To The Girl at 27!

My Dearest,

Ah the pleasure of writing on a paper again, almost matching with the pleasure of having you. ‘Having’ yes, I did but to say I “have” you though would be a blasphemy. And before you allow that frown saying there I go again and bring tiny anxious lines on your lustrous visage, let me just ask you-Who can have the rays of sunshine trapped in his fingers no matter how strong be his grip? Who can box the fragrance one senses standing in the midst of sandal trees?

For such are you-flowing like the river, warming like the rays, enticing like the scent of a rose, mysterious like the dark night, glorious like the white moon and out of reach like the stars that shine beyond. You sprinkled some of your sheen on me and made me bask in its sensation forgetting that I am trying to own the fabric of the infinite galaxy. The galaxy that I am going to fade into with my end and the galaxy that you have to tread on, leaving your nimble footsteps on everything untouched yet!

I want to tell you how much I love you, but for that I would have to assume that you are a separable part of me although so infused are you now that if I say, loving you is like self-love, it would not be digressing from the established truth I live with every day.

You know what debates ran in my mind between the good and the evil voices: “She is only 27, so what...he was also, once upon a time! He is 59, so what...won’t she be too someday? And he would love her the same. Ah, they would grimace....won’t he be tumbling in his grave by then?” But my time to go has come sooner than I wanted, sooner than I cared and sooner than allowing me to dare. I realize now that being with me would take too much from you and selfish that I am for you, I would hate to see you hate me ever.

My dearest, I want to remain an exultant reminiscence for you, not a dilapidated, old man shrivelling to ruins eventually too soon, wiping all joyous memories-of bearing you with all my strength, of making you shed your over-mature thoughts more than shedding what you wore, of turning many a sighs into heaving, of mingling two bodies in such an intoxicating fusion that it turns me giddy by just imagining the taste of it. It was not only a flight of fantasy, it was like the developing of wings of a young twittering brood that jumps off the cliff and realises soon that it can fly...high!

It was how you held me for hours and how I held you in those moments. It was how just a look of you gave me the adrenalin rush that I haven’t felt with one from your gender before, although my age justifies my calling me experienced. In all your vulnerable innocence, you have no realization how insane your after-effects can be! I would burn with desire just watching you move around the kitchen counter...seeing you untie the cascading hair and then brush them free with your slender fingers...how you ran your own palms over your arms when cold winds played truant or how your eyes lighted with fire and the edge of the lower lip was bitten with the teeth on the thought of new mischief contriving within. I would wonder how something so strongly physical could be just as enduringly emotional? See how you became the wonder woman for me.

But I leave you deserted now for such must be your eventual fate. I won’t be able to face you facing me as I would have to face or see you justifying to one and all that age is just a number. But I do want you to play against the world, face them as my dear girl who would fight all her battles and seek happiness even without me. Let me go while there is still redemption for you.

There would be many who would come your way. Your aura would ensure that a discerning eye would not let you flash past. Be careful my little one, but don’t build walls to protect yourself. Be on a watch but let not the watches watch you. There is no right time to fall in love and no right person-there is only the right feeling. Let not your ignorance or arrogance come in the way of testing those who might be your test. Love is worth a few adjustments, love is worth a few pains....but spending alone the rains, crumbling every time the cold breeze harshly jolts you, with no arms to wrap you snug in guard, is definitely not.

Let your heart be open and the mind not closed. Let the comparing eye be shut with force. Lower expectations but not your standards! Let doubts surface but also allow the soft waves of emotions to calm them down. Men are not perfect but that does not qualify them to be jerks either. Just don’t weigh too much like you do, before feelings also begin to take the pendulum way.

Be not afraid to express how you feel, it is always better to know where exactly you stand than to wriggle within in a hypothetical see-saw. You are very fragile my love and like the hesitant bud that knows not how splendid it looks when blooms. Allow yourself to take chances. It took me years to come close to you like I did, don’t try the patience of any other man. All are not me and with you just about any can’t be.

Laugh more and like there’s no tomorrow, let those little lines of sorrow evaporate in your mirth or the semblance of it. Be open to experiments for they eventually culminate into experiences. Allow men of mettle to first see your soul and then your body for it would pain me to see someone handle you without care. Let those who touch you, touch you! And make sure when you close the eye for his first kiss, you leave my moist imprints in some far away allay, never to be trudged there again.

No man can bear his woman closing on him for someone else. So don’t try to share me, bear me in your mind if you must, for even if you don’t, I won’t rust.

I leave now, to go I don’t know where. Our paths wouldn’t cross and even if they do, please pretend that you don’t know me, no matter how you see my pining in my mute appearance. Only you are blessed enough to look through me. Show me that this would all be worthwhile eventually. Walk away showing pity, for I was not man enough to say I would take care of you even if life took me away.

They say love stories are best which are left unended...some feelings-unattended...some gestures-unreturned...some laughters-unreciprocated...some tears-unvalued...and some couples-unbonded! We were not the usual love story, were we? So how could we have a usual end? Sometimes the lack of “happily ever after” is how ever after not so happily begins.

Not expecting you to understand, but accepting nevertheless,

Yours only.