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?