Unlike us, pain doesn’t have boundaries.  It doesn’t select from the colour of our hair to the texture of our skin.  It respects no culture, not even the races in between us. I cannot be the exception, but maybe you are.

As you stare at the inbox in your outlook, while you casually read and deleted my mails, I sat here tortured by your ghost.

I missed you, I wrote.

“I missed you when I know I shouldn’t.  I know I don’t love you. Love in my vocabulary runs deeper than this. Whatever it is, it isn’t love…But I missed you…so, please bear with me”.

I don’t expect you to reply. I am quite prepared to accept your silence.   But with every mail sent, the gossamer hope flutters around me for days.  A week after, I’d still be hoping, and making excuses for your silence. I cannot count the number of times I said this: you must be somewhere with no internet access. That should explain everything, and for a stupid heart, that is enough.  Anything is acceptable than the truth. 

Then the week multiplies, turning into months with no word from you. It hurts because there is no way I can see through the pain of rejection than to face it. I doubt if you can ever imagine how it feels to be this hopeless and hopeful at the same time.  No one could comfort me, because I don’t deserve it. I brought it on to myself, you might say. I was the one who created all these clouds beneath your feet; put you on a pedestal, and allowed myself to be mesmerized.   

No, I don’t think my friends could understand; surely, not this whatever you may call it.  I wouldn’t even try. 

How can one explain faith as opposed to reality?

There was nothing there between us, nothing to hold me to you. The few times we were able to talk, there was nothing to talk about. Sometimes, English, which is both our secondary language, seems to be the only thing we have in common. Other times, there was nothing at all. Our punch lines get lost, either in delivery or intonation. 

But I know you, as absurd as that may sound.  My soul recognized yours from a hundred others.

My friends don’t know, and probably never will, of how it feels to look at you. I cannot describe it, but it is comparable to the sensation one gets when witnessing the break of dawn. Achingly beautiful that for a moment it seems the whole world is just held speechless.  I could look at you with a million eyes, and it still wouldn’t be enough. Or, this world could just fall around us, and it wouldn’t matter.

1680 hours had passed since I last saw you. A hundred thousand miles separate you from this private hell. I heard that you had been partying like crazy in your hometown. I wonder how many hearts have you captured, or unintentionally broken lately? Do you even know? Would you care?  Does anyone in your life ever care?

I want to know what makes you fall, what can hurt you, who you are outside of these little boxes you put us. I want to know the lessons you learned from your travels, and how these made you who you are now.  I want to know every bruise you had, especially the ones that still haunt you at nights.

I want to know every shade of your eyes, and recognize the exact colour when they passed through the dirt and misery of my country. Perhaps, it isn’t as bleak as I thought. I want to know how you can catch a smile from a street child when I always missed it.  

How can life be so simple for you when you have seen so much?

Perhaps, it was me who sees too much.  For all your travels, maybe, you are the one who missed the real thing, after all.

And as I curse these borders between us, your silence becomes as real to me as this pain.