They say November is a month of poets.
november 1
Like the poem she taught me? With.
With her high pitched, cheerful, joyous lullabies, with her soothing hums, big eyes, arched eyebrows. With her recipes, her uncoordinated jumps, her struggle to read anything small because of her (always) missing glasses, with her 2 more minutes, her coughs, and the little taps on her chest.
Isn’t that the poem I’m living?
Am I not living a poet’s November?
A kindle. A kindle of understanding. Cigarettes over hard conversations. Reassurance. The discovery of her hair on every part of my body. Creative recipes. Abundance in little. Frothy coffee. Nose rubs. The kisses that follow. The love on the staircase. The bed squeaks that follow. A kindle. A kindle of love.
november 2
Like the warm yellow lights on a snowy, misty road. Like the warm surprisingly chocolate on chocolate donut after the perfect dinner. Like the win after splitting 10s. Like the white cross on top of that mountain. Like the pesto jars filled with spices. Like the hard fought for cigarettes.
November 3
Need I say more about how perfect she is?
You’re doing well, my little one. The thing about adulthood is no one prepares you for the constant loss you experience. Loss of friends, family, ideas. Every year will seem to get harder even though you’re getting wiser. Nothing makes sense to anyone but somehow you’re supposed make sense out of it all and keep pushing.
November 4
Losing a loved one is the harshest pain there is. You’ve handled it so well. I am so proud of you. To grieve is your right.
I remember reading somewhere:
“Nothing ever ends poetically. It ends and we turn it into poetry. All that blood was never once beautiful. It was just red.”
It’s all about how you make a poem out of it.
I love you.
I love her when she wants to do it all. Read all the books and the poetry and learn all the new languages and study film and practice pottery and perform classical dance and own a bookstore and a cafe and frame our pictures and make recipe books and do skincare and perform the rituals and decorate and bake and well, love. And love and love and love.
novEmber 5
I love her when she wants to do it all.
She has a tendency to notice the smallest details. The tiny metaphors in a film we’re watching, the deviations in her curry recipes, or if I did my hair a certain way, the one hair standing up on my moustache. The different color of the eyes of different cats. The difference between two very similar red wines and so on and so on.
November 6
I misunderstood her tendency to lean towards taste, for something good or bad. I just wanted to know if it’s good or bad, I know better now, it can be just different.
My recipe for good life.
november 7
One Vocation— something I work on obsessively, and come back to you so you can put me to sleep.
One hobby— to distill all of them, read a book by your side before we sleep until the day we die.
Cozy home— A house you fill with warmth, that I build and you make a home.
Proximity to nature— for all the walks and strolls near beachside. To look at all the dogs, listen to all the waves.
Workshop sack— So that I can build stuff and stuff
Animals— all of them. So that you raise them amongst our children
Books— all of them
Small farm— so that I can enjoy all your homemade recipes.
Do you see a pattern? My recipe for a good life, is you.
While I hold her hand on the streets and vow to protect her all her life,
november 8
Can she be my guide in love?
I spend a lot of time thinking, How can I love her better? The world of tackling big emotions has always been foreign to me. I rarely find myself lacking, to express. But when I do, can she take it out of me?
I am sure she can.
I’ve found myself returning to myself when things got tough. Isolation was and is still my coping mechanism. I’ve been blessed to find her because she understands my silence. Life is already really hard, but she makes living so easier.
November 9
We’ll be okay. That’s a freeing thought to have. I return to that thought now. We’ll be okay.
Hey, You.
november 10
To wake up, with you.
To sleep, with you.
To eat, with you.
To travel, with you.
To laugh, with you.
To paint, with you.
To clean, with you.
To build, with you.
To suffer, with you.
To live, with you.
To die, with you.
And if life is repeated a thousand times,
Still you, you and again, you.
With you.
