Tuesday 3 June 2014

Letter to a ghost - I

‘Tacenda’ - are you familiar with this word? It’s funny how the most interesting words (such as Kalopsia – look it up!) never get used regularly. One would think that in the entire history of the English language, people would be tired of using the same old run of the mill words to express themselves or their state of being. Yet we go on, never tampering with the evidence that suggests just how uninspired we can be when it comes to expressing ourselves with flavour or joy. Anyway, apologies, I tend to digress (quite often) – ‘tacenda’ means ‘things better left unsaid; or matters to be passed over in silence’.

Now I am not a user of the same, but I believe silence is the overrated enemy. I hate silence. Don’t get me wrong, silence of the mountains can be serene and silence of the ocean, blissful, but then again to be completely quiet as a person signifies silently dying to me. Man may not always be a social animal but in my opinion, one should never become a silent beast. Death of words, of beautiful, lovely, joyous, emotional, burning, awe-inspiring words and non-existence of the same in language is a death like no other. I believe silence, like inaction, is perhaps the most violent thing we can express as humans.

I’ve also never believed in the concept of the one. Because to me, the whole theory of ‘the one’ or just the plain idea of it is evil and demeaning to us as a person –basically telling us that we are not complete and won’t be until we find a special person for ourselves. Even though a companionship like that (or anything close to it) is a beautiful thing and we must never let it go if we are lucky enough to chance upon such an occurrence. But if we’re not, it’s certainly not the end of the world. People make these huge promises to themselves and build up an image of a person that doesn’t exist anywhere but in their own head. And then when someone normal or regular does happen to wander into their life like any other person, he or she just gets side-lined.

I’ve felt like that person for a long time. That I wander off in people’s lives, like an extra character that mistakenly walks into the wrong set, apologises for his awkward behaviour, waves and leaves. 

However, these days I find myself thinking about how it would be to kiss your forehead. I imagine you laughing in my head (with your head bowed down, convulsing like you’ve been administered shock therapy) and think it would be so nice to hold your small, thin hands. Sometimes I imagine holding the tender frame of your body and immediately being to feel warm inside (and sometimes I get goose bumps). I feel all eloquent words and ways of expressing myself fall short of the craziness that ensues when we sit down to talk, and I often wish you were more than mere messages on my phone or laptop screen (even though it is enough to put a large smile on my silly face on cold nights).

I felt stupid about coming up to you for the first time. You dissolved into the room so effortlessly, I could still feel eyes on you, for you looked beautiful that night and in all the other moments henceforth. And how easy it’s all been since then, to make insane plans, to walk around roads that lead to happiness. To talk about serious issues – about life and love and death and things we cannot untie. How I think I fell for you a little bit more when you told me you took your mother out for shopping and when you sent me her smiling pictures. And how I felt so happy when you texted and told me that you missed talking to me (I think I did a little dance).

And now, now the world doesn’t feel colder, chaotic or fucked up. I think you bring about that change in people, whoever it is whose life you’ve touched has been the better for it. And meeting you doesn’t feel like a consequence. Season often don’t make sense but meeting someone as lovely and special as you certainly does. I find myself walking a road from work or around my colony running an errand and before I know it, you’ve raided my mind and I’m traversing through time and space with a large, stupid smile that I cannot hide. The little that I’ve gotten to know you, I feel like I knew it all along, that I knew you all along, all my life, to be precise. And I don’t want to just let go and lose you in an oblivion of people and the relentless crowd that occupied our city – that shall surely massacre this bond. It’s never been this relaxed, non-painful and devoid of any sarcasm or drama as it is with you.

I’ve tossed and turned and have been stripped and burned in relationships that have for most part, made me a better person (I think) and given me quite a good ability to detect bullshit (though I still often buy it!) and sometimes I don’t know what to do with all this knowledge, it seems to be a waste of time as I often thought I’d never get to apply it anywhere and just accepted for the longest time that I’m going to be alone and made my peace with it too. Since you walked in, I always wish to spend every waking moment with you. I know sometimes I can be overbearing with messages and phonecalls and constantly wanting to stay in touch but this is just who I am, although I apologise for any irritation I may have caused. I keep checking my phone thinking you might have messaged, and it fills me with happiness to see the tiny whatsapp logo in the upper left hand corner of the screen like never before. I’ve stopped dreaming about perfect endings or the ‘one’. I don’t want to live life as a dream, I’d rather take it with all its imperfections and heartbreaks – they make us appreciate the good things like never before. I’d rather walk with you holding hands through busy and crowded streets and laugh like I never do with others and to make you laugh the same way.

To borrow from Walt Whitman’s words, we are here so we may contribute a verse. And the one you bring about in my life is full of joy. I'm tired of writing, listening to as well as living sad songs. I'd rather take your happy eyes and smiling lips, your youthful laughter, your spinning, curling fingers and shiny, small, pointy teeth and carry them with me wherever I go than hum through the images of the past as if they define me and make me who I am. I have been a wall too long and you're the biggest open window with the brightest, greenest view I’ve ever seen. There is nothing I wouldn't want to do with you, there is nothing that you can say to me that'd be too weird and there's nothing that you can ask of me that I shall not partake in.

To be honest, all this sounds quite selfish, I don’t know if you have time in your life for another person. Specially someone like me (a mass of neurotic nerves and crazy behaviour coupled with hyperactivity). I don’t know if you want to give a part of yourself away when you have your mother, sister, aunt and uncle as well as many cousins all scattered across our crazy country. However, I can promise you – and this I know – that I’d never let you down and disappoint you or willingly cause hurt – I’d rather walk away from that than indulge in any of the above. This may all seem and sound shocking and way too soon, but I didn’t want to wait any longer. I want to be with you and get to know you, all your failures and your many, many successes; things you have gained and those you’ve lost. Things that touch you and go and things that stay. What makes you bug eyed and what makes you mellow. If you laugh under the sheets and if you hide behind the curtains. Do you close your eyes tightly when you eat something spicy? Do you sing to yourself when you walk alone? I want to know it all and like a mountain, climb to the top with you and revel in the view.

So to sum it up, I’m mental about you. If I could, I’d spend some time with you every day because I miss you when you’re not around and its strange how that is happening already, when I haven’t even met you all that much or for too long. I’ve been going quite insane in the last few days and I just have to know if there’s just a slight chance you would want to spend your days with me. I didn’t want to let any of my thoughts about you to ‘pass over in silence or go unsaid’. Hence the extremely long letter. I just hope my confession doesn’t freak you out or anger you in any way. Its just the plain old simple truth.

(Apologies for the length, like I said in the first paragraph – I tend to digress!)

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