You know none of us know when we are falling in love. We do not even see it coming. But time, time lets you develop all these forbidden feelings.

The worst pain is falling for someone who warned you not to fall for them a long time ago.

And still you end up being madly in love with them. You try to say its not love. Its obsession, possession , infatuation, anything but love. Then, these feelings that you pushed down starts heating up your chest and you know that the only way to finally feel free is to let them know that you love them.

You know what they will say "I told you not to fall for me. I cannot be with you."

Yeah, these words hurt. But its even worse when they say

"I haven't healed yet. I have not moved on yet. You cannot replace that one person. Ever"

I am so confused and lost here. I will not blame myself for this. You were the most amazing person I have ever had the privilege of knowing. You gave me strength. You gave me the power to feel vulnerable. Now I cant be with you? Because I have the most purest feelings for you?

I know that this world is cruel and my small head and tiny perspective won't help me understand this. I do not care anymore. I can read, dance, paint , talk with others, sing songs , study or do whatever. You will always be there in my head and heart. You face and your smile. I know that your eyes twinkle when you look at me. What are you so afraid of ? Another heartbreak? I cannot promise you forever but I will be here for you. You have to heal yourself and let me be the bandage to help heal those wounds.

And now all I feel is this longing for you. Someone that can never be mine. Its not like you wish that you will never be mine but you just can't. That's what you said to me , right?

I was down on my knees for you

Never felt this way for any man

I swallowed my pride for you

My ego dissolved in your heart

Your acidic heart

I want to help you heal

I want you to help me heal

Let us make bandages

Apply our love as medicine

And let this love heal the poison

We have injected inside each other

I endured the slow passage of time for you

You were worth all the wait

With every passing second I craved for your presence

And when I finally felt you

It felt like the world made sense to me

this complex, chaotic , cruel world

seemed like home to me

I am happy to be alive

Just so that I could feel and welcome your

warm embrace that melts my walls

You are a feather wrapped in layers of toxic waste

It is hard to cure you, my love.

But I am trying

for you

because to me, you are worth it all.

Humans are cursed creatures. We will find something that lacks in anything, no matter how fulfilling our lives might be. There is always something missing. In a way, this a driving force that helps us set goals and aspirations. And we keep working or doing something to keep our minds occupied. A life idleness is fit for no individual, for we are creatures who starts to loathe comfort and safety as there are no black holes in it. We wander on and on searching for eternal happiness, abandoning anything that seems to bring us only a little bit of joy.

I lived a life of comfort, security and safety. My mother and I resided on the tenth floor of our flat. The view, was beautiful. Tall trees with lush green pillows on its heads, surrounded by smaller flats and houses, with smooth roads and cars like adult cockroaches with red and yellow lights. I ate incredible food and did simple chores. I had my privacy. I was supposed to be happy. But I wasn't. I had no friends. Nobody around my age to talk to. I was lonely.

So I started writing letters. Yes, the old fashioned, almost non existent method of communicating with someone who resided miles away from you. I know exactly how I found him. It was during the first week of April. We had exchanged letters on February but I never replied to his final letter. He wanted to meet me on a date. I cannot explain why I never replied to that letter. Maybe, I felt overwhelmed. Too soon? I did not even know him well enough. Both of us were able to contact each other through an online newsletter for connecting with individuals with a similar taste in music. I could have signed up for the "find your love" one, but I decided to try out this. Receiving letters is one of the most exciting things ever. In letters, you end up expressing way more than what you would express through text. It is deep, moving and wholesome. All those little details. When your fingers trace through the words the other person has written , the smell of the ink, the feel of the light paper between your fingertips. It is a majestic experience.

He was just a normal person. So normal. A bit funny. There was a little intellectual connection. A lot of sexual tension. And the emotional intimacy we felt for each other was quite surprising for him.

"It has been a long time since I felt this way for someone" he told me. And this was during the first week of April. My ego and inner romantic soul felt validated. I am that special someone to a heartbroken man. Will I be the one to heal him? The one to bring him out of his darkness? Over a span of seven days, the two of us got to know a lot about each other. We send letters, the size of college essays. Detailing almost anything we wanted to talk about.

The first week of April was sweet, short and peaceful. I never anticipated a storm coming. A storm in my heart, him being the dark clouds, the rain and the wind. I assumed he was sunlight. We never see it coming. There was nothing about him that fascinated me. He was just so normal. Good looking , intelligence of the average person, and wrote simple words. Like Murakami. Short sentences. Small paragraphs. Lots of details left up to the imagination. That was it, I think. I did not anticipate how my life would change over the next couple of months. All I had to do was stay home, do chores, paint, write and keep in touch with a lot of my friends spread over in different parts of the country.

One of the most profound teachings of Taoism is to not resist the flow of events. One must adopt the principles of water, floating along the paths it created and becoming strong when faced with resistance. I had decided that this is how each day must pass for me. It is okay to exist, just breathing in air, observing surroundings, interacting with close ones and writing more letters for him. I had spend days pondering about the purpose of my existence and what great things shall I achieve in future. To achieve all that, I need to start working hard to meet the goal.

However, if I starve for my art, I stop living today. I wrote to him about my dilemma, mentioning that I am worried if I will never come around and fail to meet societal expectations of a well secured future. He replied, "You shall come around, whenever you want to. One must not be worried or anxious about the future. Do little everyday. Take baby steps. And it is okay to fall back. You are still young and you are learning. You will get there eventually."

It is these little things about him that truly mattered to me. Gentle, reassuring words that he wrote were like warm hugs to me. More than any romantic element, it was humanity and compassion. I appreciated that about him a lot. I went on, like a piece of wood floating on a river by exchanging letters with him. Instead of calling each other through video, we would send each other pictures. How elated I would feel going through his pictures, his innocent smile and his bright eyes the color of honey. We helped each other make meaning out of our mundane lives. We received each other's letters every three days. We were never tired to write and write for each other. His letters were the flame to my candle wick. I was existing all along, sometimes in misery, sometimes in pain , sometimes in happiness, pondering about life. Now he was brightening up my days like no other human being has ever done before. Love was the last thing on my mind. I was grateful for the company. He was, too. Nothing would go wrong in April. It was only the beginning of a ride I was never prepared for. It is hard for me to remember all the details of every single thing about our conversations because I burnt all those letters later on. Around nine months later.

April was warm and bright. Not too bright, just comfortable enough for the eyes. That is exactly how he was like to me.

"There was a time when my friends and I would cut classes and roam around at the lake behind our university. I have attached a picture of all of us sitting on top of some rocks here. I was so carefree and happy those days. I was not worried about a job or money or anything whatsoever. Now fatigue and job stress have not just affected me mentally but physically too. This was four years ago by the way."

My eyes grazed through the smiling faces of four young men and a girl. I spotted him almost immediately. His face was etched with a big smile and his body looked tinier. He looked fragile and I could feel myself wanting to give him a tight hug. He had graduated college and is working now. I was still in college. Just second year. An age gap of five years never bothered us. We were just two adults bonding over music and life through letters. He had a beard now. His eyes had lost some of its shine. But his smile remained as beautiful and bright as ever. I felt the overwhelming desire to make him happy. His carefully crafted face with his delicate features hypnotized me. I was already stuck in his web. I never knew that he did not intend for me to get stuck in his web.