Why does it take a minute to say hello and forever to say goodbye?

Grief comes naturally to me.

Like my love for him. Effortless. Intense. And with such rare ferocity. If there is any other feeling so overwhelming, exquisite and abysmal like love; it has to be grief. I know.

Not so long ago; Love, like a cyclonic wind engulfed us in an unfathomable sensation. There was no pretense in our words, not an iota of reticence in our manner. Everything fell in place, its place. With a childlike zeal we revelled in our togetherness to discovered the magic of a fervid unison. ‘Utopia’ wasn’t just a word that I had come across someplace anymore.

I knew then, I would never ever experience such a zealous frenzy with anyone else. We knew that this bond is unique and special for just the two of us, and not a soul in the other world would have a hint of our magnificent unison. Not now, not ever. I knew.

The first time I bid goodbye, albeit a temporary one I had experienced a shrill sense of grief. I stood at the bus stop and saw him wave out to me, a loud void ensued that night. Very similar to the profound numbness that grips me today. I have come to believe there is nothing as painful as the quiet grief that empties your soul. For grief doesn’t let you wail aloud and vent it all out. It spreads the body like cancer, killing passion with a lustful vengeance.

I try relentlessly every waking moment to stand up against my faceless enemy, but I win no battle. I return to bed, tired and angry only hoping the next morning would have something better to offer. Let the seasons change, I pray. But spring never comes; instead, melancholy with its ill tempered fury sets an ugly fire in my being. I fear that my distorted, disfigured dream will never take shape again. I fear.

Like a puppet, I move forward and backward waiting hopelessly for the play to end. For the ludicrous, sadistic audience to get back home. For the theater to shut stop and call it a day. It has been a long, arduous one! I’m tired of shedding tears when no one can see. I’m sick of such indifferent people waiting to make a mockery of my immobility. I stealthily fantasize of ‘becoming’ human again. To be flesh and soul. To be alive and dance. But I fear that I’m holding on to a withered rose, and hoping to see it bloom again. I must be daft, I think.

I also know there is hope. There has to be. It is the desire to re-unite that will be see me through this. My lost part of me is safe with you, I tell myself. On a moonlit night a huge hungry tide will bring back the pearl to my shore, I know. I will then celebrate in joy and do my samba routine. But for tonight there is no respite. I’m forced to share my room with grief, this hostile stranger that appears blood thirsty. As to when I wake up, what part of me would be lost forever remains to be seen. A bowl of blood, a huge chunk of sanity and heaps of optimism; I think.

I walk around tipsy, gazing into the darkness around blind folded; searching for that small flame that had lit up my world. What do you seek? Asks this stranger! To discover that flame and set my soul ablaze; I assert. Amazed by my grit, grief gives a friendly hand shake. I’m with you my friend, it promises. I smile a wry smile.