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I had given up on waiting, and then you arrived.<\/p>\nI had given up on waiting, and then you arrived.<\/p>\n
All my life, I had arrived at the wrong time. The train I was meant to board pulled away before my very eyes; standing on the platform, all I saw was smoke. At the door where I was supposed to knock, I found only a padlock, rust-eaten and long abandoned. The river in which I was fated to drown had long since run dry into a sandbar, with cattle grazing across its bed. Only in this one lifetime did it feel as though I had arrived on time. You were standing there, and the light fell behind you in such a way that it seemed the earth had spun through the ages just for this single scene.<\/p>\n
Believe me, in searching for you, I have withered and fallen countless times. In some long-ago autumn, I bloomed as a night-flowering shiuli in an unfamiliar courtyard, and you walked into that courtyard just before dawn, moments after I had dropped to the earth. In some distant monsoon, I descended as rain over the entire city, and that was the day you stepped out holding an umbrella. In another lifetime, I lay as a stone upon a bathing ghat for seven hundred years, clinging to a single hope: that one day you would come down to fetch water, and the soles of your feet would touch me.<\/p>\n
I speak to no one of your hair. When you unfasten your bun, evening falls inside the room, no matter what the clock says. And in your hands lies sleep. Not every woman carries sleep in her hands\u2014this I know. For when you place your palm upon my forehead, I drift into slumber as though surrendering to a burning fever.<\/p>\n
Loving you, I have learned that thirst is not a mere absence of water. Thirst is the name of a river, and no other river can ever borrow that name. Loving you, I have understood why human beings build homes, why they slide the latch across the door, why they turn off every light and leave just one burning. I have learned why the marks that bloom upon the skin are not wounds, but signatures\u2014and even if a signature fades, its indentation remains pressed into the paper. I have learned that fear and love are two branches of the exact same tree: one blossoms with flowers, the other offers shade, and their roots are intertwined deep beneath the same soil.<\/p>\n
I have learned that distance cannot be measured in miles. Even when you are merely in the next room, there are nights when I yearn to write you a letter; and when you are in another city, there are afternoons when your breath feels warm against the nape of my neck.<\/p>\n
In this life, I have seen many faces. Most I have forgotten; a few I remember. But remembering and returning are not the same thing. Not every river has a landing ghat, not every ghat welcomes a boat, and of the boats that dock, not all wish to return. I want to return. Every single day. At the end of the day, when the city grows weary and turns on its lights one by one, my two feet start walking toward you without even asking me. Home was once an address; now it is a time: nine o\u2019clock at night. Solitude has become a punishment. And the word *we*\u2014I read its definition in a grammar book long ago, memorized it, wrote it down in examinations, but never truly understood it. You arrived and breathed meaning into it. Now I use it so often that I feel embarrassed before myself.<\/p>\n
Tonight, this night that comes circling back after another year, is heavy with the fragrance of night-blooming jasmine. The window is open. Somewhere outside, a dog barks in fitful bursts, as though it too is waiting for someone. You are asleep, and in the sound of your breathing, a quiet river flows, ever so gently. I sit upon the bank of that river.<\/p>\n
In this lifetime, and in whatever lifetimes remain, I will search for you everywhere. I know I will be late. Every time, somewhere along the way, I run late\u2014the train leaves too soon, the river dries up too early. Yet I will search. And one day, in some unfamiliar courtyard, just before dawn, you will come and stand before me. On that day, I will not fall. I will remain standing, I will stay in full bloom, and I will say to you the very words I have spoken a thousand times in this life, words that have never run dry.<\/p>\n
I love you. Only you. Across every lifetime yet to come, only you.<\/p>\n
Happy anniversary…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
I had given up on waiting, and then you arrived. All my life, I had arrived at the wrong time\u2014until this single lifetime, when the light fell behind you and made it seem as though the earth had spun through the ages just for this one scene.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[8],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-140","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-others"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/raisulsohan.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/140","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/raisulsohan.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/raisulsohan.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/raisulsohan.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/raisulsohan.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=140"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/raisulsohan.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/140\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/raisulsohan.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=140"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/raisulsohan.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=140"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/raisulsohan.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=140"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}