And it goes on...

I don't know what to make out of these out-of-the-blue bits of news that come travelling to me that my husband may be going around with another woman. I spend most of my day with him and I cannot understand when he would have the time to go and meet another woman. Of course, if we wants to, there are a thousand pretexts to do that, but would he be so vain as to attempt something that would malign his reputation if he were spotted with somebody? He swears and promises to me there's nothing and just when I start believing in him, something springs up to make me want to be suspicious again. Perhaps there are friends who are trying to help me just now but if I continue to be in denial, they may decide to stop and let me live in my fool's paradise. But then again, there are friends who tell me to make nothing out of such rumours - "gossip" they call it. My instinct? What use is it because it oscillates this way and that till I'm just a bunch of confused nerves. I sometimes think I could hire a detective to look up RG, but if there's no base to these rumours and if RG gets to know I did something like that, he would be devastated. Yes, I still give him the benefit of doubt because I don't have any proof to hold against him. It's just his word against others'. Whom should I believe? Would you believe in your husband or would you believe people you don't even know?

In my imagination

In my imagination

You were the guy

Who could not keep his hands off me

Who groped for my curvaceous back in the dark

To pull close to you,

To feel the butter smooth skin of the fleshy waist.

In my imagination

You were the guy who burnt hot kisses into my breast

In the dark of the night

Who made my lips quiver

And my insides ache

With want of you.

In my imagination

You were the guy who held me close

To caress

To pluck my nipples from my breast

With wet lips

And feel my thighs with callused palms

In my imagination

You were the guy who wanted me

Every night

To have and consume, to savour

Like a man must a woman he loves.

I orgasmed with the thought.

In my imagination

You were the guy

Who would turn me around

To kiss me on the nape of my neck,

My arched back,

My soft butt.

In my imagination

You were the guy

Whose hands I let explore

Every tiny crevice, curve and fold

Of my willing body.

I saved myself up for you.

Did I forget, forgive or ignore?

How do you react to an anonymous email that says your husband is going around with someone?

How do you react to an email address that is made up of Her son's first name and your husband's last name?

How do you react to Truth & Dare games where people want your husband to tell the truth about his relationship with Her?

How do you go on believing none of it is true?
How do I do it?

The gift

He forgot again. And now it doesn’t even matter. Perhaps, this isn’t an important day for him - the day when we first said our 'I love you's. Perhaps, he doesn't believe in mush like he used to.

Perhaps gifts don’t mean so much to him as they mean to me. And I'm quite okay with it now. But I'm still not okay with how little it means to him that gifts mean a lot to me.

Give me a gift of love, darling,
give me some space in your thoughts.
I know you love me deep in your heart
but show me sometimes that you do.
Give me a gift of love if you can
Just like you used to.

Sometimes, you're no more than a habit.

Of love

I've made this space my favourite punching bag. Things I can't say aloud I come here and say. Things nobody wants to hear, things that aren't so nice. And then there are things I should've said, but haven't. They are not secrets, yet I haven't shared them with you, nice things that everyone likes to hear.

I love RG. Love him like none other. I've let my doubts cast a shadow on my love, but I love him nonetheless. Even if those doubts were not baseless and even if he hasn't loved me the way I love him, I know he's been my only anchor. He has loved the way he knows best. There is no one else I can turn to the way I can turn to him. I know he's the one person who will try to understand me. He's my best friend.

Sometimes, I feel it's unfair I love him so much. But that love is my only source of joy. I only told you of the hurt he caused me, never of the happiness he gave me. But I say it now - with the conviction of one who's in love - I can never give him up. He's my only love.

Still a question mark

There are thoughts you think and there are thoughts others put into your head.

When I am done thinking about all things that can wrong between us and discarded those thoughts, someone will come up with them again - the unanswerable questions, the doubts, the suspicion.

It's not easy to restore your trust when it's been broken, but it's even more difficult when there's no one to tell you, you can trust again.

I could be jealous and insecure and see things from a prejudiced wife's point of view. But why would a mother see her son in the same light and worry for her daughter-in-law? Why would friends want to shield from the pain they know I could feel? I'm not alone in seeing what I do; others see it too. They see him and her and they sense what I do.

And yet he denies it. And leaves me wondering whether I should believe him - the one person I've believed the - or others around us: him, her and me.

Is it just cruel fate that keeps bringing me up against the same blocks? Or is this a sign that I need to stop indulging in wishful thinking? Am I closing my eyes to the reality or am I seeing things that don't exist?

Truth & dare

I will not ask you any more questions and save you the trouble of lieing. I will give you a chance to tell me the truth. No, I will give you another chance to tell me the truth. If you don't take it, I will believe your lies as your version of the truth. I have no alternative. No, it's not love that takes away my alternatives; I don't think I'm in love with you anymore. It's the exhaustion, the futility of making you see my side of the picture, of realising you're too meek to accept your mistakes, too scared I will not forgive them again that stops me from confronting you again.

And anyway, you have taken away my right to ask you any questions. My mistrust apparently bothers you, but you don't know how to win over my trust, you don't know how easy it is to be honest with me and fool me still. You believe you will be lucky enough to be sly and never get caught, don't you? You forget you weren't so lucky in the past.

If there is nothing, why do you feel the need to lie? Why do I feel that the way you look at her is not different? Why do I ignore my instincts that tell me I'm a blockade in the way?

Tell me I'm wrong. But tell me the truth please.

A romantic dinner,
A tiny gift box
Of sexy lingerie
Tucked under my pillow.

A walk under the stars
Moony-eyed,
A passionate night -
Caresses and cries.

Long drives and wine,
Holding hands.
A touch here, a touch there,
Secret smiles.

Hickies, holidays
'Miss you' messages.
Showers together
Kneading, rubbing, feeling each other.

Surprises

Plans
Kisses
A cup of happiness.

Praying
Wishing
Wanting
Whispering.

A home
A hearth
Love, laughter,
You and Me.

A wish.

Shut me up

What is it about what I say that puts you off so completely?
Or is it the way I say it? Or is it just me that makes you want to shut me up?

Last night I tried talking to him about what most couples usually talk about after they've been married so long - kids. He said he didn't want to talk about it. So what's weird, you ask, he just might not want to talk about it. Well, we used to talk a lot about having children when we were dating. But there has been an uneasy silence on the topic since we got married. I sensed he did not want to talk about kids yet. So I didn't, all these years... But it was after great deliberation that I broke the silence, because someone had to. And it was with great love that I broached the topic. He shut me up, snubbed me, just like that.

So I changed tracks. Became funny. Maybe that's what he'd like to see? But that put him off too... I tried being myself and that was too kiddish for him. Oh no! I was "acting" like a kid. No, I'm not cute and I'm not grwon up, I'm not emotional, I'm just stupid. So fine, I'll shut up. Now you talk.

What is it about us
That makes me want to fall in love with you
All over again?

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,
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