Stains

Some days I wake up and then I realize that you are not here. Yesterday's grief is still lying on my bed, I wish I could tell it to leave, but I don't. I get up and then go to the kitchen to make coffee.

There is this fading mark on the kitchen counter, near the gas stove, that still reminds me of how you never used to use coasters and left the round ridge of coffee cup everywhere, especially on the table in front of the couch.

I know I can't make the plants stay alive, yet somehow they seem to be thriving, your favourite plant in that yellow pot, is still in the corner, I'm taking good care of her not because I care about you, but somehow I have grown to care for her.

In my bookshelves there are empty spaces where your books used to be, I have been meaning to fill them up, at least I still have my record collection. I guess when we separate our lives, our things get separated too. I know I returned the musical Carvaan box that you had gifted me, I miss hearing the random splendid songs of 70s at nights on it.

You took my airpods BTW, I should have asked for that, but what's that in the grand scheme of things I guess. Some of your things are still boxed up and waiting in the living room. I guess you took everything that mattered. I wonder if you are coming back for them.

Sometimes when I come home, I open the door and expect you to be there, your feet propped upon the table, engrossed in a fiction. You would greet me with an absent-minded 'hi'. You would be in your all time usual faded orange Kurti and white salwaar like always and it would feel like I was home. Maybe that's what I miss the most, That home, I had with you.

Every time love falls apart, we are left only with the echoes of what once were, echoes that we see around us. Now your love is an echo that reminds me that there is a void in my heart. Maybe one day these echoes will fade and that day when I come home, a piece of my heart will no longer be waiting to find you there. //