“Can you smile?”, I asked her randomly throughout the day. As if the sun shone on me on a November morning, her smile, her warm smile.
november 11
Now that I don’t have anything to do in the house, I tend to look at things, I tend to look at paintings, different book covers, her recipe books, her candles, her crystals, the rocks that we gave each other, and the letters.
I wonder why I ask her to smile randomly. I came to the conclusion— that there is nothing comparable to being loved by her.
And her smile enforces that love.
For a sick person like me, she is the medicine.
november 12
The medicine in the form of water, when we’re sitting in front of the ocean, together.
The medicine in the form of breath, her slow, deep breaths turning into sleep in my arms.
The medicine in the form of silence, when we are talking through our eyes, or signals, or the little runs before she jumps on me.
The medicine in the form of gratitude, the gratitude for her feminine. For her cooking, for her making this place a home, for the incense and the candles, and the cakes and the books.
The medicine in the form of touch, her embrace, all over. Her kisses, my kisses, her hands and her thighs and her neck and her lips. The healing kisses.
I’m pretty sure I’ll turn into a maniac living without my medicine all these days.
Finally, the medicine in the form of meeting her again. I experienced it in Rome, In Naples, and I’m excited that it will be in Lucknow next time. The best medicine of them all. Her sparkling eyes when we meet after a long time.
I’ll miss you little one.
I’ll always love you.
Always.
To say I will miss you is an understatement. I think about how difficult it will be every time I utter those words. I will miss you, baby. This house will miss you: Our spot, the mountain cross, the small shop, the Christmas decorations, the coffee cups, the ashtrays scattered around the house—they will all miss you.
November 13
Once again, I will loathe everything that reminds me of you in this house, and everything that doesn’t.
This stillness, the silence will try to kill me every minute that you’re not here. I hope I hear your voice every day on the phone. It will keep me sane.
You’ll miss out on the “Bunny special” coffee. But I’ll miss out on the food you make every day for us. The feminine in this house will be gone, and it will just be me, the poor old man, drinking coffee, smoking cigarettes, and reading Dostoevsky.
I will miss waking you up, being excited to begin our day with warm hugs and kisses.
I’ll kiss you the next time I’ll see you. Meanwhile, I’ll keep writing to you. Please don’t take my behavior towards you when you’re gone in a wrong way. I’ve struggled without you for weeks straight, and I will struggle this time too.
Take good care of yourself and those around you. The best way to show me how much you love me is to take care of your body, heart, and mind. Don’t worry about me too much. In your love, I’ll survive.
I love you. It hurts to write this letter, signaling we will be away from each other. But know that I will always be yours.
With my heart and soul,
Yours,
Bunny 🙁
I have a cigarette in my hand, the lights are on. I am sitting in front of my laptop. It’s playing nothing. And I’m thinking of you. This house doesn’t feel the same, it’s so empty. It’s oddly super silent, not even the noise from outside is coming today and I don’t know why. And I miss you so much. I don’t feel so good. It feels so empty, I don’t know. I hope you reached Jeddah safely, I was tracking your flight. And you must be there right now in about 5 minutes.
November 14
I just wanted to let you know that I miss you. And I hope you take care of yourself and you go safely. Of course I will be there on the next plane also and on the train. Just know that the house is not the same. Everything is too silent and empty and I don’t like it. I wish you were here my luv. I don’t know when you will be here, but I miss you.
I love you so much. I don’t know what else to say than to say I love you.
I love you so much.
I read a lot today. Something caught my eye, and I began thinking about it.
November 15
The human hand has 27 bones. I looked at my hand and smirked, strangely.
The human hand has 27 bones, and each of mine misses each of yours.
It’s such a simple yet beautiful feeling. Your hand is mine. When I warm them within my hands, when I hold them to pull you closer to me. When I hold them on the street to (sternly) guide you in the right direction. When I lock both of them with one of mine. Without your hand in mine, it feels as though they are incomplete—fragile. This house feels the same—empty walls that echo the absence of your laughter, our silly jokes, our love shouts, and our wake-up calls.
