As I boarded the plane my stomach felt like it was doing cartwheels and my anxiety seemed to be climbing a mountain with every minute. This wasn’t a bad feeling but more of an over excitement of seeing you after so long. It felt like ages had passed by since I last touched your face and stroked my hand over the stubble where your beard once called home. I was so excited, but I wanted to play it cool, so you don’t feel like I’m smothering you with my presence. I wonder if you remember me the way I remember you. Do you miss the curves of my body and lying under the heap of blankets while looking out in the sky knowing there was no better place in the world? Thank God I slept through most of the flight or else I would’ve felt as if my world would explode with the anticipation of seeing your smile from afar as I walk towards you.
As soon as I landed I rushed to find an Uber as the countdown began. This trip was very last minute. I didn’t expect to see you at least for another year. I couldn’t be happier I was ending 2018 with your embrace. I could feel your excitement and energy as I got closer to the hotel. Would you recognize me? Would you look at me the same way with awe and appreciation the way you did last time? I know we didn’t have centuries but just a couple of days before I would have to say goodbye, but I was still looking forward to holding your hand as if we had lifetimes left with each other. I never imagined you’d be this important to me or that I would even get the chance to say goodbye exactly the way we painted it.
As I entered your vicinity, I could feel my heart beating faster and the rush of love filling every inch of my heart. As soon as I saw you look at me, I knew your breath was taken away leaving you with a loss of words. I didn’t realize how starved I was until I saw you and it filled every empty space within me. Seeing you filled every inch of my heart and every butterfly came alive. Everything that was wrong in the world disappeared with the city noises as the background music for our reunion. The skyscrapers around us watched as spectacles of our love and the sun shined a little brighter just to show off your mischievous smile. Oh, your smile, the way it grips my heart and suddenly the entire world disappears along with my sanity. I could help but to rush over to you and hug you letting your scent take over my body and sending me to a different world. Did you know the power you had over me? The times that I was miles away and I couldn’t stop talking about you. The way I described your face and the way you moved like a beautifully written song heard by every person I passed. It’s hard to put you in words, songs, poems, letters, nothing sums up what you mean to me because I love you in ways, I have never loved anyone else. I wish I could tell you the moment I fell for you but there were so many. I’m not sure if it was in the bitterness of winter when your warmth found a way under my skin to shield me from the harsh winds. Maybe it was when the spring blossoms hugged everyone, and your kisses made the sun shine a little brighter. All love stories start off with a beginning, the moment of free-fall but I can’t seem to figure that out with you. You don’t always have to find the reason you love someone; your heart chooses before your mind gets a say. I didn’t fall in love with you, no, I walked into love with you. My eyes wide open, choosing to run every step along the way because this wasn’t the first time our souls met. We meet in every life, I knew it the day I met you and we sat across that restaurant waiting for our old fashioned.
Our day started off with the sun shining down bringing out your eyes in a way that made me want to melt down to the very ground we were standing on. You couldn’t help but to contain yourself as your hands wrapped around my waist and your lips kept finding its place on my face. You were excited to walk with me in every way to every corner if it took me to my happy place. I wish you knew how head over heels in love I was, scratch that, am with you. That it didn’t matter if we were at Nobu or hiding away in a hole in the wall Greek restaurant on W 58th whispering to each other of the nights we’ve spent getting lost in the land of souls, but I just wanted to be with you at the end of the day. Everything about you sparks a fire in me that to this day I haven’t been able to diffuse. While others can see the parts of you that is crass and dirty I’m simply oblivious. It’s like I have these blinders over me when I’m in your light and nothing in the world could taint the image I have. I love our time that takes me from the sun to the moon and lost in the stars. I love laying under the millions of layers as you caress me as an artist who admires his favorite work of art. Feeling every bump and admiring every color that touches the canvas. As I fall into our nook and you hold me as if we have the entire day, I wonder how long I have to bask in your love. You kiss my forehead as I look outside the window watching the snow fall as it’s getting ready to blanket every inch of the city. You’re always here for me even if it’s for a couple of days or hours. I find myself running back to you when life hits me too hard or even when I’m in a good place and I just want to update you on what’s going on. I wanted you in the bluntest ways. I wanted your lips, hands arms, your cold, warmth and even the roughness about you that some people didn’t understand. I wanted you the way the oceans want the shore, constantly reaching for more and running back to your every call. I wanted you the way the rain wants to fall, the way the sun wants to shine through every window and the way words want to be read. I could spend days, hours, minutes, seconds wrapped all around you and it wouldn’t be enough. When I’m with you, everything stops and there’s no where else in world I can imagine more beautiful than your eyes looking back on mine and I’m a person who always wants to be somewhere else. Maybe we’ve known each other in every life before this and in each of them have found our way to one another. Just like the centuries before this and the many existences that we may thrive in I knew our time to part was coming.
