How do you know what to say
To wipe the smile off my face?

Fantasy of love

Some time when I was in school, I had begun to play a secret game: at night I would transport myself into a world of make belief where I became the only object of affection. Sometimes I would be a coy Indian bride, sometimes a slut. It didn't matter; at the end I made myself feel so sexy, the game became addictive.

I don't remeber how long I played that game alone. But I never tired of it. That was till I met RG. The nameless other of my fantasies was replaced by the man I was falling in love with. And I continued to play my fantastical games till I could physically be with RG. My world of make belief disappeared into a lovely reality. And my games died a natural death. I could now live out my fantasies in flesh and blood.

So many years later, I felt the need to revive my secret game - it had been more satisfying than real life. But going back to that nameless, faceless person was not easy. I kept harking back to RG even in my imaginary world and kept getting disappointed.

Last night, I finally managed it. I let myself believe I was desirable once again, sexy too. Or that there was someone who found me so. When RG got into bed next to me, I decided to live out my fantasy, hoping it would come true, that he would want me like the man in my dreams.

It didn't happen. I was so stupid to think that my world of imagination could be anything else.

It crushed me. The man I loved could not reciprocate my passion the way he had only a few years ago. I wasn't looking for sex, just a little love that would make me glow all over again. Was that to be only my secret game?

Mind game

And now I'm battling me, my mind and the games it has been playing with me. I see nothing, I feel so much! What do I do? How do I know what I feel is baseless?

Suspicion is a dangerous thing. It saps your life of all love and happiness. And you never know if its the truth or a mind game.

RG shouldn't have done this to me - taken my happiness away with a lie. I want to take things at face value, like I used to, not struggle with myself to understand what's happening behind what I see. Maybe, there is nothing more to what I see. But my mind, it oscillates between belief and distrust... and leaves me empty, vulnerable. Is there help for someone like me? Why doesn't talking to RG help? Perhaps, because he has nothing to say to me. He looks on helpless. And I need affirmation, not ambivalence.

Let my presence not be a punishment for him. I am not as whimsical as this time of my life makes me seem. When I'm sad I have a reason, even if I can't share it with anyone. When I'm happy, it's because I've forgotten my sorrow, believed it does not exist.

Would somebody be able to tell me where I will go after where I am left standing? Would somebody tell me how to stop feeling so miserable for my heart's sake? Will the ghosts of my past leave me now?

Between You and Me

So what has come between us? RG and I were a happy couple. We still are, only till we are alone together. But there is so much that comes between us: home, family, issues... I know we would be perfect if we were living somewhere far off, had our friends and work. But living with unhappy pessimists rubs on to us.

I try to spend as much time away from home as possible, because I don't feel I belong here. And RG knows it. He knows that there's no way his folks and I can be family. And he knows too that I have tried, tried enough to change that. But like they say in Hindi, taali ek haath se nahi bajti (you can't clap with one hand)!

Does that change anything? Does RG respect me for trying or does he loathe me for failing? Either way, he knows his mind: moving out is not an option. Not for him.

I loved my family and was ready to love his too. But it didn't turn out like that. I could love them more if I did not hate them so much for coming between RG and my happiness. Or for weighing their tears with our joys, for killing the child in me, for forcing me into a life I never wanted.

My tears and sadness are not reasons enough for RG to still think we could make a home away from here. I know we can. I know we should for the children we haven't had yet. Would it amount to ingratitude to his parents if he, the son of the family, moved out?

RG believes he's the joy in his parents' life.
And my life? What of that?

Rewind

Let me fall in love, just one more time. Let me think we know each other like we never had a history - good or bad so that you can fall in love with me once again. That is the only way to erase the bad memories, to make new ones worth remembering.

I have had enough trying to act like nothing happened when it did, of picking up the threads from where they snapped. I want to be able to know you again and love the person I discover and I want you to know me too, REALLY this time.

When did everything change darling? Can we do a little rewind to the time when I wrote you peoms and you bought me chocolates?

Want me

Words are not all that you can communicate with. My body wants to hear from you.

I cannot say you use me, 'cause you don't, you never do. But I wish sometimes you would treat me like more than an add-on, like a person who's wanted and needed, even physically. You've rendered me so useless, my body also seems a waste. And it's pretty, you know.

