The Hurting Stranger

Broken hearts make better homes

Almost midnight - my whole body is shivering with fever - the only thing buzzing in my head is love. 

Love. Nothing has destroyed me as much as love. And yet again, I am in the arms of love. It fills me with fear of another world. I know I am not ready to be broken again - I know I will be shattered like old glass, again. 

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After a series of mishaps, if that is a word enough to cover it all up, I was finally ready to take a deep breath. I was finally accepting my life to be one long dark tunnel. I was finally accepting the magical love stories are not meant to happen for me. I was finally accepting the best has been done and dusted. I was finally accepting I am damaged. I was finally accepted I have to carry a kerchief for myself wherever I go. I was finally accepting my long hair won't be played with by another man. I was finally accepting that my quota of happiness is over. 

With such assurance of a lifetime of loneliness, I have been building a fortress of high walls, guarded with affectionless winter, with no doors and windows. No, I do not wish any breeze of your world in my blood. The air stinks of betrayal and mistrust. "Leave me alone", I have screamed in my sleep, drenched in the sweat of past. He who promised to be with forever left like it was all nothing. No, please stay away. I need to be alive. There are only as many times the heart can repair. That heart, which seeks to be jailed in my ribcage, begs me to not let anyone in. Each bone fights with me to let it go first. I could not bring myself to cut my wrist and see myself bleeding over a demonic soul. I could not! I paid it with dying in bits and pieces every day. The sum is still due.

Last birthday. Aloud I challenged the universe to bring me either the love I deserved to take it all away from me. Why? Is a corpse excepted to have wishes? I cannot live a dual life. End it all, please. No no no- no, please no -  don't plant the seeds of desire in me. It burns me. Oh universe! have some mercy of me. What have I ever done to be a Jesus on the cross? What am I paying for?

I am a Scorpio woman. Invincible is my middle name. Irony is my family trait. So many stitches have left my blood pumping machine soft. And that sweet face was hurting from betrayal from his love. I raged at first - do women too have to be cruel! Well, we are humans too. He can do much better. 14 times, he said, he hurt himself for the wrong people. From the dried well, a big drop of tear rolled down my left cheek. "Don't worry, we will figure it out together", my fingers texted to the stranger. I could not turn blind to another soul falling into the hell of depression. I stayed with the stranger. I stayed, because I know we don't have to face it all alone. Texts were exchanged like life depended on it. 

Little did I know lives depended on it. He managed to smile in pain. I managed to cry secretly on his behalf instead. I knew I can do it. Days went by. Each passing day, he inched closer to me. It was like a game of chess. The wall was suddenly penetrable. I stood strong, guarding my fort. He grabbed hands that I never extended. He would pour in his gold pain. He filled the void of the fort with his simplicity of smile, an easiness of worldliness, the strength of reality and the tenderness of broken soul. How did he know that two broken people make one honest something? Before I could realize what was happening around me in my world, he had defeated me against myself. He was on my team. What were we fighting against? Hold on! That is only one side of the story. 

I remember him struggling a few nights outside the walls. I recall his sincere appeals. My world is fortified, but it is small. It could not have accommodated two people. Since when strangers can be trusted? A dog-mother does not abandon a broken soul. He finally could manage to call me. I still don't know why my lame heart raced that evening, why the mute voice was excited, why the dry eyes were glistening. We talked for the first time. He would tell me his stories; I would put a band-aid. He would suddenly go silent, and find his words on my lips. He would suddenly cry in silence, and find me be his cry-shoulder. 

Accepted. he accepted it all before he knows anything. He was hurt but knew he was not the first man. He settled to be the last. I agreed to share the throne. He called me baby, and I called him my life. Like unicorns, love happens out of magic. Like rainbows, we share colours of life. Like butterflies, we flutter happily. Like us, he and I are us.

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And I have been wondering who rescued whom that day.