No More Questions.

EPILOGUE : We have history.

I saw you in the June of '22. For the last time.

Dressed in Olive and Black. Some colour had crept into your wardrobe since the very first time I saw you. You used to have your headphones on all the time but they were too big for your own good. So, you had switched to a substandard alternative, to fit in.

You used to carry that haircut most boys would never ask their hairdresser for. You looked good, but later, you'd told me that you didn't care much about how you looked. So, you got one that most men would get, to fit in.

"Cute." I had thought to myself. I wonder why. Probably, to fit in with those who admired you. Little did I know I'd call you names to fit in with those who disliked you too.

Everybody around us did, what they did, to fit in.

In the common room that day, where both of us were supposed to be studying, you did all the studying and all I could manage was to admire the view.

Yesterday, on the sloping stairway, you did all the talking and all I could manage was to admire the view, again. Fate was generous enough to allow me a goodbye.

Until a few moments later, when as soon as my back hit the sunken seats of my conveyance, I'd succumbed to my natural tendencies and before I could even tell, my head was clouded with questions, again.

What now?

Will you ever come back here? I don't think so, I might never see you around again.

But you did mention a possibility. I remember now.

A senior resident?

Yes, definitely a senior resident. I'll be an intern then.

How much older would I be though? Probably 23.

Oh my god.

Would I be standing in your shoes then? Dangling at the same edge I first found you?

The last question in my endless internal monologue triggered a chain of questions which got dangerously closer and closer to having me diagnosed as a case of abandonment issues right there.

Amid all this chaos, I forgot an essential detail.

You never even said my name.

It's funny that when I finally stood right there in front of you, celebrating the first time I talked to you, it was the last time I was going to see you. All the darned butterflies had clouded my senses and as a result of that, I could never anticipate the sinkhole in my stomach that followed.

And before I could wrap myself around my wits, I'd already found myself on the seat by the window and the floor under my feet shivered so intensely that I could almost feel it slipping away. The vehicle, very much a mechanical manifestation of a deranged person, moved obnoxiously slowly up the hill and I could see people beginning to disappear into hazy figurines.

From the corner of my eye, a head hung low and an abnormal composure in your posture was all I could see.

"Never a dull moment! That's what I aspire to be!" You'd said. I bet your head was just aiding you to look at your phone where you planned your next escapade. Maybe somewhere you had to go.

I had to go too.

I didn't know when I would see you again. If I even ever would.

All I knew was that I wanted to.

All I wanted was to know you even better.

But... my reasons were selfish. It wasn't every day you came across people who were stories waiting to be written. I'd become so enchanted by this bigger blown-out version of you in my head that I forgot to sit down and reconsider that at the end of the day, you were a real person with real ambitions and ideas.

"You're so poetic... sometimes I wonder, is it really me or something more than myself." You'd tell me later. I took it as a compliment and couldn't tell that it was your confusion. You'd never seen yourself through someone's eyes and it was all too much to take in.

But I'm a poet and I have to deal with my curses.

If not for this record of everything that happened since the day you reached out, I would never have anything to say to you. I would've never even met your eyes in a corridor, let alone talk to you every day. I do hope though that you remember how I sound this time around.

You came to me at a time when I'd forgotten there was a heart inside me which could race at the thought of anticipating things. Like a wind that spelt revival, you whispered to me that there's so much I still have to look forward to and before I could talk back you were gone.

To all this, you'd probably say something like, "I barely made my appearance an impression."

It didn't hit me then, but I guess I'll miss you. More than I ever intended to. The longer it would be since you left, the less we would have to talk about but until then here's the poet's last letter to its muse :

if,

you ever pick up a book with my name on it,

i hope you look for yourself in the pages.

or if,

you ever hear my voice on the radio,

the words to my songs might just be parts of your memories being let out of their cages.

no lover of yours will ever see as many stars in your eyes

as i saw in broad daylight.

but i never knew you enough to love you,

and that always will be my plight.