I mentioned how everything is oddly silent, eerily quiet. A quietness that stretches too wide, like a hollow I can’t fill. I keep reaching for your presence out of habit. It’s a muscle memory now to call your name, or one of your names that I call you. To ask you to throw something from upstairs, to look at this jug and want to fill it up for you, to pick up the card deck and throw all the chips around, and settle the scores.
All I find is the ache of missing you. I keep the lights off most of the time. They don’t serve any purpose anymore now that the light of my heart has gone so away. To think of it, my heart feels like a lonely room, just like the one I am sitting in right now, whose corners dim without your warmth to light them. I miss you, not just in moments but in every breath, every thought, every quiet second.
Come back soon, my love, because only you can make the room of my heart whole again. Come back. Come back and make me whole.
Every one of my actions reflect her. She is so addicting. The best addiction I have ever had. The love of my life has been away for 2 days and I’m already delving in Dostoevsky’s horror inducing tales.
november 16
I see her everywhere. In my morning coffee, but before that on the stove, her calling my name to light it with my expertise.
I see her everywhere. In the tiny passage of light that comes through the window for a little while, but before that the smoke playing around in this room, only visible in that tiny passage.
I see her everywhere. In the shivering cold, but before that in her scarfs, her socks and her fur.
She has asked me to be optimistic. I hope this time will pass and she will be by my side again.
You ever see one of those old trees, almost on the verge of dying, branches all over the place, as if it’s performing a last dance for the world?
November 17
That’s me thinking about you. But I want to be the tree greener than ever, swinging in the sunshine. Sadly, only possible when you are near me.
If you think about it, the tree has always been there, you know.
The tree behind us on that yellow street on New Years Eve in Florence.
The tree in front of us with the shining light when we sang our song.
The trees in the park where we sat down and talked during a pre-fever dream.
The trees surrounding the horse stable at Fernando’s house.
The trees witnessing us bury the third later in the ground in Verona.
The trees around the blue lagoon in Sorrento.
The trees have always been there.
When will my spring come? When will I, the old, worn-out tree, come to life?
I’m tired of the fall now, and the winter is excruciatingly cold, too.
Will you bring me spring, my love?
Will you be my spring?
Most of my days are filled with reading. I tend to pick up books around the house, letting go of any order, any goal, or a page count I’m willing to accomplish.
November 18
I always did the same as a child. I would go to a friend’s house, ask his older siblings for any of their textbooks, and just start reading. With the current unfortunate solitude, I find it refreshing that I drifted to that old and hard-coded habit.
Thinking about the ‘set’ order of what I should read and what I should not, I’m revisiting a few strong ideas I’ve always held. There seems to be a strong correlation between my reading and the spurts of writing I’ve had throughout my life.
They are almost always hand in hand, or one after the other. For that little child in me who dreamt of big libraries and bookshelves, this is the fanatic reward. That kid now reads anything he wants to, whenever he wants to, and more importantly, instead of the order sold to him by the world, he reads for ideas, concepts, and the “aha” moments. When something clicks. When two ideas, through a mere paragraph of words, fit so purely together, almost making the audible “cling” in his brain. He reads for that cling.
On to the writing; this specific piece was inspired by the love of my life—as I was thinking about the immortality of words. That is the reason I valued written words so adamantly. They are immortal. That phone call, those texts, those videos, and those images will all eventually vanish, mercilessly depending on the platform or the device they reside in.
But words. The written word will never die. So to you, my love, I say—I will always write to you. For our love must be immortal, never forgotten, for it to survive the eventual entropy of the universe. For our letters to thrive, even after we die in each other’s arms.
For our love to be immortal, I will write to you.
I was coding in a new language today, a little burnt out but excited. Learning computers and programming never seemed like a chore to me; I never thought it should give me something; I never expected pleasure or gain from it. That is the reason I stuck by it. I just love it from the bottom of my fucking heart.
