by Anupama Krishnakumar
Who are you? And where are you?
Are there a million ways to fall in love with you? Or just one? Or none at all?
Would you be the one with expressive brown eyes that flit rhythmically behind that book you hold in your hands?
Would you be the one whose reflection I get a momentary glimpse of, on the window panes of a store?
Would you be the captivating face that I encounter on a street on an ordinary day?
Would my falling in love with you be compressed into one epiphanic moment?
Or would it be an experience that evolves over time?
Would we realise love over conversations? Or would we, over beads of silence strung together delicately over busy days and quiet nights?
Would you love tennis like I do? Or would I love music like you do? Or would we love books like we both do?
Would ours be friendship that distils into love?
Would it take days? Or months? Or years?
Would I say it with flowers? Or would you say it with poems?
Would I express myself over a game of Scrabble? Or would you, by drawing red hearts over a game of tic-tac-toe?
Or would our affection, quite differently, be a silent, unspoken piece of understanding?
Would we be the kind that never finds the need to explicitly express love?
Would we be similar? Or would be starkly different and still be madly in love?
Would I find you in the pink of my youth? Or when my heydays are beyond me? Or, would I find you at all?
(And if and when I do…)
Would love be the stuff of dreams, fairy tale-like? Or would it be rooted in practicality?
Would love be a guiding light? Or would it be a spark of madness?
Would love heal wounds as they say? Or would it inflict pain and leave scars forever on the soul?
Would our love vaporise into thin air over a heated argument and then crystallise into kisses as we cool down?
Would I love you madly enough to let you go, as much as I would want to hold you back? Would you love me that way too?
The questions are boundless. And they don’t cease, my dear.
For now, they float around like restless butterflies, fluttering impatiently.
You’re probably the flower they are looking for. The one I am too.
Who are you? And where are you?
Are there a million ways to fall in love with you? Or just one? Or none at all?
