I Love You

This is perhaps one of the most difficult posts I've ever had to write. No, nobody's put a gun to my head! But like all posts, I want this to mirror my feelings and help me understand them better.

On Saturday, I met this 4 year old at a friend's place. The moment I entered the door, he wrapped himself around my knees and I was startled - like fuck dude, who's this kid?!?! Over the course of the day, I kept observing him and envied how freely he was able to express himself - whether it was affection or grumpiness or the simple and hysterical joy he found in frolicking around in the greens. His behaviour was infectious and I found myself multiplying in this happy cancer. Last night he even said "No! You're my mommy!" while I tried to rid him from my arms, at the same time feeling love in his smother.

This post is not about a kid or having motherly feelings. It's about expressing yourself and why, as we grow older, we put up our steely-tough guard and let our feelings grow as only a lump in the throat, fearing its release. Why can't we break this convention?

Now, who says Love Is Forever? I don't believe that for a second. We're humans, not factory-made toy robots, made to perform the same function with ever-growing predictability. Discard that notion, challenge it. Love can be transient, temporary, fleeting, boring, exhilarating, maddening, dirty, pure, even non-existing, because that's the nature of life itself.

Love is a simple emotion, but we've made those three words our ultimate source of joy and the perfect reason to escape. It's not required only at the end of a long romantic phone call. Or in the throes of an orgasm. Or while trying to keep your lover from leaving you.

Remember the time,
when I was crying about poor scores in Mock CATs (!)
and you ignored all your work to teach me your tricks
at 2 am?
I loved you then, my little life raft.
I don't love you now
but in that moment, I didn't love anything more.
And I should've told you.

That moment is gone and it won't be fair to bring it up now. I wouldn't express it the same way, and we'd both be sheepish, laugh about it (and it doesn't deserve that) and the moment would be forgotten as soon as there's a knock on the door.

Remember the time,
we were standing in your college courtyard
and we feared our "relationship" will be seen
yet you put your arm around me
when Comfortably Numb played
I looked around to catch your friends' eyes
but you didn't care
I loved you then, my one big sin.
I don't love you now
but in that moment, I didn't love anything more.
And I should've told you.

Now you're reduced to pleasantries on birthdays and a remark and a chuckle a year on reminiscence and innocence. You told me you loved me, in an ambiguous and lengthy poem, when it had lost all its meaning; you weren't so significant to me any more, for I suffered another heartbreak after the ordeal I call You. And that made me so angry. I knew I saw it in your eyes, why couldn't you say it when I needed to hear it the most? Did you think it was enough to let your eyes do the talking and not put it into actual concrete words, when words are what you let define you and you still strive to make a living out of? What did you fear, that my heart would break after you couldn't fulfil the promise that came with those words? My heart still broke, you know, so what difference would those words have made? I could write a book on you (I already wrote most of this blog on you), but you deserve to be unwritten. Still, I hope we can be unspoken friends, because through it all, we always were.

Remember the time,
I cringed when you held my hand
because Look! It's a public space!
but you didn't let go 
while we walked and walked the Delhi elite
you squeezed my butt in front of the President's House
and whispered
"Do you realize you've been holding my hand for the last one hour?"
I loved you then, my skinny love.
I don't love you now
but in that moment, I didn't love anything more.
And I should've told you.

This. That's it. I'm exhausted.

Remember the time,
you played the guitar for all my friends?
and they all loved you
like I loved you in that moment
and I didn't love anything more
who knows if I ever did in the traditional sense of the word!
But I should've told you.

I don't know, I'm still undecided on that.

I'm not going to be embarrassed for a feeling that lasted a few minutes to a few days to a few months. I still loved with a crazy kind of intensity, and just because that feeling did not last a lifetime doesn't make it any less of love. Why does the word carry with it so much baggage? Why does it echo in our brain, building fear by the nanosecond, like energy in a cyclotron? 

I want to tell you I Love You when I feel love for you, not as a formality or as a given. I want to tell you I Love You when your penis is inside of me and I can't wrap my brain around the overwhelming bond I feel with your skin, your smell, your hands, your teeth, your eyes, and my/those words in your ear is the glue that finally fuses us together. But don't hold me ransom for my confession.

And I won't let you tell me that you love me if I don't see it. I will run away from those words only when I know it's not coming from the right place. 

So, say it! Throw away the guilt and the fear. Do away with your apprehensions! Walk away from someone who doesn't respect it. They're the one at loss here, don't you see? Forget to be cynical, we weren't born to be that way. The day you stop feeling and expressing, you might as well be dead.