, who’d touch me’
There it was again. Her soft peals of laughter, like that wind chime she’d bought.
Was I angry that she stayed away so long? How could I? it was not my place to be angry. My existence was nothing save broken pieces of myself that still chipped in places.
I was a devotee. She could hate me, break me and still find me in love with her.
“wake up, you’re snoring again. Wake up. I can’t sleep in this noise”
‘What..what? I’m not snoring’
“you are. it’s giving me nightmares.”
‘you must be dreaming of yourself. You are a nightmare to live with sometimes. Let me sleep.’
“if you snore again Shree..”
‘then you can sleep in another room. Or tell me if its pains you so much to share bed with me and I’ll shift rooms’
She had not looked at me the same way in days. Nor touched me. Never did she lean on me anymore for support while she wore shoes or spoke on phone, and whenever she did look at me it was almost as if she were questioning me; with distaste.
A quizzical visage stared me, like I were a mere jigsaw puzzle and she couldn’t find the pieces.
What had changed?
I think I heard her grunt at times when her fleeting look sometimes rested on me.. when she glanced my way through the corner of her eyes.
Was she disgusted with me?
I’d often watched her knit her brows when she was silently exasperated, but now she revealed the same expression while standing close to me.
It was breaking my heart. But dare I tell her?
‘what ails you my dear?’
“Do you love me Shree?”
‘Of course I do. I’m sorry for behaving so distant. It’s just that I’ve not been myself. All this work. This job nuisance has put a lot of pressure on me. It didn’t help that we had to move and remodel this entire house that was falling apart. It just put so much strain on us, on me. I keep this pent up steam that boils over on you.
I’m sorry darling. I’ll try to make it better for us.’
“Do you promise?”
‘I do. Do you love me still?’
“Of course I do, Shree.”
Her face lights up like a thousand flares. Just yesterday she brushed her velvety skin against me, and suddenly winced. Am I hurting her? She looks unhappy with me.
That inquiring look about her again. Like I’ve hidden some mysteries from her that she needs unearthed.
I miss the touch of her palms kissing my face, her fingers sliding softly against my bosom. She never looks at me the same way anymore. Something has changed.
“How long exactly has it been since we moved here Shree?”
‘Almost a year now, if you don’t add the three months it took us renovating this derelict house’
“and yet..”
Ah, she’s looking at me, staring at my face. Her beautiful arms raising to caress my cheek, just like she used to. Her fingers playing softly on my lips, her hands massaging my neck, fondling my arms.
“and yet this wall looks like it has lost all its luster. Look, how the paint is chipping away at the bottom and flaking too. I’d been noticing this for a while, and just yesterday I brushed my arm against it while talking on the phone and the paint chipped and got stuck to my clothes. I think we should get this fixed as soon as possible”
My lacerations are still healing, and the signs of previous lesions slowly fade away. I’m trying to gain a new perspective on life, and it helps that there is love to get me by. She likes to lean against me and paint, confident that I’d never let her down. I’m her sturdy companion for whenever she needs support.
She touches me with a renewed vigor, feeling my dying scars with the tip of her nails, so gently that it wounds me to think how much I love her.
It’s indescribable how alive it feels when she lays the flat of her palm against my smooth cheeks and leisurely strokes my face.