November 19
When I started the program, it had a basic prompt to know who the user is. The prompt was “whoami”. I paused and thought about it. I had a long day; my body was hurting a lot, and I couldn’t sleep the night before. Although I believed as any faithful programmer, I should ask myself—whoami.
I have to set timers to focus while I’m coding. I keep my phone close, in case I get a call from her. She passes by in thoughts, in certain words, which have nothing to do with her. I cannot keep her off my mind. This is distance doing; it’s evil. When she was here and I was coding, I didn’t have to think. I could focus easily. It was a blessing.
Focus has been a core ability of this poor programmer. But it’s her. I’m remembering her—whoami without the melancholy and the nostalgia? There seems to be a constant weight on my heart—the weight of missing her. Deep down, loving her is who I am.
Like my love for computers, I don’t have anything to gain from her love. I have a lot to give. To love her like breathing, effortless and constant. To love her without conditions, without hesitations, like the witches love the full moon. To love her endlessly, deeply, and truly.
Who am I? Loving her is who I am.
Still a little feverish.
November 20
Is it annoying? She said.
It’s not annoying, and I hope you never stop. Every time I receive something, whether it’s from Pinterest or anywhere else, it feels like a tiny window into your thoughts, your taste, and your heart.
You have an amazingly polished taste—everything you send, even if I seldom don’t understand it, inspires me. It makes me see the world a little differently, with more beauty and more curiosity. You’re not aware of it in the moment, but you teach me a lot.
Truthfully, I’m elated that you think of us when you come across these things. It solidifies how much I adore you and how connected our souls are, even when we’re far away. I miss the way you find the smallest things so meaningful, the way you find beauty in places most people overlook—like the ceramics and cups and the ashtrays, and the cakes and the coffees and the curtains and the lamps.
I carry your taste everywhere I go. Every time I see something beautiful, I think of you. I think how much you would adore it.
It’s foolish of you to think it would be annoying.
Never forget that we are weird people, and we have sheer intensity of love for each other. We love each other in a million unspoken ways. And beauty is one of them.
I love you like it’s bestowed upon me by my ancestors, not like it’s a chore.
I can’t wait to have you in my arms again while you show me your Pinterest boards.
It will never be annoying.
I noticed how your writing about me and mine about you is starkly different.
November 21
Your’s is always so vibrant, so cheerful, so fun to listen to. While mine is almost always dreadful, filled with romance but with an undertone of your absence lurking in the background.
Why is that? Why can’t I also write good stories, good memories, look forward to future meetings, or scents.
Maybe that’s just not my pen. My pen is just so heavy.
Maybe it’s this place, without you. This place, which once felt alive, now feels like a shell, a mere structure of walls without the warmth you brought with every glance, every word, every touch.
I find myself sitting at the edge of the bed at night, looking outside at the tiny patch on the street, smoking as the world passes by. It’s usually not busy on the street. Sometimes a cat visits, sits there, looks at me. We talk with our gaze, and the cat leaves after sometime, to find it’s harder for me inside the house than for her outside.
Sometimes I close my eyes, and I lean back. I can see you there, laying on the bed, reading. I can almost smell you, your skin, your hair, your presence just walking by me. It’s in those quiet moments I feel how heavy my heart is, how much your absence weighs on it. The cigarettes lasted longer with you, fleeting but infinite in meaning.
How would I write things like you? A dreadful person from the inside cannot produce pieces like that. I miss peace, I wish knowing you are safe all the time. I miss you. I miss the feeling of comfort I always felt, when you curled up holding me while I read late into the night.
Right now, I have the book, I have silence. But I don’t have you.
How can my pen not be heavy?
