Every time I say goodnight, I anxiously wait for the morning to come. The night enveloped me in its warm embrace while my thoughts finally rendezvous in a funny little corner of the brain. I breathe heavily and turn my back to the side of the closet in my room. The bed once having only a singular weight bearing creature on it feels slightly imperfect. The pendulum finally swings one more time before my thoughts arrest me in their reverie.
As the shadows that accompanied me the previous day lost their shape and faintly reacquired new colours, my eyes quivered. The world which had greyed out a few hours ago started to reorient in the most random way as my body, in a state of limbo, was breathed on by light. Eyeballs which ran all night chasing a spectre of amorphous being felt enervated and heavy. Heart beating, eyes yet to open their shutters, a striking smell titillated my olfactory cells. “I need you. Where is she?”
An instant stream of energy flowed through me and I quickly turned my back to face the other side. The soft morning light filtered through the blinds at a very interesting angle illuminated the story in front of me. Particles of dust after a night of surreptitious dancing finally gave away their deceit and glided in that finely choreographed Tyndallian whirl. As I followed the dust gently being weighed down by gravity, I saw what my heart desperately wanted this morning. There she was, a being surrounded by light and adorned by ever falling dust in the morning sun. The bed finally had its left sided companion while the light glistened on her skin. I looked at her and realised that the tambourines in my heart were just one of her magical ways to wake me up. Feeling like a soldier stuck in a trench with the opposing army advancing, I felt so distant from my troops and decided to get out of the depression I had made with my static position on my side of bed. I slid myself uncompromisingly to cover that trivial yet a meaningful distance to get closer to her. She hadn’t opened her eyes yet and little did I know that she could feel that I was awake. The light seeping in from the blinds had surrounded her and glowed with a gentle amber glow. The untampered sunlight neither faeirie nor austere bounced off her hands and the little brown hairs on her skin were like little infantrymen just stretching themselves out. I wanted to touch her skin but I was afraid that I might break this enchantment and the lights would go out. I smiled and put my hands on the pillow to support my face while I watched this morning routine unfold. The ghostly dreams and the lamentable sorrows of the night were hiding in those deep, dark auburn forests of her hair. The sun hadn’t yet reached through her dense canopy of tresses and the coiled, nonplussed hair seemed to not care. As I traced a ray of light striking a strand of her hair and shining it like a million-watt light bulb, she breathed out heavily. Her lips, parched and dry from the night’s humidity sucking drudgery, moved as if to speak something but instead she just put her tongue slightly out to moisturise those dry lands of passion. I was thirsty too and I wanted to drink some water but I was sad that it wouldn’t quench her unresolved thirst right now. As I moved a little to get the bottle of water on my nightstand, she moved too and let out a sigh. She turned around and where once was a carefree, sterling face, now there was a solid, unflinching back. I checked my hygrometer and the humidity levels showed 45% in the room while I took two big gulps of water and rejuvenated my dry throat. I went closer to her body and despite all my rational senses telling me not to break her sleep, I pulled her towards me. As I put my arm around her soft human body, I could feel the adrenaline rushing through her body. Sparks flew through my fingers and she suddenly seemed like an instrument I could play with my long, slender fingers. We tell each other every night that everything will be fine and then morning comes and shatters the semblance of calmness in us. The touch of her body broke my halcyon mood and my fingers suddenly became desperate to play her strings. I tried as I have tried every morning but I couldn’t help falling in love with her, again. As my body felt hers, she moved and recalibrated her place so she could fit in the enclosure I had created around her. The sweetest cave for her strong yet silky body was created by my vertebrae in conjunction with my hips as it curved around her hips. I looked out of the window and the morning sun was just groggily waking up from behind the soft feathery duvet of white clouds. She held my fingers with her hand and clenched them as she wanted them to never leave her.
I closed my eyes again as I wasn’t ready to get up. I put my head in those brown dense hair of hers and imagined myself walking in a forest with her. Her fingers intertwined with mine and I was walking a little anxiously fraught with uncertainties. The smell of coconut milk as I held them more fiercely and then a sudden wisp of vanilla diluting the air around me. Unconsciously but surely as I put my legs around her legs, she gave a little laugh. In those quiet moments of the dawn before we even whispered our secrets to each other, we longed for each other. Her hair a mixture of those smells wasn’t occult but surely a concoction of human desire and scalp perspiration. I kissed her shoulder gently and she moved her neck signalling me to adore her similarly on her skin. The day had started slowly but the lilting rhythm was what we needed today. I kissed her on her neck and she pushed herself against mine even more so assuredly. A split second’s hesitation and my moment was gone.