The last day with you I held on to every second, every minute and every hour I could in your embrace. I held your hand tighter distracting myself with the strange faces surrounding us. I was so amazed by you in those last few hours. How did you manage to make me melt even when my heart was building a wall against you? As we crossed the street parading around in our familiar places in the same spots, we sit in I couldn’t help but keep my lips near your face. This time with you was different, it was one I wasn’t sure when I’d ever see you again, but I was okay with it if it meant just more moments of you grabbing my waist and bringing you closer to me as if we were the only ones in the world. The clock was ticking louder and faster and I felt like Alice as I followed you towards the hotel to grab my things. Right there I could feel my heart tug from Queens all the way to the Upper East Side. It was as if all the butterflies in my stomach were dying as the minutes with you were flying by.
There was a darkness that rushed over me that I cannot put into words, in any language. It’s one I haven’t felt before as it carried me into the Uber to take me back to the airport. I’m not sure what this feeling is called but I’ll give it your name. Don’t’ worry I won’t put it here for the world to scold you for leaving my heart in pieces and a hole so big no matter what I do it remains empty. I’ll whisper your name to the moon when he asks me why the tears are falling and he’s trying to show me the light. I’ll tell the sun in passing as she’s beaming down to show me the way. I’ll cry to the stars when I’m alone and lost in this world without your face. It would be wrong to call this sadness. Almost an insult. My heart isn’t sad, it’s destroyed, shattered, drowning and finding any grasp of air it can. It’s as if all my pieces are everywhere and I can’t even reach them to put it back in place. There are some I don’t think I even got back from you when I left. Loving you was the finest form of self-destruction. It was dancing on the edge of the tallest building, crossing the busiest streets, walking blocks away from the safe zone just to get a few moments of heaven. My mind told me many times not to do this again, not to follow your winds, but my heart pulled to whatever direction you ran. As I sat in the airport, I kept replaying all our scenes together. The times you grabbed my hand and danced with me in the kitchen to the music of our hearts or the silence we shared that was more beautiful than any song I’ve ever heard. The nights we laid next to each other talking of the inner workings of our minds to the veins the ran over our hearts. I thought of the moments I couldn’t stop laughing and, in my hysteria, I caught you just staring at me as if you’d never seen this movie before. I was scared to go home but as I got back on that airplane, I knew that even I couldn’t plan the next time my hands would grace over your face as you pushed my hair behind my ears to kiss me as if it was the first time your lips met mine. I could drown in your eyes and fall in the black hole of your love till the end of time, but I knew I had to pull myself together.
It’s been over three weeks since I’ve seen you but not one night has passed that my heart doesn’t remind me of the distance. During the day it’s much easier to distract myself even though you sneak your way into my thoughts. Nights are the most difficult when I lay there alone looking over to where you once graced the lands of life and dreams. Sometimes I find myself amongst loved ones looking for ways to bring you up. To talk about what we did together or how you scrunched up your nose in laughter when my southern accent came out. Your memories make way to every conversation I have whether I even put the effort or not. Some days I’m okay and the next I feel so lost as if I’m walking down the path and I don’t even know where to go. I can’t even walk into my nail salon without everyone asking how my time with you was. I find you in the strangest places around town. In places I go thinking there is know trace of your existence and in places with your color all over the wall. I lay at night and turn to the window looking for the snow to fall the same way it did that last night with you, but I know it’s never going to be the same. When the rain falls, I wait for your song to be played but the wind chimes are my only friend. I browse in coffee shops in search of your smell and words that remind me of the way you filled my life with energy. I cannot unlove you no matter how hard I try. I cannot forget the way your arms pulled me closer to you in the middle of the night. I look for your name in every song but fail to find you. Our love was one that no one can deny. It was one that you could see from millions of miles away. It was one that I have strangers ask me about as if you’ve left your imprints all over my body. It’s one that the first few minutes of meeting someone they ask me of my love for you that comes through even when I spend hours before hiding it.
Even if we have to say goodbye and I never see you at this cross section again, I hope I stay ingrained in your life. I hope you remember our endless conversations, our silence that sang musicals, all my quiet smiles and hysterical laughs. I hope you know in our next life you have no excuses. You have no reason to leave me in the dark. I hope you never lay alone at night doubting your self-worth. I hope you know that you’re always loved, beyond where the stars reach the heavens and that no matter where life takes you, I hope you carry a piece of me within you, New York. I will always and forever love you in this life and the next to come for our souls will always find their way back home to each other.
Love Always,
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The Bengali Belle 