I Remember You

Even after all these years, I still remember the day when I saw you: Do you remember? I remember you standing under a tree on a rainy afternoon. Of course, it was drizzling, before it rained in my heart. The clouded sunlight made you look lighter, as if you were a being from another dimension. An angel. You reminded me of a lily flower. I imagined the smell of your body. I imagined moonlight being showered in your eyes. And, your hands … your slender hands like creepers reminded me of my birth, death and another life. In an instant, they pointed the direction that my life would take: a life of creation and destruction! And then you looked at me. I felt as if I were drowning: strangely in meadows. In a green light: of drizzle and rain. I looked at you. Your young slender body shone like sunlight through the dress that you wore that day. I don’t why – even now when I think of you – I could only think of lemon yellow and the smell of a lemon emanating from your body! Later, when I touched you, I felt a lemon-yellow drizzle through the pores of your body. Your breasts, firm and taut, looked at me as if they were question marks! Who would have thought that you would remain a question and exclamatory mark for the rest of my life?!

Sometimes you cried and you never told me why! You wept banging your head on my chest and I lay there like a stone not knowing what to do! It is very late to ask but why did you cry? And on those nights, all I could hear was the sounds of your sobbing, like rain drops hitting a metal sheet: at night. Incessant rain and wind: as if my being was tossed in the wind, at night to the four corners of the earth! You were and are the earth, sky and rain: of my being. Do you know that?

Sometimes you laughed. Like a roaring ocean. Like a mad woman! Drowning in those waves, sometimes I thought you were schizophrenic! Like a box of marbles burst open and rolling on the floor in an empty house, your laugh like the sound of claps, reverberated through halls of my being. Like a lone spectator watching a magnificent show, I stood there in front of you, knowing not what to do! Even after all these years, you still have that laugh that makes me mute on the spot!

Sometimes we slept together! I was young, like a plant on a rainy afternoon. Your body as vast as this universe, spread across the bed like a rainbow. A rainbow of lily flowers, chrysanthemums and jasmines! You smelt of wheat and husk. You smelt of roots and fruits. You smelt of earthworms. You smelt of seeds of sprouting. Of tender leaves soaked in the warm sunlight. Of leaves dancing in the rain. More than anything else, you smelt like rice. Of rice cooking. Or of bamboos on a dark rainy night! More than anything else, you smelt like you: raw, wounds blood sweat and all! Your legs smelt too: of rivers flowing and boats marooned to the shore. Your vagina smelt like grass wet in the rain, wet in the moonlight, wet in the wind and wet in love! Of all the things, you smelt of love. Of a love that makes you live: that makes you want to live and to know what it means to be living!

Sometimes you spoke of the tough life you had: of what you had to go through. Of being raped. Of being beaten. Of being used and discarded. Of being fucked. Of being going through endless nights starved: Of being begging for food. Of being pregnant and sleeping on the ice-cold floors without a blanket. Of humiliation. Of the wounds that left scars and would never leave for the rest of your life. You sometimes spoke of being a dustbin. Of being a dustbin where somebody ejaculates every day: without your consent. You spoke of lovelessness and you spoke of rains lashing at the evenings: rains lashing at your body and your heart. You spoke endless nights; you spoke of bruised and aching body. You spoke of a heart that wailed like a lonely dog on a rainy night! Most of all you spoke of lovelessness of the world!

Even after all these years, I still see you as a child. You still appear to me as a child. Your face after all these years with those wrinkles of age, still appears to me as a child: a child, someone somehow has forgotten to take care of! You still laugh and talk now, but there is a cloud behind every word that you utter! There is a shadow behind every gesture that you make and orphans in your eyes. Baby, you appear to me as a missing child: a malnourished missing child out at the cross roads of life with the eyes of clouds and rain! Of pain –

Even after all these years, I still remember the day when I saw you: Do you remember? I remember you standing under a tree on a rainy afternoon. Of course, it was drizzling, and it still rains in my heart. The warm sunshine still makes you look like a being from another dimension: an angel. You still remind me of a lily flower. Of a life that I missed! Of a life that I can never have. Of a love that somehow eluded me and like poison inflicts whatever I write. More than anything else, you still exist like only you can: with wounds blood sweat and all!  A life of creation and death! Can there be a better way to survive?

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