I knocked over the posters placed on the heater accidentally. I picked it up and briefly looked at it. She got it for me on Valentines, while I was filled with impatience, almost certain that we were going to miss our train. After I saw the poster and the flowers, every bit of that stress-induced impatience went away in a jiffy. Almost every item in the house reeks of her touch. It makes my heart sink just looking at those things. I realize how much I love life when she is by my side. When she goes away, quiet literally, there’s no sunshine. I start to despise everything—the mornings, the afternoons, the evenings, especially the numb nights. I start to despise sounds, lights, alarm tones. I want to fall in love with my life again. I want to wake up early, with her still in bed, and make coffee for her. I want to go on impromptu walks, eat whatever we can find or make, wear her clothes while she wears mine, and listen to our playlist all day. Unintentionally, we create these small moments together, making life seem lovable. If you snatch that away from me, misery is all that is left. The solitude presents me with a fire under my ass to learn and focus on the things I like, aggressively. But one can only do that for so long. There are hours when I don’t have anything to do apart from opening up the album on my phone and looking at our videos repeatedly. Drives me insane, to say the least. I want to fall in love with my life again. Impossible without her. But as a man, you have to take it on the chin. So I’m keeping my head down and working. Somewhere deep within me, however, I’m counting days. To see her again.
November 22
Greedy. Greedy to be loved by her at all possible moments in time. Ease. The ease of living with her, where the day is never forced, always flowing. Suffer. So much difficult to suffer without her. Her absences add on to the existing ones. Touch. To hold her hand, her neck and her legs over my shoulders. Peace. Knowing she is safe and loved all the time. Fragrance. Of her hair, her neck, and her hands. Feel. Her voice, her dance, her scoldings.
November 23
Want. Her.
I came across a new word today. “Tsundoku”
November 24
It’s Japanese for the act of letting books pile up, unread. I looked towards my left at the books perfectly kept by her on the shelves. Most of them unread. Full of stories waiting for either of us to dive into them.
I miss giving you little kisses between the chapters I am reading. I miss us talking passionately about books. Dismissing bad ones, hyping up favorites.
There is a serene human connection I feel while we talk about literature. It’s odd, inexplainable.
How long should I talk to my books about books?
I want to talk to you about them.
November 25
It kills me that the loneliness is settling in. The sleepless nights and the empty days are beginning to feel normal. I have accepted that I have to be here, for at least a while, by myself. I try to amuse myself, focus on work, I try to fight the demons, but they end up chasing me.
November 26
She’s right, maybe the sun is what I need. Some sunshine, some fresh air in my lungs, some good music. All prescriptions to run away from yourself. There’s no harm in trying, though. So I will. I have been calloused to live alone since forever. But I got so used to her presence. So habitual that even if the sun doesn’t shine and the water doesn’t fall from the sky, I have her. Talking to her is the highlight of my day. Like two puppies sitting on a grass soaking the sun.
If we were puppies I would share my sun spot with you. With you.
Home.
November 27
Mom, Dad. Her.
Home.
I miss your stories. And the never ending tangents to something completely unrelated to the stories. The specific look you have on your face when you want for me to understand or hear something important. I miss the sparkle in your eyes when you talk about Sparkle and Nawab. The stories of you growing up, the stories of the moments with Mom and Dad. Stories of you raising Sia And Kabir. And the stories of everything else.
november 28
I miss your stories.
I had an exhausting day. But after all of it, I sat down and I prayed. I don’t know to what being, to what power, but I prayed. I asked to keep her safe. I asked for us to be together, in each other’s arms. For us to prosper. For there to be love always.
November 29
Love, always.
Today concluded the 30 days of writing about her. She wasn’t here for most of those days, but I loved thinking all day to put something down in form of a piece for her. A little piece of myself for her.
November 30
I am still going to write for her, but not sporadically–I will think, and put down the best I can.
The theme of the month was me craving her presence. It will be the theme until I see her again. Until we are back here, together, starting our mornings with special coffees and (hopefully not foamy) eggs.
They say November is a month of poets. She is the poem I’m living.