I used to dream of a man who'd want to touch me, hold me, never want to let go of me. I was romantic then. I'm realistic now. Can you just hold me like you love me once in a while?

Just hold my hand without being embarassed about people watching us.

How do I explain to you that I want to feel sexy and how. I want to sleep with you, not just next to you. I want to one day open my eyes to have you staring at me, falling in love with me. I want to see you looking at me like you can't resist me, kissing me like my lips were yours, holding me like you can't get enough of me, telling me you love me then and there, like you see me. Once.

Covet me. Want me. Once. If you can't love me like before, at least make love to me like before.

Sorry

I'm sorry

If my love leaves you stifled for space.

And I'm sorry

That your love has become such a blank space.

'I'm sorry,' people tell me sympathetically;

I'm sorry too, I say, I loved you so blindly.

I'm sorry

I tried to be a friend like another.

And you're probably sorry too

That I infringed on your boys' night together.

But I'm sorry darling,

You forgot to tell me -

When to hold back

And when to give like forever?

When to leave you alone

And when to be your companion?

I'm sorry I forgot

The difference between a husband and a lover.

A letter to my husband

Darling,

For the last few years of my life I've trusted you more than I could have trusted myself. Believed in you and your lies blindly, not ever thinking they were lies at all. But now things have changed. And I'm not so sure about us. I would want to still believe in you, but you are not helping me. You are not helping me at all!

I don't even know if I can believe my eyes anymore. And if I were to take your word for it, they don't see the truth at all. Should I believe what you say darling? Why is your truth so different from mine?

And why are you doing this to me? It's not a game anymore. It's my life you are playing with. And I have no way of telling you to stop because you don't know how you are messing up my mind. But my love isn't innocent now.

I hate to be thinking about life after us is over. And I wonder if things are really so bad for me to be thinking about this? Because you won't accept they are and I can't deny they aren't. I don't know if I should fight for your affections again or just let you go. And I don't know if you will let me go! But why would you want to hold on to me? Am I worth the pain? What is it that makes it so difficult for you to tell me the truth?

Perhaps, you still love me (?)

Yours,
--------

Questions

My questions, do they make you uncomfortable?
Drown them.
In the senseless sounds of your silence.

My questions, do they remind you of your guilt?
You answer them still
When you evade them.

My questions, do they sound all the same to you?
Then how is it that you forget them
Though you've heard them so often?

My questions, why aren't they satisfied with your answers?
That's probably because
You forgot to tell me the truth!

Stranger

I'm looking for the man I knew
In the stranger you've become.
One night of your lies
Destroyed ten years of my life.

I am searching for the man I loved
In the stranger he's become,
Trying to see the difference in the face I see
And what lies beneath the veneer.

I am desperate for the man I loved
Even in the stranger he's become.
One night of his unfaithfulness
Has destroyed ten years of my trust.

And how strange that I love him still,

And will believe his artful deceit!

How strange that I even love

The stranger in the man I loved!

The Incomplete Woman

Am I less of a woman because I cannot forsake my maiden name to take on my husband's?
Am I less of a woman because I cannot love my husband more than my parents? Am I less than a perfect woman because I cannot let black beads, red vermilion and red bangles become my identity? Or because I wonder why I need to make rotis to make my place in the home, because my affections are not tied to ladles and woks in the kitchen?!

Am I incomplete because I've not learnt to sacrifice simply because I'm a woman? To want to give up my work and my life to bring another into this world? Am I less of a woman because I can't shut up? Or talk only of the hearth and home, of little pink frocks and blue nickers? Because I don't understand why my lacy underwear should be hidden in my bathroom, away from everyone's eyes, like some dirty little secret?

Perhaps, I am less than the perfect daughter, wife, sister and bahu because I don't know how to fit into labels. Because I toss and turn in bed at night thinking why this was so and that wasn't. Because I'm not coy and shy, nor needing to be protected or fed or looked after. Am I the woman who makes a man uncomfortable?

Why 'Me and You'?

A blog dedicated to lovelessness, moments of loneliness between people who love each other, but are not in love anymore.



Me and You - we used to be together.
You promised me the moon
And I knew I'd be happy to have you.

So we took the vows of now and forever,
Of love and a life
With you by my side.

You're here and not, now.
You're gone
With the love and the promise of that life.

And I'm left behind
Picking up the loveless pieces
Of a story we were to write together.