If There Was Only One Thing To Remember You By

By Tanvi Hegade

If there was only one thing I had a choice to remember you by, you know, in the crazily

unseeming chance that we turned strangers unto each other, it would be

your voice I'd carry with me. I'd fold it like a silk handkerchief and tuck

it in my chest pocket, close to my heart. Then, sitting in a cafe by myself, ordering

the hazelnut coffee and the blueberry muffin that I came to love like

I came to love you, I'd unfurl the potpourri of the sounds I'd associate with

you: your sighs and your whispers and your excited exclamations would ride the air and

mingle with the chatter of all the very real conversations in the backdrop.

Your voice

no less real to me, though.

Your throaty baritone becoming a touch too grainy when

you got mad. The gasp escaping your mouth

when my cold toes reached out for the soles of your feet, and

all the muffled laughter that followed the unexpected tingling, as you'd try

and keep a straight face and oh so miserably give in. I think I'd sometimes only want

to hear the silences we shared, too. There would be so much of it to listen to,

I'd need a whole night, perhaps. And then, when I'd miss you so much that my heart

could barely bear it, I'd go back to just that one word.

Your voice, calling out my name.

As if only your saying it made me come alive.

As if, until you'd said it, I'd only been a wisp of smoke floating by.

By Tanvi Hegade