Loving You At Your Best

Loving You At Your Best

10 mins
364


I flinched as the cold jagged edge of the pencil kept pressing on the flesh of my lips. I stared, absolutely without wavering my lashes for once while my eyes kept stinging from the vapor that rose from the piping hot mug of black coffee resting on my lap. I glanced around the whole room not once, but twice while my mind continued to swirl as the hammock kept swaying back and forth. And then, that one corner caught my gaze. And once again, my gaze remained fixated to that corner of my room- the one that once belonged to you, my love.


Staring blankly at the empty corner of my room, I felt that secluded and forbidden depth of my mind wrenchingly unraveling while the nasty and piercing claws of the past kept crawling up that soul of mine only to gnaw at the chambers of my heart. Despite removing every trace of yours from this vast room of mine, I could see you. I could see you twisting the doorknob slowly and walking through the half opened door. I could see you as you walked past that bed of mine where you would sleep while holding me tight, and flipping the black hood of your sweater over your head. I could see you sitting down in that corner while leaning against the bare wall that once retained a photograph of ours. I could see that slight wincing of yours my love, as the coldness of the marbled floor seeped into your bones.


The air that was supposed to flow out of my lungs became hitched in the base of my parched throat as I saw your presence enlivening right in front of my naked eyes. You looked out of the window, your mouth slightly agape as the sky changed its hues of bright white and blue into a blazing shade of orange. And there my love, I could see you at your best as you grabbed those pencils and sketch pad from my bedside table and started pouring out every ounce of your being onto the blank papers.


And right then and there my love, I could see the best coming out of you as you twirled the pencil between your fingers whole scrunching that nose of your upwards. I could see you holding the pencil firmly, and within a second you were inscribing your soul on that white canvas that would soon mirror the best version of you. Resting my head on the back of my hand, I kept gazing at that empty corner where I could see you as lucid as ever. I kept staring at that barren corner as your presence became palpable and undeniably patent with every passing second.


I could see the slight crease on your forehead as you rubbed the nib of the pencil carefully and gently on the paper as if scared to ruin any bit of the beauty that you were creating with the pieces of your soul and heart. I could see the glint in the depths of your eyes as the pencil kept dancing to the rhythm of your fingers and filling every inch of the paper with nothing but your undying passion for the creation of beauty. My eyes could trace the sly smile that fluttered on those lips of yours as you moved your fingers across the paper, at times a bit swiftly and at times deliberately while crafting your passion into an art of countless graphics. I could see that abrupt frown etching across your face as you pondered about the various colors that would enhance the beauty of your art. I could feel the breaths that you held back as your mind focused on the texture and tone of the art that you kept constructing just with the seamless tips of your fingers.


Circling the hot rim of the mug on my lap with my cold and stoic fingertips, I let a slight curve to reign my lips as I kept seeing your presence lingering hither and thither and everywhere in the room. I could hear the triumphant snicker coming out of your mouth as you glanced at the beautiful artwork that you had created. I could see the fleeting beam of pride that gripped your chest as you marveled at that beauty of yours. And then, I could see you folding the paper meticulously and hiding it in your pocket while a pang of trepidation cut through me. I could see you looking right at my direction, fiercely holding my gaze as my black eyes kept melting into those brown and honey like orbs of yours.


I could see the best version of yours staring right at me that you always wanted me to keep seeing. I could see those glistening eyes of yours piercing through my soul, and filling every void that ever existed within my being with your passion and love.


But then, my grip tightened around the mug, the wrenching and writhing of my soul kept raging with every moment that lapsed by while the sewn cracks of my heart were rendered open as I remembered the best side of yours withering and vanishing into thin air and one unfamiliar and unknown side taking over every nook of you. And yet again that question growled and grumbled in my mind - how could I ever forget that time when I had seen you at your worst?


