In Some Sea

Dhruv, I've known you only a few days—mere handful of days. Can two people grow so close in so little time? Can one touch another's soul with merely the tips of their fingers? Why are you so beautiful, Dhruv? Your labor, your sweat, your dreams, the story of how you've grown, your poverty, your struggles... why is everything about you so achingly beautiful? Tell me.

I'm afraid I'm falling in love with you. I want to walk from street to street, lane to lane, village to village and tell everyone how tender you are. You told me that before me, others had entered your life, but none of them had loved you the way you deserved—no one had ever bound you to the corner of their cotton sari.

I don't know, Dhruv, if my cotton sari has the power to hold you in its knot, and I can't promise you that this bohemian soul of mine will stay with you till the very end. But will you let me love you? I haven't surrendered my heart, my spirit, my body to anyone for so, so long! Will you give me that chance? Just let me try!

You are more beautiful than my imagination, and your eyes—they are even more beautiful than that. It seems I have lost everything peering through the glass of your spectacles into those deep, sleepless eyes of yours. I've deposited all my dreams there in yellow envelopes, scrambled my path forward, drowned in some distant sea!

Why do you look at me that way, sideways like that? My heart was pounding, you know? I'm promising you now—I will never open my eyes fully before you, will never let my gaze plunge into yours, or else you'll drink up everything I have left, you'll leave me bankrupted. No, no, I won't let that happen. I'll stay beyond your reach. Just let me have the permission to love you a little?

I don't want anything from you, Dhruv—not love in return, not devotion, not a life together, never. Just let me love you. There's so much love lodged in this heart, frozen on my lips, held in my eyes... Just once, give me permission, and I will offer myself to you completely! I will love you from a distance so fiercely that no one else will dare approach you, I will cherish you from afar so tenderly that another's touch will make your skin crawl.

Give me the chance to be that seventeen-year-old girl again, wild and mad and stubborn in love, let me shatter into pieces and love you once more, Dhruv! Let me bind your dreams, your sacrifice, your labor, your blood, your sweat to my sari's edge.

I wait for your answer. Don't keep me waiting too long! One who has been loved so fiercely can have powder kegs ignite in their chest and be torn to pieces! I'm begging you for myself, my dear!