Is This How Love Happens?
By Pooja Salvi
You see them across the room against so many people. You see them against so many living souls. You see them move around so comfortably in their skin, talk noiselessly, smile cautiously. They look around with certain haste. Their eyes only gaze through these inanimate people and linger on you. You see them and you want to know them.
You want to know their struggles, their pain, and the anecdotes to their pain, their story. You want to know if their story is incomplete. Is it though? Is your incomplete story finishing theirs? Do your paths meet? Or do they just brush ever so slightly that they just evade meeting?
You want to know if they care. Care about anything — about life- about smiles, little tears, chuckles, giggles, laughter, memories, people. Because, you know, caring is such a big part of life. It shows what matters to them and what doesn’t. It shows why it matters. And let’s just assume that they don’t. What will you do then?
You want to know their experiences. No, you don’t want to be a clingy douche or pry in their matters. You just want to know them. Know them through and through.
You feel a static. The stolen glances, the anticipated breathlessness on seeing them, the butterflies you feel when they touch you, the rush when they press their lips on your forehead, the fire when their body is pushed against yours. The warmth when they are with you.
You wonder if this excitement — this rush, the static, the amazement of it all — is short lived. You wonder if this will take a little to grow on you, on the both of you. You wonder if you are hoping for this bliss to last: hoping that this won’t be a miserably crippling memory. You wonder if this excitement will last long. You don’t want it to go passive.
When you are beginning to like someone, everything is in control. Your moods, your decisions, your day-to-day activities, your emotions, you. You think you are in control of every damn thing. Then you start falling for them — deeper into them, harder for them. it is then that you lose control. You don’t go all berserk, no. You just don’t care enough to think about it. You don’t want to.
All this while, you thought you had love under control. But instead, love had you.