Love is Like A Forest

By Mayank Gupta

I tiptoed back the memory lanes to the building that made us meet.

You are standing in front of the sink all high, puking out all the grief. You are not comfortable and your eyes speak of the pain. Barely open, they look at me as if begging to relieve you.

I stand there behind you depressed by the thought that you have to bear the pain alone. I lift my hand to stroke your back, but stop in the middle and take them back.

I am afraid to touch you. I fear the spark I have for you may cause a fire someday. Love is like a thick forest in the summer noon, with sun rays peeking through the canopy of tall, undefeated trees; the flowers blooming beneath smile and dance for the fiery existence of the rays, totally unaware that all this heat can burn them up someday with a wildfire.

I recall rubbing your palms and massaging your forehead. You fall asleep. I look at you for what seems like an eternity. The calmness in your eyes. I keep looking at your eyes as if they were the only living thing that ever existed. If the sleep of death would have hit me that moment, I would have died peacefully.

I keep staring at your eyes. I think of love and what it means for different people. I smile at the concept of true love. Love is a feeling- and not a fact to be called true or false. Only somebody who has not completely understood what love is will call it true, or false.

The memory town has too many lanes. I think a lot, write a little- in the same way as I love a lot, express a little.

The night is already dark and the sky hazy. The moon is nowhere to be seen. I choose to lie down on the cold terrace floor tonight, to wait for the shooting star. It is amusing how I can believe that a fiery object on the way to its own end may relieve me from my burning grief- the wildfire.

What is more amusing is how I am ending this piece of writing considering how I started. But I believe that is the fate of some pieces- and that of some love stories.

By Mayank Gupta