Love And Its Misgivings

By Ayushi Sharma

Yesterday I came down to a conclusion 

Can't remember if it was before or after the concussion.

It started when my friend asked what scares me the most 

I quietly contemplated as One friend said ‘heights’, another said ‘dark’, “I have no fears” a third one gloated. 

Now, nothing scares me as much as the idea of lost love

I'm not afraid of you lying, or cheating, or leaving me for someone pretty, smart, and tall. 

It's the notion that one day you'll stop loving me that makes my skin crawl. 

My biggest fear is that one Thursday morning you'll wake up next to me feeling empty and cold,

Instead of leaning to kiss my cheek, you'll look at my sleeping body and start noticing all of my flaws. 

How my nose is a little crooked, lips are chapped, and frown lines on my head make me look a little old,

You will think of my random spouts of jealousy, and when I'm anxious my nails dig into the skin of your hand like claws. 

Dear lover, one day you'll start despising everything you love about me

Our 'special bond' will become a thing of antiquity.  

You'll remember just how selfish I can sometimes be, 

We'll fall out of love for the same reasons we fell in it slowly and steadily. 

Your once endearing stubbornness would now become refusal to compromise, 

And my one track mind would now be immaturity. 

Your passion for photography would become money down the drain on cameras and lenses,

And my economically smart behaviour will make me a miser who complains about all expenses. 

Me asking you to do something and you putting it off will become off putting,

And my orderliness will become 'OCD'. 

Your spontaneity will become recklessness and irresponsibility,

And my work ethics and dedication would just be me not making time and giving the excuse that I'm busy. 

You'll walk into the kitchen barefooted and remember how I'd nag you for wearing socks around the house,while you make some coffee

You'll take a sip of the warm delight

Set the cup down and stare out of the window at the strangely dull sunlight, 

You'll stare down at your coffee, take a deep breath, and tightly shut your eyes 

You'll come to the conclusion 

That for no particular reason 

You don't love me anymore 

And for hours there you'll sit contemplating your decision. 

This, and then you'll look back to the time in college where you swore you'll only be in a relationship that makes you happy and being with me will seem like treason. 

And with everything in you you would want to leave me

If you're a genuine one, you'll actually mean it when you say " It's not you, it's me"

But the thing is, it won't matter whose fault it is because I will be the one retiring after today's match, run-out at just two short of a century.  

So with no way out, we'll be picking fights on the pettiest issues-

How you want all the books in the shelf to be arranged alphabetically, while I want them to go author-wise, and now there will be no meeting halfway or calling truce. 

My love for fiction will make me impractical for you

And your need to involve science and logic even though your 'reason' hurts my feelings would make you crude.

We'll eventually run out of things to talk about 

And when the once serene silence won't be comfortable anymore, will you show me the way out? 

You love writing and you honestly believed that I could be your muse

You'll give an abrupt finish to your story now, 

It'll end with me getting hit by a train, 

I didn't see it coming you will claim, 

But I do, I see it coming from far away, 

We'll be falling a little bit out of love every day. 

At this point I was shaken so I took out my phone to check for any indications of a text that read that you were leaving me

I sighed in relief when I saw no new messages on the screen

Sat down and read our old conversations, smiling every now and then in between.

I remembered when we first met, you said something uncanny 

I knew your claim was a bluff 

But I still smiled like an idiot and blushed. 

A message popped up on the screen, 'WARNING' it read ,

And like the space warning on my phone, our love is also running out of space and we'll have to get rid of our old feelings to make space for more I realised with dread. 

Our love is like this rented old apartment, something that we're bound to abandon, 

We can't own it up because we can't afford to, and nothing other than-waiting for the lease to end-that can be done. 

I'd rather lose you now 

Than live with the ghost of everything you were to me in tow. 

The love that lasts forever is the 'perfect love' they say, 

I think for me it will suffice to be a bad example anyway. 

You won't want to spend time with me, 

I'd become a mere backup option and last resort to you, the person for whom I had once been a priority. 

You see, I have strong opinions and views, 

But I have even stronger trust issues. 

I know that somewhere along the way we'll stop trying 

Perhaps it won't bother you, but I know I will end up crying. 

Doors after doors closing, when every door is closed,

One learns to climb through the window,

As peculiar as it may be, it's human nature I suppose

To love and live with weary cynicism is the only way I know. 

I have loved you like I have loved the winter skies, 

Loving it more and more everyday and then after some time the love fades, and yearning for the bright sun intensifies, 

So much so, that after one point I can't wait to get rid of the cold winter skies.