I like to think of you as a basket of starlight lilies. Sure, it is not the most beautiful flower that blooms prettily for her admirers. But so are you, with your half-scathing words that are lathered in sarcasm and served on a platter to fool the rest of the world.
I like to think of you as two hands holding when the sun is not looking at them anymore. I like to think of you, as the warmth that is enclosed in between those embracing palms, remains like the remnant of a story left unspoken. They are not sweat-kissed anymore, not like they were last afternoon when they laid, conjoined, each line, with its separate destination, congruent to the other, as if right there, in that very moment, they whispered to their destinies, fuck you.
I like to think of you as something akin to the bite-marks on my lower lip, the ones that I spend a lifetime giving to myself, when I catch you looking at me, as I try to look away, only hopelessly gazing at you once again.
What would they say? What would they say if they ever read my eyes, peeped into my thoughts, turned a blade through my heart and bled out its secrets?
Will they be ashamed?
Or more importantly, would you be ashamed?
I like to think of you as the interludes between Madonna serenading to some bearded Mexican fellow to ‘La Isla Bonita’, when those unknown instruments go tip-tap-tipper-tapper to the tone of something tangibly untouchable.
I like to think of you as someone I have touched, in some forgotten dream, perhaps in another lifetime, and now, I am just a ghost, retracing those old roads, hoping they would lead me to you. Who knows? Perhaps we will meet somewhere in between and lie to each other, saying they were crossroads, before walking away.
I like to think of you as a forbidden fruit, one that I have already tasted. But the gods were cruel. Their punishment was to make me forget how you did taste in the space between my lips and teeth, the warmth that I must have felt when the droplets of you trickled down onto the flesh below my teeth, warming my mouth, warming whatever was left of my soul.
I like to think of you as the secrets friends share when even the moon hides in the night. I like to think of as those secrets that the stars steal away from them, when those shining tricksters peep out of their cloudy caverns to listen to their words.
And I would keep counting, counting endlessly, until I remember all that I think of you, until you remember that maybe, just maybe, I like you to think of me too.
The Indian Bibliophile 