Saturday, June 13, 2015

The ache for a companion

'I wake up in the morning. A small heaviness in my heart that soon snowballs into a deep welling pain, that almost threatens to choke me. I mentally shift my consciousness to a happier frame of mind. I need to. The duties of the day await. As the coffee pot bubbles, my spirits lift and sink like the boiling milk on the stove. My most precious part of the day and I feel incredibly lonely. I am happy to be by myself, to be myself. Joyous about the million things being me implies. It is when my pot of happiness and sorrow bubble over that I long for a shoulder, an answering look in a companion's eyes, the squeeze of a hand, the occasional brush of teasing lips on mine, the promise of laughter, life and hope. None which I was blessed with. In my moment of triumph or in my moments of pain, I long for my feelings to matter to someone.

 I want to matter to someone. I want hugs. I want kisses. I want to belong in someone's arms.  To ramble every day nonsense. To talk  profound sense. To be held tight like i matter. I want to feel like a woman. I want someone to embrace the warmth and sunshine that is in me. Instead, i have this cold feel of automation that is a dead marriage. I know what awaits. The grandfatherly brush of lips against me, or the giggly schoolboy and the abusive, indifferent sadist. My heart aches so much that i fear it would burst.

The birds chirp in the morning hour and in that silent heralding of the dawn my loneliness is overwhelming as the swirl of coffee fills the air. Most mornings i love my aloneness, but i hate the mornings of loneliness when they come. They are overwhelming. everything seeming grey, meaningless. I see couples going for their morning walk, a simple act of togetherness and i long to be one of them. I know i would never have that simple pleasure. I can only watch on with that ache, an outsider to that blessing called companionship. I feel like a widow with a mentally dead partner who is physically alive, like a woman divorced while still married. I feel old and beaten. The sun is not yet risen and tears sting my eyes.

My phone rings and i pick it up. There is very little to interest or excite in the conversation. I know what we will speak. How it will be. An automated conversation. Played out every morning. I dare not say anything or ask anything or even be impatient in my desires. I have to be careful with the other who is like a child, an abusive child who can hurt me due his insecurities. If I am bubbly, excited, alive or eager, i share that mood. The days i wake up feeling this deadness, i try to fake it. To summon a feeling of normalcy. It is important. For his sanity. For my child's sake. For my safety and sanity. For the drama that we need to play for the world's sake. For the failure that we cannot show to the world, yet again. For the kindness i need to summon from deep within against an abuser because i am mentally stronger than him and kinder. And, because I can. And he cannot.

I need to strengthen myself from the pain of abuse and i need to continue to make him feel good about himself, boost his self-image because it is so fragile. So i shrink myself a little more, and clip my wings a little. I need to. If this has to work, i cannot fly the skies with a companion. He would not only doubt if he can fly, he would make me doubt if i can fly, and if i had ever flown, and all the while  i would remember the innumerable heights i have soared and the blueness aof the skies i have known. I need to clip my wings so that we are both broken without wings and we could forever beat our broken bodies in the ground. That is the only companionship that is possible, that is the promise of the tomorrow.

Around me laughter spills. There are couples dancing, their eyes flirt, and their hands own their patrner's bodies in familiar, unfamiliar ways. I sit amidst the whirling couples, a lonely married spinster. I would have given anything to have a man, hold me with pride and joy as we twirled away. I think of all the ones who would have loved to have me in their arms. But i ache alone. I turn to look at what should be the joy of my life, he is fast asleep amidst the crowd. I can only politely refuse the offers of other gentlemen and ache alone for arms that i would never know or have.

These are dark secrets i can speak to no one. No one cares. And, they will not understand. They have not lived the million lives i have. They do not know the hundreds of times i have fallen and risen. I wake. I exist now. I come alive in occasional moments sparkling with my old vivaciousness, my mind and spirit free and soaring. Then, the raised eyebrows of society reminds me of what i should be. They look at my bare arms, they look at the fact that rules do not apply to me and why they should. And, the old familiar icy coldness descends in to me. I remember that i am a married woman, a woman in a dead marriage that i can scarce talk about.

I weep no longer. Tears are still a sign of hope. My tears have dried up. I wonder how long this can go on ? And, then you came in to my life. Reminding me of all what I was. Bringing a promise. And, I ache for you now. I ache for the life I know we cannot have.'

Mitra stopped reading. She had forgotten the presence of others in the room. The child snuggled up to her for warmth, not understanding the words but sensing some deep emotion. Dia and Margaret had not spoken a word. Dia got up slowly, and went out. She came back with a glass of water which she silenty handed over to Mitra.

It was then that Mitra cried. Like she could never stop. - From 'Six Tits' - my upcoming novel

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