Dear Sakhi
Often, when you're telling tales of your experiences, I realize just how wide the age gap between us is. You keep those guileless stories flowing, and all I know to do is listen. So I do. I hear your stories all night, a sweet smile lingering over my lips. I never have much to say to people, but at night my mind melts away and walls crumble down. The person who struggles to speak for just five minutes ends up on a call with you for hours.
I often wonder, why is it always midnight when we call or text? Perhaps because there’s no one left to disturb us. Or maybe because the world is only filled with the soft songs of insects and calm. Who knows. Maybe it’s the stillness of these hours that lets us unfold our layers.
So far away, you live in a different world. One that never lets you open your wings and fly. One that works only to chain you to the ground, to rip your wings from your back. My heart cries to create a place for you
where no one preys or judges,
where no eyes hunt you and no silence binds you,
where your voice is never unheard.
Dear, please wait for me to build that place.
So tangled up you are in threads of responsibility, didi, and still you carry it all with a lucent smile. I watch you, and I feel warmth. I learn from you, about life, about people, about being kind.
Sometimes I fall victim to wonder.
How have our paths tangled like this?
You live so far away, and yet how are we so close?
Still, there are parts of you I haven’t seen.
I envy those who live with you, who see every part of you:
the way you dance alone and mess around the house, mischief in your eyes.
The way your eyes and silence once conveyed anger,
something you've now learned to temper.
The way your voice shifts with your moods.
The way you paint your face with the little makeup you know.
The way your hair stays tied back as you work through everything.
The few moments we’ve spent under the same sky are pressed into memory. I’ve seen you clearly, and all I feel is care for your dear soul.
We talk about meeting again, doing things together. But we both know the truth, distance may never allow it.
Oh didi, how do I share the depth of my feelings with you?
It is not romance we share.
It’s something more pure.
Like Prem.
The kind that does not know distance.
The kind that is white like clouds, or like swans.
The kind that does not want to take, only to give all it can.
You know, sometimes I tear up, overwhelmed by these feelings.
...
What has happened?
We talk so much, yet now that I try to write it all down,
I can’t remember a single detail.
A.V
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