A Red-Orange Oath!

Just as I opened my chest bare to take another shot from the bullet, someone grabbed the gun before I could pull the trigger. She would not have hesitated if she had known that my chest is a desolate wasteland riddled with loopholes, and that the bullet would pass right through it without leaving a single wound.

They say that love is brave. If I had to romanticise love any further than it already is, I would use Ghalib's romantic language and say, "Love cannot be seeded into someone." It is a daunting fire to start, but once started, it is evenly hard to put out." However, an innate flaw in human nature causes us to misinterpret small acts of kindness as acts of love. We frequently misinterpret the meaning as "I value you," when the true meaning is "you merely exist." 

In love, we have a tendency to go to extremes. I loved a passerby from another planet despite being bankrupted by my emotions, devoid of god's tepidity, and infected by evil's devotion. Was I stupid, or was I too brave, because it cost me so much?

People will compel you to accept your previous presumption, and you will be 99 percent reassured by your foolishness until that weak voice in your soul murmurs about your bravery and you are led astray by an inch. This battle of psyche vs. soul has already sown seeds of ambiguity in you. You will denounce your heart for failing to recognise the red flags while instantaneously claiming credit for being brave enough to love again despite being broken for the 99th time.

The golden pedestal is upon you, and everything you must do is step on it to be recognised as an admirable millennial who embodies the purest adoration. You were about to stand up when your brain screamed, "You're making a fool of yourself!" You have a sense that the climax of your life is approaching, and you are exhausted. You've already made love the centre of your universe, and it's about to collapse. What would your reaction be?

You want to be constantly in love because it validates your existence in some way. You embody Dostoevsky's words "I exist" in yourself. I exist in millions of agonies. I'm tortured on the rack, but I'm still alive! Despite the fact that I sit alone in a pillar — I exist! Love makes it possible for you to exist. But then the shark bites you. Until the aroma of the food we prepare in the kitchen tempts us to stay inside the shed we call "home." We eat it for days, weeks, and months only to become bored with its taste and odour after a few years. The old mattress infuriates you, the corrupt blanket horrifies you, the cutlery at the sink's corner refuse to get over your hand, and the filthy curtains strangle you. Bricks turn into clay, and your home transforms into a house.

Except for love, everything changes. However, when you turn around, you notice that the sanctuary you built with has already collapsed. You're about to leave, but love won't let you go. You go back to where you started. "Was I stupid, or was I too brave to love, that it cost me so much?" you wonder once more. However, you discover that the person who once shared your shelter made of love has fled long before it collapsed, leaving you to be haunted by your questions for the rest of your life.

Pic credit-: AN