The embers of the past flared through the depths of my mind as I broke my gaze away from that corner of my room. I flinched once again, upon seeing the whiteness of my knuckles that was caused by the tight grip on the mug. I immediately let go of it only for it to break into shards as it met the cold floor, just like the way I had let go of the best that you had contained upon seeing you at your worst. I immediately let go of that pencil that I had kept pressed between my lips and letting it fall down with a soft thud, just like I had let go of your hand when you had tried to delude me with your goodness and not with the flaws and imperfections that were imprinted at the very core of your existence. I immediately let go of the sobs that kept wrecking through me, just like I had let you walk away from me that day - because I was too scared to see you again at your worst, and only because I was too petrified by the mere thought of losing the best of you to the horrifying hands of your worst.


And there my love, I remembered how you had fallen apart that night when the demons of your head made you a prisoner of them. I remembered how you had allowed the hollowness that resided inside of you to devour you. I could hear them my love, those wails and whines of yours as you kept pleading to me to look away from that not so familiar state of yours while you fragmented right before my eyes. I could see you, and the way you had ripped yourself apart that night as those demons of yours kept eating away the sweetness of your soul and the honey from your eyes. I could see the worst that stormed inside of you swallowing you wholly as you crumbled every beauty that you had built around you and trampled all the dreams that we had hopelessly woven together. I could feel the same dread and fear from that night resurfacing in the pits of my belly as I remembered you shoving me away in an attempt to lock the demons of yours away from the innocence of my soul. I remembered, when you tried to protect me from yourself, but ended up ruining and devastating me as I finally came out of a world of derealization and fantasies. I remembered that moment when you tried to mend everything back in place again but I kept running away from you, terribly afraid to again come across that worst version of yours. I remembered my love, all those efforts that you haplessly made to create another beauty out of us but failing miserably at it as the best of us was already annihilated by that one doomed night of everlasting darkness.


And despite all, I still felt you close to me as if still wanting to shield me from your worst that led us to nothing but devastation. I still saw you loitering here and there, attempting your best to erase those bruises and scars from the past, nonetheless to any fulfilment. And even after all these years of being away from you, I still saw the best in you. I still admired the passion of yours for drawing and creating art that always brought you closer to that best version of yours. I still loved the magic that your fingers held while sketching and bringing your destroyed soul back to life and goodness.


But then again, how could I ever let go of that worst of yours when we both knew that it would only be the worst ones that were going to stick with us forever and imperishably, and ceaselessly reminding us that there was nothing flawless and perfectly best in this world? How could I ever let go of the lesson that you made me learn? The lesson that I learned at the cost of heartache and shattered soul, the lesson that there would be no eucatastrophe in this world without a tad of catastrophe laying underneath it.


And my love, albeit giving me the most beautiful moments of my life, the brief yet the awful worst that you and I had once been through would forever keep overshadowing the good ones. And it felt as if I could never get riddance from this perennial stain that now somehow vividly marked every bliss of our past. And now, even after trying so hard to overlook that stain of your worst, I still remained tainted by none but you.


Getting out of the swinging hammock, I walked towards the corner that once belonged to you - and now all vacant and devoid of any life. I halted beside the bedside table to grab the last piece of beauty that you had crafted only for me before you could no longer conceal the worst of you from me. I trailed my fingers along the outline of my name that you had beautifully engraved on the blank canvas that mirrored nothing but the best of the person whom I had loved from the deepest of my heart. I wrapped my arms around that art of yours, that I would keep cherishing for the rest of my life; that I would keep clutching onto every time the worst memories that you tainted me with enlivened in the depths of my mind and crushing my heart again and again. I would keep harboring this goodness of yours until I finally have the valor to accept you at your worst and not only at your best, and until I could utterly fall for that beauty of yours along with every blemish that laid beneath it.


"But what if it would be too late by then? What if you could not pave your way back to him anymore? " - a voice mumbled somewhere from the pit of my mind, causing shudders to run down my spine as my hands lost its grip on the last memory of the beauty that you had created with every bit of the virtue that once existed in your soul. And my love, perhaps in spite of latching on to the good remnants of ours, it was only the worst ones that still clung to every fibre of my being - perpetually stopping me from letting go of that part of mine that still feared to see you at your worst, and not at the best.


AFTER ALL, I WAS ONLY ABLE TO LOVE YOU AT YOUR BEST AND NEVER AT YOUR WORST.


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