SHe

Lately she had been checking in and​ out too often in his thoughts for him to pass her off as a fleeting attraction. Because there was something about her which had made her one of the main characters of his story. At least in the story that he kept writing in his head but could never put down on paper, Mostly because the plot changed the characters changed or the reflection in the mirror changed too often for him to know what his story was all about, or what role he played in this story.

But he knew she was part of it even though she didn’t. He liked the way she would pay no attention to the curls on her forehead but still make him skip a beat. Or Maybe that was because he would always find peace and calm in her presence. He would notice every movement she made and every emotion that her face would portray. The face she would make to tell him she wanted to have the last morsel of food from his plate. He was able to understand if she was not feeling well just by the presence of cherry lip balm on her lips. She smelled like cherry on most days. But he never saw sadness. This concerned him deeply. Since he was a fan of nostalgia one who could not throw away old pens or notebooks, he knew he cannot leave sadness behind. Because he occasionally enjoyed that too. He started questioning what good he would be to her. Certainly he did not want to be the imperfection to the perfect her. And there went, the thought of professing his love to her.

But he had to do something for her. He wanted to do something for her. He did what came most naturally to him; ‘He wrote a song’ well at least he started to. That's when he remembered how he stopped writing love songs entirely. Not because of a heart break but because he was tired of rhyming “Love” with “stars above”. That’s the cross you have to bear when you have the heart of a poet but the vocabulary of a kindergartener.

All he wanted her to understand was the context. Her context in his life. He knew it was not necessary that he loved her. He could definitely live without her. But it’s the existence of her that lights up his dull ordinary life. It’s the existence of her that he loved.