Unromance.

Jagruti Vojjala
Aug 25, 2017 · 3 min read
(Image/Pexels)

You sleep, an occasional stir breaking the gentle evenness of your snores. I lay beside you, trying my best to lose myself in a story about a bright boy who travelled a thousand roads before he was much older than you. I can’t help but imagine you in his place.

And unbidden, my mind thinks: You’re beautiful. For all the paths you’ve trod and all the scars you’ve earned, you’re beautiful.

Of course, that particular feeling might have something to do with the fact that it is cold, and you are warm, and this winter chill seems set to last two whole seasons. But, we digress.

The thing is, I know it’s not love. I’ve been in love too recently to mistake that sharp hopelessness for what I feel now. But there is quite a lot I would forgive you that I would not for others. And there are times I’m overflowing with affection for you. But then I remember the terms of our little arrangement, and I taste ashes in my mouth.

We are not meant to last. We are meant to burn through the night sky in a streak of golden fire, and to be extinguished without ceremony when the end comes.

E’lir, the boy in the story is called, for his quick mind and skilled hands, and I think that perhaps it wouldn’t suit you too ill either. The part of me that competes with you burns with envy at the fact. But even in this, I forgive you — a thing I have seldom willingly done.

You are, confusingly, both older and younger than me. You’ve roamed far and wide, while I’ve wandered dark and deep, and we are similar enough in our pursuits that our differences are made all the greater.

The things you do and say infuriate me, and provoke me into a primitive sort of retaliation, and perhaps I have been unkind to you on this account. But there is something about you, about us, which seems to scatter my self-imposed restraints like a lot of dust. And I cannot help but be grateful, like a starving child given some food at last.

Which is why you find it odd, I think, when I try to take care of you. The truth is, I have been used to earning people’s affections for so long that I no longer know another way to be. Some day, I hope to unlearn all of that, and be myself, like you keep urging me to do. I do not think you will stay long enough to see it, but still, I will try. For your sake. For the sake of the hold we do not have over each other.

For now, I will prod at you unceasingly, and laugh at your anger when I’ve gone too far, and kiss your head in secret while you sleep. Because for now, we have both found a rare comfort, and I do not plan to let it go unsavoured.


The Bigger Picture

Oddly specific. Universally applicable. Submit your writing to biggerpicturemedium@gmail.com.

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Jagruti Vojjala

Written by

The Bigger Picture

Oddly specific. Universally applicable. Submit your writing to biggerpicturemedium@gmail.com.

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