Flawlessly Flawed Love

Propping onto my bare heels for a fraction of second, I saw you pull up at the driveway just a few minutes before half-past eleven. My gaze sneaked a glimpse of the dark sky, my lips parting in awe as I took in the beauteous lambency of those countless stars that tirelessly twinkled far and wide across it. I looked back at the blank canvas in front of me, its blankness mocking every futile attempt of mine to paint something serenely for the past three hours. Perhaps. No, surely that sky would be perfect to be etched across the canvas at the very moment. 

Twirling the brush idly between my fingers, series of frowns erupted upon my temples. I lifted my eyes to the sky once again, shaking my head sideways while the tips of my fingers resisted sketching any such thing that was way too impeccably perfect, for they only ached to adorn this canvas with umpteen imperfections. And that was when, I saw you getting out of the car, and there it was - the curve tugging at the edges of my lips, erasing the very trace of the pout that had once been there. 

I heard your footsteps trailing close behind me, and my heart already commenced to thrum to those kempt jingles of your presence. Twisting the doorknob open, I could see you halting briefly as you stared at me, precisely at my fruitless endeavors at painting yet again and I met your gaze, only to find my lips parting one more time in awe as I caught that fleeting glint of admiration neath those brown orbs of yours. You gave me that lopsided smile of yours, and there those were - the deadening butterflies yet again enlivening in the pits of my belly, fluttering hither and thither in the aura of your mere presence. Few good seconds must've elapsed when you raised your brows slightly when I didn't avert my eyes away from you and back to the empty canvas. I felt the fervor of your gaze delving deep into the depths of my mind as I tossed the brush onto the table with a soft thud. And right from the corner of my eyes, I saw the way your fingers callously curled around the necktie before pulling it down and down while you walked towards me with absolute, steady steps. 

Pushing the easel a few feet away from me I turned around only for your arms to snake around my waist pulling me into your lap as you slouched down onto the black leathered recliner by the window. I turned around, your mouth letting out puffs of annoyance as you griped about the hectic hours at work away from me. I leaned my head against your shoulder flinching at its stolidness for a moment until every muscle laying beneath finally seemed to relax. And there my love, while your mouth kept pouring out the monotonous details of your day, all I could do was to trace my fingertips along the side of this serenely face of yours, marveling at the way it still felt so lusciously velvety under my touch despite every speck of weariness that remained sprawled across it. I felt a muscle of your jaw twitching abruptly, as my fingers continued to pave my way all around the rims of your lips until I found that scar from your childhood residing a few inches down your bottom lip. And I couldn't help but place the softest peck on it. You looked at me perhaps with humor in your eyes and I couldn't resist the urge to rub my nose against that of yours. 

You held my gaze again, while your breaths warm albeit jagged fanned the flesh of my face as I remained nestled in your lap with your arms tethered around me. "Merely a few years back when you had professed your love for you, I had told you we wouldn't last, we would never be able to come this far let alone through this lifetime of ours, and now looking at us tonight draped in one another's embrace... " you trailed off as your lids dropped themselves down. I held your face with my palm, wordlessly nudging you to speak further. " I'm scared, every hour, every second barely thinking what if something messed it all up any moment from now, leading to nowhere but to our end, to the end of us. " - You muttered under your breath, with a head still hung down and eyes hardly meeting mine anymore.

A twinge of morose gripped the chambers of my heart for a minute or so before another discreet curve of joy awaited to bloom upon my lips. And I couldn't resist myself from raveling those locked away nooks of my mind as I remembered every scrap of the past that had brought us here today, to the zenith of the blissful togetherness of yours and mine. 

