‘No man is an island’ – John Donne
It had been a long day and we had been away. The night was still young, our souls could be one like the poets say.
We stood at the balcony, the air was cold. Almost as cold as the glare, the bus conductor gave me today when I held the queue for 9 seconds because I couldn’t find the change. But our little flat was warm. Almost as warm as the song that played on in my parents’ car when I was four and did not know how to grow.
I looked at the waves of city light drowning the night. I thought it was a beautiful sight.
All the vehicles on the street, going to people I will never meet, living lives I will never see.
I love the idea of lost people, people who never feel at home, lonely people, people like me. You never know where they come from, where they go, where they belong. I think it’s a beautiful life to live.
I love the idea of a person sitting beside me, with a whole universe buried deep, like all the stars I would never reach.
Moreover, I love the idea of you and how you are the only person who knew, the universe inside me, and yours are the only stars I can see and feel.
I turned to look in your eyes, to see my thoughts looking back at me. After all the story goes, you and I are just skin and bones. You turned to look in mine and you said ‘’it’s a dreadful city tonight, just think of all the lost people and their sad, ugly lives’’
I nodded agreeing, once, twice, and thrice. Coldwater on my sweet dreams. I will never understand you, and you will never understand me. Alas! Our souls will never be one. It is a dream we have, the realization of none.
I looked in your eyes, and we are so far. There is too much water in between and I can’t swim. I’m stuck on an island without a boat.
‘So incommunicable are our thoughts, even between the people who love each other’ – Charles Baudelaire
-Sai Matekar
