Popagandhi

I saw it in her eyes the day I left her. I was cold, I was brutal - but about as cold and brutal as the one before had been to me. It’s been described to me as akin to removing a plaster from a wound: you know it’s going to hurt like hell, so just rip it out. And rip, I did. This was the ‘home’ we had built for ourselves, and today I was breaking it. I had some idea, but couldn’t quite care, to see how my impulse that day would change our world the way we knew it: that the pile of clothes lying there, mine, had to go; that the records against that wall, mine too, had to go; that her things in my room, items in the post could no longer come through me, everything tangible was to be poured into a large box preferably of the cardboard variety, and everything that was not was to be poured away preferably instantly. Including the furnishings which will no doubt remind her of me, including my vacuum cleaner and cables and CDs. It always takes on this form: the deed, the mandatory tears, then allow for two days and the returning of possessions in giant cardboard boxes. I do this so often, this picking up of shreds of your life you leave behind, in hopes of piecing it together again. Perhaps picking up shards of glass may prove less painful.

Every breakup ends in a spectacularly different way, but in their dissimilarity they all take on a few layers of same-ness. Violent or not, dramatic or otherwise, behind each loss and every act of leaving (and mourning), they’re all the same, if you look at it. I should know, I’ve been through.. too many, for my (barely) twenty years.

I saw it in her eyes when she left me. At the beginning, we had joked: the day she removed that pendant would be the day I know it was to end. One afternoon, like Eve tempted by the fruit of knowledge, I could not resist, so I looked at her neck - not there - I probably noticed it before she did, because it took her some time to come around to that, yet no amount of preparation could have helped me. What was I to do? I was all of sixteen, eager to hold on to my wo-man. Some time later into our friendship (we had become friends only after we ceased to be lovers), I came into the possession of that item - a “memento”. (What were we thinking? Memorabilia, like some rock concert?). We then joked it was perhaps a symbolic transference of power - of abuse, and of brutality, and all those other dreadful things I never was - and that same afternoon, I left the person to whom I had meant the world. I then thought this was the one person I should completely stop joking with.

In the study of psychology the theory of social exchange stipulates each social interaction, between friends and enemies, lovers and family, to be no different from economic transactions; of giving, and receiving, but this time in immeasurables. And how immeasurable it was, especially those of karmic proportions. The use of symbols and coincidences, as literary techniques, is especially useful in drama and in many instances of tragicomedy. This isn’t an exact science, nor is it a drama anymore, it isn’t tragedy or comedy either - way beyond that, I think it’s become the meandering plot to some pointless arthouse movie. Where the reviews may read: inexplicable, but thoroughly riveting.

At least, that was the way it was - up ’til about a month ago, when she threw that formulaic balance into disarray. How could it be, that I could be this breathlessly happy just being around somebody? Wasn’t I - too old, too jaded, too disillusioned - for that? I had forgotten many things, but she helped jog my memory: the softness of a woman pressed against me, the spacey/happy feeling of being around somebody, her small hands in mine. I find myself quickening my steps as I approach our usual spot, as I’m rushing to a meeting, and break into a smile from seeing her for all of ten seconds. Or, from my corner, buried in my books, I look up and catch myself watching her - only to find her doing the same - at which point I pretend to be cool and ask what you’re doing, and I’m not sure you know what sort of effect you have on me when you reply with a kiss. Our time together hasn’t been entirely without challenges, but if you must love me, love me for who I am and not for the woman that I am - and if you must stop, do so not for the woman that I am, but who I have been to you.

You saw it in my eyes that day, yet there’s so much more I want to show you, but this time it has little to do with sadness, and everything to do with what we could be.