Almost

By Aananda Verma

a faint wind chime sounds in the distance. the air chokes it's melody until it is barely an echo yet it hits my ears with a sharp twinge. you said you loved me. i’m sorry i memorised an apology at 7 for love sounds like gunshots and it is my shield.

i think i loved you a little. i think i could grow to love anyone. but sinking into the folds of regret is easier than leaping into the abyss when darkness was never my friend and pity is kind. she shuts my eyelids gently and strokes my forehead. “next time” her words are coated with deceit but they taste like honey on my tongue and i wallow in it’s sweetness. she tells me if i am blind to the world it will go away. i believe her.

it is too late when i wake up, it is too late every moment after this. you are gone and it is time again to relapse in bittersweet what ifs, to tell myself it couldn’t be helped when i know perhaps too well it could have, easily so. but i am a clock stuck at 55, rusted as if it refused all the help the world offered. i am remains of hazy whims that fade to the touch.

i exist in almost or not at all.

By Aananda Verma