I remembered it all my love, be it the dawns where we had to wake up to the streaks of the early risen sun while pulling the sheets over our heads only to sleep a bit longer in the warmth of our seamlessly melded skin, or those dawns where we stared at each other hard for a nanosecond before stomping past one another with bloodshot eyes and parched lips, and with hearts being set ablaze by flares of several misunderstandings and misconceptions harbored amid the two of us over time. I remembered it all, be it the late noons where we had sat on the stairs of our front porch sipping on the perfect cups of coffee with fits of giggles and chuckles resounding around us; or those noons where you had walked out of the front door closing it too sharply while I gripped the cold banister numbingly tight until every knuckle of mine turned into the palest shade of white a

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s the countless arguments and rows followed by the smothering silence ripped us apart again and again. I remembered it all, be it the evenings where you came back home, and to me after grueling hours away at work and calling out my name ceaselessly until plopping down right beside me as I binged watched series after series while you played with the loose ends of my tresses with utmost tenderness; or those evenings where every ounce of our patience was being tested as every playful banter of ours began to end with an ugly brusqueness, inevitably dragging the worst out of us when we could've simply resolved our differences with mere talking. I remembered it all, be it the nights where you slipped under the duvets while I feigned to be in a deep slumber only for you to rub those soothing circles on my back with your thumb as I leaned towards you bit by bit until you tucked me right under your chin effortlessly while bringing my hand to your mouth before planting series of ticklish kisses upon every finger of mine; or those nights where we slept with our backs turned to one another on pillows wholly dampened from tears and repressed wails, clutching our mouths our own fists while the sobs of innumerable rues and regrets threatened to break out as we both dangled upon the verge of giving up on whatsoever had strung the two of us together in the first place. I remembered it all my love, be it the blissful times when we never failed to thank the universe for morphing us into one entity of sheer wholeness despite every odd that had been stacked against us, or be it the blistering times when we barely could pluck the valor and will to stick with each other without any reluctance or without once faltering in every step that we had vowed to walk right by one another's side through every storm and explorer of life. I remembered it all my love, be it the wondrous mirages of perfection that we both sought in our togetherness with the sole purpose to constantly validate the fleeting sense of belonging to one another; or those uncountable moments filled with utter imperfections that taught us to make every possible effort with uttermost honesty to uphold those avowals of a deathless love that we had believed would abide with us till we breathed our last undeniably in the arms of one another's, and until we had known what it was to fall for someone - so irrevocably and devotedly and with unadulterated selflessness. 

I heard you snapping your fingers in front of me, bringing me out of those depths of my mind that swirled with the iterations of our tempestuously beatific past. A sigh escaped from the captive of my pressed lips, as my eyes yet again merged with those of yours. Lifting my hand to the collar of your shirt, my fingers clasped themselves around the base of your neck, while your grip kept tightening around me with every breath that rushed back and forth amidst us. And at last, you looked at me with eyes that shone in the glint of sanguinity slowly pulverizing the bits of fright and worry that it once mirrored. And long before the distance of these few inches could drive us apart, your lips irrefutably collapsed onto mine, irresistibly molding and reforming every fiber of our beings with the fervor that conveyed what a zillion of words could never. I felt your smile against my skin, as you kept carving your presence in the entirety within every bone of my being, while the pits of my soul not once ceased to vivify with every touch of yours, along with that flawlessly synced pounding of our hearts against the ribs that throbbed with bolts of ardency as our lungs continued to gasp for breathing in the air of one another's.

And indeed this love of ours had its obnoxiously fair share of highs and lows, but it also had the immense capability to thrive even in the best or the worst and through all. And indeed it wasn't the slightest bit of what defined as easy; there were times that immersed us in the chasm of a never known before euphoria, where all we had ever got was the sheer solace as every bit of yours and mine fitted flawlessly sewing all those voids of incompleteness that never felt the need to be filled until our paths intertwined with each other. And then, there were times that drowned us in the hideous phantom of hollow miseries that drained every portion of us until all we had ever got was the absence of sanity echoing in our very minds. But then, it was always there, this love of ours either pulling us back to our oneness or pushing us apart to hollowness howbeit never once failing to pave our ways back to each other in spite of all and whatnot. 

I placed the back of my hand on your chest, the unkempt falling and rising of it reverberating throughout my flesh. And leaving yet another peck on my forehead, you held me in the tranquil of your embrace. Raising my head, I, once again found myself hopelessly admiring this man of my life as you looked down out of the window at the sky, casting that hell of a smile at it that limned nothing but voiceless prayers of gratitude to the heavens for our togetherness; while my gaze subtly eyed the blank canvas that I no longer wanted to replenish with perfectness, for I was the sole chaser of faults and flaws, only capable of loving them till they were known to be divinely beautiful even if they retained one or two dabs of imperfections.