echo

He felt a thunderstorm forming inside his chest. Because for the first time, he didn’t have an answer to a question his beloved had put forth him….


But, Why?  She had asked.

Why, you ask?!  Well, I don’t know. Do you expect something dramatic from me, now? Like, ‘ ‘Cause you’re you and I’m me.’? 

He gave stifled a chuckle.

She stared deep into his eyes and gave a quivering smile.

Well, old book clichés would do as long as you’re with me…. 

He clearly saw the disappointment lingering on her face. Yet, he kept his quiet.


….

As she packed his left over articles, she found a letter lying in a dusty, lonely nook of his desk. She opened the letter with her wrinkly, bony, fingers and read:

 

“My Dearest possession, 


Many a dams of ink have dried 

In the quest to find a perfect answer. 

Many a stray phrases I’ve rented 

Justifying,”It’s all for her.”


Many a sleepless nights have gone by

Without any revelations. 

Deplorably, each one of them departed 

Owing to sun’s inhibitions. 


Many a definitions remain 

Stamped on my wrinkled brain. 

Yet this time

This moon of mine 

Denies to lend me just one more

This one time. 


I’ve Drowned in the night’s sea, 

And Choked on the day’s reveries. 

People made lists, my binder had no boundaries. 

But I feared someone would steal it;

Become the things I adored you for. 

And now, I pitty the fool who’d dare,

For no distant stranger can complete me as perfectly 

As the curves of your jig-saw. 



Don’t make me pierce this sky

And loan petty names to those fractions. 


Don’t let me render love

So superficial, 

That am left to measure its unfathomable worth

With mere twenty-six letters. 


Don’t make me give justifications, 

When I call it ‘Unconditional’. 



No reason was ever enough;

So I just made excuses from the echo of my heart.”

 

And as the sun kissed the sea,

Her tears kissed the ink

As she chose to depart

From this abominable realm

To meet the piece of her soul

She had told

Him to hold

In his caressing arms for her…..  Forever.

                                            – JAISMINE K.

tough questions