The revolving door of women in my life should indicate success in matters of love, but when I woke up today after dreaming about one of them, I was distraught at first and mildly irritated later. It did not help that the room was moist, hot, and filled with pulsating warm air. It only got hotter from then on, and I kept thinking about the list of mundane nothingness, settling for answers without forming a proper question. I did my job and attended meetings where many people said nothing about nothing. And now, I am back to where I was: the corner I sleep on in the bed. This whole day has been one of an impossible longing.
No matter how I look at it or phrase it, love eludes me. It comes at the wrong time, or it knocks and leaves before I have a chance to open the door, and often, it sits silently for too long and only when I get up to go out the door does it call my name, but the words get lost amidst the loud bustle of life outside the cafe, and swoosh out the door like a piece of paper caught in a draft. It comes in sly sweet nothings I know not to entertain and finds a way to get under my skin anyway, and then, like a fever you do not know the cause of, it takes its sweet time to go, and even when the temperature comes down, the sniffles and the lethargy leave like unexpected guests, and when I crawl out of bed and feel like a person again, I meet another, down the street or at a party or in some yard in some event, and that, too, is a little too early or a little too late. Of course, I learn this much later, and then, I have a secondhand regret over a life, the existence of which I did not know until I learn about it with a coy remark about how I did not catch their drift, or how it would have been different had I said something different.
I reckon the universe can only help you so much. It can lead you to the counter carrying the winning lottery ticket. The ticket sits on the counter. You pause to buy gum. There goes it, there goes your chance, there goes the love of your life because you paused someplace, not out of hesitation, but because you’re so very human. You bend to tie your shoelaces. Someone else cuts the line. There it goes, there it all goes.