Gulmohar

Gulmohar. He used to call me his Gulmohar. Red, soft,beautiful,bright and vibrant . Eventhough I knew half of it was a lie. We both knew. But I desperately clung on the latter half in the hope that those eyes never die down the mirth it held for my fluttering stomach and ragged breaths. He always loved me in red. He always told that it reminded him of his favourites in me. He loved to paint me red with his lips. There were times when he longed for the nonexistent blush that rose to my brown cheeks with our lips still connected by a faint strand of our slimy love. We were never perfect. And we knew it from the beginning.  Maybe it is the imperfection that drew us close to be grinded against the parchment paper of his favorite blueberry cheesecake.  Sour. That was always berries for me. Thinking back to that very day that made me a chronic addict to blueberry supplements I cannot help but laugh. Complete strangers sharing a table talking about cheesecakes and being skeptical about each other's choices and ending up tasting them is the sugar tinted lips of the other is not something that anyone would do often. That was once in a life time.  I knew it in the first wave of sugar rush that numbed my brains out . So did he. We never tasted cheesecakes ever in public.  Not even now. Even after 7 years of growing up. Even after 7 years of growing apart from each other.  Thinking back Did we ever love each other? We did? We did! Complicated is a very naive and simple word to define what we had. He tried to be my Sartre and I his Simone. What a dystopian joke. But we were contented in what we had. More like I was. I was never a fan of jealousy. Being a person who believes in free spirit I never wanted to tie the spark of my existence to die down in my womb. I let him go. And he just left. 

Never let me feel cheated. That was the only criteria that I put forward.  He could have had as much relationships he wanted. Love or lust or anything that satisfies his spiritual spectrum. But never let me feel cheated.  Just tell me when you fall out of love. That was the only thing  I asked for. And the only thing he couldn't keep up with. Betrayal is a strong feeling. I never wanted to feel that. So I left it like that  in the back of my head and moved on. Maybe the ghosts of my past lurking down my shoulders. Pushed me against the wall of his dim lit apartment three years after our falling apart. One can say that it is my desperation that let him do what he wanted to do when he locked me safe in his arms and asked me for an explanation to disappearing on him when he clearly wanted me to do the same. I was never enough for him. We were never enough for each other. But we tried to be just enough for each  other when he fucked me hard against his windowsill and again we fell apart. After that every windowsill reminded me of his veiny arms holding me flushed against his built chest. It was that memory that didn't let me flinch on a July evening when my 3 year old nephew jammed my fingers between the latch of the window when he was playing with the tears of my long dead monsoon. Red. I saw the beauty that he saw. Pain was all gone in the breeze of my past. It was just thick luscious fragile beads of love painted all over my fingers. Years apart he still intertwines his love through my healed fingers for three days every year. He is broken, so am I. Let us stay broken in the numbing silence of this moonlight. Let me be your Gulmohar for one last time till my conscience breaks away from my soul.