PAPER BOATS

PAPER BOATS

Back then I wondered how easy it would be to just write down my feelings on a paper and make paper boats out of it so that I could just wander them away in the flowing water so that they could go far far away from me when you went away or when I went away. I remember this monsoon I was sitting on the window sill with a warm cup of coffee by my side, thinking of you. The sill leaves a mark on my thighs just to remind me for how long I was sitting there with a pen in my hand confused whether to choose ruled pages or blank pages to write you a letter. Because ruled pages have boundaries they come with and blank pages I could just pour my heart right into them with all I have. So I stared tearing pages out my ruled notebook and very meticulously measuring them into a square in a triangle in a triangle in a paper boat. I spent that monsoon without you. I came downstairs and tried to get my boats to float in the flowing muddy water by the road. It’s funny these things never turnout the way you want them to, the paper soaked all the water and the boats sank even before they got a chance to wander. I remember we making plans wandering off from this city and end up by the lake. I remember you liked going to the lake sunset o’clock and watching the horizon. You know I never liked this city, but it always brought me to you and you to me and we always ended up meeting weirdly. The paper got darker as it sank and every word on that paper blotted. I put the boats in one by one, one after the other and watched as they refused to put up a fight they sank so quietly as if it was always meant to be that way. I remember whenever you were sad I always asked you if you would like to eat something because I know only food would make you happy. I liked thinking that I was what you thought I was, I remember do you, so I would always sit a little straighter and take up small bites and whenever we eat the street food it was too spicy I would will my nose not to run. Words also would get choked in my throat a lot as I thought they weren’t interesting when they were half way out or I thought they weren’t funny enough and I didn’t want to make a joke that you didn’t laugh at, as I always thought you were this idea of perfection idea of how love should be, I didn’t want you to see any flaws in me. I don’t know how you managed to talk so much with me. I liked that every time we met unheralded, times when you were you and every time I would see every single detail of you and realize how beautiful you are. I always wrote you letters when you went away or when I went away or when we felt lonely in the same city. It’s a big city and sometimes you do just be lonely even when you are holding hands. When we were learning science our teacher told us that the universe is constantly expanding so it made sense I told myself that when I went to the lake now the further and further slipping of horizon that looked at us had nothing to do with me or my first experience of loneliness it was just science and even it wasn’t it was much bigger than I was. This was the time when the sun started setting and became fickle orange and then slowly started turning into red warning signs and this is when I stopped going to the lake. I remember you called and I was sleeping but I always answered your calls, I said hello and you took a long pause of silence and I could hear your breath and tell that my letter hadn’t reached you and I wish I would have swallowed them instead of sailing them to you so that you could smell them over my breath over the telephone that pungent smell of love and fear not a good combination. So now I wrote my last letter to you on blank pages a piece of four things so that you could keep each piece in each chamber of you heart and with every beat and breath it would say I love you! The monsoon is gone now; I don’t think once again trying to sail my boats to you would make sense. So I decided to give them to you by myself.