Did You Remember Me At All?

Pressing the tip of my index finger gently on the closed window, I drew a faint outline of a heart with the help of the mist that kept the window glass shrouded. I rested my head against its frame, letting its coldness to numb away the questions that threatened to wreck the depths of my mind. I closed my eyes, discreetly letting my mind sway far away along with the frailing rhythm of the music that played in the bistro. But there, I made the blunder of opening those eyes of mine only to see you standing across the street. 

And there, my heart picked up the familiar erratic pace to throb violently against my ribs - the very heart that you crushed into shards only to rot in the inferno of the questions that you left behind while walking away from me.

I stared at the translucent blue sky, regretting almost immediately when my eyes darted themselves towards the direction where you kept tapping your feet on the pavement impatiently. And there, I could see the nasty claws of those several unanswered questions sprawling across the sky and heading towards me to choke me before I had the chance to run away from them. And there, the questions kept unbridling from that secluded nook of my mind and enlivening boldly across the clear sky. And my love, what could I do rather than reiterating those questions wordlessly to myself?

"Did you remember how badly I loathed waking up early in the mornings? The mornings where you used to draw the blinds apart, deliberately letting those blaring rays of the sun to gleam on my face and ruining my sleep. My love, did you remember those additional five minutes that I always used to demand before you lifted me from the bed and compelling me to fully embrace the beauty of the rising sun? Did you remember those silly banters of ours that always used to end up with me nestled against your chest and with your fingers running through my hair only to make it more messy and full of horrible knots? Or, did you remember how much I loved the night and its darkness? Those same nights where the stars dazzled the most while we held onto each other with our bodies moulding into one. Did you remember any of them at all, or was it just me clinging to those fragments of the past that we once had shared and treasuring them in the depths of my mind only to get brutally hurt by them?" - my mind questioned wordlessly, while you still kept waiting across the street and continually glancing at that wristwatch of yours.

Looking away from the window, the small heart that had been drawn on its glass caught my gaze. I could see it withering bit by bit, just like the heart of mine that still burned in the abyss of the questions that you left behind years ago. I could see it slowly getting obscure as the mist began to engulf it whole, just like the void that still seemed to expand right at the center of my existence.

I tore my gaze from the fading heart and couldn't help but sneak a glance at you from the window of my booth when I saw you putting your arm forth to grab the girl who was no longer me. Sucking in a sharp breath, my throat constricted miserably as I felt the buried questions raveling from the forbidden corner of my mind and paving their way to my mouth. And there my love, I couldn't shackle those questions that stormed through my mind, and maliciously forming behind those sealed lips of mine.

 "Dear, did you not remember the countless times when you used to lean onto me and peck my forehead softly and imparting every bit of your warmth deep into my bones while kissing that forehead of hers? Did you not remember those moments when you used to countlessly snake your arms around me and securing me close to your heart that claimed to hold an imperishable love for me, while embracing her? Did you not remember the uncounted times where you used to stand beside me and keep our hands enlaced until our arms and fingers hurt and stiffened while holding that hand of hers?

Did you not remember those giggles of ours that used to echo unremittingly every time you used to twirl me in those arms of yours, when you held her close to you? My love, did you not remember those umpteen kisses that you used to steal from me in the middle of the night only to make me shoot daggers of annoyance at you when those lips of

Advertisement

yours melted into that of hers? Did you not remember those nonsensical brawls of ours over petty stuff that used to last till late noons only to later end with us bursting into booming laughter when you chuckled at those words of hers? Did you ever remember any bit of those blissful moments that you and I had shared for once, or was it just me latching onto them only for the sake of my sanity and peace that seemed to forsaken my side since the day you left me devastated with your absence? " - My mind cried out loud to you but voicelessly, while you stood across the street holding her tight between the arms of yours that no longer belonged to me.

A bitter cry escaped from the cage of my parched lips when I felt the inferno of the questions raging through my head and tugging at my insides, gradually pushing me to the lanes of a segregated past and causing my eyes to sting achingly with the tinges of tears that had been shed years ago. And there, I could hear the bruises of my heart cracking open and bleeding from the scraps of the past that I still retained vehemently. I clutched my chest with the back of my hand as I felt the beats of my heart becoming jagged with every passing second when a question that was kept hidden in the cracks of my heart reappeared and laid bare on its mended surface.

"Did you ever happen to remember this heart of mine that I had devoted to you with your name engraved in its chambers, absolutely oblivious to the way you would cause it to explode into innumerous shreds and bleed with a perpetual hollowness? " - I bewailed mutely, while you kept professing the love that you held immensely for her, and no longer for me.

I averted my eyes from you for a fraction of second only to look back at the closed window, this time startled to see my own reflection painted across it - when a question that laid dormant in the pits of my soul growled and seized every bit of me, causing the fragmented soul of mine to twist and turn painfully. "Did you ever mistakenly remember this soul of mine that I had intertwined with that of yours, completely unaware of the way you would cause it to writhe with emptiness that kept gnawing and devouring it inch by inch? " - I bawled in a voice that wouldn't reach to you anymore while you kept sealing your fate with that of hers, after mercilessly ripping me away from you.

Resting my head against the soft leather of the booth, I kept shaking my head and straining every fiber of my mind to obliterate the questions that kept resuscitating one by one and unfolding everywhere around me. And that was when I could see tints of something forming right in front of my naked eyes. I could see you, and me, rather I could see us. I could see every snippet of the days and nights that we had gone through with the sheer bliss of togetherness that I never knew wouldn't abide with me till I breathed my last. And, I could see the day as vivid as ever when you had abandoned me just to hold that hand of hers, and iterating every memory that you had embedded in the back of my mind but not with me rather with the girl whom you now held in those arms of yours. I could see the long and gruelling hours of anguish that I had pulled myself through with the remnants of unrealized dreams and a shattered heart. And there, I could see it - the question etching itself prominently across those opened lids of mine that couldn't stop playing through every doom where I had to fend for myself without the love of yours that I foolishly believed to me solely mine.

"Did you ever happen to remember the girl who had loved you so irrefutably, undeniably clueless to the way you would discard her out of your life-giving the excuse of being fallen out of love with her? " - I half-whispered into the empty space with a last glance across the street where you kept making vows of an everlasting togetherness to her without a tad bit of any remembrance of mine flashing across that serene face of yours.

"Did you even remember me at all?" - I perpended suffocatingly before shaking my head in the attempt to lock every unanswered question away in that forbidden corner of my mind that kept numbing me relentlessly to the very core of my being while you my love, never ceased to adore the girl in that embrace of yours who wasn't me anymore.