The Color of Love

I see you

 

as a hassle of sentences

that were seized by their collars

and struck against stone

till all the emotion they once held

comes pouring out

through the deeply-set scars

and now these sentences

lie limp

I see you 

as a bird with

the harshest bits of sky 

knotted into your wings

bits of sky scraped

with upcoming thunderstorms

the lightning injected

into your feathers

I see you 

as that pause

that sudden squeak of drenched slippers

that hiatus between falling rain

a prayer left mid-way

There’s a new boy in class XI-C today.

He is clad in a crisp, white t-shirt, his tie ironed and in perfect position, as he smiles with the seriousness of a student, who appears to be a top scorer. I crane my neck to read the name pinned to the pocket of his shirt, just like every new admission is supposed to do on his first student in our school.

 ‘Ajay Gupta’

He sits on the front desk of the first row, exactly six meters away from the blackboard. He has rolled up his sleeves, and clenched fists. As I lean over, I notice thick, full veins in his clenched fists. They make him look so very masculine. His hair has grown so much, it has almost reached his brow, and his dimple seems to be brimming over with the subtle shades of tube light that our school possesses. And, apart from that, there’s an inherent glow in cheeks, reminiscent of cold, autumn sunsets. Yet, what intrigues me the most about him are his eyes. In all honesty, his eyes are what made me fall in love with him in the first place. He wears a pair of purple, square-rimmed spectacles and looks over them, rather than through them, and this convinces me that probably he does not need spectacles and wears them for the sake of it. Or possibly, these glass frames serves as barriers to prevent the oceans that pulsate in his eyes from spilling out, or moistening the shriveled up hearts of aching, teenage lovers like myself.

Oh, if I could, I’d direct the flow of this river, I’d channel it only so that it could reach me. Ah, well. Possibly, I am a very selfish lover.

As our math teacher strides into the classroom, his fingers weaving an entanglement of numbers on the blackboard, I flip over to the last page of my notebook, my head bent in mock concentration, as I use the lightest of pencil colors to draw him. I try to cover everything, his rolled up sleeves, his engrossing eyes, and the light dripping, trickling out of his dimple.

While sketching his magnificence upon the simple pages of my notebook, I feel as though I am the most powerful creature in this entire world. And, in all honesty, there is no reason not to feel so. When I indulge in the art of creation, I feel as though I have infinite power over the portion of the world that I so skillfully hold between my fingers. After sketching his broad shoulders, wise face, and my pencil lingers on the outline of his magical eyes, as my math teacher’s baritone voice interrupts my reverie.

‘’Seema, could you take Ajay, our new classmate to the special educator’s room?’’ he says, as I abruptly close my notebook. He hands me a folder. ‘’Give this to the special educator, and then come back to class. She will take it on from there’’.

My gaze softly caresses the printed letters that seem to glare at me with a sudden harshness.