Heartbreak adjacency
He walked into my life on a busy work day. It had been a hectic day with a major presentation to the client. I had woken up late, showered and raced to the office with still wet hair. I nearly got hit by a car crossing the road but I still managed to reach just in time.
He was already there and looked up to see me for the first time. I was just hit with a hammer of longing I never thought I could be capable of. But he didn’t stop at that. He smiled and I was lost forever.
I told myself — it was a fairly innocuous crush — the one that withers and dies when you get to know a beautiful person more.
But then he asked if I ate that morning and the unrequited love started.
As crazy as it sounds, no one has been that nice to me at work before.
I had a bad case of office love which would never be returned.
I tried and tried, telling myself that I was older, I was pretty damaged, and significantly below his league. I had opened all those scabs in my heart and let the pus flow out. I plugged in music into my ears and tried to forget the world. But you drew me again and again to you — I was just a tide ebbing and flowing to your movements. People say hope is life. Hope was fickle in my life. Would come unwanted, unneeded and leave me bitter than before.
I tried so hard to be professional, curbing the desire to keep touching him with a pretext, and text him into the night seemingly for work advice.
There was a twist in the story.
One of my friends joined my team and confessed she had a crush on him too and wanted me to help her.
I had an overwhelming feeling of relief. First, I was not the only person being affected which made him the culprit and not my stupid heart. Second, I got a reason to kill my hopes with.
I set forth with relief, which then turned to anger, jealousy, grief, denial and finally resignation. I had to watch them flirt, talk, and dance together, while I was out of my body floating and crying embers.
I never managed to talk to him properly after that. He felt I was a weirdo and a psycho probably. The one who alternated between hot and cold towards him.
There was no way to quell any feelings towards him. I quit my study.
Today is the first day away from him. I keep seeing him in every thought I have since this morning. Daydreams and accompanying songs, tears and pain, the whole rigmarole. There is a pain in my chest, a feeling of rejection. and anger at this world where I am not enough for him.
This poem is for him, he who would never know how I felt:
Hey you
Am I alive or dead now
You were the reason for my sadness and smiles
For me being there and now not
Did not know the path to you
Or even an escape route
I am left alone now
In a vacuum left with no address to go
All those who see you
Talk you or touch you
Know that I am a part of them
Always with you even while away
You are there with me too
In everything I do or don’t
You taught me interminable pain
I give you all my love
My silence is no longer peaceful
You are the centre of my raging chaos
the life or death I am left with
Know it’s all your doing