She suddenly turned around again and faced me. Her eyes were yet to open but her face was flushed with the redness of a fully grown Ecuadorian red rose. Was it some kind of colour trickery to lure me into her seductive machinations or just the after effect of gravity doing its work through the pillow at night? Honestly, I didn’t care and it was the face of the most beautiful human being right now beside me. Her cheeks exuded the wavelength of light which doesn’t scatter much whereas my thoughts were now scattered. To touch her face or not was a question which I faced whereas she only wanted to be adored. My heart, a lonely wanderer in a world of fiction, had found a brooding peace on her face, not so sorrowful and not too wise. Her round cheeks resting on those perfectly sculpted cheekbones seemed to be the place where I could rest for a while on my travels. I traced her cheeks with my finger and tip toed my way around her eyes as I was trespassing a secret facility. With the fear of being caught red handed by her eyes, I massaged her eye brows and the recesses beneath her eyes. Her eyebrows, not too thick, didn’t flinch even a bit as I ran my reconnaissance over them whereas her lips started to form a curve I was all too familiar with. The red, hot crucible emanated a warm glow and those parched lips were starting to smile, although very little but still perceptible. Her skin composed of years of struggle, salt and fruit was golden and all it needed were my hands to heat it up again. Drawing her face on her skin with my fingers, the heat inside her increased and what was once unachievable seemed so close now. The gold was pure and I wanted to see my face reflected in it. As I was about to touch her lips, she gently put her head in my chest and held me even more tightly than I had held her a few minutes back. The world in me shivered as there was a tempest growing in me whereas I could feel her melting on my chest. Her face which seemed like a flower made of pure solid gold a few seconds was melting away its rigidity now. All those embellishments which I had adored seemed to be losing its shape and I could feel her warm glow running over my chest. Through my t-shirt, through my skin, it seeped deeper and deeper. I was trying to scratch at her surface, whereas she wanted me to find something more beautiful than the shape of nose or the colour of her cheeks. Maybe this is the point where human beings melt, a sturdy chest sunken in the depths of ocean of love. She was anchoring herself down on me and my waters, so stormy on the surface were providing her the perfect depth. I kissed her head and held her tightly as I let her wash me with her golden flow.
Words had not been spoken and language, despite its beauty, is limited. Her thoughts driving through her nerves at the speed of light finally made it through the porthole where I least expected it to come out of. A solitary drop without a name, made of so many emotions and conflicts, liberated itself out with just salt and gravity as its partners and made it through my chest. As soon as I felt foreign water adulterating my inner water, I opened my eyes and looked at her. Her face was still down on my chest. I pushed myself from her a little to see her face and she finally looked at me with her eyes open this time. A single tear drop had rolled down her cheeks and found its resting place on my chest. I asked, “Are you okay?”, as I had a million times before which had been the cause of our arguments at times. She looked at me and just smiled. Her eyes didn’t seem sad, they looked like someone who had just fallen in love and someone who wanted nothing right now except her lover. Her light brown, hazelnut eyes with the centre of them pitch black had broken me free right now. The dark brown rings of her iris and those curled up eyelashes had set me free from my turmoil. My anxiety was starting to dissolve and words still remained unspoken. The glint in her eyes from the sunlight had roused a sense of empathy in me and a poem unfinished remained at my pursed lips. The purging morning light made everything go away. Her red spots and wrinkles on the face, my dark circles and acne were just another seed in our terra. The Earth in us was alive and she was flourishing. It was almost impossible to caress the place where her tears had flown on her face but I had to control my impulses to preserve the sanctity of that divine land. I kissed her gently on the lips and held her in my arms as the warmth of the day blessed us. “Flowers remind me of you whereas coloured fruits and vegetables make me want to eat them. The grass feels greener nowadays and the trees seem taller and stronger than before. Sometimes the water under the bridge which I pass on to work every day seems ideal for swimming and I wonder what kind of fishes they might have. I tend to get less angry and less mean when someone comes up with an opinion which is markedly different from mine. The world seems much kinder and less judgemental than it ever was and I feel morning sun definitely helps me sleep better. Or maybe it’s time to ditch dairy milk and try almond milk and maybe add zinc supplements to my diet?” Her soft body made me feel protected even when I didn’t feel any apparent threat. As I put my face in her chest, she kissed my head with her soft lips and said something which I couldn’t make out. “She would wear wild flowers in her hair and dance by the riverbank for hours. She would sit by the lake and crouch down to look at a bee sucking nectar from one of the flowers. Her eyes are full of secrets and the trees so alive around her, sing to her.” The more I showed her my heart, the less she saw my face and it was time for me to see that too. The flowers in her bloomed and mine were just starting to break out from the tender earth they were planted in. Her fragrance and affection were all over me right now and I had to accept that there was no use in running away from them. She kissed me again and the world seemed to just narrow down on the small white bed in the centre of the room with a window on one side and a closet on the other. The hygrometer showed 50% and the birds outside chirped.
As the rays of sun hit our bodies, devoid of unnecessary ornamentation and veneers, the lily bloomed through us.
karanvankani 