Musing

'Is it okay to love someone more than they love us?' You raise your head at my question, looking at me as if I've grown an extra head.

'I am not saying I love you or anything,' I say, 'It's just a hypothetical question.'

You stare at me for a long moment and I start to get self conscious. You have never looked so forlorn and there has never been this undercurrent of tension between us.

'It's okay,' you say softly, 'to sometimes love someone more than they will ever love you.'

'Why?' I ask you belligerently. I wasn't expecting this answer from you and it has thrown me off the loop. I had imagined a lot of responses, but not the one you've given me.

You take off your glasses and gently put it atop the open book. You look tired.

Are you not taking care of yourself these days?

'We are fundamentally different from one another, aren't we?' you start. 'Every individual is the product of his environment and his formative years. People feel emotions differently. Their reactions to the said emotions are different. So, often in relationships, one partner is more understanding of the needs and desires of another partner. Relationships are the best example of compromise. So, in most relationships, it is given that one partner does feel the emotions more strongly than the other.'

Is it so easy? Is that what really is between us? Scientific explanation of a compromise driven companionship?

I hate your answer. I know it's irrational and childish to do so, but maybe I wanted to hear something else.

'Couldn't you say something else?' I childishly pout as I walk to where you sit, looping my arms around your neck as I rest my chin on your shoulders.

'Like what?'

'Anything else than this-this oversimplified explanation!'

'I only know this simplified stuff to comfort myself,' you answer sadly, raising your head to look into my eyes. We are so close, so close that I see the flecks of grey in your otherwise blue eyes. 'Why do you need comforting?' I ask.

'Don't you know?' you retort. 'But you never do,' you mutter to yourself, shaking your head.

'What don't I know?'

I prize myself on knowing everything about you. From your likes to dislikes, needs to desires. I know when you fall asleep and when you wake up, when you are hungry and when you are only humouring me. I know every look on your face. I know when you're attracted to somebody. I know when you find someone extremely tiresome.

I like to think of it as my consolation prize. Recompense if you will, of falling in love with a man who is unattainable.

'What don't I know?' I ask again.

My hands are still around your throat, my chin at your shoulder. Your face is still turned in my direction, cheeks brushing, lips too close.

'This,' you whisper as you bridge the distance, your warm breath falling on my half-open lips before your lips do. It's just a touch, tad too sweet and brief to be called a kiss, too momentous to be real. It's a gentle press of your mouth against mine. My heart is so loud; I can almost hear it in my ears. I move away.

'What is this?' I ask timidly, uncertainly.

'Don't you know? But then you never do,' you answer, dejected. You turn your face away and like a fool I am staring at the skin at the back of your ears.

'How am I supposed to know,' I say trying to feel brave, 'when you've never said anything? When you've never given any indication of how you feel about me?'

Like a python ready to strike, you turn to face me. Your eyes are displeased, intense and brows scrunched. Your pupils are so expanded that blue has darkened to almost black and is only a thin ring of colour around them.

'My every word to you is a love letter in my own head. Every glance that we share, every mundane touch is a testament to the relationship which is fundamental to who I am as a person. You know everything about me, I know everything about you. For me, us exists. It has always existed. So, is giving a name to it that necessary for you to understand that I burn in jealousy when you go out with those pathetic losers, when you come back and talk to me about how they make you feel? I try to hate your bright eyes and your laughing mouth, results of their thoughts in your head, but how can I? They are your eyes and it is your mouth. And every day I fall a little more in love. Some days I think it is madness, to love someone so much that I feel as if I am constantly drowning in it, that it is in every pore, every cell of my body. Some days, I hate myself for being this person, this weak man who can't help but love you...' You have run out of breath. I see the rapid rise and fall of your chest. This man I've known since we were kids, this complex beautiful man that I love so stupidly and so fiercely.

I press my mouth against yours in reply.

Unlike your earlier attempt at making me understand the depth of your feelings, mine isn't sweet or gentle. My fingers dig into the flesh at the back of your neck, our teeth knocking against each other. We laugh at the absurdity of it.

You pull me into your lap, on the chair that I've seen you sitting and working late into the nights, wondering about the lock of hair that always falls in the front of your face. It is a curious feeling to discover anew the face that I have held dear for so long. Your lips are full, the vertical depression at the centre of the bottom one making it look fuller than it is. I gently touch your mouth with my own, my nose bumping against yours. You tilt my head and bring me close. I touch your cheeks, the skin rough from the undergrowth of beard.

We look at each other, a moment suspended in time, naked emotions peering from our eyes to look at their counterpart.

'Who am I to you?' I ask the question often repeated in late nights and tired, insecure moments.

'Everything,' you answer. Still the same answer you gave me all those years ago.

You kiss me.

You kiss me and my mind that never shuts up goes silent. It's blessed quiet that you gift me from your mouth and I drink it like a thirsty sinner abandoned in sands.

You taste of grapes and smell like ink. Your mouth is warm as it moves on mine, your hands steady and sure as they hold me.

Yes, I think. It is possible to love someone more than they love you. Inside your own head, that is.

Because they are thinking the same in theirs...

So, this is the product of a dream I had couple of days ago...